Carl Jung and the Journey of Self-Discovery | Historical Documentary | Lucasfilm

There are billions of people on the planet and many different personality types. Some people are introverted, some extroverted. Some are driven by logic and others by their feelings. In a world of such diversity, how do we learn to relate to those who are different? And how do we learn to understand and accept who we are? People have a desire to know themselves. People want to know, who am I? How do I function? How do I think? These questions were at the heart of the pioneering work of Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist who began working at the turn of the 20th century. Despite the conformity in dress, behavior, and attitude dictated by his time, Jung championed individuality and he invited his patients to embrace the unique person each was meant to be. Jung said, okay, that's what society tells you. That's what's expected of you. But what do you think? How do you feel? He said that we all need to get to know ourselves better and know our motives better. And if we could really look at that more, that we would be able to be more accepting of differences. In his own life, Carl Jung embarked on a painful journey of self-discovery and the lessons he learned provided inspiration for generations to come. In 1909, at the age of only 34, Carl Jung had succeeded in creating the life he'd always imagined. Born the son of a poor country minister, Jung married the wealthy Emma Rauschenbach. Together they built an idyllic home and family. Jung had worked his way through medical school and had become a world-renowned psychologist in Zurich. And as the chosen heir apparent of pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, Jung was at the center of a revolution taking place in the world of psychology. That revolution was based on Freud's radical concept of the unconscious. At a time when Victorian society prided itself on being highly rational and civilized, Freud argued that people were really driven by repressed urges they weren't even aware of. Jung was one of the few who had embraced Freud's provocative ideas. The pair quickly became partners in promoting psychoanalysis around the world. And slowly they were gaining the respect of the mainstream medical community. In Freud, Jung had found not only an important professional mentor, but also a father figure. His own father died when he was just 20. The death of Carl Jung's father ended any money coming into the household. And it was up to him then. He was the only son. It was up to him to take care of both his mother and his sister. And so, keep in mind, Jung was sort of an orphan. He looked for a guide, a father, you understand? And he found that in Freud. Jung's future seemed secure. But there was just one problem. Jung had nagging doubts about some of his mentor's theories. For Jung, Freud was too close, too narrow. Jung was very open. He closed his eyes to nothing. Jung spoke about Freud in a 1959 interview. I liked him very much. But I soon discovered that when he had thought something, then it was settled. While I was doubting all along the line. Freud's theories on the sex drive were particularly troubling to Jung. While Freud believed that sexual urges were the sole driving force behind human behavior, Jung believed that we are influenced by many other factors, like religious beliefs, the need for approval, and the drive for power. Freud said, in effect, no, it's sex or nothing. And Jung said, I can't accept this theory wholeheartedly. And this is really what caused the rupture between them. Things came to a head in 1913 when Jung published a book which directly contradicted Freud's theories. Unwilling to tolerate dissension in his ranks, Freud cut all ties to his former protege. Jung's mentor now became his most outspoken critic. Carl Jung was ostracized from the psychoanalytic movement he'd helped to establish. It was a big blow to Jung. He went through a period of disorientation and a period where he wasn't really sure whether he had lost his sanity or not. Though the separation was in the coming, it threw Jung into deep depression, which, however, was beneficial. It was liberating. He had to go on his own. The son has to do his own thing. Ultimately, Jung would go on to do his own thing, but the years ahead would be difficult. Just months after Jung's own life had been shattered, the fabric of Victorian society was also torn apart. As World War I exploded across Europe, Jung retreated to his house on Lake Zurich to fight his own internal battle. He went down to the beach in front of his house and played with the pebbles and sand and he said, I don't know why I'm doing this, but this is the only thing right now that will relieve the anxiety and the disturbance that I'm feeling. From there, he went into what he calls the confrontation with the unconscious. Desperate to find his way, personally and professionally, Jung began a process of deep self-analysis. He spent hours alone recording his thoughts, analyzing his dreams, and making elaborate drawings as a way to express the deepest parts of his unconscious. Jung used this period to think about what he was going to do with his life. He said to himself, I can't continue to practice psychoanalysis if I use Freud's terms and Freud's methods. I have to create a system of my own. As he probed deeper and deeper into his own psyche, Jung became increasingly convinced that his unconscious was driven by more than just sexual urges, repressed thoughts, and memories. There was another influential force that Freud had overlooked. The history of civilization. Jung had studied many of the world's cultures and religions, and he observed that even the most dissimilar share common ideas and behavior patterns. He found, for example, that Native American Indians had certain stories and rituals in common with tribes in Africa and other cultures throughout the world. And he said, these things are in common. And these people don't know anything about each other. They have no way to communicate with each other. How is it, why is it, that they are all telling a very similar, if not the exact same, version of this same story? Jung concluded that the unconscious is influenced not only by our own experiences, but by the collective experiences of all people. These common ideas are passed down through history, religion, and culture. He called this wealth of inherited knowledge the collective unconscious. It is this collective unconscious that leads human beings around the world to adopt similar behavior patterns without even realizing it. Every culture has certain classical, typical behavior modalities, like the hero. You can go from east to west, north to south. You can recognize a hero. You can recognize a soldier. You can recognize a healer. Or the father as the great good figure who dispenses all knowledge and all wisdom. An unforgiving, disapproving mother. These are universal behavior patterns. They just appear in different clothing at different times. These behavior patterns, or archetypes as Jung called them, help us quickly and comfortably size up other people. I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you. Even at the movies, once we've identified someone as an archetypical hero, we can better predict his behavior. When we see a movie like Star Wars, we're already right there. There's that immediate connection with the various characters in the movie. The whole idea of Darth Vader and the whole idea of archetypal evil and Luke Skywalker as the young hero. These are mythological themes. That's what attracts us to going to movies. In the real world, many of us unconsciously play out these archetypical roles. The nurturing mother, the good son, the successful business person. But often there is a more complex, unique person inside of us that is struggling to be recognized. Most young people today develop, I think, a pretty mature sense of how to look and act at the right times. And boy, they're quick to recognize somebody who doesn't. Jung stressed that in order to be truly happy, we must stop trying to be who we think we should be or who everyone expects us to be and figure out who we really are. I think at one time or another, every girl wants to be a cheerleader. And if you're just out for the prestige, if you don't really care, the other kids spot you as a phony right away. For years, Jung himself had played out archetypical roles. He had devoted himself to following in Freud's footsteps, all the while suppressing the inner voice that was telling him to go his own way. After his many years of soul-searching, Carl Jung had found his true self. Promoting individuality became a cornerstone of Jung's work. And with the end of World War I, a new and more open society emerged that was ready to embrace Jung's ideas. When he first published his theories in 1921, the book was an immediate international bestseller. In Psychological Types, Jung offered a system that would help people better understand different personalities and appreciate the qualities that make each of them unique. He coined terms like introvert and extrovert and explained how someone who is shy thinks differently from someone who is outgoing. Jung called this process of identifying and labeling different kinds of personalities typology. Typology helps an awful lot of explaining the difference in functioning and that it's okay to be different, it's okay to function differently. For the public, finding out what personality type they were became the rage. And back in Zurich, Jung's workload exploded. At the age of 47, Carl Jung had become internationally famous. And patients from around the world were making appointments up to a year in advance with Jung. He had more patients than he could handle. Everybody wanted something from him. Artists and poets and writers of all sorts were attracted to him. And if they had creative blocks or they had issues with alcoholism or depression or lack of meaning, they would come to him. But Jung's popularity didn't come without its share of negative attention. In the 1930s, the world began marching to war once again. In a divided Europe, some of Jung's theories would become increasingly controversial. He wrote about the differences between Aryan psychology, Jewish psychology, and Chinese psychology. This was taken as Jung being anti-Semitic. But Jung said, well, look, any sensible person will see that there are differences in psychology between Jews, Aryans, and Chinese. Jung felt that if everyone could learn to understand each other's differences, there would be less conflict in the world. But ironically, Jung's theories were adopted by the Nazis, who twisted them to suit their own agenda. Jung sparked controversy in 1933 when he agreed to take over as head of an international society for psychotherapy. At the time, most of the group's members worked in Germany and were facing Nazi domination. Jung wrote that he wanted to help his German colleagues keep their relatively new profession alive, despite the suppression. But some viewed Jung's efforts as collaboration. At the time, Germany was the predominant country in Europe before World War II. Everything science, philosophy. So Jung felt it was very important to maintain psychotherapy in Germany if at all possible. So he worked with the Nazis from 1933 to 1940. And people have not forgiven him for doing that. Over the years, Jung vehemently denied being an anti-Semite and supporting the Nazis. But controversy remains. Toward the end of his life, Jung turned away from treating individual patients, traveling, and lecturing. A true introvert at heart, he spent increasing amounts of time at home on Lake Zurich, surrounded by his family. When his supporters began urging Jung to start an institute that would teach and spread his theories, Jung only reluctantly agreed. He had an allergy against following. He, you know, he didn't want you to follow a guru. He didn't even want you to follow, you know, Christ. He didn't want to follow. He wanted you to become an individual. So he didn't want people to follow him. But he realized people wanted to learn and study, you know, his ideas and his thoughts, and he had no choice. Eventually, societies bearing Jung's name sprang up from San Francisco and Kiev to Singapore and Argentina. Jung himself spent his final years writing and enjoying a simple life. He died at his home in 1961. He was 85 years old. Despite his wishes, a definite cult of personality developed around Carl Jung after his death. With the age of flower power and hippies came a whole new generation that was captivated by Jung's message, which included terms like age of Aquarius and new age. The new age he meant, in the most basic terms, after the end of the Second World War, new ways of thinking, new possibilities for society. He felt that politics was evolving, that the relationship between men and women was evolving. He had a sense that everything was going to change, and change profoundly. More recently, Jung's original work with personality types led to perhaps his most enduring and practical legacy, the Myers-Briggs test. This tool helps schools offer career guidance, and it enables corporate America to better match an employee to a specific job. It took American pragmatism to basically put his theory into a test, the Myers-Briggs typology test. And it's the most used test in the United States. Every year, more than a million people take that test to find out, you know, how do I function? Carl Jung was ahead of his time in many ways. Today, decades after his death, his once revolutionary theories are now part of the fabric of our culture. Jung has maintained and increased his popularity because he speaks to the kinds of issues, in terms of meaning, in terms of spirituality, that people are looking for. We are a society that values the individual more readily than ever before. And terms like introvert and extrovert are a part of everyone's vocabulary. In this way, Carl Jung himself has become part of our collective unconscious. He said, I have to follow my own muse. I have to follow my own way. And I think that in many ways, that's probably the most important lesson that Jung's life can teach us.