As the founder of one of the most influential schools of psychological thought — analytical psychology — Carl Jung (also known as CG Jung) experienced what today we might call a form of psychosis. It probably wasn’t a complete psychotic break, because Jung still functioned in his daily life.
His psychosis began when he was 38 years old, when he started finding himself haunted by visions in his head and started hearing voices. Jung himself worried about this “psychosis” — things that today we’d might say were consistent with symptoms of schizophrenia (a term he also used to describe himself during this period).
Jung didn’t let these visions and hallucinations slow him down, and continued seeing patients and actively engaging in his professional life. In fact, he so enjoyed the unconscious mind he had unleashed, he found a way to summon it whenever he wanted.
1. Jung actively induced his hallucinations and visions.
Most people who have psychosis or hallucinations seek to minimize their symptoms, to drown out the visions and hallucinations. After first experiencing these visions, Jung did just the opposite. He found the experience so exhilarating and full of unconscious content that could be further examined, he didn’t just wait for the visions to come on their own. Instead, he encouraged their appearance throughout the day, for years.
After dinner each night and inbetween seeing patients during the day, Jung spent time in his study inducing the visions and hallucinations. He did this not through the use of any kind of drug, apparently, but instead through his own personal methods that allowed his unconscious mind to become totally open and flowing forth.
2. Jung recorded everything from his psychosis.
Although modern recording equipment didn’t exist in 1913, when the hallucinations and visions began, Jung nonetheless kept a meticulous record of his psychosis. Jung would write down everything he saw and heard in small black journals. He later transferred some of this material into a large, red, leather-bound journal.
Over the course of 16 years, Jung recorded everything he experienced in these unconscious journeys. Some of the material ended up filling 205 large pages in the red book. The book consists of intricate, colorful, wildly detailed drawings and writings. “The Red Book,” as it was later called, stayed locked up in a vault after Jung’s death. It was finally published in 2009 as The Red Book and is now available for sale.
The New York Times describes the story told by the Red Book:
The book tells the story of Jung trying to face down his own demons as they emerged from the shadows. The results are humiliating, sometimes unsavory. In it, Jung travels the land of the dead, falls in love with a woman he later realizes is his sister, gets squeezed by a giant serpent and, in one terrifying moment, eats the liver of a little child.
3. Jung’s unconscious journey probably wasn’t the same as the unwanted psychosis people experience today.
While Jung described his visions as a type of “psychosis” or “schizophrenia,” those terms meant something different a hundred years ago than they do today. Today, the terms describe a specific constellation of symptoms, one of which is the meaningful and significant interruption the disorder makes upon a person’s ordinary, daily life.
Jung’s life, was by all accounts, not interrupted by his unconscious thoughts. He continued experiencing them off and on for 16 years, all the while traveling, speaking at various professional meetings, and translating and publishing his writings in English.
Jung did suffer from isolation, but that was likely caused more by his break from Sigmund Freud in 1915. World War I also negatively impacted virtually everybody’s life at this time, including Jung’s.
Also, Jung reportedly found a way to bring on his unconscious stream of thoughts and visions at will — something most people today who experience psychosis or schizophrenia can’t do. Nor can they do the opposite — make them go away by just willing it. If mental disorders could simply be fixed by willpower, we’d probably have little need for therapists or psychiatrists today.
It’s extraordinary to imagine one of the founders of modern psychological theories experienced such visions, and used them in his own way to form a creative work such as The Red Book.
15 comments
is this for real? I wish I could have more control over my hallucinations. Interesting! Hmm, this is giving me an idea, maybe I should just welcome them instead of fighting them, maybe this is the answer! Well worth a try!
What have we lost in this modern life? Prophets of old delivered much contributed to society, were they as Jung, or was Jung one of the last surviving folk able to control this? Hollywood’s “Batch Poisonings” of these things perhaps a disservice to us all? Will the legalization of strong hallucinogens in U.S. society revive this the realm of the Dreamers of Old? We have never explored our own “inner space’?
Hey, I know you can’t believe me. But this is true, there is no illness.. Only an untrained mind.
An understated point of departure from psychoanaylitic theory, was Jungs view of psychopathology as unconscious material to “work through” and integrate into the subjects personality. To call his experiencing of his internal process “psychotic” is to fundamentally misunderstand his approach and methods of therapy. Instead, I would encourage those who may make such a critical error to exercise greater care and grace while furthering their examination of his inner life, contribution to humanity, and practice of this compelling and challenging science. As I’m fairly certain those who would make a critique, would appreciate similar tact and professional courtesy in their absence.
In fact, these intentional (thus more correctly would be imaginings, not psychosis) and directed as experiments into the unconscious as a way of spiritualism, or magic. He had full volition during these states, and awareness that they we’re seperate from reality, in spite of the thinness of the veil at times. He commenced such activity to further his study of the soul (psyche) in all it’s mystery. His pioneering work continues to be unparalleled in its bold exploration of the realms were soul, spirit, and space/time intersect.
I found Carl Jung’s method of individuation and analysis of archetypes vital in my recovery from schizophrenia. It was in my searching that I reached the conclusion that his methods are advanced and workable. I learned how the archetypes permeate throughout modern life, and especially in dreams. I connected my unconscious motivations and fears to symbolism in daily life and in sleep paralysis, OBE’s and psychic visions. As far as I know, all his findings and theories resonate enough to be true. I recall having a dream where this african warrior was fighting the demon that was causing my nightmares. The warrior used an african name which I looked up, and literally meant sexual demon or incubus and I realized that some of my behaviors could have been causing this unconscious distress. Even when a delusion or hallucination seems disconnected, you can find a source of persistent imagery and thoughts. If you analyze the whole person including their behaviors you find a lot of reasons for why they think and behave that way. Some people in perpetual states of mania do need medication, but I believe it should be the stepping stone to recovery not the end game.
The article alleging that Dr. Jung suffered from a “psychosis” is misrepresentation of historical fact[s.]
As Dr. Jung has stated on more that one occasion he avoided falling into a psychosis by using a method of “Active Imagination” and by painting the images he viewed and carrying on a dialogue with the personages in his visions.
The author freely used the word “Hallucination” when in fact these were waking visions derived at without use of any Hallucinogenic drug or drug whatsoever.
Dr. Jung repeated warned of the dangers of Hallucinogenic drugs as was as of the habitual use of drugs of any kind.
You may verify what I am saying by:
1. Reading the Introduction to Dr. Jung’s The Red Book.
2. Going to the website link provided above and using the search feature to look up “Drugs’ and related terms to see what Dr. Jung said in his Collected Works, Seminars and Letters on the subjects.
Hopefully you will conduct proper scholarly research and correct the errors in the article appearing in Psych Central.
Thank you.
I just don’t understand…I keep seeing a very unsettling pattern developing amongst “academics” lately…they sloppily read something, and then dive on the victim for not being “scholarly”(based upon what they misread)…you clearly articulated that drugs were not a part of this; however, he “waxed eloquent” as he sat on his little throne while not realizing his pants were down around his pompous ankles.
Dear Fathead:
I have never assert that I possess any academic credentials within the field of Depth Psychology.
As a matter of fact I expressly declared that I have no academic or clinical credentials within the field of depth psychology whatsoever.
Any reader of my comments for which I have provided citations may research what I have written and judge for themselves the veracity of what I have written and hopefully if I have made any error with notify of same.
This procedure as opposed to one of passive aggressive ad hominem comments will likely yield a more fruitful harvest.
Thank you.
The author’s assertion that Dr. Jung had hallucinations.
Dr. Jung considered the personages he encountered via Active Imagination to be most assuredly not “hallucinations” but were……….REAL.
Dr. Jung makes mention of this fact several times in The Red Book of which the following is only one example:
In the 1925 Seminar, Jung recounted:
“I used the same technique of the descent, but this time I went much deeper.
The first time I should say I reached a depth of
about one thousand feet, but this time it was a cosmic depth.
It was like going to the moon, or like the feeling of a descent into empty space.
First the picture was of a crater, or a ring-chain of mountains, and my feeling association was that of one dead, as if oneself were a victim.
It was the mood of the land of the hereafter.
I could see two people, an old man with a white beard and a young girl who was very beautiful.
I assumed them to be real and listened to what they were saying. ~The Red Book, Footnote 161, Page 246.
This article over simplifies and trivialises the work of C.G. Jung. I would suggest to anyone who is interested in Jung’s work go away and read some of his books or books about him. Then make up your own mind as to whether or not he was ‘psychotic’.
To me the term ‘psychotic’ is elementary school terminology because unfortunately the majority of the psychology and psychiatry profession has an elementary school understanding of the human psyche.
There is no need for psychiatrists, read Shakespare, Dante, Joyce or find a therapist like Jung. Unfortunately there are very few decent therapists out there. Let the psychiatrists to back to their lego bricks.
As someone who had a severe neurological episode that manifested into a horrible psychosis at 38, and another episode at 53 that I was prepared for, it’s easy to see how Jung managed it. No most can not manage through it, that’s simply due to self awareness, and awareness of the world around oneself, starting with breathing. How these episodes manifest and are managed is directly related to the individual. They are not understood at all, or very little, and it’s rather impossible to understand them through second hand observations and communications by even someone like jung. A bit like seeing the sun directly, while everyone is staring at shadows on a wall trying to understand the sun.its impossible to fully describe in shadow language. Just describing it like that comes off as strange sounding and I am fully aware of how that sounds. I certainly think what Jung experienced is exactly what Socrates was alluding to.
I am bipolar with mre with severe psychotic features (hear voices and hallucinate), and have since my earliest memories (10). I am now 67. Some time in the last year I read that Jung believed hearing voices was a on going conflict between the conscious and the unconscious, but I have searched everywhere but have not been able to find a reference. Did Jung actually believe this? If so where would I find the reference and if not, did anyone?
Thank you.
You may want to read “Labyrinths ” by Catrine Clay just out in 2016. It is a wealth of information about Jung, very readable. It was very helpful to me in understanding some of my misperceptions of his personality and his work.
As a cautionary note to those reading “Labyrinths: Emma Jung, Her Marriage to Carl, and the Early Years of Psychoanalysis†by Catrine Clay:
The “Author†writes that Dr. Jung was engaged in: “compulsive philandering that would threaten their marriage.â€
This is misrepresentation and falsification of historical fact of which the author provides no documented proof of.
Dr. Jung had a relationship with Emma Jung and Toni Wolff.
Any further assertions are undocumented.
The “Author†also falsely states that Dr. Jung was “The son of a penniless pastor.â€
Anyone who has read Memories, Dreams and Reflections knows that Dr. Jung did not come from a wealthy family.
But the fact is the family had the means to afford a maid.
The “Author’s†innuendo that Dr. Jung was “penniless†and Emma was a “wealthy heiress†is a slur unbecoming of the intellectual and ethical standards of any reputable author. The book abounds in such innuendos with no documented evidence of any Machiavellian motives on the part of Dr. Jung.
Dr. Jung was sexually assaulted by someone he trusted as a child.
The author does an injustice to Dr. Jung and all sexually molested children to draw the facile conclusion that as a result of such abuse Dr. Jung and all sexually abused children necessary possess a “dark interior.â€
The discriminating reader ought to read this book with a jaundiced eye.