E - Support and Challenges for Jung

What is a key quote about Jung?

• '‘Jung has rediscovered the religious and the sacred and got rid of an overwhelming rationalism. '‘ - Raymond Hostie.

What is support for Jung in terms of positive effects on a person’s mental health and well-being?

• Jung has highlighted that religion can have a positive effect on a person's mental health and well-being.

• A particular strength of this approach is the belief that every human, no matter what their culture, has a basic understanding of the God archetype.

• If this is true, then Jung's theory of the God archetype gains support from well over a billion of people.

What is support for Jung in terms of happiness and self-fulfilment?

• Religion helps to balance the unconscious and conscious mind which leads to happiness and self-fulfilment.

• This theory is in line with many religious ideas about God.

• Becoming closer to God and having a relationship with God leads to happiness and self-fulfilment.

• William James says real effects have a real cause - if a person's life has been positively impacted by religion then it must be real and beneficial.

What is support for Jung in terms of surveys?

• Surveys on mental health, happiness and social benefits show a positive rating for those who are religious.

• This suggest that religion aids wholeness and helps to integrate conscious and unconscious contents into a coherent psychic totality.

What is a key quote from Jung about religious images/symbols?

• The religious images/symbols according to Jung '‘the means by which human beings discover both what they are and what they are capable of becoming'‘

What is support for Jung in terms of personal experience and clinical observations?

• Jung, like Freud derives from his theories from personal experience and clinical observations.

What are some A03 critiques of surveys?

• Surveys can be unreliable due to social desirability bias where people make themselves look more socially acceptable.

• Low sample sizes for surveys.

What is a key quote about Jung being critiqued?

• ‘‘Although Jung's theories are perhaps less sensational than those of Freud, they have nonetheless been seriously criticised’' - Micheal Palmer

What is the critique to archetypes in terms of - it cannot be demonstrated by empirical evidence that there is a collective unconscious which contains the archetypes

• It has not been possible to devise any method of research that could fully verify Jungs claims.

• A resemblance between effects does not establish a similarity in causes.

• Therefore, there may be other theories to account for the fact of parallel imagery.

• Abstract concept.

What is the critique of archetypes in terms of - Geza Roheim, similar human experiences

• States that since all humans share broadly the same experiences, it is hardly surprising that we develop myths along similar lines.

• The common experiences of birth and dependence upon parents and the sun explain, for example, common ideas about rebirth, parent gods and sun gods and so the archetype theory is one that is not needed, or the best explanation available.

• E.g. is it that we are born with the shadow archetype, or is it human nature, that we are prone to do bad due to being conditioned by the world.

• E.g. is it that we are born with the persona archetype, or is it our human nature to fit in to survive.

• Might be other reasons for why humans act the way they do that doesn’t relate to the archetypes.

What is the critique of archetypes in terms of - Many people don’t believe in God

• Jung himself countered this argument by stating that atheism itself is a religion - they have to have an idea of God to reject it.

• It seems that he will not allow anything to counter his ideas - he just changes his theory.

• If his theory is not open to falsification, some would argue that it is meaningless.

What is the critique based on religious experiences?

• Martin Buber argues that an experience which takes place in the mind, rather than externally to the individual, is not a religious experience.

• For many religious believers, religious experiences are not just stemming from the mind, they have a belief in an external being.

• Jung's theory that God and religion is conceived in the mind could be argued as no more positive than Freud's.

 

• It seems that Jung did not believe in the existence of God as an objective reality in the traditional sense.

• He did not dismiss the possibility but thought that we can never know whether God exists externally.

• He agrees with Kant by affirming that no argument from experience can prove existence of anything that lies beyond the boundaries of human existence.

What is the critique of - is individuation a religious process?

• If it is concerned with the Self, is it really about God?

• For example, Jung argues that the image of Christ is a symbol of wholeness to help balance our minds.

• However, for a religious believer, Christ is so much more than this.

• He is a historical person and the Son of God, not just a symbol of the mind.

 

• Furthermore, how does Jung account for people with no religious belief or affiliation who have balanced mental health?

• If his theory of individuation is to be accepted and linked to religion then everyone would need some form of religion in their lives; this is not the case.

What is the critique of - reductionism?

• Is reducing religion to archetypes and the process of individuation, has Jung actually damaged religion?

• In stating that religion is a subjective phenomenon, does he suggest that God is not an objective reality?

 

• Jung instead of promoting the value of religion has instead reduced it to a simple idea.

• Our minds have projected images that we associate certain archetypes - in the case of religion the archetype is God.

• Therefore, God is a projection of our mind and not valuable.

• Instead, Jung is offering a similar argument to Freud in that religion is simply delusion and wish fulfilment.

What is the critique of - a lack of empirical evidence

• Jung relied on clinical observations and personal experience to form the basis of his theories.

• He claimed he was an empiricist and that subjective data should count as proof.

• However the commonly accepted view of empiricism is objective evidence that can be analysed, verified or falsified.

• Jung's theories therefore could be dismissed as unscientific, unproved and even meaningless.

What may be the most serious challenge to Jung’s theory of religion?

• The most serious challenge to Jung's theory of religion is Geza Roheim's criticism on similar human experience.

• This is because can it completely destroy the basis of Jung argument by claiming that we are not born with these 'archetypes' and instead it is just our similar human experience/human nature that causes us act in certain ways.

• For example, is it that we are born with the shadow archetype, or is it human nature, that we are prone to do bad due to being conditioned by the world.

• Moreover, is it that we are born with the persona archetype, or is it our human nature to fit in to survive.

• Clearly there might be other reasons for why humans act the way they do that doesn’t relate to the archetypes.