Jung: Applied

The living practice — reading the psyche's own language

A course on the thought of Carl Jung.

Psychology

What you will learn

State the compensatory theory of dreams and contrast it with Freud's disguise/wish-fulfilment account.
Given a one-sided conscious attitude, reason about what a compensatory dream would emphasize, and why Jung reads dreams forward (what they correct) rather than only backward (what they hide).
Distinguish a symbol from a sign (best-possible-expression-of-the-unknown vs stand-in-for-the-known), and explain why the difference dictates the method.
Define amplification and contrast it with reductive free association; explain how each treats the same dream image differently.
Define active imagination and the transcendent function, and explain how holding the tension of opposites produces a reconciling third.
Explain why the third is not a compromise between the opposites but something new that transcends them, and why this is the engine of individuation.
Distinguish the objective plane from the subjective plane of dream interpretation, and give the rule of thumb for when each applies.
Read a dream-figure on the subjective plane as a personified part of the dreamer, and explain what this reveals that the objective reading misses.

The Dream That Corrects — My dream theory, against Freud's: the dream is not primarily a disguised wish but a *compensation* — the self-regulating psyche emphasizing the side the conscious attitude has neglected, to restore…
The Symbol and Its Parallels — What a symbol is, and how to read one. A *symbol* is not a coded sign for a known thing but the best possible expression of something not yet fully known; so you read it not by reducing it to a cause…
Meeting the Other Within — Some unconscious contents must be engaged directly, awake, through *active imagination*. When a conscious position and its unconscious opposite are both held in tension without either suppressing the…
Two Ways to Read a Dream — The single most practical distinction in dream-reading: a dream-figure may be read on the *objective plane* — as the real person it resembles — or on the *subjective plane* — as a personified part of…
The Afternoon of Life — The psyche's developmental arc: the morning of life rightly serves outward adaptation — ego, persona, place, family — but at the *meridian* the task reverses. The afternoon of life asks a turn…

Two Essays on Analytical Psychology (1928) — the Baynes translation — the compensatory function of dreams, the constructive method, the transcendent function, objective vs subjective interpretation, and the stages of life; the core source for this tier.
Contributions to Analytical Psychology (1928) — the Baynes translations of the shorter papers — the compensation principle, dream analysis in practice, and 'The Stages of Life.'
Psychological Types (Baynes, 1923) — the definitions — including the crucial distinction between a symbol and a sign that grounds amplification.
Psychology of the Unconscious (Hinkle, 1916) — the reading of the sun-hero myth — amplification carried out at book length on a single fantasy-system.
Collected Papers on Analytical Psychology (Long, 1916) — the early papers on dream analysis and the association method.

compensation, amplification, the transcendent function

Part of the Simposeum course library.