Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Jung's View Of His Own Work

Carl G Jung

Source: The Wisdom of Carl Jung

Anyone who says that I am a mystic is just an idiot.
He just doesn't understand the first word of psychology.

I do not feel called upon to found a religion,
nor to proclaim my belief in one.
I am not engaged in philosophy,
but merely in thinking within the framework of 
the special task that is laid upon me:
to be a proper psychiatrist,
a healer of the soul.

I cannot force people to take my work seriously,
and I cannot persuade them to study it really.
The trouble is that I don't
construct theories one can learn by heart.

I collect facts which are not
yet 
generally known or properly appreciated,
and I gave names to observations
and experiences unfamiliar to the contemporary mind
and objectionable to its prejudices.

For your orientation,
I am a psychiatrist and not a philosopher:
merely an empiricist who ponders on certain experiences.

Being a scientist,
I prefer not to be a prophet if I can help it.

If the whole world disagrees with me,
it is perfectly indifferent to me.

I cannot say I have a Freudian psychology because 
I never had such difficulties in relation to desires...
To talk of an incest complex just bores me to tears.

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