Casement (1998) Describes Jung\'s Idea

Casement (1998) describes Jung's idea of the 'personal myth' -- or the specific meaning that a person attributes to his or her own life, depicting the originality of that person's character in an overall context. 'Thus it is that I have now undertaken, in my eighty-third year, to tell my personal myth' (Jung 1963; 1998). With this, Casement (1998) comes to the conclusion that only Jung then could be considered 'Jungian.' She says that because Jung claimed that all 'Jungian' analysts should do the same thing if they want to really uncover their own personal myths; so, therefore, if one is to call him or herself 'Jungian,' they are not understanding what Jung said about being 'Jungian' and therefore they cannot be called a 'Jungian' (1998).

This concept of Jung's is both confusing and frustrating, yet there is a way (as Yandel notes (Casement 1998)) to get around this difficulty: the way is to become a Jungian in the authentic sense rather in the imitative sense. This theory of Yandel's seems paradoxical in and of itself because a person can never truly be someone else, even if he or she is only imitating, it will still be an imitation that is uniquely of that person.

The point that Jung was trying to make had more to do with being genuine than anything else. Jung was against the 'institutionalism of psychotherapy' (Casement 1998) and he believed more in "the freshness of each individual approach' (1998). This was what created the personal myth, the freshness of individuality. For Jung, the 'personal myth' was made up of individual inner experiences of the 'transitory world.' What this means for Jung -- or for any -- individual is that the unconscious life of a person is vital, and that personal unconscious experience can only be told as a myth -- or a story that is based not on some objective basis but, rather, on the imaginative unity of his (or any person's) life history. The myth of a man is what will tell us the who that man really is -- his innermost being. A man cannot be interested in the truth value of his myth, but rather, in its subjective meaning -- that his myth can only be told as his own truth (1998). From a clinical perspective, this means that a man (or woman) can find answers to his (or her) problems by focusing on one's individual story and striving to be genuine. The ability to discover -- or make sense -- of one's own story (or personal myth) is what Jung believed could lead to authenticity in life -- and thus peace.

In Edinger's (1992) book entitled, Ego and archetype, he discusses the 'Christian myth' from the perspective of analytical psychology and says that although Jung has had some very intriguing suggestions pertaining to the topic, he has never discussed in great length the idea of Christ being a symbol of the ego (1992). In Edinger's search for individuation, he looks to religion for meaning and uses Christ's life as a paradigm for how every man can find individuation. Like Jung who believes it is a mistake for so-called Jungians to imitate him, Edinger discusses how Christ's life can be viewed as a paradigm (not to compare Jung to Christ!) as well and that it is only in looking to Christ as an example that one can find their own unique reality; this does not involve imitation of any sort. Anyway, Edinger (1992) notes how difficult it would be to imitate Christ's life because 'if taken literally and applied consistently to the external world, it is inimical to material existence' (1992). Jung believes that one can only understand it on the 'subjective or inner level' (1992), which is precisely what he says about man's own personal myth. To look at another's life as a symbol or as an inspiration for how one ought or wishes to live can be a very motivating factor in finding one's own personal myth.

A fascinating element about Edinger's (1992) work is how he compares the teachings of Jesus from a subjective perspective of interpretation to depth psychology and how similar they are. For example, one that is particularly insightful is: 'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth' (1992). Edinger (1992) states that 'subjectively understood, meekness will refer to an attitude of the ego towards the unconscious.' To come to inherit the earth seems to suggest 'an awareness of being individually related to or having a personal stake in the whole (the wholeness of life, the total human experience)' (1992). Nearly all of Jesus' teachings can be interpreted in a psychological way, which makes one believe (even if they do not have any religious beliefs) that religious and moral works can (and should) be interpreted as paradigms for how people can live their lives.

Jung's belief that the ego and the rest of the psyche were forever communicating (Young-Eisendrath & Dawson 2008) was one that was very different from other psychologists. He claimed that the process of communication goes on forever; the only thing that changes is the nature of the conversation (2008). What is interesting about this idea of Jung's is that there is the belief that one can never make the unconscious something that is conscious -- he believed this was impossible (2008) -- and the only thing one can do is to loosen 'the boundaries between conscious and unconscious' (2008). This can be done through psychotherapy and can lead to major growth for an individual. It is through this dialogue between ego and the rest of the psyche that one can deal with past traumas and learn how to deal with any traumas that may come into play in the future (2008).

The development of an individual didn't just happen during traumas and dealing with the traumas; Jung believed that psychological development was a continual process throughout life (Yong-Eisendrath & Dawson 2008). This means that the 'story' or the 'personal myth' as Jung called it, is forever changing -- that is, the narrative is ever-changing (2008).