The writings that make up the "Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche" volume of Carl Jung's Complete Work are of various importance and length, dated between 1916 and 1954.
Some of them, such as The Transcendent Function , written in 1916 and originally published in 1957, or Instinct and Unconscious , of 1919, where " archetype " is mentioned for the first time , are of historical interest.
The structure of the soul (1927) offers an image of the different levels of the psyche - consciousness, personal and collective unconscious - and their different contents in compensatory interaction throughout the life cycle. Cycle described in general terms in Spirit and life (1926), The turning point of life (1930) and Soul and death (1934).
Biographical dynamics can be understood as a more or less agonizing relationship of the self , that is, consciousness, with the objective , autonomous psyche , expressed in instincts - The Meaning of Constitution and Heredity for Psychology (1929) and Psychological Determinants of human behavior (1937) in addition to Instinct and unconscious -, dreams - General views on the psychology of dreams (1916) and On the essence of sleep (1945) - and complexes - The psychological foundations of belief in the spirits (1920) andGeneral considerations on the theory of complexes (1934) -.
Regarding the historical context in which all biography unfolds, there are in this volume some articles on cultural issues - Analytical Psychology and Worldview (1927), The Fundamental Problem of Current Psychology (1931) and Reality and Suprarreality (1933) -.
Three writings stand out from the set, not only an exposition of their psychology but also an epistemological reflection , referring both to the problems of psychology as a science and to the difficulty of describing the psyche as a natural fact, not exclusively social or cultural, as well as the modification in the theory of knowledge required by the introduction of the notion of the unconscious as an objective psyche:
The first is the text that opens this selection, Energetics of the soul , dated 1928, before the appearance of the self- concept .
The second, Theoretical considerations about the essence of the psychic , is the 1954 revision of the one published in 1947 with the title of The spirit of psychology , beginning its alchemical stage .
Finally, Synchronicity as a principle of acausal connections , published together with the text of the physicist Wolfgang Pauli The influence of archetypal ideas in Kepler's scientific theories in 1952, when Jung was approaching his eighty years
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