Development of Personality (017) (Collected Works of C.g. Jung, Band 17) - Hardcover

Jung, C. G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691097631 ISBN 13: 9780691097633

Verlag: Princeton University Press, 1954

Inhaltsangabe

Papers on child psychology, education, and individuation, underlining the overwhelming importance of parents and teachers in the genesis of the intellectual, feeling, and emotional disorders of childhood. The final paper deals with marriage as an aid or obstacle to self-realization.

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While Jung's main researches centered on the subject of individuation as an adult ideal, he had also a unique contribution to make to the psychology of childhood and went far in applying modern analytical concepts to educational theory and practice. The present volume is a collection of eight papers in this field.

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THE DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY

By C. G. JUNG, GERHARD ADLER, R. F. C. HULL

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © 1954 BOLLINGEN FOUNDATION INC.
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-691-09763-3

Contents

EDITORIAL NOTE, v, 
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE, vi, 
I. Psychic Conflicts in a Child, 1, 
II. Introduction to Wickes's Analyse der Kinderseele, 37, 
III. Child Development and Education, 47, 
IV. Analytical Psychology and Education, 63, 
V. The Gifted Child, 133, 
VI. The Significance of the Unconscious in Individual Education, 149, 
VII. The Development of Personality, 165, 
VIII. Marriage as a Psychological Relationship, 187, 
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE, 205, 
INDEX, 207, 

CHAPTER 1

PSYCHIC CONFLICTS IN A CHILD

1 About the time when Freud published his report on the case of "Little Hans," I received from a father who was acquainted with psychoanalysis a series of observations concerning his little daughter, then four years old.

2 These observations have so much that bears upon, and supplements, Freud's report on "Little Hans" that I cannot refrain from making this material accessible to a wider public. The widespread incomprehension, not to say indignation, with which "Little Hans" was greeted, was for me an additional reason for publishing my material, although it is nothing like as extensive as that of "Little Hans." Nevertheless, it contains points which seem to confirm how typical the case of "Little Hans" is. So-called "scientific" criticism, so far as it has taken any notice at all of these important matters, has once more proved overhasty, seeing that people have still not learned first to examine and then to judge.

3 The little girl to whose sagacity and intellectual sprightliness we are indebted for the following observations is a healthy, lively child of emotional temperament. She has never been seriously ill, nor had she ever shown any trace of "nervous" symptoms.

4 Livelier systematic interests awakened in the child about her third year; she began to ask questions and to spin wishful fantasies. In the report which now follows we shall, unfortunately, have to give up the idea of a consistent exposition, for it is made up of anecdotes which treat of one isolated experience out of a whole cycle of similar ones, and which cannot, therefore, be dealt with scientifically and systematically, but must rather take the form of a story. We cannot dispense with this mode of exposition in the present state of our psychology, for we are still a long way from being able in all cases to separate with unerring certainty what is curious from what is typical.

5 When the child, whom we will call Anna, was about three years old, she had the following conversation with her grandmother:

"Granny, why are your eyes so dim?"

"Because I am old."

"But you will become young again?"

"Oh dear, no. I shall become older and older, and then I shall die."

"And what then?"

"Then I shall be an angel."

"And then you will be a baby again?"

6 The child found here a welcome opportunity for the provisional solution of a problem. For some time she had been in the habit of asking her mother whether she would ever have a real live doll, a baby brother, which naturally gave rise to the question of where babies come from. As such questions were asked quite spontaneously and unobtrusively, the parents attached no significance to them, but responded to them as lightly as the child herself seemed to ask them. Thus one day she was told the pretty story that children are brought by the stork. Anna had already heard somewhere a slightly more serious version, namely that children are little angels who live in heaven and are then brought down by the said stork. This theory seems to have be' come the point of departure for the little one's investigating activities. From the conversation with the grandmother it could be seen that this theory was capable of wide application; for it solved in a comforting manner not only the painful thought of dying, but at the same time the riddle of where children come from. Anna seemed to be saying to herself: "When somebody dies he becomes an angel, and then he becomes a child." Solutions of this sort, which kill at least two birds with one stone, used to be tenaciously adhered to even in science, and cannot be undone in the child's mind without a certain amount of shock. In this simple conception there lie the seeds of the reincarnation theory, which, as we know, is still alive today in millions of human beings.

7 Just as the birth of a little sister was the turning point in the history of "Little Hans," so in this case it was the arrival of a baby brother, which took place when Anna had reached the age of four. The problem of where children come from, hardly touched upon so far, now became topical. The mother's pregnancy had apparently passed unnoticed; that is to say, Anna had never made any observations on this subject. On the evening before the birth, when labour pains were just beginning, the child found herself in her father's room. He took her on his knee and said, "Tell me, what would you say if you got a little brother tonight?" "I would kill him," was the prompt answer. The expression "kill" looks very alarming, but in reality it is quite harmless, for "kill" and "die" in child language only mean to "get rid of," either actively or passively, as has already been pointed out a number of times by Freud. I once had to treat a fifteen-year-old girl who, under analysis, had a recurrent association, and kept on thinking of Schiller's "Song of the Bell." She had never really read the poem, but had once glanced through it, and could only remember something about a cathedral tower. She could recall no further details. The passage goes:

From the tower
The bell-notes fall
Heavy and sad
For the funeral....

Alas it is the wife and mother,
Little wife and faithful mother,
Whom the dark prince of the shadows
Snatches from her spouse's arms....

8 She naturally loved her mother dearly and had no thought of her death, but on the other hand the present position was this: she had to go away with her mother for five weeks, staying with relatives; the year before, the mother had gone by herself, and the daughter (an only and spoilt child) was left at home alone with her father. Unfortunately this year it was the "little wife" who was being snatched from the arms of her spouse, whereas the daughter would greatly have preferred the "faithful mother" to be parted from her child.

9 On the lips of a child, therefore, "kill" is a perfectly harmless expression, especially when one knows that Anna used it quite promiscuously for all possible kinds of destruction, removal, demolition, etc. All the same this tendency is worth noting. (Compare the analysis of "Little Hans.")

10 The birth occurred in the early morning. When all traces of the birth had been removed, together with the bloodstains, the father went into the room where Anna slept. She awoke as he entered. He told her the news of the arrival of a little brother, which she took with a surprised and tense expression on her face. The father then picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. Anna threw a rapid glance at her rather wan-looking mother and then displayed something like a mixture of embarrassment and suspicion, as if thinking, "What's going to happen now?" She evinced hardly any pleasure at the sight of the new arrival, so that the cool reception she gave it caused general disappointment. For the rest of the morning she kept very noticeably away...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Princeton University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1954
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0691097631
• ISBN 13: 9780691097633
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 2
• Anzahl der Seiten: 248
• Herausgeber: Adler Gerhard, Hull R. F. C.
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar