Rejecting God = Rejecting the Unconscious Mind
Reviewing Carl Jung's Psychology of the Unconscious Mind: Tackling Jordan Peterson's Reading List
Carl Jung’s Psychology of the Unconscious is not something I can summarize in a short essay, so I decided to create bite-sized chunks of what I’m getting from it.
My wife is a therapist, which means we have a lot of therapist friends. One thing I do when confronted with a bookshelf, is to skim over the titles and see what this person is reading. Because I read a lot, I’m fascinated by what others choose to read.
What I’ve noticed of our therapist friends is that I never see any Carl Jung books. In fact, I never see any Jung, Freud, Neumann or anything related to the unconscious mind.
Now this skimming is not a comprehensive study of the reading habits of psychotherapists but I would expect at least a nod to the giants of the art. But no.
In psychology schools it looks like the only way Jung is part of a curriculum for psychotherapy is if the student purposefully chooses to study Jungian and/or depth psychology. Otherwise, he is just a historic figure and direct readings of his books are not included. Only summaries of his ideas are taught. For more scientific related specialties, like cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or neuroscience, he is totally absent.
Of those students who choose to pursue Jungian depth psychology, the numbers are minuscule and often specialized post graduate school. Empiricism of the likes produced by CBT and neuroscience is the type of study largely focused on as evidence based modalities are highly stressed and easier to get paid for through insurance. And that is understandable.
Why? I’m not exactly sure but I think I know in part, and it is a societal change, not simply a change in how therapists see the world and their clients.
Jung and his ilk are heavily focused on the unconscious mind and modern man isn’t so concerned with the unconscious mind. Never mind that the unconscious mind is, by most estimates, 90% — 95% of all our mind’s functions. Wouldn’t that absolutely require us to stay focused on what that majority of the mind produces and what it means on an individual and collective basis?
No, not in a secular world. What I am beginning to see is that the rejection of the sacred, the religious, the church and the concept of God, is no different than the rejection of the unconscious mind.
Because symbols, mythology, and religion are products of the conscious mind expressing the contents of the unconscious mind, rejecting religion, rejecting God, is simultaneously a rejection of the unconscious mind.