Consciousness mind Essay

The Psyche, is a culmination of how we interpret the world, all our psychological nature. It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey. The psyches are different paths to knowledge but have the same ending, personal ideas, experiences, emotions, as well as the collective unconscious. Conscious is the only part to the mind that is known directly by the individual, thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. This is how we grow our consciousness; the attitudes of extroversion and introversion determine how we orient our conscious mind. Individuation, or knowing oneself as completely as possible is how we produce and develop our ego. The Ego acts as the gatekeeper, it determines what perceptions thoughts feeling and memories will enter consciousness. Its what we select to make conscious. The organizational of how we operate. The personal unconscious is the idea of information that we file away in our mind. Its there, but we’re not focusing on it at the moment; it’s below the surface, the storehouse of repressed psychic material Complexes lie in our personal unconscious. They are groups of contents that clump together to form a cluster or constellation. They are separate little personalities within the total personality. They are autonomous, possessing their own driving force, and can be very powerful in controlling our thoughts and behaviors. The collective unconscious is the portion of the psyche, which can be differentiated from the personal unconscious by the fact that its existence is not dependent upon personal experience, composed of contents that were once conscious, but the contents of the collective unconscious have never been conscious within the life time of the individual. Ex: Mans fear of snakes or the dark. Does not learn these fears through experiences with snakes or the dark, although such experiences may reinforce or reaffirm his predispositions. We inherit predispositions to fear snakes and the dark because our primitive ancestors experienced these fears for countless generations. They become engraved upon the brain. Archetypes lie in the collective unconscious, models of our ancestry, it is the endless repetition that has engraved these experiences into our psychic constitution, not in the forms of images filled with content, but at first only as forms without content, representing merely the possibility of a certain type of perception and action. They are universal; everyone inherits the same basic archetypal images. The persona, to take a characteristic that isn’t your own. The persona is the mask or facade one exhibits publicly, with the intention of presenting a favorable impression so that society will accept him. It is necessary for survival, it enables us to get along with people, even those we dislike, in an amicable manner. The anima/animus is the â€Å"outward face† of the psyche because it is that face which the world sees. The â€Å"inward face† he called the anima in males and animus in females. The anima archetype is the feminine side of the male psyche; the animus archetype is the masculine side of the female psyche. Everyone has qualities of the opposite sex. The shadow, is primal and animalistic, it lives in the unconscious. It is projected on the opposite sex and is responsible for the quality of the relationships between the sexes. It is persistent and does not yield easily to suppression. Ex: farmer to poet, burying the idea of being a poet, but an even may trigger that desire. The bigger the personality the bigger the shadow. The self is the organizing principle of the personality. It is the central archetype in the collective unconscious. It harmonizes all the archetypes and their manifestations in complexes and consciousness. It unites the personality, giving it a sense of oneness and firmness. The psyche: a relatively closed system must be dealt with as a unitary system within itself, apart from any other energy system. It is derived from the things we touch, see, smell, taste, feel, or hear. These are the continuous source of stimulation by which the psyche is fed. The psychic energy is the energy by which the work of the personality is performed. Also called the libido, the natural state of appetite, manifested consciously as striving desiring, and willing. Its expresses itself through perceiving, remembering, thinking, feeling, wishing, willing, attending, and striving. It originates from the experiences that a person has. Psychic values, a value is a measure of the amount of energy that is committed to a particular psychic element. When placing a high value on an idea or feeling it can exert a considerable force in influencing one’s behavior. For instance, one who puts a high value on beauty will put forth large amounts of energy to surrounding oneself with beautiful things. This reminded me of my sister in law, whom is obsessed with very beautiful and very expensive things in life. She devotes her time and hard earned money to the material things in life. One might say she’s trying to keep up with the Jones’. She would say she like beautiful and expensive things. Direct observation and deduction, is a complex that does not always exhibit its characteristics in conscious behavior. Ex: The person who says, â€Å"I can’t stand gossips† may be the one who gossips most. Complex indicators are any disturbance of behavior may be indicative of a complex. Ex: when a man calls his wife by his mother’s name, it suggests that his mother complex has assimilated his wife to it. The repressed memory is assumed which has some connection with an unconscious complex so that the memory is swallowed up by it. Emotional Reactions, is the underlying complex. Intuition is the natural and spontaneous capacity every man has to perceive the slightest emotional fluctuation in others. The Principle of Equivalence if the amount of energy cosigned to a given psychic element decreases or disappears, that amount of energy is lost from the psyche; it is simply transferred from one position to another. The principle of Entropy is the direction in which energy flows is conceptualized in physics by the second law of thermodynamics. This principle states, in effect, that when two bodies of different temperatures are placed in contact, heat will pass from the hotter to the colder body until the temp of the two bodies is equalized. Progression and regression, Progression is defined as a person’s daily experiences, which advance his psychological adaptation. One’s progression is a continuous process since his environment and experiences change continuously, which then adaptation is never completely achieved. Regression is the backward movement of libido. Through the collision and interactions of the opposites, they steadily become deprived of their energy. It subtracts energy from psychic elements whereas progression adds energy to psychic elements. Individuation Jung understood individuation to be something that began in the second half of life, when individuals reach the zenith of their lives and suddenly find themselves facing an unknown vista or some unforeseen upheaval. Sometimes this turning point takes the form of a crisis: such as a financial failure, a health problem, a broken relationship, or a change of residence or profession – something which upsets the status quo. Sometimes this experience assumes the form of a profound self-doubt, a loss of meaning or religious conviction, a questioning of everything previously held so dear. Sometimes it presents itself as a deep yearning or a call to change direction. In essence, one could say that the unconscious, or more specifically, the Self (with a capital â€Å"S†), the central organizing archetype in the human psyche, which has seemingly hidden the greatest measure of its influence while the ego has been busy building a life for itself, suddenly the Self returns full force to claim a significant say, if not a central place, in the overall scheme of things. And for what purpose? To call a person to become â€Å"a psychological ‘in-dividual,’† â€Å"a separate, indivisible unity or whole. † Those personal aspects, which have heretofore been disregarded – be they interests, talents, characteristics, experiences, or issues – now come forth to be acknowledged. That which was fragmented now strives for unity. That which was broken now yearns for wholeness. That which was neglected now seeks expression. That which was previously formless in nature suddenly begins to take a new shape, strangely in keeping with what feels like a unique and deeply ingrained individual patterning. The center of the personality moves from the ego toward the Self, in an attempt to establish a new center of the psyche somewhere between the two. There is something in the human psyche, which in its own fullness of time, struggles to produce the â€Å"true personality. † The individuation is an autonomous, inborn process, which means that it does not require external stimulation in order to come into existence. The personality of an individuation is destined to individuate just as surely as the body is destined to grow. But just as the body needs proper food and exercise for healthy growth, so the personality needs proper experiences and education for healthy individuation. For example in the early stages of childhood, of infancy personalities of the child are a reflection of the parent’s personalities, meaning that the child does not carry his own identity. But when the child separates himself from the parents, as in he starts attending school. He will then start shaping his own personality in unique ways apart from the parents. Three facts about Carl Jung. Jung was an introverted child and found happiness in being quiet and being alone. When he was a child he played by himself, since his sister was not born until he was nine. He spent hours inventing and playing games, then abandoning them to devise new and more complex ones. He did not want anyone to disturb him o tot interfere while he played. Jung had religious conflicts throughout his adolescence. Questions concerning religion were taboo. It produced confusion in jungs’ mind but it was the barrier that made communication with his father virtually impossible. He searched unsuccessfully through books for answers to his questions. Religious discussions with his father invariably ended unsatisfactorily, often with fuss and hard feelings. Jungs father died and made his financial situation worse. This left him responsible for the support of his mother and sister. Some of his relatives urged jung to discontinue his studies and seek employment, fortunately, one unclc offered financial assistance to take care of the family and the other relatives loaned jung money to continue at the university.