Personal Thoughts: Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney

Carl Jung "A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them."
     Archetypes
           Summary: The idea of a Protagonist; A good guy if you will.
           Personal Thoughts: Through the rather short definition of archetype, and thinking about my observations throughout life, i would have to agree with Jung that we are born with a "instinct-esque" idea of what a protagonist would react to situations. Now, with that said, couldn't we have learned the idea of what a protagonist is and how they would react to certain things via our early adolescent observations of our parents reactions to certain things? Adding to that, couldn't he have learned this Archetype ideal through the stories that we heard/watched/read while we were young?
     Collective Unconscious (1) (2) (3) (4)
           Summary: the Giant overarching themes that we as society feel and see. Ex. love and hate, the idea of religion, the idea of good and evil.
           Personal thoughts: After having a better understanding of what this theory was saying (most of the sources that i found on the web were worded in a very scientifically complex way), I have to say that I don't really agree with what he is saying. While i was studying Sociology, we spent a good deal of time on the topic of child rearing. Children learn how to react to certain things based on observing their parents; if the parent reacts negatively to the child pooping its pants, the child will eventually form a negative connotation towards pooping their pants. Now relating this to the Theory of Collective Unconscious, Jung would be saying, using the same example, that the child, through their collective unconscious, knows that the pooping of their pants is a bad thing, so then doesn't do that, but as we can see this is definitely not true. For this concept, i am going to have to side with the Sociological view, mainly because it makes more sense.


Alfred Adler "Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority. "
      Inferiority Complex
      Summary: The Inferiority Complex is the idea of a heightened feeling inferiority to others in some way. These feelings can come about through imagined or actual inferiority in the subject, and is most often unconscious. "Unlike a normal feeling of inferiority, which can act as an incentive for achievement (or promote discouragement), an inferiority complex is an advanced state of discouragement, which often embedded's itself into one's lifestyle, and sometimes results in an avoidance of difficulties." (source)
      Personal Thoughts: Throughout my almost 17 years of life, I have seen and felt many examples of this theory. Just walking through a crowded area, it can sometimes be easy to spot the people to seem to personally feel inferior to there peers around them. Now while this could be seen as a low self-esteem problem, I personally feel that there are moments in our lives that we unconsciously feel inferior to the people around us. I have to say that I would agree with this theory.


Karen Horney "Like all sciences and all valuations, the psychology of women has, until now, been considered only from the point of view of men."


    Female Psychoanalysis (1)
      Summary: Horney differed from Freud in their thinking of Female V. Male Psychoanalysis. being critical of the misogynous Freud's idea of Penus Envy (where women feel inferior to men due to their lack of a penus), Horney proposed the idea of Womb Envy. The Theory of Womb Envy stated that "men were envious of a woman's ability to bear children" and that the "degree to which men are driven to success was merely a substitute for the fact that they cannot carry, nurture and bear children." (source)
      Personal Thoughts: Well firstly i have to admit that there is some bias in my reaction to both of these theories (Penus Envy and Womb Envy). In my own opinion, these theories are basically a product of the misogynous or feministic beliefs of their creators. That being said, you can pretty much infer from this that I do not believe in either of these seemingly extravagant ideas.

Wrong Look On Life?

When you think for someone who is mentally unstable, what comes to your mind? If you are like me, it looks like something out of The Shining. But when it comes to real life, someone who does something to be deemed "mentally unstable" could easily look like an average person.

We all attempt to live the institutionalized ideal of a happy life, but when one in ten U.S. Citizens are on anti-depressants, there is a serious problem with our vision of "happy and healthy". Which then brings up the question: What does it truly mean to be mentally and emotionally healthy?

There was a viral video a few years a go showing how distorted our vision of beauty is. This can be seen as a great example of how distorted our societies view of "perfection" when comparing to ourselves to what we want.

How we as a society view our own perfection in a way that is almost inhuman, and seems to be dictating how our society runs as a whole. We idealize the look of the models, the lives of the movie characters, and the minds of the brightest, When what really matters is just living our own life to the fullest.

While I personally can not answer this question of what societies true definition of being mentally and emotionally healthy, I feel it is defiantly a problem that we as a society are going to have to face in the coming years.