The Wounded Jung: Effects of Jung’s Relationships on His Life and Work

Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, is widely considered an intuitive genius with a profound understanding of the peculiar spiritual dilemmas of modern man. In this book the author shows how Jung’s interest in the healing of the psyche was rooted in the conflicts of his own childhood. Smith begins by exploring Jung’s formative and transformative life experience, including his relationships with a deeply troubled mother and despairing father, with Sigmund Freud, and with various women in his life. He then shows how these experiences shaped Jung’s thoughts and writing - including his reassessment of religion as inner process - as well as his fascination with gnosticism and alchemy; the attention Jung gives to psychology as myth and the realization of selfhood; and his reinterpretation of evil as a process to be integrated in the proper sphere of human existence.