Carl Jung Vs. Sigmund Freud And Christianity

Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were two prominent psychoanalysts with distinct attitudes and approaches towards religion. They had a lot of mutual theories at some time in their lives and had a profound friendship. In fact, Jung was to be the successor of Freud in his position as president of the International Psychoanalytic Association. Nonetheless, Jung established several new theories and differences with Freud. After years of friendship the both separated in 1913. There were three main areas of religion which Jung and Freud disagreed on. Jung alleged that religion was, in fact, very advantageous to society, unlike Freud, who was wholly against religion. Jung believed religion was a natural expression of the collective unconscious whereas Freud believed it was a collective neurosis. Overall, Jung thought that religiousness was a way of aiding the process of individuation. On the contrary, Freud believed it to lessen the feelings of hostility and guilt that continue to dominate the relationship with the father figure until it is replaced by “God” as a surrogate father. Thus, making religion an obsessive-compulsive neurosis aimed at avoiding death. I will be using Christianity as a basis to show the relationship of both Jung's and Freud's theories with religion since Christianity has the biggest following in the world.

Carl Jung had a very expansive understanding of religion where he puts forward concepts such as the collective unconscious and archetypes and the relationship they have with the development of individuation, the process by which the conscious human or person 'harmonizes' their psyche (mind). There was a three tier system within Jung's concept of the psyche. These involved the personal conscious; the personal unconsci...

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...ligion tunes into the sense of togetherness which the baby is believed to understand with the mother. The early loss of ego limitations is replicated in a sense of the supreme in adult life. This theory suggests a state of idyllic union with an all-loving and all-forgiving parent; which in religion can be seen as ‘God.’

Freud claims religion is a mass misconception or paranoid wish-fulfillment. He says religious people turn away from reality and put wishful reality in its place the person makes use of magical thinking. In some ways this brings religion closer to science. Freud had often said that paranoid delusions are like philosophical systems or scientific theories - they are all trying to make sense of the world, and our place in it. He also states that religion is a way to hold groups of people together since there is emotional bonds that bind them together.