On Jung

Rating:
Summary: the perfect brief summary of Jung and Jungian theory
Review: The reader is treated to both a concise statement of Carl Gustav Jung's theories of life-stage development and a parallel narrative of Jung's experiences as he moved through each of these stages. Stevens traces the idea of the unconscious from its conception (which he believed to be around 1700) to the earliest investigations by Freud in the 1890s. The split between Freud and Jung (essentially spirituality versus sexuality) is described as having a profoundly shattering effect on Jung, as it had on others ejected from the Freudian camp for their failure to endorse, without question, Freud's theories that all neuroses is based in sexual development. (Two of these ex-Freudians actually committed suicide after being spurned by Freud.) Stevens's unique method of combining a primer of Jung life-stage theory with a biography of Jung is an effective introduction to the man and his work.