C.G. Jung, the Psychiatrist

Referring to Jung’s autobiography Memories, Dreams, Reflexions, the author first outlines the events that led Jung to psychiatry. She then follows him through the years 1900-13 on the basis of the duties he assumed and the work he published. The years of training, 1900-1905, involve Jung’s dissertation, and especially work on association experiences in normal subjects. From 1905 to 1909, as professor and head doctor, Jung applied his method to pathology, giving particular attention to “The psychology of Dementia praecox”, a treatise which established him as a leading researcher. In 1909, he left the hospital world to open a private practice. His interests changed with his writings on children, and especially Metamorphoses and symbols of the libido, which, with the 1912 lectures in New York, were to consummate the rift with Freud.