Two Essays on Analytical Psychology is volume 7 of The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, presenting the core of Carl Jung's views about psychology. Known as one of the best introductions to Jung's work, the volumes includes the essays "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious" (1928; 2nd edn., 1935) and "On the Psychology of the Unconscious" (1943).
Historically, the essays mark the end of Jung's close association with Sigmund Freud, showing his attempt to integrate the work of Freud and Alfred Adler into a comprehensive framework. To show the development of his thinking, an appendix in later editions also includes original versions of the essays "New Paths in Psychology" (1912) and "The Structure of the Unconscious" (1916)—both of which were discovered after Jung's death.
Extensive detailed abstracts of each chapter are available online.
"On The Psychology of the Unconscious" The first section, On the Psychology of the Unconscious, includes these chapters:
Psychoanalysis
The Eros Theory
The Other Point of View: The Will to Power
The Problem of the Attitude-Type
The Personal and the Collective Unconscious
The Synthetic or Constructive Method
The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
General Remarks on the Therapeutic Approach
Conclusion.
Sections 1-3
Jung uses the first three parts of this essay to place his psychological school in the intellectual tradition of Friedrich Nietzsche, Pierre Janet, Sigmund Freud, and Alfred Adler. Jung gives a brief account of the historical development of Psychoanalysis, particularly Freud and Breuer's case history of Anna O, and covers some of Freud's early theorizing on neurosis, the unconscious, dream interpretation, wish fulfillment, and the incest-wish of the Oedipus Complex.
While Freud explained neurosis through sexual motivations, Adler explained those same conflicts as arising from a power principle. Jung addresses Adler's concepts of superiority/inferiority and compensation and Nietzsche's writings on the will to power.
Sections 4-8
Jung moves to introduce his own theories by claiming that both Freud and Adler are largely correct, but that each of their theories interprets the world from the point-of-view of a particular temperament. Jung uses this as an example of his theory of personality types and the distinction between introversion and extraversion.
Next Jung looks at the problem of transference in the therapeutic context and posits that there is more than infantile personal unconscious content being projected: there are archetypal patterns of behavior and fantasy imagery. Jung distinguishes the personal unconscious (which he relates to his concept of the shadow) from the collective unconscious, which he describes variously in this essay as containing "primordial images," "inherited possibilities of human imagination," "thought-forms," "motifs," "dominants," and "archetypes." Jung explains that archetypes have a powerful emotional fascination akin to a religious experience.
Jung elaborates on his theories by going through some examples of his method of dream interpretation, and amplifying the material provided by connecting it with archetypal figures such as the shadow, the magician/wise old man, and the hero undertaking the night sea journey. Jung maintains that there is great healing potential in a thoughtful integration of the unconscious.
"The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious" The second essay, The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious, is split into two parts: the first broadly is about the risks of a confrontation with the collective unconscious; and the second part is about Jung's method for a more constructive engagement with this psychic material.
This section includes:
The Effects of the Unconscious Upon the Conscious
The Personal and the Collective Unconscious
Phenomena Resulting from the Assimilation of the Unconscious
The Persona as a Segment of the Collective Psyche
Negative Attempts to Free the Individuality from the Collective Psyche
Individuation
The Function of the Unconscious. Anima and Animus
The Technique of Differentiation between the Ego and the Figures of the Unconscious The Mana-Personality