Psychology of the Unconscious

The book that split the psychoanalytic movement and birthed analytical psychology. Jung's 1912 work challenged Freud's exclusive focus on sexual symbolism, proposing instead that the libido represents psychic energy flowing through universal patterns of human imagination. By analyzing myths from the Buddha to the Gospel of Mark, medieval alchemy to fairy tales, Jung mapped a psychological journey of transformation he later called individuation, the process by which one becomes whole by integrating the shadow self. Controversial enough to end his friendship with Freud, radical enough to found an entire school of thought. This is where the collective unconscious entered Western thought, where archetypes became a lens for understanding why humans tell the same stories across millennia. For anyone drawn to the psychology of meaning, this is the source text that continues to influence therapy, literature, and the study of religion.