CLASS IS CLOSED FOR GRADING.
The door is closed to minimize disturbances from the hallway. Jenny had fresh fruit for her students, along with coffee. "Jung was way less interested in the development of personality throughout life than he was in the unconscious. Still, let's take a look at his thoughts on it anyway, 'kay?

Childhood: Jung figured children were instinctual creatures, focused primarily on sleeping, eating, things like that. Ever been around a newborn? He's not so wrong there. But they develop a bit more than he gives them credit for as they get older, I feel. Jung was big on the role of the parent. Parents? Needed to direct their children's energy so that they didn't become chaotic and unbalanced. In other words? He wanted parents to discipline their kids and figured that if the parents were having problems, it was likely going to be reflected in their kids' behaviors.

Adolescence: Hey, look at that, something that relates to the stage of life you guys are in. Life decisions! Where do you go to school? What do you do about dating? Dealing with the opposite sex? A lot of how you deal is going to depend on if you're an introvert or an extrovert. Here's where Jung theorizes that the persona becomes pretty developed based on your dominant function of introversion or extroversion--as opposed to dealing with the world based on parental expectations, like you probably did in childhood. Lots of individuation is expected to go on here, but it's not the phase Jung was most interested in.

Middle Age. Jung's most interested in this, maybe because he had a midlife crisis. This was when he really explored his unconscious life through his dreams, and lots of creative work. In fact, a lot of his patients were middle-aged. They had to cope with feelings of meaninglessness or loss in their lives, and gosh, sounds just like a midlife crisis to me. What do you think? Lots of issues came out here. Jung comes up with the term puer aeterunus here, which talks about men who have difficulty growing out of adolescence and being self-reliant. Guys this term can be applied to? Little too attached their moms. But don't worry, Jung was pretty evenhanded. He also had the term puella aeterna for women who were too attached to their daddies and had a problem accepting the responsibility for being adults. Doesn't mean these people can't be creative. Just means they may have responsibility issues.

Old age? Well, talk about a wrap-up phase. Jung believed that people in old age spent more and more time within their unconscious--trying to understand their lives and derive meaning from them. It's a way of preparing for death, and a time to develop wisdom. Kinda rare for his era, but Jung believed that psychological development continued throughout life.

So. Interesting? Boring? What do you guys think?"

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