Abstract

The current investigation has researched the Collected Works of C. G. Jung for a three-fold purpose: to locate the personifying concepts Jung used to explain the psychological facts he observed during sixty years of practicing psychology, to discover the significance of myth to psyche and psychology in the theory Jung developed, and to narrate the hypotheses derived from this archival data base. The objective was to produce a descriptive discourse in two areas: Jung's conceptualization of the invariant and essential structure of psyche, and of objective and collective psychic fact recorded as myth. This study has clarified a number of Jung's working hypotheses concerning objective psychic facts by grounding the research in direct quotes from Jung's writings rather than relying on secondary sources. The main contribution of this dissertation is that it has accomplished what no other published work has before---searched out the eighteen volumes of Jung's Collected Works and reported on the major personifying concepts in his theory of myth by relying solely on the references uncovered there. ;The chosen methodology was qualitative, an adaptation of the discovery of grounded theory. It guided an investigation into the main concepts Jung used to describe the nature of psyche: the personal conscious and unconscious, the collective conscious and unconscious, the objective psyche and the subjective psyche; the archetype, instinct, spirit and soul; libido, the complex, the ego and the personal psyche, the self and the individual psyche; the symbol, religion and myth; symbol-formation, repression, regression, sublimation, and the four functions of psyche, the religious instinct in the transcendent function of individuation and in the myths. The summary for Chapter VIII is a statement of the hypotheses uncovered that support Jung's theory of the significance of myth to psyche and psychology. The concluding chapter offers a sampling of how this research can be used to compare and contrast secondary sources by authors who directly reference or simply refer to Jung's writings