Carl Gustav and Sigmund Freud on Human Nature and...

Human Nature: Though Carl Gustav Jung was a colleague, friend, and the presumed successor of Sigmund Freud, their views on human nature drifted further and further apart as Jung grew intellectually. While they were both psychoanalysts, in the end their views on human nature were practically antithetical. Freud viewed human nature deterministically, and postulated that human motivation was grounded in unconscious biological urges for sexual satiation. Freud strongly emphasized the development that occurred during childhood and attempted to explain this development using his five stage theory–oral, anal, genital, latent, phallic—of psychosexual development. For the sake of brevity the stages will not discussed individually however, it is important to note that each stage was characterized by an erogenous zone, which correlated with Freud’s idea of sexual energy as a guiding force in development. Jung, on the other hand, became theoretically rooted in spirituality and mysticism, and as a result of splitting from Freud, he developed the school of psychology known as analytical psychology. In stark contrast to Freud, Jung emphasized the second half of ones life and developed a more existential approach due to his emphasis on the importance of the meaning that once ascribes to their life. In order to develop appropriate at this juncture, Jung determined that during this later stage of life one must first let go of behaviors that molded the first half of one’s life, and then