Jungian Psychology has to be approached from the inside; first person, instead of the outside or third person way of science. As an analogy, doctors cannot look at a patient and know their level of pain. This can be repressed or faked. They have to ask the patient, since the experience of pain is only objective from the inside of a person. From the outside it becomes subjective. This is why the doctors have to ask; avoid his own outside subjective judgement and depend on the internal objectivity of the pain sufferer.
To approach Jungian Psychology you need to become both the scientist and the experiment, so you can become objective to the inner workings of the psyche, but from the inside. Consciousness has the ability to migrate around the brain, trigger things and observe internal output. To the outside; third person, this is not obvious.
As an analogy, say you never had a toothache. You can still do a science thesis on the nature of toothaches. You can collect external data. Would having a toothache added anything to this thesis? It adds the hidden things. Say you allow a dentist to drill a tooth, so you can have an internal experience. Experiencing a toothache will come from the inside; throbbing pain and mental confusion. This experience will add new things to the discussion, you will not get from just the outside, in the third person. One may even lose their objectivity, with the pain, allowing you to witness internal changes in the brain function that may be hard to write about, immediately.
Jung used a lot of collective human symbolism, from world religions, since all religions meditate and pray in their own ways. These actions are connected to the objective activities of first person introspection. If you get a nice feeling, it comes from within, and may be triggered by the prayer. The ancient way was more from the inside; neural tweaks and feedback. They mapped out the operating system some wrote it down as the symbolism of mythology.
Many Atheists in Science, hate religion, and they decided to throw out the Jungian baby with the bath water, since Jung's use of religious symbolism, alone, was a taboo, among Atheists. They could not give religion any credit for anything, so Jung was shunned. It is like trying to get published with a thesis, that does not support the man made climate change. Good luck.
If you look how messed up people have become; social anxiety and division, this shows me psychology is failing or being used more for negative things. It did not upgrade when it had a chance. Jungian Psychology is about higher human potential and not just about the needs of the increasing bizarre ego.
In terms of Jungian Thinking, the layers of the human psyche, starting at the surface begin with the persona or mask of the ego. This is the learned and rehearse part of you, that you present to strangers; style, attitude, make up, etc. The ego proper is below this and contain more personal information that is often shared and known only by family and friends; below the mask.
As we go deeper, we have the personal unconscious. This contains our personal memories which may also contain secrets and repressed things that may not be shared. Below the personal unconscious is the shadow. The shadow is the interface between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. Like our shadow on a sunny day, the inner shadow follows us around and is sort of the unconscious extension. This and is called the ID by Freud. Most Psychology stops there, but Jung explored even the deeper layers.
If you can get past the shadow you enter the collective unconscious, which is connected to the natural genetic based operating system of the brain. Getting past the shadow was the scariest part since there was nothing to prepare me but I had to step with faith. It can trigger the fear of going insane. This animate strong irrational fear.
Below the shadow, is the natural firmware of the brain, and appears to have three layers; Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. The lowest layer is connected to our instinct nature; genetic male or female. The middle level is more connected to our emotional nature in male and intellect in females, while the highest layer is intellect in males; wise old man, and emotional nature in females; mother nature. The male and female firmware are staggered to mesh like gears, for cross programming leverage. Below that, running the show, is the inner self.
In my experience, trying to isolate and differentiate the archetypes, caused my mind to become very dissociated, where the line between inside and outside began to blur. I would be conscious in dreams and dreams would occur while conscious. Even synchronicity would occur. But there was tons of data. This culminated in a nightmare, where I met my shadow; sinister presence, and got past with a religious shield; defense. The sword of logic was not enough to quench the fear induced. That needed prayer to shield me as I got past, safely.
This getting past initiated a natural healing process that reintegrate my mind; 1000 fold distillation process. This new wiring, allowed my ego to have an interactive rapport with the inner self and the archetypes. I used to for my early creative writing projects. The some of my bible theories animated the inner self and things get intense; secondary uninstall and update was triggered.
