When Editor Carol Atkinson suggested I write something about Jungian psychology for the Bulletin, she opined that Jungian thought had become popular in various segments of our community, but notably not among psychologists.

Jung's Popularity Outside Mainstream Psychology

When Editor Carol Atkinson suggested I write something about Jungian psychology for the Bulletin, she opined that Jungian thought had become popular in various segments of our community, but notably not among psychologists. I had to agree with her. Best-selling books Care of the Soul and Women Who Run with the Wolves are both based on Jung's work, and Jungian analysts Robert Moore and James Hillman have been key figures in the men's movement. I encounter Jungian terms in popular songs, movies, literature, and comic strips all the time. Even Madison Avenue has incorporated Jung. In one commercial, a beer-drinker joked that appreciation of Budweiser's finer qualities is stored in the collective unconscious. Nevertheless, I continue to hear the same story from university students: Jung is barely mentioned in most psychology departments.

A colleague of mine has done an informal experiment asking college psychology students to associate to the stimulus word "Jung." He found their most common responses to be "Freud" and something along the lines of "anti-Semitic," "Nazi's," "Germany," and "Hitler." These were followed in frequency by the responses "archetypes" and "mysticism," the latter meant in the pejorative sense. These college professors and psychologists of the future had no knowledge of Jung's contributions to psychology, but rather stereotyped, mostly negative connections to the man. Given this kind of apathy, ignorance, and outright rejection of Jung's work in traditional psychological circles, I was surprised to read an affirming and factual half-page article in the July 1994 issue of the APA Monitor, "Jung's theories keep pace and remain popular." This small article in our professional newspaper was published two years after a six-page article in US News and World Report entitled "Spiritual Questing: Embarked on a search for meaning, more and more Americans are turning to the mythic psychology of the late Carl Jung." This seems consistent with Dr. Atkinson's and my impression that there is greater interest in Jung outside mainstream professional psychology.