Jung and the Soul Of Education (at the ‘Crunch’)

Abstract

C. G. Jung offers education a unique perspective of the dilemma of collective social demands versus individual needs. Indeed, so radical and profound is his vision of the learning psyche as collectively embedded, that it addresses the current crisis over the demand for utilitarian higher education. Hence post‐Jungian educationalists can develop creative classroom strategies, for example in the United States, Canada and Brazil. The article revises two Jungian ideas in order to teach literature by promoting personal and social growth. By taking Jung's categories of literature as categories of reading and by using his notion of therapeutic ‘healing fiction’ to understand literary narrative, both social and psychic individuation and transformation are facilitated.

Keywords:

• Jung
• individuation
• archetype
• alchemy
• metaphor
• Mansfield Park