Psychology Today | 01.11.2026 22:06
Are you acquainted with Jungian psychology or interested in exploring its intriguing ideas? If so, the collective unconscious is a vital concept. More than a century ago, Carl Jung formulated this notion based partly on his therapeutic work with psychiatric patients. Buttressed by his investigations of Eastern and Western traditions in art, folklore, and mythology, he asserted that people everywhere share the same inborn ways of experiencing the world. It was a radically unconventional concept for its time, but which Jung systematically advanced. With characteristic wit in responding to its criticisms, he stated:
