Study of the Case of Carl Gustav Jung: The Semi-Private Sphere as the Core of Analysis in His Creative Work

Abstract

The aim of the present work is to analyze the interrelationship of cognition and emotion in the creative process of Carl Gustav Jung during the years 1906–1916, the period in which he sketched the basic ideas of his theory of the collective unconscious. The framework of this work is that of Howard Gruber, especially developed for carrying out psychological studies on scientific creativity, and designed for studying both the affective and cognitive aspects of the creative person, in order to recover the individual behind a work through the analysis of the three spheres in which she/he moves: private (personal documents, diaries), semi-private (discussions with close friends, face-to-face or by letter), and public (teachers, colleagues, etc.). Gruber attributes equal importance to all three; nevertheless, in this research the emphasis is placed on the semi-private sphere, as the connecting thread of the creative process, in that it is the most appropriate analytical space in which the cognitive and affective aspects are manifested in Jung. Therefore, its functioning is studied during the creative process, mentioning first its importance as the core of analysis in case studies, and moving on to analyze how it is projected toward the public sphere and toward the private sphere by means of inter-sphere connections.