Tradition
Analytical psychology
What if the familiar “I” is only one part of the mind? Analytical psychology, founded by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in the early twentieth century, explores that possibility through dreams, symbols, conscious life, and the unconscious. Its central concern is the long process of becoming more whole, which Jung called individuation.
Here, the ego is the conscious center that gives everyday identity continuity, while the capital-S Self names the larger totality of the psyche. Wholeness does not mean erasing the ego. It develops as conscious life enters a fuller relationship with dreams, symbols, and aspects of experience that have been excluded or left unconscious. Later Jungian schools continue this work with different emphases rather than one fixed method.
Religious images matter in analytical psychology because they can express psychic life, not because the psychological reading settles whether a theological claim is true. That distinction becomes especially important beside Advaita Vedanta: both challenge the idea that the everyday ego is the whole person, but Jung's Self belongs to a psychological account of wholeness, while Advaita's Self makes a claim about ultimate reality.
Words used here
Plain meanings for words on this page.
analytical psychology
The psychological tradition developed by Carl Jung, focused on symbols, dreams, the unconscious, and the process of becoming a more whole person.
Self (Jung)
Carl Jung used the Self for the organizing totality of the psyche, larger than the everyday ego and associated with psychological wholeness.
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Sources
What this reading rests on
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
original work
Foundational Jungian source for archetypes, the collective unconscious, and the Self as a larger psychic totality.