Memories, Dreams, Reflections

‘I can understand myself only in the light of inner happenings. It is these that make up the singularity of my life, and with these my autobiography deals’ Carl Jung

An eye-opening biography of one of the most influential psychiatrists of the modern age, drawing from his lectures, conversations, and own writings.

In the spring of 1957, when he was eighty-one years old, Carl Gustav Jung undertook the telling of his life story. Memories, Dreams, Reflections is that book, composed of conversations with his colleague and friend Aniela Jaffé, as well as chapters written in his own hand, and other materials. Jung continued to work on the final stages of the manuscript until shortly before his death on June 6, 1961, making this a uniquely comprehensive reflection on a remarkable life.

Reviews

‘Jung’s single-minded humility, his passion to unearth truth, is one of the loveliest impressions to emerge from this absorbing and many-sided book’ The Times

‘He was on a giant scale … he was a master physician of the soul in his insights, a profound sage in his conclusions. He is also one of Western Man’s great liberators’ J. B. Priestley, Sunday Telegraph

‘Like any true prophet or artist he extended the range of the human imagination … to be able to share Jungian emotions is surely an almost necessary capacity of the free mind’ Polly Toynbee, Observer

‘A fascinating peek behind the curtain of Jung's mind, revealing a wonderland of wisdom, experience, and self-reflection’ Brain Pickings

'He was more than a psychological or scientific phenomenon; he was to my mind one of the greatest religious phenomena the world has ever experienced’ Laurens van der Post

'His psychological approach is deeply interesting and should stimulate many who are today more ready to trust a doctor than a clergyman, to help them to rediscover the meaning of life' Guardian

About the author

C. G. Jung (1875–1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist who established the school of psychotherapy known as analytical psychology. He wrote a number of influential books, including Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Man and His Symbols; and Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Many of his works were published posthumously, and some remain unpublished to this day.