Understanding Freud's Defense Mechanisms and Carl Jung's Theory of Archetypes

Reflecting on Your Own Defense Mechanisms

Freud’s Defense Mechanisms

According to Freud, defense mechanisms keep unconscious material from coming to the conscious level. However, if you observe your own or another person's behavior carefully, you often figure out what a defense mechanism is primarily used for.

Based on your understanding of the theory given by Sigmund Freud, answer the following questions:

Reflect on your own behavior and pick one defense mechanism you have used.

Explain the defense mechanism you identified and share an example of when you used this defense mechanism.

Jung asserts that the collective unconscious reflects the collective experiences that humans have had in their ancestral or evolutionary past. An archetype comes from the collective unconscious and is an inherited predisposition to respond to the world. One way to think about archetypes is to think about what every human experiences, like birth, death, power, and parenthood. Jung suggests that the human response to each of these experiences is universal and is reflected in fairy tales and myths and so on.

Based on your understanding of the theory given by Carl Jung, answer the following questions:

Think of your favorite fairy tale, myth, or comic book hero. What archetype is represented in your choice?

Discuss whether or not you think Jung is correct in his view that there is a collective unconscious.

Both Freud and Jung used dream analysis but in different ways. Freud thought that dreams provided clues to the unconscious, while Jung thought that dreams were compensatory. Pay attention to your dreams for three nights this week. It's helpful to keep a notepad by your bed and to write them down when you first wake up.
On the basis of your understanding of these theories, answer the following:

Provide a concise description of a dream you had and discuss your dream from both Freud's point of view and Jung's point of view.

Which theory makes more sense to you? Why?
Include terminologies from each theorist's position.