ABSTRACT
In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung explicates what he calls his ‘personal myth’ – a narrative that is foundational to his psychology because it places at its heart the uniqueness of the individual’s psychological development. This chapter addresses an unresolved problem inherent in the notion of ‘personal myth’. If the myth in question is indeed personal, and if the personal equation, as Jung himself tells us, tends to distort one’s psychological perspective, then to what extent has Jung’s own personal myth smuggled Jung’s own biases and blind-spots into analytical psychology itself? The mythic narrative of what Jung calls his ‘two personalities’ is explored and it is suggested that it functions within Memories, Dreams, Reflections as a foundational parable, grounding in Jung’s own experience what shows up in the psychology as a persistent emphasis upon psychic balance and the dangers of one-sidedness. In practice, however, Jung was not always able to maintain such a balance. An examination of Jung’s relationship with Freud reveals the distorting and destructive effects of Jung’s one-sidedness in his life and work.
