Thinking in opposites: The psychologies of Carl Gustav Jung and George Kelly

Abstract

The psychologies independently founded by Jung and by Kelly exemplify traditional approaches to personality and the self. Both assume a primacy of the private world and posit “opposites” as a fundamental feature of the personality structure, though they differ in their conceptions of this structure and the level of analysis at which opposites matter. The main dimensions for the present comparison of their theories include: the mode of thought of primary interest; the focal aspect of psychological functioning; the locus of functional dichotomies; the conception of the driving dynamic; processes of intrapersonal change; the necessity of theorising the unconscious; and the relation of the psychological to the social.