Psyche (book)
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| Author | Carl Gustavus Carus |
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| Original title | Psyche, zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele |
| Country | Germany |
| Language | German |
| Subject | Unconscious mind |
| Published | 1846 (Flammer and Hoffman) |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 85 (1989 Spring Publications edition) |
| ISBN | |
Psyche (German: Psyche, zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Seele) is an 1846 book by Carl Gustav Carus, a physician and painter noted for his work on animal psychology and physiognomy. In his The Discovery of the Unconscious (1970), Henri Ellenberger calls Psyche "the life-work of a physician and keen observer of the human mind" and "the first attempt to give a complete and objective theory on unconscious psychological life", adding that "It shows the shape reached by the theory of the unconscious at the end of the Romantic period, before the positivistic trend became dominant." He notes that Carus influenced Eduard von Hartmann and later Carl Jung. According to him, Carus defines psychology as "the science of the soul's development from the unconscious to the conscious" and believes that "human life is divided into three periods: (1) A pre-embryonic period in which the individual merely exists as a tiny cell within the mother's ovary. (2) the embryonic period; through fecundation, in which the individual is suddenly wakened from his long sleep, and the formative unconscious develops. (3) After birth, in which the formative unconscious continues to direct the individual's growth and the function of his organs. Consciousness arises gradually, but it always remains under the influence of the unconscious and the individual periodically returns to it in his sleep."
Carus distinguishes between three layers of the unconscious: "(1) The general absolute unconscious, which is totally and permanently inaccessible to our consciousness. (2) The partial absolute unconscious to which belong the processes of formation, growth, and activity of the organs. This part of the unconscious exerts an indirect influence on our emotional life. Carus describes the 'districts of the soul' such as respiration, blood circulation, liver activity; each of these districts has an emotional tonality of its own and contributes to the constitution of the vital feeling underlying emotional life. Conscious thoughts and feelings also exert a slow and mediate action on the partial absolute unconscious; this explains why a person's physiognomy can reflect his conscious personality. (3) The relative or secondary unconscious comprehending the totality of feelings, perceptions, and representations, which were ours at one time or other and which have become unconscious."
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