Existentialism and Jungian Psychology

'In Our Time' on Thursday 22 October on BBC Radio 4 discussed the Existentialist Simone de Beauvoir.  To quote something said about one of the principles of Existentialism "You can never get off the treadmill of choosing, making choices, you can never stop - - -  You can never go with a quiet conscience, you can never think "Oh well, that's it and I've ticked it and I've done it."

In this respect Jungian psychology resonates with Existentialism.  Jungian psychology is about having a good relationship with the unconscious.  Jung writes

""No mortal can plumb the depths of nature" - nor even the depths of the unconscious.  We do know however that the unconscious never rests.  It seems to be always at work, for even when we sleep we dream.  There are many people who declare that they never dream, but the probability is that they simply do not remember their dreams.  Not a day passes but we make some slip of the tongue, or something slips our memory, which at other times we know perfectly well, or we are seized by a mood whose cause we cannot trace, etc.  These things are all symptoms of some consistent unconscious activity - - "

And so it is that developing our relationship with the unconscious never ends, right up to death.  In Jungian jargon, we are never 'individuate', are never completely and totally all we have the potential to be as our individual unique selves.  All we can do is take the individuation journey right up until we die.