To access the mind map, click on https://coggle.it/diagram/X1YZRaqiwzXyWMm3/t/start-here

Note: a dark theme is available for coggle here.

Despite clear writing, Jung is not an easy writer to understand. This task gets increasingly difficult when one aims at understanding his writings on alchemy and religion, which I call the “Later Works”.

This visual guide is meant to structure the process of approaching these quite complicated books as well as encouraging a therapeutic effort.

My selection process is what I personally have read, watched or experienced and judged to be of high quality or practical usefulness. Thus it’s a representation of my own journey.

The mind map starts at the top. From there, the prerequisites section can be found on the right and the legends are on the left.

Downwards from the start, we find The Red Book. Next, the path splits into two main areas: the study path on the left side and the therapy path on the right.

At the bottom, there is a log of recent changes I have made to the map as I keep working on it. Otherwise, various recommendations can be found in the middle.

As a rule of thumb, I would say it is not recommended to jump into Jung’s Later Works without having read at least:

• one introductory book by him (Man and His Symbols; Memories, Dreams, Reflections; Modern Man in Search of a Soul),
• one more technical book (Two Essays on Analytical Psychology, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious, Symbols of Transformation, The Symbolic Life),
• one overview of his works (Jung’s Map of the Soul, Ego and Archetype, On Jung, Complex/Archetype/Symbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung).

I’ve added a few videos to help this part of the work.

Without a doubt, the most essential recommendation in this part is Daryl Sharp’s Jung Lexicon. This lexicon clarifies the large majority of conceptual and semantic problems one can have when reading Jung. I have referred to this book more than any others and I always have it open nearby.

Freely available online at https://www.psychceu.com/Jung/sharplexicon.html

The Red Book holds a central place in Jung’s works despite not belonging to the Collected Works. It is also an unusual book, the same way Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a special book.

My description of The Red Book is that it has a dreamlike quality with very lush prose and strong imagery. Reading it might take you for a journey or completely throw you off. This is why I suggest not to read The Red Book unless you feel that the book is calling you.

As of late 2020, The Black Books have been published and I have gone through them. There is no reason to read The Black Books before The Red Book because they are essentially made of the same material (at the exception of half of Vol. 6 and Vol. 7). Compared to The Red Book, The Black Books are composed of only personal entries with no additional commentary, making the reading experience impenetrable even for seasoned amateurs. My recommendation then is to let The Black Books aside until you have read and understood the majority, if not the entirety, of the Collected Works.

For a more in-depths comparison between The Red Book and The Black Books, please check my article here.

The main topic of the Later Works is religion and psychology. I have distinguished four categories:

• Psychological Symbolism of Christianity
• The Answer to Job “Trilogy” (Aion, Answer To Job, The Undiscovered Self )¹
• Alchemy as a Compensation for the Christian Worldview
• Psychology of the East

Edward F. Edinger has a number of books that help to understand Jung through Jung, therefore he features a lot in this part. He is also one of my favorite writers.

Finally, I’ve made an “Others” category for the topics of Synchronicity and Flying Saucers. Some works by Marie-Louise von Franz and Robert A. Johnson feature in that category.

¹ The idea of Answer to Job being a trilogy comes from Edward Edinger. Here is what he writes in Archetype of the Apocalypse:
“Actually, Answer to Job is part of a trilogy of works on the same topic: first, there is Aion; then Answer to Job which is the heart of the trilogy; and then The Undiscovered Self—which English title, incidentally, was chosen by the publishers while Jung preferred Present and Future, a title more clearly related to the apocalyptic experience. In each of these works, the essential idea is that the Self, the new God-image, is coming! It is visiting the earth, visiting humanity, visiting the individual ego: and it is coming in order to incarnate itself. “Yahweh” wants to become man again, more fully. And Answer to Job is the talisman to help us to get through the process.”

While I feel confident in the structure I’ve laid out for the study path, the therapy path is more of a suggestion based on my personal experience with therapy. I decided to structure it into four categories:

• Expressive introspection (Journaling, Tarot, Psychomagic)
• Working with dreams (Dream Analysis)
• Working with affects (Projection, Transference, Shadow Work, Progressive Exposure and Development of the Inferior Function, Active Imagination)
• Dealing with trauma (Personal Trauma, Transgenerational Trauma, Body Work, The Importance of Parenting).

The easiest and safest option in this category is Journaling. I cannot emphasize enough that one needs to have a good journaling practice (or any similar practice) when engaged in a therapeutic effort. Otherwise, one is left without an appropriate outlet for overwhelming emotions.

For therapeutic models, I recommend:

• Internal Family Systems, a psychological model that is designed to approach inner conflicts between parts of oneself. I recommend listening to Richard Dick Schwartz, the founder of the model, to learn more about it (a more recent interview is available here).
  Edit: I have written an overview of the IFS model in the article Working With Complexes.
• Somatic Experiencing, a therapeutic model focused on the perception of body sensations to reconnect and regulate trauma in the body. A very good introductory video is available here.

I found both models to be most helpful and I still use them when needed. Both approaches are guided by the client’s feelings or body perceptions, which limits the common pitfalls of therapy (such as transference and countertransference).

Jungian psychotherapy is not recommended because I’ve not experienced it firsthand.

Finally, it’s important to know that the key factor in therapy is not the model of therapy but the client-practitioner relationship. Without a deep and heartfelt sense of trust between the two parties, you will never feel safe enough to talk about the deepest secrets of your life. I found that being able to talk about my emotional wounds and the dark corners of my life provided a great sense of relief to me, but was also of great use for the therapist who could better understand me.

This final section is a way for me to promote different works that do not fit in the main branches. I’ve divided it into three parts:

• Non-Jungian people whose works offer different perspectives on psychology and religion.
• Entertainment with explicit symbolic themes.
• A case study of public therapy.

This mind map is a summary of ten years of my life. It is not a model to follow line by line for even I have not done this, but it is proposing an overview of the themes and works that will confront you if you engage in the individuation process.

Alejandro Jodorowsky is one of my favorite people and I have greatly benefited from his multifaceted works. To promote him, I made this mind map, which was the inspiration for what would become the Jung mind map.

The mind map can be found at https://coggle.it/diagram/Xr-PZ2HYgeKUhzdu/t/the-jodorowsky-constellation