This book provides a re-appraisal of Carl Jungs work as a personality theorist. It offers a detailed consideration of Jungs work and theory in order to demystify some of the ideas that psychologists have found most difficult, such as Jungs religious and alchemical writings. The book shows why these two elements of his theory are integral to his psychology of personality and goes on to propose a framework on which to base a collaborative research programme that could provide much needed and, at present, unavailable validation data for some of Jungs key theoretical concepts.

Divided into two parts, theory and practice, the author begins by emphasising the importance of religion and alchemy for understanding Jungs key concepts of individuation and the self, as well the link between Jungs concept of the archetype and its function in the development and transformation of personality. The book considers the whole of Jungs work as a comprehensive theory of personality to which all strands, including his writings on religion and on alchemy contribute. The second part of the book is both empirical and theoretical. Crellin reviews the history of the presentation of Jungs work in personality literature and discusses how inaccurate representation, the limitations of existing evaluation criteria, and consequent negative perceptions of Jungs theory in textbooks of personality psychology have contributed to the creation of a mythical Jung.

This book will appeal to both psychological practitioners who are unfamiliar, or only have a vague understanding of Jungs ideas, as well as Jungian psychoanalysts, who are knowledgeable about Jungs writings, but whose training may not have addressed the problem of theory evaluation in relation to Jungs theory.