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The thesis I wish to uphold is that Jung, at the time of his first meeting with Freud, had already developed his own understanding of the Unconscious and of psychic functioning and had autonomously elaborated a method of his own.
His ideas and his method, with their deep-seated roots in humanistic culture, had taken shape during his years at the University of Basel (1895-1900). It was in his degree dissertation entitled ‘On the psychology and pathology of so-called occult phenomena’ (Jung 1902) that they were first presented in a more organic way.
I shall try to follow the formation of Jungian ideas using his university years' documents—some already published and others still in course of publication—so as to highlight the relevant historical coordinates and cultural influences. I believe that these elements played an important part in Jung's relations with Freud and in their separation. Beyond the many facets of this undoubtedly very complex relationship, the fact remains that the two men had incredibly different cultural backgrounds and ways of thinking. Independently from one another, they both constructed hypotheses on psychic functioning and on the aetiology of neurosis and elaborated a method for analysing the Unconscious.
After his arrival at the Burgholzli Clinic in Zurich in December 1900 and following the advice of its Director, Eugen Bleuler (who had for a long time been introducing psychoanalytic concepts in his discussions with his colleagues), Jung further acquainted himself with Freud's ideas. His short typescript from 25 January 1901 entitled ‘Sigmund Freud: “On Dreams”’ (Jung 1901) represents, in all probability, the text of a lecture given to his colleagues on the then recently published essay by Freud. In this same period Jung also read