Carl Jung Resources > Therapy
What is Jung's Analytical Therapy?
Jungian therapy is a psychological treatment of mind disorders based on analysis of the unconscious mind.
Jung's analytical method follows the Freud's one, as he often admitted. In very rare cases, when the treatment doesn't end with the symptom remission, Jung would continue the analysis by
guiding the patient to a personal confrontation with the
The confrontation with the archetypes is not an option. It is a must since the patient started to have dreams with archetypal content. This confrontation aims at the assimilation of the archetypal
information leading to the extension of patient's consciousness. This is what Jung himself calls the On the plane of the analytical therapy, this new personality is
better fit to cope with the outer and inner developmental requests. Jung's Analytical Methods Jungian therapy makes use of the well-known methods of dream interpretation, active imagination, the associations test and so forth. But perhaps the best technique Jung would use is to encourage the patient to say what he thinks about his illness.
He would start with this question: What do you think about your illness? Jung says the patient knows unconsciously the reason of his illness. In conclusion: Jung will forget all classic methods to let the
patient speak freely about his troubles.
Developed in the years when he worked in the psychiatric hospital consists of recording the average response time to certain stimulus-words. The patient is asked to answer spontaneously to the inducted
words pronounced by the analyst with any word that comes to his mind. The response time can be an indicator of the activated unconscious Further discussion on the terms indicators of complexes helps the patient understand his activated psychic conflict.*
Dream Interpretation Jung would use the
One may say this is the favorite Jungian approach but it is very difficult to handle.
Runs in conjunction with dream interpretation. ->
A large part of dream interpretation technique at Jung consists in symbol analysis. -> Playing, painting, building and other such activities may lead
one to explore and manifest his unconscious feelings and images. In painting one may express a visual representation of the wholeness. Also in building, one may relieve his inner
creative forces blocked or inhibited by his one-sided moral or ethical values. See also I-ching Inquiry In several cases, Jung asked
This method is very difficult unless one practiced I-ching consultation on a large scale many years. -> Read about Freud's Analysis Method
Generally speaking, Freudian analysis makes use of the Freud would seize some patterns in the patients talk that finally
leads to his childhood trauma. Next he explore the patient memories and induces more details by the way of his theoretical approach so to clarify the patient on his real cause of his actual suffering.
Clarification (insight) leads to symptom remission. Questions and Answers Question: How can I access the collective unconscious even though I never dreamt of an archetypal dream? Answer: You can not.
Question: How can I be sure the analytical therapy will solve my psychological problem? - You ca not. Question: What about transference in Jungian therapy?
Answer: Well, Jung himself declared that transference is too much expected to solve something. But, in fact, transference exists all the time, even between people not necessary ill.
Question: How much time takes a Jungian analysis? Answer: Depends of the difficulty of the case. A banal neurosis may be cured within several short analytical seances. Jung Quote about Analysis
Psychotherapy and analysis are as diverse as the individuals themselves. I treat each patient as individually as possible, for the solution to the problem is always personal. General rules
can only be established *cum grano salis* - with the necessary reservations. A psychological truth is valid only if it can be reversed. A solution that would be out of the
question for me might be precisely the right one for someone else. Theoretical hypotheses should be used with great caution. They may be valid today, but tomorrow others might take their
place. They play no role in my analyses. I deliberately avoid being systematic. To my mind, when faced with an individual, only individual understanding matters. Each patient requires
a different language. Thus, in one analysis, I might use Adlerian language, while in another, I might use Freudian language. The analyst and the patient sit face to face, looking each other
in the eye. The doctor has something to say, but so does the patient. In psychotherapy, since the essential thing is not simply applying a method, psychiatric training alone is insufficient.
Further resources
Here are several must-read books by Jung that illustrates his therapeutic method: - The Practice of Psychotherapy - a collection of essays related
to this subject and its specific problems. -> Amazon link: - Two Essays on Analytical Psychology - the best introductory study to the theory and practice of Jung's psychotherapy. -> Amazon link: * A Jungian personality test may be taken online here. You'll learn what is your kind of personality, what is your Jungian type and how will your psychological type fit certain kinds of jobs. |
