Literature
Article: Analytical psychotherapy
Overview of Analytical Psychology
Analytical Psychology: Developed by Carl Jung, this psychodynamic
system builds on the ideas of Adler and Freud, offering a map of the
psyche that includes both the conscious and unconscious. The goals of
analytical psychotherapy include reintegration, self-knowledge,
individuation, individual responsibility, and healing the wounded self.
Basic Concepts
Psyche: According to Jung, the psyche is a combination of spirit,
soul, and idea; it encompasses both conscious and unconscious
elements. The psyche influences biochemical processes, affecting
how people perceive the world. Our perceptions are shaped by who
we are.
Personal Unconscious: Jung expanded on Freud’s concept of
repressed material. He added that the personal unconscious includes
material that is either unimportant to the psyche or not yet ready to
enter consciousness.
Collective Unconscious: This is a shared layer of the unconscious,
consisting of basic motifs, myths, symbols, and fantasies common
across all humans. These motifs are modified by individual
experiences. Jung identified archetypes as key elements within the
collective unconscious.
Archetypes: These are organizing principles that structure reality
and flow from the collective unconscious into the conscious, shaping
our actions. Examples include the Hero, the Inner Child, the Wild
Man, etc.
Complexes: Emotional clusters of associations or ideas found in the
personal unconscious. Complexes can be confronted directly to
foster growth, but they may also be managed in other ways:
o Projection: Attributing something from your own personality
onto another person.
o Repression: Cutting oneself off from the complex altogether.
o Some people may become overwhelmed by their complexes,
losing touch with reality.
Comparison with Other Theories
Freud vs Jung:
Freud: Focused on the unconscious through free association, the
role of early childhood, and dream interpretation. He viewed dreams
primarily as wish-fulfillments.
Jung: Expanded Freud's map, focusing more on the unconscious and
viewing dreams as meaningful expressions of the unconscious. Jung
also proposed multiple types of complexes, while Freud emphasized
, the Oedipus complex. For Jung, the quest for meaning was as
fundamental as the sexual drive.
Freud vs Adler & Jung:
Both Adler and Jung believed dreams reveal underlying patterns in
how an individual relates to the world and emphasized the
importance of early memories.
Both theorists also argued that psychotherapy should focus on the
future, not just the past.
Freud favored the couch for psychoanalysis, while Adler and Jung
preferred a more face-to-face approach.
Jung's theories have influenced many areas, including lifespan psychology
and Gestalt therapy. His concepts of the shadow (unrecognized parts of
the self) influenced Harry Sullivan’s "good me" and "bad me" models.
Jung's four functions—thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition—parallel
Lowen’s hierarchy of personality functions.
Historical Background
Carl Jung (1875-1961): Born in Switzerland, Jung was deeply
influenced by Romanticism, which valued the irrational, mysterious,
and unconscious aspects of the human experience. He was also
influenced by philosophers such as Goethe, Nietzsche, Kant, and
Schiller, and thinkers like Carus and Schopenhauer, who emphasized
the irrational and the unconscious.
Transference and Countertransference: Jung's ideas on
transference and countertransference can be traced back to
Mesmer’s theory of animal magnetism and Pierre Janet’s use of
hypnosis. Both emphasized the importance of the doctor-patient
relationship in the healing process.
Beginnings of Jungian Theory
Jung believed that all psychological theories are subjective and
reflect their creators. He was particularly interested in women and
was influenced by his mother’s dual nature—both intuitive and
parapsychological, as well as warm and earthy.
Jung worked at a psychiatric hospital, where he studied the inner
worlds of mentally disturbed patients. His Word Association
Test (1904-1907) brought him fame and led to his collaboration with
Freud. However, the two eventually parted ways due to conflicting
ideas, especially after Jung’s publication of The Psychology of the
Unconscious (1911).
Current Status of Jungian Psychology
Interest in Jungian psychology is growing, especially as positive
psychology often feels too limited for addressing the complexities of
modern life.
Training for psychoanalysts varies by country but typically takes 6-8
years and includes clinical theory, practice, dream analysis, and
archetypal psychology. Jung was the first to insist that analysts
undergo personal analysis.
, There is a rising interest in integrating Jungian psychology with post-
Freudian object relations theory, which focuses on how people relate
to others. Some theorists have worked to revise certain aspects of
Jungian psychology to make them more time- and culturally
relevant, particularly the anima and animus concepts:
o Anima: The feminine archetypal image within a man.
o Animus: The masculine archetype within a woman.
Jung's Theory of Personality
Unity of the Psyche: Jung's theory emphasizes the dynamic unity
of all parts of a person’s psyche, which includes both the conscious
and unconscious. The personal unconscious is indirectly accessed
through analysis, dreams, and the collective unconscious.
Conscious Understanding: According to Jung, our conscious
understanding of ourselves arises from two main sources:
1. Encounters with social reality (e.g., feedback from others).
2. Observations of others (when others agree with our self-
assessment, we feel "normal"; when they disagree, we feel
"abnormal").
Aspects of the Human Psyche:
o Accessible: The conscious mind, which includes one’s senses,
intellect, emotions, and desires.
o Non-accessible: The personal unconscious.
The Self: This is an archetypal energy that integrates the
personality and fosters wholeness. The Self evolves from the infant’s
original unity into a more complex system. Later, the ego mediates
between the conscious and unconscious realms.
Ego: The center of consciousness, representing everything a person
believes themselves to be. It serves as the mediator between the
outside world and the unconscious.
Personal Shadow: Balances the ego in the personal unconscious,
containing elements that the ego refuses to acknowledge or
develop. These shadow elements can be positive or negative and
often appear in dreams or through projection.
Persona: The public face that an individual presents to the world,
protecting the ego by revealing only appropriate aspects. A well-
balanced persona allows privacy for one’s thoughts and feelings.
Individuation: The process by which individuals reclaim
undeveloped parts of themselves to become a more complete
personality. This process doesn’t aim for perfection but for
wholeness, embracing both positive and negative aspects of the self.
Typology
Habitual ways in which people respond to the world:
- Introversion: Natural and basic, energy flows inward, solitude to
develop richer inner worlds, few strong relationships.
- Extroversion: Connects with reality through external objects, high
social libido.
, Jung divided personality into four functions, which can be experienced
in both introverted and extroverted ways: Thinking, Feeling,
Sensation, Intuition
People are born with one primary function, develop a weaker second,
and possibly a third, but everyone has access to all functions as well
as both introversion and extroversion.
Variety of concepts
Opposites: Jung saw the world in paired opposites (e.g.
conscious/unconscious, light/dark, ego/shadow), opposites engage in
an active struggle, through which personality develops due to the
conflict in the psyche
Enantiodromia: sooner or later everything turns into its opposite
(e.g. from laughing to crying), enantiodromia governed human
cycles of history and personal development, escape cycles through
consciousness
Compensation: opposites lay in (unconscious) dynamic balance,
everything in the personality balanced its opposite through self-
regulation → compensation
The Transcendent Function: reconciling symbols that form
bridges between opposites, symbol goes beyond and mediates the
opposites
Mandala: a symbol of wholeness and the centre of personality
(geometric figure where square lies within a circle, often appears in
dreams as a sign of wholeness or compensation for stress)
Preoedipal development: Jung stresses the importance of early
mother-child interaction, mother-child relationship affects personality
development
Development of consciousness: child experiencing development
of consciousness, first merged with mother, but later splitting and
seeing her as sometimes good or bad, self-awareness emerges in
patriarchal (male values paramount) stage, when ego is firmly in
place: mother and father worlds can merge
Psychopathology: derives from conflicts in early mother-child
relationships and worsened by stressors, psyche directs attention to
disharmony, psychopathological symptoms emerge from frustrated
urge for wholeness and healing
Defense mechanisms: attempts from the psyche to survive
complexes, can be normal or destructive (imbalance) → becomes
destructive if defense is rigidly upheld
Theory of Psychotherapy (Jungian Approach)
Self-Healing and Personality Growth: According to Jung,
personality has the capacity to heal itself and grow through
experiences. His system of psychotherapy is built on four main
principles:
1. The psyche is a self-regulating system.
2. The unconscious has both a creative and compensatory
component.