Summary literature Overview of Psychotherapy
Week 1
Analytical psychotherapy – Claire Douglas
Overview
Analytical psychology, psychodynamic systems and personality theory by Carl Jung builds on
the ideas of Adler and Freud. Analytical psychotherapy offers a map of the psyche and looks
into the conscious and the unconscious. Goals are reintegration, self-knowledge,
individuation, individual responsibility and replacing the wounded self.
Basic concepts
Jung: psyche is a combination of spirit, soul and idea; a sum of the conscious and
unconscious.
According to Jung the psyche influences biochemical processes that impact how people
perceive the world – what they perceive is influence by who they are. Jung maps the psyche
into the personal and collective consciousness and personal and collective unconsciousness.
- Personal unconsciousness: Freud repressed material by ego and superego, Jung
adds to this material unimportant to the psyche and dropped from or not yet
ready for the consciousness
- Collective unconsciousness: same basic motifs in dreams, myths, symbols and
fantasies shared by all humans, modified by their own experiences archetypal
images
- Archetype: organizing principle that structures reality, flows from collective
unconscious into conscious into actions; e.g. Heroic archetype, Inner child, Wild man,
etc.
- Personal unconsciousness: makes itself know through complexes (emotionally
charged associations or ideas)
- Complexes can be dealt with by personal confrontation and lead to growth, but
many manage complexes in other ways, like:
o Projection: attributing something to another person that belongs to your own
personality
o Repression: cutting yourself of from everything related to the complex
o Some may be overpowered by their complexed and lose touch with reality
Other systems
Freud vs Jung
- Freud: explored the unconscious through free association, focused on dreams and
the role of early childhood in personality Jung constructed these points into a
more elaborate map
- Jung: focus more on the unconscious VS Freud: focus more on dreams
- Jung: dreams are more meaningful VS Freud: dreams are wish fulfilments
, - Jung: there are many complexed, sexuality and aggression are just two of the routes
VS Freud: Oedipus complex is the main complex
- Jung: the quest for meaning was as strong as the sex drive
Freud vs Adler & Jung
- A&J: dreams reveal underlying patterns of how an individual relates to the world
- A&J: stressed the importance of first memories
- A&J: psychotherapy should look to the future as well
- Freud: patient on a couch VS A&J: face to face
Jung has influenced several life-span psychologists, as well as Gestalt therapy. Jung’s positive
and negative shadow (unwanted or unrecognized parts of one’s personality) influence Harry
Sullivans good me and bad me, and Jung’s four functions: thinking, feeling, sensation and
intuition parallel Lowen’s hierarchy of personality functions. Many other theories and
therapies have been influence by Jung.
History
Precursors
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) grew up in Switzerland. Jung was drawn to Romanticism, which
had a more negative view than positivism did and valued the irrational, mysterious, and
unconscious. Romantic philosophy looked into sexuality, the inner worlds of the mentally ill,
and exploring the parapsychological and occult. Jung was influenced by Goethe, Nietzsche,
Kant and Schiller, as well as Carus and Schopenhauer (mostly on the irrational, imagination,
and the unconscious).
Jung theory on transference and countertransference can be traced back to Mesmer’s theory
of animal magnetism and the use of hypnosis by Pierre Janet – both found the doctor-patient
harmony majorly important in cures.
Beginnings
Jung: “Our way of looking at things is conditioned by what we are”. All psychological theories
are subjective and reflective of their founders. Jung was very interested in women, partly
because of his mother who he described as having two sides: ‘intuitive and
parapsychological’ and ‘warm and earthy’. After his studies he started working at a
psychiatric hospital and was intrigued by the inner worlds of mentally disturbed patients. His
World Association Test Studies (1904-1907) made him well-known and got him in contact
with Freud. They worked together, but later broke because of conflicting ideas and
personalities, especially when Jung wrote the Psychology of the Unconscious (1911) and
created his own theories on psychoanalysis.
Current status
Interest in Jungian psychology increases as positive psychology is often too limited and the
world gets more complex. Training of new psycho analysts increases and differs per country,
but is based on clinical theory and practice, dream analysis and archetypal psychology, and
takes on average 6-8 years. Jung was the first to insist that analysts get personally analysed
themselves.
There is more interest in a hybrid of Jungian psychology and post-Freudian object relations.
Object relations is the term for the way people relate to other people. Others focus on
,revising more time/culture bound aspects of Jungian psychology. The most prominent is the
anima-animus concept. The anima is the feminine archetypal image presented through the
feminine part of a man. Animus is the masculine archetype presented through the masculine
part of a woman.
Personality
Theory of Personality
Jung’s theory of personality is based on the dynamic unity of all parts of a person. The
psyche is made up of the conscious and unconscious and all connected to the collective
unconsciousness.
According to Jung our conscious understanding of who we are comes from two things: 1)
encounters with social reality (e.g. things people tell us about ourselves), 2) what we deduce
from our observations of others (others agree with our self-assessment feeling normal,
disagree feeling abnormal). The personal unconscious cannot be understood directly, but
only indirectly accessed through analysis and dreams, and is influenced by the collective
unconsciousness.
There are two aspects of the human psyche:
- Accessible: the conscious; compromises one’s senses; intellect, emotions, desires
- Non-accessible: the personal unconscious
The Self: archetypal energy to orders and integrates the personality, a wholeness out of
which personality evolves; the goal of personal evolvement. Infants start with a Self, that
fragments into subsystems:
- Ego (the I): centre of consciousness, an entity compromising everything a person
believes himself to be, mediating between the outside world and the unconscious
realm.
- Personal shadow: balances the ego in the personal unconscious, contains everything
that the ego could or should have, but refuses to develop. Personal shadow elements
can be positive and negative, and often appear in dreams or in the conscious through
projection.
o Jung: facing evil is becoming conscious of what is in your shadow
- Persona: public face in society, shields the ego and reveals appropriate aspects of it,
adequate persona allows for privacy of thoughts, feelings, etc.
Jung thought the first part of life was to develop the ego and take one’s place in the world,
and the second part to reclaim undeveloped parts of oneself and fulfilling personality more
completely individuation (not becoming perfect, but wholeness, also accepting the
negative parts)
Typology: habitual ways in which people respond to the world
- Introversion: natural and basic, energy flows predominantly inward, solitude to
develop richer inner worlds, few strong relations
- Extroversion: connects with reality through external objects, high social libido
Personality is divided by Jung into functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition can be
experienced both introvert and extroverted. People are born with one of these being
predominant and primary, later developing a weaker second and possible third, but everyone
has access to all functions, as well as introversion/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
Psychotherapy
Theory of psychotherapy
According to Jung personality has the capacity to heal itself and become enlarged through
experiences. Jung’s system of psychotherapy is built on 4 tenants: 1) the psyche is a self-
regulating system, 2) the unconscious has a creative and compensatory component, 3)
doctor-patient relationship has a major role in facilitating self-awareness and healing, and 4)
personality growth takes place at many stages over the life span.
Jung found that neurosis appears when a person shrinks back from an important worldly or
developmental task. Neurosis: a symptom of disturbance in the personality equilibrium.
Psychotherapist searches for the underlying complex instead of focusing on the symptom.
Symptoms, dreams and fantasies can reveal hidden complexes.
Jung differentiated normal from pathological conflicts by the degree of consciousness about
the conflict and the amount of power the underlying complex has. The dialogue and relation
Week 1
Analytical psychotherapy – Claire Douglas
Overview
Analytical psychology, psychodynamic systems and personality theory by Carl Jung builds on
the ideas of Adler and Freud. Analytical psychotherapy offers a map of the psyche and looks
into the conscious and the unconscious. Goals are reintegration, self-knowledge,
individuation, individual responsibility and replacing the wounded self.
Basic concepts
Jung: psyche is a combination of spirit, soul and idea; a sum of the conscious and
unconscious.
According to Jung the psyche influences biochemical processes that impact how people
perceive the world – what they perceive is influence by who they are. Jung maps the psyche
into the personal and collective consciousness and personal and collective unconsciousness.
- Personal unconsciousness: Freud repressed material by ego and superego, Jung
adds to this material unimportant to the psyche and dropped from or not yet
ready for the consciousness
- Collective unconsciousness: same basic motifs in dreams, myths, symbols and
fantasies shared by all humans, modified by their own experiences archetypal
images
- Archetype: organizing principle that structures reality, flows from collective
unconscious into conscious into actions; e.g. Heroic archetype, Inner child, Wild man,
etc.
- Personal unconsciousness: makes itself know through complexes (emotionally
charged associations or ideas)
- Complexes can be dealt with by personal confrontation and lead to growth, but
many manage complexes in other ways, like:
o Projection: attributing something to another person that belongs to your own
personality
o Repression: cutting yourself of from everything related to the complex
o Some may be overpowered by their complexed and lose touch with reality
Other systems
Freud vs Jung
- Freud: explored the unconscious through free association, focused on dreams and
the role of early childhood in personality Jung constructed these points into a
more elaborate map
- Jung: focus more on the unconscious VS Freud: focus more on dreams
- Jung: dreams are more meaningful VS Freud: dreams are wish fulfilments
, - Jung: there are many complexed, sexuality and aggression are just two of the routes
VS Freud: Oedipus complex is the main complex
- Jung: the quest for meaning was as strong as the sex drive
Freud vs Adler & Jung
- A&J: dreams reveal underlying patterns of how an individual relates to the world
- A&J: stressed the importance of first memories
- A&J: psychotherapy should look to the future as well
- Freud: patient on a couch VS A&J: face to face
Jung has influenced several life-span psychologists, as well as Gestalt therapy. Jung’s positive
and negative shadow (unwanted or unrecognized parts of one’s personality) influence Harry
Sullivans good me and bad me, and Jung’s four functions: thinking, feeling, sensation and
intuition parallel Lowen’s hierarchy of personality functions. Many other theories and
therapies have been influence by Jung.
History
Precursors
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) grew up in Switzerland. Jung was drawn to Romanticism, which
had a more negative view than positivism did and valued the irrational, mysterious, and
unconscious. Romantic philosophy looked into sexuality, the inner worlds of the mentally ill,
and exploring the parapsychological and occult. Jung was influenced by Goethe, Nietzsche,
Kant and Schiller, as well as Carus and Schopenhauer (mostly on the irrational, imagination,
and the unconscious).
Jung theory on transference and countertransference can be traced back to Mesmer’s theory
of animal magnetism and the use of hypnosis by Pierre Janet – both found the doctor-patient
harmony majorly important in cures.
Beginnings
Jung: “Our way of looking at things is conditioned by what we are”. All psychological theories
are subjective and reflective of their founders. Jung was very interested in women, partly
because of his mother who he described as having two sides: ‘intuitive and
parapsychological’ and ‘warm and earthy’. After his studies he started working at a
psychiatric hospital and was intrigued by the inner worlds of mentally disturbed patients. His
World Association Test Studies (1904-1907) made him well-known and got him in contact
with Freud. They worked together, but later broke because of conflicting ideas and
personalities, especially when Jung wrote the Psychology of the Unconscious (1911) and
created his own theories on psychoanalysis.
Current status
Interest in Jungian psychology increases as positive psychology is often too limited and the
world gets more complex. Training of new psycho analysts increases and differs per country,
but is based on clinical theory and practice, dream analysis and archetypal psychology, and
takes on average 6-8 years. Jung was the first to insist that analysts get personally analysed
themselves.
There is more interest in a hybrid of Jungian psychology and post-Freudian object relations.
Object relations is the term for the way people relate to other people. Others focus on
,revising more time/culture bound aspects of Jungian psychology. The most prominent is the
anima-animus concept. The anima is the feminine archetypal image presented through the
feminine part of a man. Animus is the masculine archetype presented through the masculine
part of a woman.
Personality
Theory of Personality
Jung’s theory of personality is based on the dynamic unity of all parts of a person. The
psyche is made up of the conscious and unconscious and all connected to the collective
unconsciousness.
According to Jung our conscious understanding of who we are comes from two things: 1)
encounters with social reality (e.g. things people tell us about ourselves), 2) what we deduce
from our observations of others (others agree with our self-assessment feeling normal,
disagree feeling abnormal). The personal unconscious cannot be understood directly, but
only indirectly accessed through analysis and dreams, and is influenced by the collective
unconsciousness.
There are two aspects of the human psyche:
- Accessible: the conscious; compromises one’s senses; intellect, emotions, desires
- Non-accessible: the personal unconscious
The Self: archetypal energy to orders and integrates the personality, a wholeness out of
which personality evolves; the goal of personal evolvement. Infants start with a Self, that
fragments into subsystems:
- Ego (the I): centre of consciousness, an entity compromising everything a person
believes himself to be, mediating between the outside world and the unconscious
realm.
- Personal shadow: balances the ego in the personal unconscious, contains everything
that the ego could or should have, but refuses to develop. Personal shadow elements
can be positive and negative, and often appear in dreams or in the conscious through
projection.
o Jung: facing evil is becoming conscious of what is in your shadow
- Persona: public face in society, shields the ego and reveals appropriate aspects of it,
adequate persona allows for privacy of thoughts, feelings, etc.
Jung thought the first part of life was to develop the ego and take one’s place in the world,
and the second part to reclaim undeveloped parts of oneself and fulfilling personality more
completely individuation (not becoming perfect, but wholeness, also accepting the
negative parts)
Typology: habitual ways in which people respond to the world
- Introversion: natural and basic, energy flows predominantly inward, solitude to
develop richer inner worlds, few strong relations
- Extroversion: connects with reality through external objects, high social libido
Personality is divided by Jung into functions: thinking, feeling, sensation, intuition can be
experienced both introvert and extroverted. People are born with one of these being
predominant and primary, later developing a weaker second and possible third, but everyone
has access to all functions, as well as introversion/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
Psychotherapy
Theory of psychotherapy
According to Jung personality has the capacity to heal itself and become enlarged through
experiences. Jung’s system of psychotherapy is built on 4 tenants: 1) the psyche is a self-
regulating system, 2) the unconscious has a creative and compensatory component, 3)
doctor-patient relationship has a major role in facilitating self-awareness and healing, and 4)
personality growth takes place at many stages over the life span.
Jung found that neurosis appears when a person shrinks back from an important worldly or
developmental task. Neurosis: a symptom of disturbance in the personality equilibrium.
Psychotherapist searches for the underlying complex instead of focusing on the symptom.
Symptoms, dreams and fantasies can reveal hidden complexes.
Jung differentiated normal from pathological conflicts by the degree of consciousness about
the conflict and the amount of power the underlying complex has. The dialogue and relation
