Jungian Psychoanalysis & Psychotherapy For Individuals

Often what brings a person to ask for help is some kind of painful defeat — a situation that one can’t will away. It may be a symptom, or feeling state, or event that feels unendurable. While it can feel vulnerable to reach out for help, a Jungian approach to treatment sees the defeat of the will as a meaningful opening to the unconscious. Something inside calls for attention. Painful symptoms help us to realize the need for change, for re-orientation. Personal confusion, or crisis, can be a turning point in life, the pregnancy of a new life direction. Imagine there are seeds of your personality beneath the surface. In that sense, psychotherapy is a journey into the soul, into the roots of who you are and hidden potentials.

My soul where are you? Do you hear me? I speak. I call you — are you there?

The Red Book, Jung

It is a goal of Jungian depth psychotherapy and psychoanalysis to build a bridge to the unconscious. Jungian psychoanalysis sometimes involves more frequency, and facilitates transformation. Carl G. Jung launched exciting new ways of thinking about the human experience with concepts such as the collective unconscious, complexes, the shadow, the transcendent function, and individuation. The unconscious holds repressed and forgotten experiences, as well as undiscovered potential. The unconscious is also a source of wisdom and ancestral memory from the dawn of humanity as Jung noted in his research on archetypes and the collective psyche. One of the tasks of Jungian therapy and psychoanalysis is to become more whole, more of who you are. It is a process of approaching the unknown — the mystery of being alive — and opening to the indwelling soul, the unconscious. Being in dialogue with what emerges activates the imagination, and innate creativity.

The unconscious speaks in many ways, for example, through dreams and the imagination, somatic symptoms and bodily expressions, sensations, strong emotions, and life difficulties, and through the feelings, thoughts, images, and experiences that emerge in the present moment within the Temenos (sacred space) of the psychotherapy relationship. The psychotherapy relationship invites more awareness of the meaning and origins of old coping strategies as well as the discovery, incubation, and growth of new ways of engaging in the world. It is a journey into the Self and growing into the integrity of who you are. The capitol “S” signifies both the conscious part of you and the well of unknowns within you — the unconscious — an inner life that is larger than the personality.

Jungian Psychotherapy is a collaborative process. Trust grows, and a therapeutic home develops for curiosity, and meaningful reflection. The process involves gaining self-awareness, and moving into novel territory, and is an empowering experience of unveiling, recovering and enlarging the personality — a process Jung called individuation.

We should grow like a tree that likewise does not know its law. We tie ourselves up with intentions, not mindful of the fact that intention is the limitation.

The Red Book, Jung