A Brief
Introduction to C. G. Jung and Analytical Psychology
by Marilyn Geist
C. G.
Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was the best known member
of the group that formed the core of the early psychoanalytic
movement--followers and students of Sigmund Freud. After completing
his medical studies, Jung obtained a position at the Burghoelzli
Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, There he worked with patients
suffering from schizophrenia, while also conducting word association
research. In 1904 Jung corresponded with Freud about this
latter work and also began to use Freud's psychoanalytic treatment
with his patients. In 1906 Freud invited Jung to Vienna, and
they began a professional relationship. Freud soon began to
favor Jung as his successor in the new and growing psychoanalytic
movement. Through Freud's efforts, Jung was appointed Permanent
President of the Association of Psycho-Analysis at its Second
Congress in 1910. Jung and Freud held in common an understanding
of the profound role of the unconscious. Their understanding
of the nature of the unconscious, however, began to diverge.
This led to a painful break between the two men in 1913 after
Jung's publication of a major article on the psychology of
the unconscious which emphasized the role of symbolism (Jung,
1912). Freud felt personally betrayed by Jung's departure
from his theoretical views. Jung likewise felt betrayed, believing
that Freud, because of his inflexibility, had failed to support
this extension of their mutual work.
In the years from 1913 to 1917, when Jung was largely ostracized
by the psychoanalytic community, he embarked upon a deep,
extensive, (and potentially dangerous) process of self-analysis
that he called a "confrontation with the unconscious" (Jung,
1961, chap. 6, pp. 170-99). Jung emerged from this personal
journey with the structures in place for his theories on archetypes,
complexes, the collective unconscious, and the individuation
process. These theories, along with his understanding of the
symbolism found in dreams and in other creative processes,
formed the basis of his clinical approach, which he called
analytical psychology. Throughout his long life, Jung continued
to develop and broaden his theoretical framework, drawing
both on his clinical practice and his study of such wide-ranging
subjects as alchemy, Eastern religions, astrology, mythology,
and fairy tales.
Jungian Theory
Jungian theory is very much experience driven.
It is an approach which keeps one foot in the world of outer
events and the other on the inner realm of fantasies, dreams,
and symbols. Jung himself largely moved from human observation
to theory. He constructed his concepts on the evidence derived
from his clinical observations and personal experience, including
an extended period of deep and intense self-analysis (see
Jung, 1961). Jung drew upon an enormous variety of mythical
and anthropological material to amplify and illuminate (rather
than to prove) his theory. Samuels notes that awareness of
this sequence is of great help in understanding Jung's often
extremely dense writings:
[Jung] begins from the human interaction in analysis or from
observation of life, develops a theory which is then illustrated
by comparative material or further observation. Only then
could the mass of imagery and data from many sources be organised.
The organisation itself then helps to understand one aspect
or other of human behavior. Thus the process is circular:
human material - theory - illustration - application to human
behavior (1985, p. 5). Although some of Jung's structural
terms were drawn from the Freudian psychoanalytic lexicon
of the day, they are not necessarily used in the same way.
(This is, of course, also true for the various neo-Freudian
usages of this terminology.)
In the Freudian conceptualization, ego refers to a psychic
structure which mediates between society (superego) and instinctual
drives (id). Jung's usage is in contrast to this. For Jung
the ego can be understood in a much more dynamic, relative,
(and fragile) way as
a complex, a feeling-toned group of representations of oneself
that has both conscious and unconscious aspects and is at
the same time personal and collective. Simply put, too simply
perhaps, the ego is how one sees oneself, along with the conscious
and unconscious feelings that accompany that view (Hopcke,
1989, p. 77). The ego, as one complex (see below) among many,
is not seen by Jungians as the goal of psychological development.
As the carrier of the individual's consciousness, it is the
task of the ego to become aware of its own limitations, to
see its existence as only a small island -- though an essential
one -- in the much greater ocean of the personal and collective
unconscious.
A major part of the ego's task -- and a major goal of psychotherapy
-- is to develop an appropriate relationship with what Jung
termed the Self, the archetype of wholeness. The Self can
be understood as the central organizing principle of the psyche,
that fundamental and essential aspect of human personality
which gives cohesion, meaning, direction, and purpose to the
whole psyche.
Resting (for the most part) close to the surface of the unconscious
are those personal attributes and elements of experience which
have been excluded from the ego, usually because of parental
and societal disapproval . These elements are known as the
shadow, and they tend to be projected on less favored individuals
and groups. While in general these qualities are negative
ones, the shadow may also contain positive aspects which the
individual has been unable to own. Typical of the latter are
qualities disparaged by the individual's family and/or peers
with labels such as "unmanly," "unfeminine," "weak," or "childish."
Finally, the persona -- the Greek word for an actor's mask
-- is the face shown to others. It reveals certain selected
aspects of the individual and hides others. Hopcke writes:
"Jung saw the persona as a vital sector of the personality
which provides the individual with a container, a protective
covering for his or her inner self" (1989, p. 87). A well-developed
individual may have several personae appropriate to business
and social situations. The problem comes not in having a persona
but in identifying with it to the neglect of the person's
inner life.
The concept of the archetypes is perhaps the most distinctive
of the Jungian concepts (Jung, 1934b, 1936). It is a concept
which Jungians understand as a given in human experience but
which often baffles those from other psychoanalytic schools.
Jung began to observe, in his work with patients' dreams,
the appearance of symbols which seemed to have little or no
personal meaning for the dreamer and yet which often had great
emotional charge. He observed that many of these symbols had
appeared again and again throughout history in mythology,
religion, fairy tales, alchemical texts, and other forms of
creative expression. Jung became convinced that the source
of this symbolic material was what he identified as the collective
unconscious, a pool of experience accessible to all humans
through history which lies below the personal unconscious.
The archetypes were, for Jung, "typical modes of expression"
arising from layer. The archetypes are neither images nor
ideas but, rather, fundamental psychic patterns common to
all humans into which personal experiences are organized.
As a result of Jung's early word association research, he
came to recognize the existence of clusters of ideas, thoughts,
memories, and perceptions, organized around a central affective
and archetypal core. He termed these clusters "feeling-toned
complexes" (Jung, 1907, par. 82). Feeling-toned complexes
are the basic structural units of the psyche.
Jung saw complexes as "the living units of the psyche" (1934a,
p. 191), as distinctive part personalities
each carrying a splinter consciousness of its own, a degree
of intentionality, and the capability of pursuing a goal.
They are like real personalities in that they contain images,
feelings, and qualities, and if they engulf the ego, they
determine behavior as well (Sandner and Beebe, 1995, p. 302).
In ordinary human experience, the experience of being taken
over by a complex is what we point to with language such as
"I was beside myself" or "I don't know what got into me."
Jung wrote vividly of the autonomous quality of the complexes:
Reality sees to it that the peaceful cycle of egocentric ideas
is constantly interrupted by ideas with a strong feeling-tone,
that is, by affects. A situation threatening danger pushes
aside the tranquil play of ideas and puts in their place a
complex of other ideas with a very strong feeling-tone. The
new complex then crowds everything else into the background.
For the time being it is the most distinct because it totally
inhibits all other ideas; it permits only those egocentric
ideas to exist which fit its situation, and under certain
conditions it can suppress to the point of complete (momentary)
unconsciousness all ideas that run counter to it, however
strong they may be. It now possesses the strongest attention-tone
(Jung, 1919, p. 41).
Jungian
Analysis/Psychotherapy
Jungian psychotherapy, as it is currently practiced,
covers a wide range of perspectives, ranging from a primary
stress on the analysis of the archetypal material of dreams
and fantasies to a major focus on the unraveling of early
developmental issues, and including a strongly clinical emphasis
which combines these two elements. A number of authors have
attempted to classify Jungians by school (especially see Samuels,
1985), an attempt which seems only partially successful in
capturing the great diversity found among Jungians, precisely
because the theory is experience driven. Joseph Henderson
notes that
. . . we individual practitioners have had to reformulate
our therapeutic experiences when they differ from those of
the master. This is to be expected since individuation . .
. implies that no psychotherapist can be called Jungian without
first becoming as differentiated an individual as he or she
can be in response to his or her own personal analysis (1995,
p. 10). Although there are differing emphases and styles in
Jungian psychotherapy, there are fundamental goals which almost
all Jungians hold in common. Murray Stein summarizes these
as follows:
Jungian analysis, which takes place in a dialectical relationship
between analyst and analysand, has for its goal the analysand's
movement toward psychological wholeness. This transformation
of the personality requires coming to terms with the unconscious,
its specific structures and their dynamic relations to consciousness
as these become available during the course of analysis. Transformation
also depends upon the significant modification of the unconscious
structures that shape and control ego-consciousness at the
beginning of analysis, a change that takes place through the
constellation of archetypal structures and dynamics in the
interactive field between analyst and analysand (1995, p.
33). A primary aim of Jungian psychotherapy/analysis is to
establish an ongoing relationship between consciousness (ego)
and the unconscious, between what is happening in the unconscious
and what is taking place in day-to-day life. Jungian theory
understands the psyche as containing a drive toward balance
and wholeness, differentiating and incorporating the various
elements of the personal unconscious and establishing access
to the collective unconscious. Jung called this the process
of individuation. In psychotherapy, this unconscious material
gradually manifests itself symbolically in dreams, in products
of active imagination, and in the transference/countertransference
relationship between therapist and patient.
Given an adequate relationship, setting, and time, the client's
psyche tends toward healing itself. Whitmont writes:
Eventually the unconscious will begin to provide not only
descriptions of the existing impasse but also positive suggestions
for possibilities of development which could reconcile the
opposing positions, showing us what avenues of development
are available to us, what paths are required of us or closed
to us, according to the inherent plan of the Self (1969, p.
294). Jungians are generally reluctant to overdirect the therapeutic
process, believing that the patient's psyche rather than the
therapist's is the appropriate guide. Karen Signell speaks
of the therapeutic process, from a Jungian perspective, as
respect[ing] the . . . guidance of one's center--the source
of one's deepest intuitions, feelings, and values (1990, p.
22).
References
Henderson, J. L. (1995). Reflections on the history and practice
of Jungian analysis. In M. Stein, Ed., Jungian analysis (2nd
ed.). Chicago and La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Hopcke, R. H. (1989). A guided tour of The Collected Works
of C. G. Jung. Boston and London: Shambhala.
Jung, C. G. (1953-79). The collected works (Bollingen Series
XX), R. F. C. Hull, trans.; H. Read, M. Fordham, and G. Adler,
eds. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 20 vols.
Jung, C. G. (1907). The psychology of dementia praecox. In
The psychogenesis of mental disease, Collected works 3.
Jung, C. G. (1912). Transformations and symbols of libido,
Collected works supplementary vol. B.
Jung, C. G. (1917). On the psychology of the unconscious.
In Two essays on analytical psychology, Collected works 7.
Jung, C. G. (1919). On the problem of psychogenesis in mental
disease. In The psychogenesis of mental disease, Collected
works 3.
Jung, C. G. (1934a), A review of the complex theory, In The
structure and dynamics of the psyche, Collected works 8.
Jung, C. G. (1934b). Archetypes of the collective unconscious.
In The archetypes and the collective unconscious, Collected
works 9, I.
Jung, C. G. (1936). The concept of the collective unconscious.
In The archetypes and the collective unconscious, Collected
works 9, I.
Jung, C. G. (1944). Psychology and alchemy, Collected works
12.
Jung., C. G. (1954). The psychology of the transference. In
The Practice of Psychotherapy, Collected works 16.
Jung, C. G. (1951). The shadow. In Aion, Collected works 9,
II.
Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York:
Pantheon.
Samuels, A. (1985). Jung and the post-Jungians. London and
New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Sandner, D. F. and Beebe, J. (1995). Psychopathology and analysis.
In M. Stein, Ed., Jungian analysis (2nd ed.). Chicago and
La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Signell, K. A. (1990) Wisdom of the heart: Working with women's
dreams. New York: Bantam.
Stein, M. (1995). The aims and goal of Jungian analysis. In
M. Stein, Ed., Jungian analysis (2nd ed.). Chicago and La
Salle, IL: Open Court.
Whitmont, E. (1969). The symbolic quest. New York: Putnam.
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