Jungian Therapy: Dialectical Method

• Carl Gustav Jung was born on July 26, 1875, in a small Swiss village.
• Jung's environment was considered unusual but not uncommon in rural Switzerland.
• Jung's concept includes psychological types, attitudes, mental functions, psyche, consciousness, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious and archetypes.

Therapeutic Techniques

• In-depth psychotherapy is a process that can help people become whole.
• Common techniques: dialectical method, active imagination, dream analysis, creative techniques, amplification, transference, countertransference, and interpretation.

Dialectical Method

• Jung believed that it was critical to create a meaningful dialogue between the client and the therapist.
• This differs from psychoanalytic approach where the analyst is empathic but removed from the client.
• This fosters mutual commitment and care between healer and the healed, as the client explores unknown parts of self in an attempt to heal the soul.
• Therapists should attend to their own psyche, especially issues of countertransference because both the therapist's and client's unconscious selves interplay.

Active Imagination

• Active imagination is a method that analytical therapists use to access repressed material.
• It is a process of allowing one's unconscious mind to drift while the conscious mind acts as a nonjudgmental observer.
• Active imagination starts with a significant dream, thought, or fantasy that seems to have a message.

Dream Analysis

• For Jung, dreams reflected unconscious parts of self to the ego.
• Dreams bring the unconscious to consciousness, with the conscious mind remembering and relating the dream.
• A therapist lets an individual's dream rise from the unconscious, rather than directing toward a therapist-centered interpretation.
• Freud believed dreams held latent meaning that needed to be examined relative to psychosexual stages and the resulting id and superego conflicts.
• Dreams have personal and symbolic meanings that can be understood by encouraging a person to freely associate to the dream and amplify its aspects.
• Clients are encouraged to remember their dreams by actively making an effort or keeping a dream journal.
• Jung generally discouraged interpreting dreams, believing that individual meanings could vary for each person, who would reveal the dream's unique meaning.
• Recapturing parts of self through dream analysis is the goal of analytical therapy, seen as holistic, not reductionistic.

Use of Creative Techniques

• The unconscious shapes life more than the conscious will when the creative force predominates.
• Finding creative outlets for projections could help a client realize their inner unconscious voice.
• Using poetry, prose, clay, drawing, and painting, when done in a manner that is spontaneous, becomes an outlet for unconsciousness.
• A creative piece can be a projection of the client's personal and collective unconscious, integrated into consciousness.
• Allowing the unconscious to emerge spontaneously is key in using creative techniques.
• Clients are encouraged to let themselves go and allow their creative selves to emerge.
• Understanding the metaphoric and symbolic meaning of creative expressions by releasing the inner self, examining what is there, is key to this technique.

Amplification

• It is important for clients to amplify symbols found in their lives to go beyond the personal meanings.
• For example, parts of a dream could hold multiple meanings for a person, and the therapist should try to encourage all of them.
• The therapist attempts to uncover the meaning and symbols relative to material in personal and collective unconscious.
• To facilitate amplification, Jung recommended suggestion, good advice, understanding, sympathy, encouragement, and other techniques to help the client examine dreams or other symbols.

Transference and Countertransference

• Material from the unconscious projects onto others and deeply affects all relationships.
• Transference is a normal part of all relationships; as one ages, they will understand and become more aware of their transference.
• For example, a female client who views her female therapist as strong, assertive, competitive, and in charge may start to explore and evaluate her archetypes.
• The therapist can suggest that these qualities the client identifies with the therapist are actually qualities she has in herself.
• In countertransference, the therapist's unconscious becomes projected onto the client.
• It is impossible to avoid countertransference so analysts should undergo thorough analysis themselves.

Interpretation

• Jungians do not rely heavily on interpretation because it is important for clients to uncover their unconscious content.
• Therapists may suggest things such as how complexes are formed, point out how opposites hide in the unconscious, and explain what psychological type the client seems to fit.
• Other suggestions could include how the inferior type is hidden in the unconscious, how common archetypes might affect behavior, how client interpretations involve transference, and note dreams/symbols in the client's life.
• Some analytical therapists are more directive and offer more specific interpretations while others prefer the client self-direct the therapeutic process.

Therapeutic Process

• Jungian analysis is usually long-term and seeks to expand consciousness by exploring the unconscious being open to parts of self that are "less rational, more ambiguous, and often mysterious."
• A client sits face-to-face with the therapist one to two times a week, with the therapist encouraging dialogue.
• Clients are gently directed toward examining the unconscious.
• Clients who first seek therapy are only aware of a small part of their total psyche; eventually the therapist helps them identify their psychological type.
• Awareness brings with it an intuitive sense that "if this is what I am in the conscious world, I wonder what else is lurking in my unconscious world."
• The client's ego-consciousness is limited, but will expand as the ego taps into the personal unconscious.
• Clients become more self-reflective and adapt new behaviors based on newfound awareness.
• This occurs as the client continues in therapy.
• Complexes can be deconstructed, understood, and redefined productively for the client.
• The gateway to the collective unconscious can be opened after examining the personal unconscious; then understanding of archetypes generally occurs through awareness of projections in dreams and symbols.
• The depth of work and willingness of the therapist to "push" the client depend on the client's stage of life.
• People in their 40s deal more with external issues, such as "How do I define myself in terms of work?" or "What is my role as mother, father, partner to my lover?"

Efficacy of Analytical Psychology

• Jungian analysis is not easily researchable.
• Research suggests analytical therapy and related psychodynamic approaches are effective.
• Jungian therapy is effective because of a well-defined paradigm, a solid working alliance between therapist and client, a well-trained therapist, heightened client expectations, and proper implementation of techniques.