Jung

by Phil Goss

  Jolanta’s analysis concluded after just under two years. The combination of image and dreamwork, transference–countertransference, and the offer of a warm, genuine relational presence from her analyst had made a real difference. She noticed that, while there were still challenges ahead and patterns of relating still remained influenced by her childhood, she now had a clearer picture of what made her ‘tick’: the complexes that could trip her up. However, she now had a fuller capacity to relate to others meaningfully, something manifesting itself in a new relationship, which she felt quietly confident would outlast previous ones. In Jung’s terms, within the containment of the analysis, she had experimented with her nature and emerged with a sense of her reflective authority. She noticed she could be more genuinely herself with others, and was generally more settled and grounded.

  Key terms

  Archetypal Jungian: An approach that fosters a focus on the significance of archetypes, including working with archetypal images, with a view to fostering ‘soul making’ (Hillman, 2005).

  Classical Jungian: An analytic approach based fully on Jung’s original model, including a focus on working with the self.

  Conditions of worth: Person-centred term for internalized values and rules from parents and other significant adult figures, which distort our self-image and responses to others.

  Core conditions: Person-centred conditions that facilitate therapeutic change and growth: empathy (‘warmth’), congruence (‘authenticity’) and unconditional positive regard (‘respect’).

  Developmental Jungian: The approach initiated by the child analytic work of Michael Fordham, which placed an emphasis on object relations and the working through of early unconscious influences (and de-/re-integrative process), within a broadly Jungian framework.

  Post-Jungian: Developments in theory and practice after Jung.

  Relational psychoanalysis: An approach originating in the US (Mitchell, 1988). Blends object-relations, a relational/Humanistic therapeutic stance and the application of feminist and social-constructivist principles.

  Dig deeper

  Adler G., Living Symbol, A Case Study in the Process of Individuation (New York: Pantheon, 1961)

  Astor, J., Michael Fordham: Innovations in Analytical Psychology (London: Routledge, 1995)

  Clarkson, P., The Therapeutic Relationship (London: Whurr, 2003)

  Cooper, M., Essential Research Findings in Counselling and Psychotherapy (London: Sage, 2008)

  Corbin, H., ‘Mundus Imaginalis, or the imaginary and the imaginal’ in Spring (New York: Spring Publications, 1972)

  Dobson, D. and Dobson, K., Evidence-Based Practice of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (New York: Guilford Press, 2009)

  Dunn, M., ‘Cognitive Analytic Therapy’ in Dryden, W. (ed.), Individual Therapy (London: Harper & Row, 2002)

  Erikson, E., Childhood and Society (New York: Norton, 1950)

  Gammer, C., The Child’s Voice in Family Therapy: A Systemic Perspective (New York: Norton, 2009)

  Gubi, P., Counselling and Spiritual Accompaniment: Working with Psyche and Soul, Ch. 6 (London: Jessica Kingsley, 2015)

  Harris, A., Gender as Soft Assembly (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2005)

  Hillman, J., ‘Alchemical Blue and the Unio Mentalis’ in Spring (San Francisco: Spring Publications, 1980)

  Hillman, J., and Ventura, M., We’ve had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993)

  Hillman, J., Senex & Puer (ed. and intro. by Glen Slater) (Putnam, Conn: Spring, 2005)

  Jennings, S. and Minde, N., Art Therapy and Drama Therapy (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1994)

  Kohut, H., Analysis of the Self: Systematic Approach to Treatment of Narcissistic Personality Disorders (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009)

  Maslow, A., Toward a Psychology of Being, 3rd ed. (Floyd, VA: Sublime Books, 2014)

  Mearns, D. and Cooper, M., Working at Relational Depth in Counselling and Psychotherapy (London: Sage, 2005)

  Merry, T., Learning and Being in Person-Centred Counselling (Ross-on-Wye: PCCS, 2002)

  Mitchell, S., Relational Concepts in Psychoanalysis: An Integration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988)

  Norcross, J. C. and Goldfried, M. R., Handbook of Psychotherapy Integration (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003)

  Purton, C., ‘The Person-centered Jungian’, Person-centered Review, 4(4), 403–19 (1989)

  Roesler, C., ‘Evidence for the Effectiveness of Jungian Psychotherapy: A Review of Empirical Studies’, Behavioural Science, 3, 562–75 (2013)

  Rogers, C., On Becoming a Person (London: Constable and Robinson, 1967)

  Rogers, N., The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing (Ross-on-Wye: PCCS, 2000)

  Rogers-Mitchell, R. and Friedman, H., Sandplay: Past, Present and Future (London: Routledge, 1994)

  Ryle, A., Introducing Cognitive Analytic Psychology (Chichester: John Wiley, 1975)

  Samuels, A., Jung and the Post-Jungians (London: Routledge, 1985)

  Sedgwick, D., An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship (London: Routledge, 2003)

  Thorne, B., ‘The Two Carls – Reflections on Jung and Rogers’, in Counselling and Spiritual Accompaniment: Bridging Faith and Person-Centred Therapy, Ch. 8 (Chichester: Wiley, 2012)

  Winnicott, D. W. (1960), ‘Ego distortion in terms of true and false self’, in Winnicott, D. W., The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, Ch. 12 (London: Karnac, 1965)

  Fact-check (answers at the back)

  1 What, according to Samuels, are the three post-Jungian schools?

  a The classical, the archetypal and the transcendent

  b The developmental, fundamental and postmodern

  c The classical, the developmental and the archetypal

  d The noumenal, the personal and the phenomenological

  2 Why did Jung declare that he was ‘not a Jungian’?

  a He did not want his psychology to become characterized as overly spiritual

  b He wanted to avoid being associated with uniform prescriptions about ‘being Jungian’

  c He said this when he was very old and had got confused

  d He wanted to be called ‘originator of analytical psychology’ only

  3 What does a classical Jungian approach see as the centre of analysis?

  a Archetypal interpretations

  b The Red Book

  c The place of the ego and shadow

  d The place of the self

  4 What are the key features of archetypal psychology?

  a Working with archetypal images to foster the process of ‘soul making’

  b Being able to name as many archetypes as possible

  c Dream work that gets us down to an archetypal level and ignores the personal

  d Drawing archetypal images and taking these to therapy

  5 Why is a developmental Jungian approach the clearest ‘post-Jungian’ move?

  a Because it emphasizes development across the lifespan

  b Because it allows the therapist to choose any post-Jungian approach they wish

  c Because it focuses on object relations within a broader Jungian framework

  d Because Michael Fordham declared he was ‘not a Jungian’

  6 What does research into the effectiveness of Jungian analysis suggest?

  a It is very difficult to research reliably

  b It appears to be effective in addressing significant mental health needs

  c It appears to vary significantly in its effectiveness

  d It is very effective with every person it is offered to

  7 What is a limitation in the research deployed in the Swiss ‘PAL’ study?

  a It does not take into account the ages and gender of the participants

  b It deploys statistical analyses that are not reliable or valid

  c It is naturalistic and does not deploy random controlled trials

  d It was biased
in its sample selection and identification of findings

  8 How did Jung’s thinking influence expressive arts therapies?

  a His emphasis on symbolic expression – from dreamwork to drawing and play

  b His interest in the arts

  c His discussion of the archetypal influence of art in therapy

  d His imaginative approach to art in The Red Book

  9 How may a post-Jungian developmental approach represent ‘integration’?

  a By the way it develops Jung’s thinking in new ways

  b Through its thorough incorporation of object relations thinking into analysis

  c By the way it addresses analysand needs by drawing on an eclectic range of tools

  d Through its incorporation of ideas from developmental psychology

  10 How might Jungian and Humanistic principles be integrated in therapy?

  a By using typology to help understand the analysand’s humanistic individuality

  b By working with imagery and using it to improve the therapeutic relationship

  c By combining Jung’s approach to the unconscious with Rogers’ core conditions

  d By blending self-actualization with individuation and calling it: ‘self-individuation’

  20

  Post-Jungian thinking

  This concluding chapter provides a review of contemporary ideas and approaches in the Jungian field. This includes the important critique by Giegerich of some of Jung’s key ideas, as well as innovations in post-Jungian theory and practice. The chapter also offers an activity that invites you to consider your view of the Jungian model of psyche and psychotherapy, and reflect on your learning, based on what you have read.

  Jung’s legacy for today’s world

  This closing chapter explores developments in post-Jungian thinking and ponders the question of whether Jungian ideas will deepen their influence, or fade into the background. We will consider three key themes in Jung’s model to help us with this, and to consolidate your understanding:

  1 Meaning, individuation and spirituality

  2 Archetypal figures of psyche

  3 The therapeutic relationship

  Meaning, individuation and spirituality

  Extensive reference has been made in this book to Jung’s concept of individuation as pivotal to the purposive nature of our journey through life, and the roles of the self and ego in facilitating us becoming more fully who we are. This, as well as Jung’s emphasis on the centrality of meaning-making to our lives, and the activation of our symbolic function (i.e. the inbuilt capacity of our psyches to generate symbols and work with the meanings they generate) are usually seen as lynchpins to this approach, which also makes room for spirituality and religion in the individuation process.

  However, although many Jungians, especially those who practise from a classical or archetypal stance, would regard such thinking as fundamental, some thinkers in the field challenge these assumptions in the light of developments in the modern, and postmodern, Westernized psyche. The most influential of these is Wolfgang Giegerich (born 1942), a German analyst who has extensively critiqued Jung’s emphasis on meaning-making and on the significance of the idea of the unconscious, especially the collective unconscious and archetypes.

  WOLFGANG GIEGERICH AND THE ‘END OF MEANING’

  Giegerich (2012) argues that we need to accept the way ‘soul’ as an expression of culture has moved us into a time where it is technology and physics that speak of this ‘soul’ more than the kind of cosmological steps forward that Jung tended to allude to, referred to in Chapter 17. For Giegerich, Westernized civilization has moved into a new era where the search for meaning and belonging (or ‘in-ness’, as he puts it) has been superseded or ‘outgrown’. Humanity is now more fully conscious of itself and no longer needs to, and in fact cannot, defer to a ‘higher power’ or live a symbolic life because it is now aware that the only valid reality is the one we inhabit. We have ‘woken up’ from the reliance on religion and myth and are now adapting to being ‘naked’ to the vulnerability of our finite physical existence. We are therefore now in a state of collective ‘adolescence’, which involves a definitive break with the past.

  Spotlight: Thinking straight about alchemy

  Giegerich’s approach reflects attempts by some Jungians to carefully think through Jungian ideas and apply proper intellectual rigour to them. Another example can be found in Michael Whan’s (2014) critique of the ways in which alchemy might be deployed. He argues that Jungian writers can too easily slip into conflating the personal and the archetypal when working with ideas about the alchemical transference:

  ‘When we identify ourselves as the central figure in the alchemical opus, we ignore what Jung meant by the “objective psyche”.’

  Whan, in Mathers ed., 2014, p. 182

  He warns against interpreting alchemical images and thought in terms of our self-development: ‘analytical psychology errs… (by sometimes) adorning and inflating our all-too-human inner life with the fetish of alchemical meaning.’ (op. cit.)

  Giegerich’s ideas have drawn counter-argument from other Jungian-influenced thinkers such as Drob (2005), who suggests he too easily overlooks a thinker’s subjectivity in trying to apply ‘mind’ to seeing what is happening in ‘soul’. Beebe (2004a) suggests that, when Giegerich writes about the end of ‘in-ness’ and the futility of the search for deeper meaning, he does not have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Giegerich’s skilful efforts to apply thinking that keeps Jungians in line with contemporary consciousness does not mean we have to rule out the value of the framework developed by Jung, and those who have followed on from him.

  The significant claims Giegerich makes for a shift in consciousness, asserting that what ‘was’ no longer ‘is’, could be countered. We may now be learning to oscillate between the older ‘grand narratives’, which still carry meaning, and a newer individualized set of meanings. From a more classical Jungian position, it might be argued that Giegerich overlooks the indeterminable workings of the numinous and synchronicity in generating unexpected but still significant routes to fresh meaning-making. There are also ways of looking at his argument about the loss of meaning in archetypal terms. Jung (1963) refers to the oscillation between archetypal poles of meaning and meaninglessness, which we all struggle with. Perhaps this can be applied collectively as well. We may currently be in an era where fresh, shared meanings are less available, but could the pendulum swing back the other way? Some would also assert ‘the symbolic life’ still has meaning for many.

  Giegerich argues that the ‘Gods’ have gone from the contemporary human psyche but the proliferation of alternative spiritual practices and frameworks (e.g. Wilbur, 2007) suggests that the religious/spiritual impulse still operates somewhere. It will not easily disappear from human consciousness. However, Giegerich’s observation that ‘the sugar cube cannot be got back from out of the coffee in which it has been dissolved…’ (2004, p. 22) suggests that religion as substance has been ‘dissolved’ within the logical life of humanity and presents an important challenge to conventional Jungian thinking. Other post-Jungians have carefully dissected ways in which Jung’s ideas about meaning, purpose and individuation can be applied to life’s realities. Dale Mathers (2003), for example, argues that we can evince meaning and purpose from the extraordinary we find in ordinary life, and from personal reflection, while Christopher Hauke has pointed out Jung’s relevance to postmodernism (2000).

  Spotlight: Jungian influence in universities

  Jungian ideas have struggled to make a significant mark in higher education, despite their wider popularity in Westernized societies. David Tacey, an Australian academic with a long-standing interest in Jung, recounts his own efforts to establish Jungian studies as an academic discipline at La Trobe University, Melbourne. He was teaching in the English department, and his colleague, Robert Farrell, was based in Philosophy. They managed to demonstrate psychological validity for the interdisciplinary studies cou
rses they developed, arguing against protests from the Psychology department they were invading their territory (Tacey, 2007 p. 56):

  ‘I responded to their protest with a brief lecture on the etymology of the word psychology, pointing out its true meaning as the logos of the psyche or soul, and suggesting to the Psychology department that they had left psyche out of the study of human behaviour.’

  Tacey reports that the protest was dropped and eventually psychology students were given the option to study Jungian ideas as part of their science degree.

  This achievement is an unusual one in relation to Jungian studies. Tacey argues that there needs to be a better recognition of the ways in which Jung tends to be taught, describing how this can vary from conforming with the institution, trying to update institutional values or provide Jungian personal development, or trying to remain aloof and ‘pure’. Tacey describes how such approaches can isolate Jungian thinking, for example by trying to overturn conventional academic thinking in favour of, say, alchemical or Neoplatonic perspectives. He also argues how powerful it can be to introduce Jungian insights on human development and archetypal influences into wider curricula, deepening learning and awakening student interest (sometimes via the activation of the numinous in the classroom).