Three or four years into private practice, while primarily utilizing methods from existential psychology, contemplative traditions, and mindfulness, I stumbled onto Jungian Psychology when I attended a book group sponsored by the Boulder Friends of Jung. This chance meeting began a deeper investigation of Jung's principles and ways of working with clients.
As a gifted psychiatrist who belonged to that intellectual and professional circle of early 20th Century Europe that actually invented "talk therapy" (a group centered around Freud), Jung made original, lasting contributions to the emerging field of psychology regarding the nature of the mind, behavior, and psychopathology.
Many of Jung's concepts have found their way into our shared, collective understanding such as introversion/extroversion, the shadow, and the persona. Speaking personally as a psychotherapist, one of the most striking additions to my working model of psychology and psychotherapy was Jung's persistent claim that unconscious dynamics were responsible for much of what we see "at the surface" and are incredibly determinative of human development over the lifespan. He made a case for something I had deeply intuited in my personal life and in the lives of clients I worked with: there is much more going on than meets the eye. And that it is our task to uncover some of what stirs, arises, and lives in this underworld he called "inner life".
So, really, studying Jungian works and ideas has helped solidify for me the power and value of inner life and given me tools for how to work with it. From this perspective it is usually a disconnect from, or general neglect of, our innermost selves that produces the symptoms that drive people to therapy.
Jung, in "The Undiscovered Self", affirms that by this "new process of self-reflection", people may acquire a "gift...only with effort and suffering." That is, it is hard work to discover our deeper selves. Moving past barriers, confusion, defenses, prohibitions, and fears takes persistence, a tolerance for ambiguity, new insights, and perspectives, a willingness to change, a willingness to develop, enrich, transcend, to become rather than remain in a status quo or stay static.
Our inner lives are always dynamic, and always asking more of us than we may be inclined to settle for. The gift is what Jung calls "the individual", which he praises and makes a case of value for in a world in which people's singular meaning, purpose, or role is being overshadowed by "massification", overpopulation, and greater forces in society that can make us feel like cogs in a big wheel.
We are not born individuals, we have to work at becoming them. Individuals can only be forged when inner life is accepted and expressed outwardly. Jung's particular approach to psychotherapy took the individual seriously, did not treat him or her as a diagnosis or a "case", and worked hard at understanding the individual's particular inner dynamics, personality formation, and situation, to be better equipped to assist the individual with their present-day crises, conflicts, or conundrums.
Eventually in the course of a good therapy, I find it necessary to explore the wisdom of deeper psyche and to learn its methods of communication (symbols, dreams, fantasies, free association) to get to the heart, but never to the absolute bottom, of the matter.
As a gifted psychiatrist who belonged to that intellectual and professional circle of early 20th Century Europe that actually invented "talk therapy" (a group centered around Freud), Jung made original, lasting contributions to the emerging field of psychology regarding the nature of the mind, behavior, and psychopathology.
Many of Jung's concepts have found their way into our shared, collective understanding such as introversion/extroversion, the shadow, and the persona. Speaking personally as a psychotherapist, one of the most striking additions to my working model of psychology and psychotherapy was Jung's persistent claim that unconscious dynamics were responsible for much of what we see "at the surface" and are incredibly determinative of human development over the lifespan. He made a case for something I had deeply intuited in my personal life and in the lives of clients I worked with: there is much more going on than meets the eye. And that it is our task to uncover some of what stirs, arises, and lives in this underworld he called "inner life".
So, really, studying Jungian works and ideas has helped solidify for me the power and value of inner life and given me tools for how to work with it. From this perspective it is usually a disconnect from, or general neglect of, our innermost selves that produces the symptoms that drive people to therapy.
Jung, in "The Undiscovered Self", affirms that by this "new process of self-reflection", people may acquire a "gift...only with effort and suffering." That is, it is hard work to discover our deeper selves. Moving past barriers, confusion, defenses, prohibitions, and fears takes persistence, a tolerance for ambiguity, new insights, and perspectives, a willingness to change, a willingness to develop, enrich, transcend, to become rather than remain in a status quo or stay static.
Our inner lives are always dynamic, and always asking more of us than we may be inclined to settle for. The gift is what Jung calls "the individual", which he praises and makes a case of value for in a world in which people's singular meaning, purpose, or role is being overshadowed by "massification", overpopulation, and greater forces in society that can make us feel like cogs in a big wheel.
We are not born individuals, we have to work at becoming them. Individuals can only be forged when inner life is accepted and expressed outwardly. Jung's particular approach to psychotherapy took the individual seriously, did not treat him or her as a diagnosis or a "case", and worked hard at understanding the individual's particular inner dynamics, personality formation, and situation, to be better equipped to assist the individual with their present-day crises, conflicts, or conundrums.
Eventually in the course of a good therapy, I find it necessary to explore the wisdom of deeper psyche and to learn its methods of communication (symbols, dreams, fantasies, free association) to get to the heart, but never to the absolute bottom, of the matter.
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