Jungian
What is Jungian Psychotherapy?
The goal of Jungian psychotherapy, or depth psychology, is for you to become the person you are meant to be. Dr. Carl G. Jung, like many of the great thinkers and religious leaders of all time, believed that each of us is unique and we each have our own unique destiny—just as an acorn cannot become a dog but has its own template for growth in order to become the giant oak tree it is meant to be—you also have your own unique destiny. How do we know what that is? Dr. Jung believed the only way to know and realize our unique potentials was to begin to integrate the unconscious aspects of our psyche that we have disowned or repressed. This often includes working with our dreams or reveries to uncover their treasure of meanings.
Jungian therapy/analysis is useful for all aspects of life’s problems that come our way—depression, anxiety, trauma, abuse, grief, aging, relationship problems, career decisions, changing life situations as well as self-examination for reflection and personal growth. Jungian analysis is essentially a dialogue between two people, the analyst and the analysand. The direction of therapy is always for the analysand to get in touch with his/her own inner sources of growth and healing potentials.
It is never too late to grow. Living a more meaningful and authentic life is possible.
Dr. Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung (/jʊŋ/; German: [ˈkarl ˈɡʊstaf jʊŋ]; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961), often referred to as C. G. Jung, was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist who founded analytical psychology.
Jung proposed and developed the concepts of the collective unconscious, archetypes, and extraversion and introversion. His work has been influential not only in psychiatry but also in philosophy, anthropology, archeology, literature, and religious studies. He was a prolific writer, though many of his works were not published until after his death.
The central concept of analytical psychology is individuation—the psychological process of integrating the opposites, including the conscious with the unconscious, while still maintaining their relative autonomy. Jung considered individuation to be the central process of human development.
Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and synchronicity. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a popular psychometric instrument, was developed from Jung's theory of psychological types.
Jung saw the human psyche as "by nature religious" and made this religiousness the focus of his explorations. Jung is one of the best known contemporary contributors to dream analysis and symbolization.
Though he was a practising clinician and considered himself to be a scientist, much of his life's work was spent exploring tangential areas such as Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, and sociology, as well as literature and the arts. Jung's interest in philosophy and the occult led many to view him as a mystic, although his ambition was to be seen as a man of science. His influence on popular psychology, the "psychologization of religion", spirituality and the New Age movement has been immense.
Books
Introductory works on Jungian psychology:
Jung, C.G. - Memories, Dreams and Reflections
Jung, C.G. - Modern Man in Search of Soul
Stein, Murray - In Midlife: A Jungian Perspective
Stein, Murray - Jung's Map of the Soul
Stein, Murray - The Principle of Individuation
Stein, Murray - Transformation: Emergence of the Self
Singer, June - Boundaries of the Soul
Whitmont, Edward & Sylvia Perera - Dreams, A Portal to the Source
Whitmont, Edward - The Symbolic Quest
Links
The Jung Page
International Association for Analytical Psychology
C.G. Jung Foundation Bookstore
Inner City Books
Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS)
Abstracts of Jung's Collected Works
Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms and Concepts by Daryl Sharp
"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes."
— C.G. Jung
