Jungian Psychotherapy

A Study in Analytical Psychology

Michael Fordham

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367099510
• eBook ISBN: 9780429915369
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

'This book contains an exposition of therapeutic methods used by analytical psychologists. It is based on Jung's own investigations and includes developments in his ideas and practices that others have initiated. 'Jung held that his work was scientific in that he had discovered an objective field of enquiry. When applying this assertion to analytical psychotherapy one must make it quite clear that, unlike what happens in other sciences, the personality of the therapist enters into the procedures adopted in a way uncharacteristic of experimental method. In the natural sciences study is different in kind and the investigator's personality is significant only in his capacity to be a scientist. By contrast, in analytical therapy the personal influence of the analyst pervades his work and furthermore extends to generations of psychotherapists; the way the author conducts psychotherapy is inevitably influenced having known Jung, having developed a personal loyalty to him and by being treated by three therapists who came under his influence.

PART I

CHAPTER 1

The Model

In the history of analytical psychology, observations came first and then theoretical constructions. Thus Jung started by making association experiments on normal and pathological persons, went on to practise psychoanalysis and later gained knowledge from his own self-analysis. On the basis of experiences derived from these sources he developed generalizations about the structures and processes within the psyche.

In this book I shall give priority to the practice of analytical psychology as an experience. To begin with I started off with the idea of leaving out generalizations and abstractions, but this proved difficult and misleading. Though, in the discourse between patient and analytical therapist, theoretical ideas are for much of the time eschewed so that the patient may have full scope to develop his own feelings, thoughts, fantasies, dreams, memories and so forth that come to his mind without intervention on the part of the analyst, it cannot be said that an analyst has no model at the back of his mind comprising the sum of past experience and reflections upon it. So I found it inevitable, in developing my thesis, to make reference to theoretical concepts whether or not I liked the idea. This chapter is thus a concession that I have made in the hope that it will assist the reader to orientate himself with greater ease. It is not intended as a comprehensive statement but rather as notes by way of introduction to what follows, and so that terms used in the text may be defined and placed in the context of an abstract model.¹

Originally a model became necessary for organizing and explaining data resulting from the application of a method, for example that used in abreaction therapy or psychoanalysis. In the course of time, however, there developed a reciprocal relationship between the two; not only did the model grow out of experience but reflection on and development of it enlightened the analyst and led to new experiences.

Jung developed a framework in which his findings could be ordered as follows. The psyche was divided so that there are conscious parts of it that are well organized. He called the organizer of these the ego, which is thus the centre of consciousness. Unconscious and mainly non-ego structures and processes not having the attribution of consciousness were divided up into the repressed personal and the archetypal impersonal layers.

Repression and other defences

The repressed unconscious was conceived as coming into being during development because aspects of the personality were incompatible with the child’s personal intentions, ideals and moral feelings, partly derived from the personal moral and ethical attitudes of his parents, also related to the culture pattern in which the family lived. The repressed unconscious was conceived therefore as composed, though not entirely, of rejected contents of consciousness and resulted from the personal interaction between the child and its parents. Consequently it was named the personal unconscious. The essential characteristic of repression is that mental and affective material is not allowed to become conscious and consequently is divorced from the ego. The personal repressed unconscious is thus of the same nature as the contents of the ego from which it has become divorced.

Consequently, as unsuccessful repression can lead to a neurosis, therapy will consist in undoing repression so that the unconscious complex may become conscious. Repression is evoked to explain one of a class of defences against parts of the whole person that are incompatible with others. They are important in therapy because they exhibit themselves in the form of resistances against the therapist’s efforts to help in integrating the rejected part. Defence theory explains these phenomena. In the case of repression the incompatible element is prevented from becoming conscious, but there are other defences like isolation that rely on preventing the full significance of the conscious but rejected part being understood. A similar situation arises when projection is used: the patient denies the conscious content by attributing it to somebody else. The defences of each neurosis are characteristic and will be referred to as occasion requires.

Archetypal forms

The second layer of the unconscious, conceived to be essentially different, is represented in dreams, active fantasy and such cultural forms as myths, fairy tales, magic and religion. These forms derive from innate and probably inherited organizers called archetypes. They are structures not characterized by the quality of experience called consciousness. By interaction with the environment, however, they contribute to the formation of typical imagery that may have magic-like characteristics, to which Jung gave the term numinosity.

The two systems of ego and archetypes can optimally act in a compensatory manner, so that the psyche as a whole is said to be-self-regulating and if this becomes disordered the result is a neurosis, a perversion, a psychosis or a character-disorder.

Whilst the ego is rather well organized, the archetypal systems can be considered, through observation of their derivatives, to be less so and to be difficult to separate out from each other. It is believed that they gravitate towards expressing the whole organism’s functioning. Nevertheless Jung differentiated a number of them with the following qualification; ‘It is a well-nigh hopeless undertaking to tear a single archetype out of the living tissue of the psyche ; but despite their interwovenness the archetypes do form units of meaning that can be apprehended intuitively’ (C.W.9, 1, p. 179). With this reservation he defined the following psychic structures : the shadow, the anima, the animus, the mother, the child, the spirit and such processes as rebirth. The following need further definition.

The shadow

This is the archetype nearest to the ego and is close to the repressed unconscious, with which it regularly becomes integrated. Its form, like that of other archetypes, is variable but it contains, besides the personal shadow, the shadow of society. By this is meant that in any particular society there are human characteristics that are not developed and become neglected or repressed. The shadow is fed by the neglected and repressed collective values.

The anima and animus

These two archetypes are the contrasexual components in any man or woman and become expressed in typical images : the anima being the image of woman that a man carries within him, beginning with his mother and enriched by his experience of other women during his life. The same applies to the animus in a woman, starting from her father and followed and enriched by her subsequent experience of men. The two archetypes are different, however, in that the anima tends to be a single figure whereas the animus is a plurality. Like the shadow, these archetypes are strongly influenced by culture patterns in which the view of what is masculine and what is feminine can be markedly different.

Synchronicity²

Jung became interested in the fact that, at periods when archetypal activity was particularly marked, events without cause took on special significance. He called them synchronistic and related them to parapsychological phenomena. It is probable that they are a kind of experience made accessible when regression is sufficient for orientation in time and space to become disturbed and when magical thinking takes precedence over rational thought. The designation covers not only regressive experience but methods devised in previous eras to assess the total situation and its implication to the individual and to social situatioiis. Such a method of divination—the I Ching—was, for instance, used in China up to very recent times. In view of the extensive use of such methods, Jung thought that synchronicity might be an idea that could introduce another dimension of experience to the rational and scientific one dominating our civilization. His idea that, in effect, chance can become meaningful and creative is in line with much biological thinking which identifies the emergence of new genetic variations with the operation of chance.

Symbols

Another conception especially characteristic of Jung’s thinking was his conception of symbols in psychic life. It is easier to grasp when related to archetype theory. Symbols, Jung thought, were the best possible representation of unconscious, that is, archetypal data. They were thus the only expressions of unconscious mental life available to us. That they appeared to be over-determined and contained a multitude of meanings, did not signify that they were analysable into their component parts, but rather that they had the capacity to stimulate consciousness to evolve new meanings from them. The conception was part of his theory of the evolving nature of unconscious processes. Symbols were the underlying generators of thought and the transformers of instinctual energy in multifarious and unpredictable forms.

The self

This concept will frequently be used in the present volume. It is sometimes classed as an archetype, but mistakenly so. Jung defined a rich symbolism of the self that referred to experiences of wholeness. The distribution of its symbols is widespread and for this reason it might be called an archetype, were it not that Jung conceived that the symbols referred to a wholeness of the personality that embraced the ego and the archetypes working in relation to each other and in relative harmony. Experiences of self-symbols tend to take place when the person is isolated from others and they consequently represent states in which the psyche is, as it were, gathering itself together without external interference. To express the defensive content of these symbols, there is very often a barrier round them, which can be thought of as like the defensive immunological systems of the body.

It will be observed that this model of the psychic structure and process requires a theory of energy in order to account for the dynamic nature of the structures.

Psychological types³

The theory of types became important in the development of analytical psychology because it defined the kind of differences that made for conflicts of a particularly virulent kind. It could also, Jung hoped, become an instrument for defining lines of therapeutic endeavour for, just as Freud’s approach was analytical and Adler’s educative, there might be other approaches that could be justified on the basis of types.

The theory depends upon the concepts of attitude and function. Persons have a particular attitude towards objects—they can be extra verted or introverted: the extravert is habitually orientated towards the external object with which he has a good relation so he tends to get on well with people, is sociable and at home in any occupation which involves relating to objects in everyday life. The introvert on the contrary is better related to his own psychic processes, is reflective and occupied with his own reaction to external objects, which he approaches only when he is reasonably sure that they are congenial to him; philosophers, mystics, some artists and many reflective people are introverts.

The function types define ways in which people operate in relation to objects whether ‘internai’ or ‘external’. There is thinking, which is different in the extravert from the introvert, for the former only needs thought as a means of relating and doing something with the object world; for the latter thoughts are objects in their own right and can be enjoyed without reference to reality. Thinking needs to exclude values and judgements, which are in the province of feeling. Thinking and feeling, both conceived by Jung as rational functions, are therefore opposites. The same principle of opposites applies to the irrational functions sensation and intuition. Sensation defines things and situations as they are in the present; in short, it defines facts. Intuition, on the contrary, seeks out possibilities of a situation and so is essentially speculative.

When it is considered that each function may be introverted or extraverted, and may combine with two other functions, it is apparent that the system becomes exceedingly complex. Furthermore, no person lacks any of the functions and both attitudes are to be found in the same person, so how is a type of person defined? A person is a type if his.habitual mode of life corresponds to an attitude and function, in other words the type is defined by the attitude or function of the ego. The opposite attitudes and functions are unconscious and therefore linked with infantile and archaic modes of action. The type of a person thus has a special meaning : it defines his superior attitude and function in the sense that they are the most differentiated. The inferior function and attitude are less developed and remain in a primitive state. Thus, in a thinking type, thought is said to be superior and feeling is considered inferior.

The conception of types is inherent in Jung’s thinking and extends beyond the function and attitude types to archetypes as well. The idea behind this usage is to define regularities within the psyche that are relatively stable. The notion of types carries with it the idea that they cannot be altered and so are in a sense eternal. This was not Jung’s conception for he allied the type theory with that of individuation, in which it is conceived that the functions and attitudes can be fully assimilated so that all of them are available to the whole individual. Nevertheless, it is the static aspect of typology that has received most attention and has been made the subject of experimental investigation. This theory will be referred to in subsequent chapters but, because I believe it tends to a static view of personality structures, it will not feature much in the development of psychotherapeutic practices that I want to emphasize. I recognize the subtle and effective use of type theory by other schools of analytical psychology.

Process theory

By observing people and particularly the dreams and imaginative sequences that his patients produced, Jung came to the conclusion that a development takes place, especially evident in later life, called individuation.⁴ It was held to start in the unconscious, to gain expression first in dreams and imagery (especially active imagination) and it seems to direct the individual’s consciousness towards a greater awareness of himself as an individual person at once separate from and yet also part of the society in which he lives. Individuation is at first an introversive development whilst the person re-evaluates his life experiences detached from environmental influence. Later, though sometimes concurrently, it leads on to an enrichment of personal and social relationships.

The concept of individuation informs all psychotherapy conducted by analytical psychologists. There is one important consequence of this proposition : the loss of a symptom is not so important as how it is lost. To be more precise, is it removed by repression or is it lost as the result of an increase in consciousness, and is the energy previously bound up in it used to develop the whole personality? These are essential questions that must be asked when considering therapeutic results. It follows that the loss of manifest psychopathology may or may not be desirable, for there is a positive aspect of mental disorder expressed by the formula that its manifestations are a failed step in the individuation process. In limiting cases it is even desirable for the patient to keep his symptoms for with them there is hope and without them there is none. Finally it may also be that the acquisition of symptoms is desirable. An example of this state of affairs is given by Jung. He treated a woman who had previously undergone several unsuccessful analyses. He penetrated her defences, however, and then she developed a collection of alarming symptoms that she did not have before, and out of which her development could proceed (cf. p. 111 for more details and also Jung, 1935). Without them this was impossible.

Maturation in childhood⁵

Jung mainly studied subjects in relation to cultural forms, making more reference to older people and less to those in the first half of life and childhood. It would, however, be false to say that he paid no attention to the maturational processes in children; indeed, many of his ideas about them were remarkably interesting.

His main idea was this: a child’s ego was less of a centre of consciousness than a set of nuclei. He likened it to a number of islands in the sea which gradually coalesced to form the ego as he conceived it in his general thesis. At what age this took place is not usually made clear, but he seems to have thought that it had often happened by about five years of age.

The image of the sea suggests, in view of the meaning of the symbol given to it, that the ego grew out of the archetypal unconscious and so it would be expected that, alongside the development of reality perception, ego nuclei would form in relation to emerging and developing archetypal images. This gains support from the evidence of children’s dreams and fantasies in which parents, especially, feature in fantastic myth-like forms.

Besides this general proposition he also held that behind ego-formation lay the self, providing a sort of ground plan or matrix for the developing con...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Part I
• Part II
• References and bibliography
• Index