People who seek Jungian analysis are motivated to develop a relationship with what Jung referred to as the psyche. The psyche includes both our conscious sense of ourselves and aspects of ourselves of which we are only partially or not at all aware, such as what we were like as children, and other experiences we have forgotten. The unconscious parts of our psyche are inaccessible to our conscious awareness, and yet they play a strong role in shaping how we live and act in the here and now. Because these experiences have never been spoken, they remain vague and elusive. They can appear as somatic states, moods, daydreams, a sarcastic sense of humor, or a memorable dream. It is possible to develop a way of relating to these nonverbal manifestations of our hidden selves, and Jungian analysis fosters this process of getting to know our “unconscious.”
As people develop a relationship with their unconscious they tend to become more open, balanced, flexible and thoughtful in the ways they approach their lives. Having an inner anchor allows people to know what is most important for them and more easily identify how they feel about something. It can help people feel grounded in times of suffering, loss, frustration and hurt. People are more likely to have an attitude of compassion, honesty and awareness.
Dreams
Human beings spend a significant amount of their lives dreaming, and yet we often ignore our dreams completely in our waking lives! Such an attitude disrespects the meaning-making that goes on while we are asleep. Contemporary research is showing that dreams have tremendous importance for our waking lives; they help us consolidate experiences we had in the course of the previous day, and they even help us be better prepared for whatever we will be doing the next day. Jung arrived at this awareness in the course of his own research into dreams, and it is partly his analysis of dreams that led him to state that the human psyche is agentic and teleological, actively processing meaning towards future situations.
When we are not in the habit of paying attention to our dreams, they can appear without significance. However, when we become attentive to our dreams, we begin to pick up on ways in which the dream captures issues we are struggling to resolve in our lives. Jung believed that if we ponder images and scenarios in dreams, we can begin to grasp aspects of ourselves of which we have hitherto been unaware. People who bring their dreams to analysis begin to see the same themes play themselves out over and over again. Identifying these themes provides ways of understanding, and even sometimes of resolving, deep felt critical issues.
Archetypes
Jung’s theory of the Archetypes has become part of mainstream culture. Jung developed this theory in the course of both his medical research and his cultural research. Jung was a medical doctor, and during his residency, he observed that some of his patients with psychosis would make statements about the world that made no sense to anyone and yet were identical to statements that could be found in ancient mythology – in arcane texts of which the patients would have had no direct knowledge. Jung subsequently studied universal themes in mythology, and he theorized that they were universal not because they had traveled from place to place, but because in certain circumstances the human brain tended to throw up such themes; they were archetypes of human experience.
Furthermore, he theorized that this archetypal dimension has a healing function in times of acute stress. If, for example, a person is born into a situation where they do not have the basic caregiving that any human needs, that person may access an archetypal caregiver in the form of a religious experience, or a powerful dream figure. If a person is strong enough to tolerate such an experience, be open to it and learn from it, he or she will grow in depth and maturity. An analyst sees her or himself as an assistant in this process, helping people develop a relationship with the archetypal dimension of their psyche and grow past hang-ups and anxieties into a more complete and nuanced sense of themselves.
Individuation
Individuation refers to a person fully realizing themselves. Jungians believe that there is an intrinsic urge for human beings to fully realize themselves which is built into their nature. However, we often struggle with what that actually means because in some ways we do not have a good connection with our nature. A Jungian approach is aimed at helping people regain that connection. Jung’s notion of personality types helps explain how we do this. Jung identified four functions – feeling, thinking, sensing, and intuition. We all tend to be strong in one or two of these functions and be less strong in the others. The functions that we are less strong at can lead us to act in oafish ways, until we learn to approach them with more sophistication. For example, a feeling type may tend to not carefully examine what they think about a situation and jump to quick generalizations, and a thinking type may suddenly get overwhelmed by infantile feelings and want everyone to go along with them. Analysis helps us become more aware of how these functions are present in us and learn to approach them in more balanced ways.
Jung also identified the dispositions of introversion and extroversion, which is one of his most popularized terms. It can be very helpful to become aware of what our disposition is, to be able to accept it. As we grow and develop, these basic dispositions can also change.
As people age, they can become rigid, or they can allow different parts of themselves to unfold and coexist in a relatively harmonious way. When the latter happens, we call this individuation. Because the desire to realize ourselves fully is part of our very nature, individuation usually leads to a feeling of greater connectedness with other people, nature and the world around us.
Therapeutic Relationship
The therapeutic relationship is a core part of Jungian analysis. The analyst uses her whole self in an analytic session, and the client brings to the session whatever he is compelled to bring. The session happens for 50 minutes on a regular basis, usually once or twice a week. In between the sessions, there is time for the client to be in their own world and reflect on what happened in the session and how it affected them. Often people bring their dreams into session, and the dream will raise critical issues about their experience of themselves, their past, and their current relationships. It is a space for openness, honesty, reflection and deep-felt feeling. This can feel very challenging but the effect is that we begin to feel fully engaged with others and with ourselves. This transformative relationship takes place within well-defined boundaries, which fosters a feeling of safety.