ABSTRACT
In this extensive chapter, different dimensions of the therapeutic relationship in Jungian psychology and psychotherapy will be shown.
The starting point is the story of Sigmund Freud’s separation from Carl Gustav Jung, his long-standing ‘Crown Prince’ in the psychoanalytic movement. Rational reasons such as the dispute over the libido concept and the nature of the unconscious are presented.
In addition, the history of the Jung-Freud relationship is seen as a failed struggle for appreciation. The Freud-Jung conflict continues to this day on a theoretical level and in various professional organizations.
While Freudians see the decisive developmental task of a child in coping with the Oedipus complex, i.e. in the relationship to the father position, Jungians are primarily concerned with the separation from an overpowering and seductive image of the mother, the imago of the Great Mother. The independent path, called individuation, must be fought for.
An excursion presents important neuroscientific findings on the connection between psyche, mind, brain and body. The developing mind unfolds from the developing brain. Neuronal connections are shaped by interactions with significant others. Conscious mental acts require the presence of a mental subject, a Self, whether primary or emergent. Different models of consciousness, emotional awareness and the relationship between ego and Self and free will are discussed.
The Jungian complex model of the structure of the psyche is described as a process-oriented dynamic model.
The Jungian understanding of dreams as spontaneous, symbolic self-representation of the unconscious is a central Jungian theorem. The dream is connected to the core Self and has essential functions for coping with past and present conflicts and future tasks.
The observation by Jung that every human judgement is influenced by personal peculiarities of thinking and feeling led to his definition of four basic psychic functions that can be effective in extraverted or introverted attitudes. Such ‘typological’ differences can be responsible for communication problems in psychotherapy.
One section describes essential aspects of the Jungian archetype doctrine and aspects and expressions of the collective unconscious.
Jung made the significant discovery that, in addition to the personal, subjective psyche, we also participate in a developing shared, common, collective layer of the unconscious in our respective cultural sphere. In the writings of alchemists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, he discovered the transfer of unconscious psychological moments of development to material processes of transformation. The success of the alchemical experiment was seen as dependent on the psychological state of mind or transference of the participants.
Jungian psychology is particularly interested in the process of identity development or individuation. Intersubjective aspects and intrapersonal conditions of the development of ego and Self are presented. The embeddedness of individuation processes in the respective postmodern world is particularly important.
Jungian psychology not only approaches the psychic rationally, it also relies on the language of imagination, fantasy, images and especially the symbolic. Non-specific conversion energy can be experienced as a directed conversion force via symbols (e.g. of a dream). Psychological development is seen as an expression of overcoming or integrating inner opposites or imbalances.
Analysts and analysands meet so intensively and mutually with their conscious and unconscious aspirations that both will influence each other in the psychotherapeutic process. An energetic and content-related exchange takes place, which is initially strongly shaped by unconscious projections, transferences of the analysand and countertransferences of the analyst (conjunctio). One of the analyst’s most important tasks is to become aware of his own projections and transferences, which can come from his personal life experience, from his own neurotic attitudes and from archetypal contents of the collective unconscious.
Transference organizes the analytical process. It expresses symbolically the relationship with the inner imagines of the educators (parents). Transference and countertransference are intersubjectively cross-linked; they generate an intersubjective field. This is where the mental moments of encounter take place. The result is a relationship quality called the ‘analytical third’.
Erotic desire is an essential source of individuation impulses. The pre-conscious foundation of our sex life is the imago of the sexual union of the inner parent couple. If this is positive, then inner images of devotion and responsibility emerge. The experience of a non-incestuous relationship with the analyst makes the pathway from the object to the Other possible. The inner and outer tasks of the analyst in the handling of transference processes are presented. Affective appreciation and linguistic symbolization are complementary.
The paradigm of intersubjectivity is shown as a matrix of mutual influence with non-symmetric equivalence of the analytical pair.
The relationship function in dialogues is founded philosophically on Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas and Jürgen Habermas. The relationship experience with and the emotional availability of the analyst open up healing perspectives. The analyst’s central competence includes designing the psychotherapeutic dialogue in such a way that the analysand’s internal working models can develop from emotional expectation patterns to mature relationship functions. Ego-structural characteristics have to be taken into special consideration.
The very important Jungian treatment technique of amplification should make it possible to relate personal conflicts to general and archetypal conflict constellations. Amplification is a highly developed form of finding and using analogies. This technique introduces the analysand to the riches of his unconscious psyche and connects him with cultural creativity. It creates significance and meaning. It brings the analysand into contact with his own peculiarity and uniqueness. Amplificatory ideas make the analyst reflect on the analytical process. Different types of amplifications, the technical handling and application problems are shown. The central goal is the interpretation of the ideas and dreams of the analysand and the development of his transcendent function. The triangulatory function of amplification is emphasized.
Amplification is used to enrich the symbolic content. By interpreting the symbolism of the analysand, the symbols are to be traced back to the underlying conflicts and complexes. Both are complementary processes.
