ABSTRACT
Since I am referring primarily to the Jungian school of psychotherapy, the following briefly articulates a few key principles. Psychotherapists of the Jungian School continue in various degrees to incorporate into their own approach most of the ideas, findings, and therapeutic attitudes which were acquired by Jung himself. In view of the wisdom and depth of Jung’s work, its continuing appeal to contemporary analysts is understandable, perhaps even more so, as he tended to formulate theoretical statements in as broad and general a manner as possible in order not to obstruct, through theories or techniques, the therapeutic necessities of each individual situation. A very typical quote of Jung’s, and one that could stand for many others, is as follows:
Since there is no nag that cannot be ridden to death, all theories of neurosis and methods of treatment are a dubious affair. So I always find it cheering when businesslike physicians and fashionable consultants aver that they treat patients along the lines of “Adler,” or of “Künkel,” or of “Freud,” or even of “Jung”…. When I treat Mr. X, I have of necessity to use method X, just as with Mrs. Z I have to use method Z. This means that the method of treatment is determined primarily by the nature of the case.
(Jung, 1926, par. 203) It is therefore the task of the psychotherapist to understand and pay as close attention as possible to the intentions of “nature”—meaning the nature of the psyche. To accomplish this, a therapist has to learn to understand the “language of the unconscious” as thoroughly as possible. Hence, Jung considered the direct experience and understanding of 130manifestations of the unconscious, especially through dreams and imagination, to be a core requirement for the psychotherapist. His own lifelong research studies, which provided a key to disclosing deep realms pertaining to the “reality of the psyche,” were devoted to such understanding. Jung’s life work—as far as psychotherapeutic endeavors are concerned—consisted predominantly in his constant struggle to find the deeper meaning hidden in the symbolic contents of dreams and fantasies. In his view, these contents of the unconscious accompany and stimulate—but sometimes also inhibit—the process of individuation, which emanates from the self, the directing center of psychic wholeness.