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An Introduction to Jung's Psychology by Frieda Fordham
Psychotherapy
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Chapter 5: Psychotherapy
PSYCHOTHERAPY is the treatment of the mind, or
rather the psyche, by psychological methods.
Psychotherapy has come to be identified in the
public mind with 'psychoanalysis', a word which
was coined by Freud and should strictly
speaking be applied only to his method, which
explains psychic symptoms in terms of repressed
infantile sexual impulses; this implies tracing
neuroses back to their roots in infancy.(1)
Another widely used method - namely, that of
Alfred Adler - explains neurosis in terms of a
drive for power, which has arisen as an attempt
to compensate for feelings of inferiority, and
is known as 'Individual Psychology'.
Jung uses the term Analytical Psychology (2) to
describe his own approach, which is not only a
way of healing, but also of developing the
personality through the individuation process.
Since, however, individuation is not the goal
of all who seek psychological help, and in many
cases more limited aims are indicated, he
varies his treatment according to the age,
state of development, and temperament of his
patients ' and does not neglect either the
sexual urge or the will to power, if these are
operative factors in the neurosis.
1. When Jung worked out his own
approach in contrast to that of Freud
this was correct, hence it has been
stated in this form. More recently
the Freudian School, and notably that
branch of it influenced by the work
of Melanie Klein, has come to regard
difficulties in mastering the
infant's aggressive impulses as the
more important cause of neurosis.
2. To avoid confusion with G. F.
Stout's term 'Analytic Psychology'
(as distinct from Analytical
Psychology), Jung's psychology has
recently been re-named 'Complex
Psychology'. The term 'Analytical
Psychology' is, however, better
known, and is in fact current usage.
Stout uses the word analytic in a
different sense.
He considers that the divergent views on the
'right' method of psychotherapy arise, in large
part, from the widely differing vieW.point of
the extravert and the introvert. Seen in this
light, Freud's psychology would be extraverted,
for he considered that the prime cause of
neurosis was the frustration of the infantile
sexual impulse (using the term 'sexual' in the
widest sense) which arose necessarily from
outside. Adler, on the other hand, put the
emphasis on an inner drive for power, which in
his experience caused neurosis when it 'got out
of hand' and interfered with the normal social
functioning of the individual.
It would certainly have never
occurred to me [says Jung] to depart
from Freud's path had I not stumbled
upon facts which forced me into
modifications. And the same is true
of my relation to the Adlerian
viewpoint ... it seems hardly
necessary to add that I hold the
truth of my own deviationist views to
be equally relative, and feel myself.
the mere exponent of another
disposition.(1)
Jung does not neglect either the sexual urge or
the will to power, if these are operative
factors in the neurosis, but he finds that the
Freudian or Adlerian points of view are usually
most appropriate to young people. At this stage
of life a man or woman needs to give the
instincts the importance that is their due, and
yet allow them to function in a way that
society will accept; sexuality and the need for
self-assertion are the primary urges at this
period. Material and worldly success, and
especially intellectual success, is often won
at the expense of the sexual urge, and when
this causes a neurosis, it is most likely to be
helped by interpretation of the difficulties in
terms of their infantile sexual sources. On the
other hand, the unsuccessful person who
attempts to compensate for this with
self-assertion needs to see the fictitious
nature of his aims.
1. 'The Aims of Psychotherapy' (C.W.,
16), pars. 69-70.
At the same time Jung never loses sight of the
constructive elements which he knows can always
be found in a neurosis. To work only backward
and downwards - i.e. looking for traumas in
infancy - can have a destructive rather than a
healing effect, and for this reason he is never
content merely to find the causes of the
trouble. An excellent example of this twofold
way of regarding a neurosis is to be found in
the case of a young man who came to Jung for
the treatment of homosexuality, one of the
causes of which was a too-intense relationship
to his mother. The young man had two dreams,
one preceding, one immediately after his first
interview, in which there was no attempt at
dream analysis. They were:
(1) I am in a lofty cathedral filled
with mysterious twilight. They tell
me that it is the cathedral at
Lourdes. In the centre there is a
deep dark well, into which I have to
descend. (2) I am in a great Gothic
cathedral. At the altar stands a
priest. I stand before him with my
friend, holding in my hand a little
Japanese ivory figure, with the
feeling that it is going to be
baptized. Suddenly an elderly woman
appears, takes the fraternity ring
from my friend's finger, and puts it
on her own. My friend is afraid that
this may bind him in some way. But at
the same moment there is a sound of
wonderful organ music.
Of these dreams Jung says:
They show the patient's situation in
a highly remarkable light, and one
that is very strange to the conscious
mind, while at tile same time lending
to the banal medical situation an
aspect that is uniquely attuned to
the mental peculiarities of the
dreamer, and thus capable of
stringing his aesthetic,
intellectual, and religious interests
to concert pitch. No better
conditions for treatment could
possibly be imagined.(1)
For a detailed analysis of these dreams the
reader is referred to Jung's own work,(2) but
even one unskilled in dream interpretation may
catch something of their atmosphere and
meaning. The reference to healing, i.e.
Lourdes, the place of healing, is unmistakable,
and the suggestion that an ordeal is to be
faced before a change can take place is also
clear. It seems, too, as if the whole
experience is to be taken in a religious
spirit. This is in striking contrast to the
usual sordid associations of homosexuality. In
the second dream the young man associated the
ivory figure with membrum virile
1. Two Essays on Analytical
Psychology, pars. 167, 175, 182.
2. Ibid., pars. 165-83.
and its baptism with the Jewish rite of
circumcision which was he said 'a sort of
baptism'. It seems then as if the sexual organ
is to be baptized; in other words, dedicated to
a new purpose, especially since a priest is
present at tile ceremony. Jung at this point
draws many analogies with rites of initiation,
all of which have the purpose of leading young
men out of a childish state into a
participation with the adult world. Lastly the
ring is taken from the friend (the one with
whom he has been homosexually connected) and
given to a woman. It is true that this elderly
lady had a motherly aspect, and one might
perhaps conclude that this was therefore merely
a regression - i.e. the wish for an incestuous
relationship with a mother - but the dream
closed on a positive note with the beautiful
organ music, and left the young man with a
feeling of harmony and peace. There is
therefore justification for thinking that the
placing of the ring on the lady's finger
indicated a step forward towards a heterosexual
rather than a homosexual attitude. This, in
fact, proved to be the case, and these dreams
therefore showed the possibility of a
development which might unfold in the right
atmosphere. To have traced merely the causes of
th's neurosis would have been to neglect,
perhaps even to destroy unconscious forces
working towards its cure.(1)
When older people (say those over forty) become
neurotic they need treating in quite a
different manner from the young. This is
especially true if their life has been
reasonably successful up to the time when the
neurosis develops. There is in addition a type
of middle-aged patient who is not neurotic in
the ordinary sense, but who simply finds life
empty and meaningless. This is not a clinically
definable neurosis, but might well be described
as 'the general neurosis of our times'. Quite a
third of Jung 's patients come from this class
of person, and it is therefore natural that his
special contribution to psychotherapy should be
seen most clearly in relation to this type of
case.
1. N.B. It may be added that the
development indicated in the dreams
did not come about immediately, or by
any means easily, and that without
the positive sign they gave there
were In Jung's view every neurosis
has an aim; it is an attempt to
compensate for a one-sided attitude
to life, and a voice, as it were,
drawing attention to a side of
personality that has been neglected
or repressed.
'The symptoms of a neurosis are not
simply the effects of long-past
causes, whether "infantile sexuality"
or the infantile urge to power; they
are also attempts at a new synthesis
of life - unsuccessful attempts, let
it be added in the same breath, yet
attempts nevertheless, with a core of
value and meaning.(1) This is where
Jung's own particular contribution to
psychotherapy appears: firstly, his
insistence that a neurosis should not
be regarded as something entirely
negative, but that if it can be
understood, a hint of new
possibilities of development will be
found in it; secondly, in his view
that there are other important drives
in human nature besides those of
sexuality and self-assertion, and
that the cultural or spiritual drive
is, in the second half of life, of
more importance than the other two. A
further distinction Jung makes is
that the causes of a neurosis are to
be found in the present as well as in
the past (the past is significant
only if it is clearly having an
effect on the present) and in the
failure of the libido to carry the
person over some obstacle and on to a
new stage of development. These are
points where all rational
explanations or conscious attempts at
adjustment fail, and where hope lies
only in tapping the energy of the
unconscious, and releasing new
sources of life. This has already
been referred to in the chapter on
Individuation, and will be returned
to as it is of first importance both
in understanding Analytical
Psychology and in assessing the
contribution it makes to life. In the
meantime it is necessary to describe
the general therapeutic process in
more detail.
1 . Two Essays on
Analytical Psychology, par.
67.
A neurosis is a particular kind of
psychic disturbance which interferes
with the life, and often with the
health, of the person suffering from
it. In Jung's view it is caused by a
conflict between two tendencies; one
expressed consciously, the other by a
complex split off from consciousness
and leading an independent but
unconscious existence. This complex
may or may not have been previously
conscious; the point is that the
neurotic does not know that it
exists; but it interferes, either by
obtruding unexpectedly into
consciousness or by attracting energy
to itself, so that less and less is
available for conscious and directed
activity.
A neurosis may show itself in the
mildest way, in fact we are all
sufferers to some extent; most of our
lapses of speech or of memory,
misunderstandings of what we have
heard or read, or of other people's
motives, or so-called hallucinations
of memory when we mistakenly believe
we have done or have not done
something, are neurotic in origin. At
the other extreme lie the dramatic
cases of lost memory, hysterical
paralysis, blindness, or deafness,
&c. - i.e. physical conditions for
which there is no traceable physical
cause - and in between the host of
anxieties, fears, and obsessions from
which the wretched sufferer is quite
unable to free himself. Many
apparently inexplicable illnesses,
headaches, fevers, and so on, are
neurotic. For example, we may cite
the case of a man with a high
temperature which went down
immediately to normal after he had
been able to make a full confession
of a dark and forgotten secret.(1)
Confession is, in fact, of first
importance in any analytical
treatment:
The first beginnings of all
analytical treatment of the
soul [says Jung] are to be
found in its prototype, the
confessional. Since,
however, the two have no
direct causal connexion,
but rather grow from a
common irrational psychic
root, it is difficult for
an outsider to see at once
the relation between the
groundwork of
psychoanalysis and the
religious. institution of
the confessional.
Once the human mind had
succeeded in inventing the
idea of sin, man had
recourse to psychic
concealment; or, in
analytical parlance,
repression arose.(2)
1. Two Essays on Analytical
Psychology.
2. 'Problems of Modern
Psychotherapy' (C.W., 16),
pars. 123-4.
This is the common psychic root - the
fact that men conceal things, and in
so doing alienate themselves from the
community. What is concealed tends to
be everything 'dark, imperfect, and
stupid in ourselves' and so the
secret is laden with guilt, whether
or no it is something really wrong
from the standpoint of ordinary
morality. In fact one form of
concealment, which can have a most
damaging effect, is often practised
as a virtue - that is the concealment
of emotion. In both cases, however, a
reservation must be made; some
secrets are necessary to our
development as individuals and
prevent us from becoming dissolved in
the unconsciousness of community
life, and the control of emotion is
necessary and desirable if carried
out in the right way. Self-restraint
as a merely private virtue leads to
'the well known bad moods and
irritability of the over-virtuous.(1)
It also damages personal
relationships, leading to coldness
where there should be warmth, a false
air of superiority, or a tepid
harmony. Self-restraint, in fact,
needs to be practised for social or
religious ends, not for personal
aggrandizement or from fear.
A full confession - that is to say,
'not merely the intellectual
recognition of the facts with the
head, but their confirmation by the
heart, and the actual release of
suppressed emotion' (2) - can have a
wonderfully healing effect,
especially with uncomplicated people.
But unfortunately confession is not a
simple matter, for the personality of
the confessor plays an important part
in obtaining the right effect. It
also frequently happens that, though
the patient is apparently cured,
insofar as his symptoms have been
removed by confession, or that he now
understands their origin and meaning,
he persists in continuing his
treatment, even though there is no
apparent necessity for this. He
cannot do without the one who cured
him.
1. 'Problems of Modern
Psychotherapy', par. 130.
2. Ibid., par. 134.
It has been found (and this was
Freud's special contribution) that
this obstinate attachment to the
analyst is the result of the patient
having transferred to him or her
feelings which were once given to the
real parents, or in psychological
terms 'the memory-image of the father
and mother with its accent of feeling
is transferred to the analyst', hence
the term 'transference' is given to
the phenomena. The patient has become
like a child, or rather he was like a
child all the time, but he suppressed
this fact; now he tries to reproduce
with the analyst the family
situations of childhood. Most often
the analyst represents the parent of
the opposite sex, ,but
brother--sister, father-son, and
mother-daughter relationships may
also appear. In this phase much that
has been repressed comes into the
daylight, and many fantasies appear,
especially fantasies of incest. It is
therefore not surprising that these
had previously remained unconscious,
and that it is not easy to become
conscious of' such contents or of
other unsavoury matters which may be
unearthed. The forces that become
active during this stage of analysis
are predominatingly erotic, but what
Adler has called 'the will power' can
also be active. The patient then uses
his childishness to try to dominate
the situation and exploits his
neurosis to gain importance. The
patient only becomes aware of these
things through 'the interpretation of
the transference' - i.e. an
explanation of what is happening in
his relationship to the analyst, and
this explanation needs to be given
afresh at every stage, for the
transference naturally develops and
changes.
'Explanation' is perhaps a misleading
word to describe what is both a
method and a process, for the
emotions are deeply involved. The
transference cannot be explained
away; it has to be lived through with
the analyst. Though limitations are
imposed by the conditions of the
consulting room and the restrictions
of fixed hours of treatment, Jung
insists that the analyst should meet
the patient as a fellow human being,
that if necessary there should be
equal frankness between them, and
that any suffering should be shared.
From this relationship of two people
spring therapeutic results which no
mere explanation could effect.
It is this same human relationship
which makes the personality of the
analyst so important in obtaining
relief through confession. It may
also happen that the patient becomes
aware of a split-off part of the
personality - an autonomous complex -
and yet has the greatest difficulty
in integrating it, since it expresses
something absolutely contradictory to
the conscious personality. At this
point the understanding and sympathy
of the analyst are of the utmost
importance, helping to reinforce the
powers of consciousness until it is
able to assimilate the disturbing
factor. The patient does not then
'stand alone in his battle with these
elemental powers, but someone whom he
trusts reaches out a hand, lending
him moral strength to combat the
tyranny of uncontrolled emotion.(1)
If, however, there is to be this
close relationship it is of the
greatest importance that the analyst
himself should first have been
analysed,(2) for he cannot help
another person to a stage farther
than he has reached himself. The
analyst must know his own shadow and
have had real experience of the
unconscious forces which he is now
helping his patient to face. He
cannot evade his own difficulties by
trying to cure other people; he must
first cure himself. In sharing his
patients' experiences he risks
becoming infected by their illness
(just as a doctor may be infected by
physical illness), and he needs all
the stability that sell' knowledge
can bring.
In all his discussions on
Psychotherapy, Jung emphasizes the
fact that it rests on the
relationship between two human
beings; this is the significant thing
to which all theories and methods
should be secondary. The analyst
cannot sometimes prevent himself from
thinking that this, that, or the
other course would be best for the
patient, but he has no right to
impose his views; his business is to
help the patient towards that state
where he can discover for himself the
way to live and the necessary impetus
to put this into practice. Theories
and methods are only aids towards
this end.
1. 'The Therapeutic Value
of Abreaction' (C.W., 16),
par. 270.
2. It was Jung who first
saw this clearly, and Freud
was quick to agree.
There are many stages at which
psychological treatment can come to
an end: when, for instance,
disagreeable symptoms have
disappeared; when there has been a
satisfactory development from a
childish state, or when a new and
better adaptation to life has been
achieved; or again when an essential
but unconscious psychic content has
been realized and a new impetus given
to life. But there are some people
who find no permanent satisfaction in
these solutions, and who either
continue their work with the analyst,
or return at some later date, driven
by the desire for further
understanding and development. There
are also those more or less normal
people who, having reached the second
half of life, are dissatisfied, and
being unable to find comfort in the
ordinary ,ways, turn to analysis to
see if it can provide any solution of
their difficulties. These are the
people to whom the goal of
individuation is a necessity, and the
ordinary psychotherapeutic processes
scarcely apply. In fact, Jung calls
this stage of analysis a 'dialectical
discussion between the conscious mind
and the unconscious, a development or
an advance towards some goal or end
the perplexing nature of which has
engaged my attention for many
years'.(1) Most of the patients to
whom this applies have led
well-adapted and often successful
lives; many of them have had some
form of psychotherapeutic treatment
'with partial or negative
results',(2) and most of them
complain of the emptiness or lack of
meaning in their lives, or express
themselves as 'being stuck', or of
having no idea what they shall do or
where they shall turn. They are often
able and intelligent people to whom
normalization means nothing; in fact
their neurosis (if such it can be
called) lies in their 'normality' and
their deepest need is to be able to
live 'abnormal lives'.
1. Psychology and Alchemy,
par. 3.
2. 'The Aims of
Psychotherapy' (C.W., 16),
par. 83,
To be a normal human being
is probably the most useful
and fitting thing of which
we can think; but the very
notion of a normal human
being', like the concept of
adaptation, implies a
restriction to the average
... To be 'normal' is the
ideal aim for the
unsuccessful, for all those
who are still below the
general level of
adaptation. But for people
of more than average
ability, people who never
found it difficult to gain
successes and to accomplish
their share of the world's
work - for them the moral
compulsion to be nothing
but normal signifies the
bed of Procrustes - deadly
and insupportable boredom,
a hell of sterility and
hopelessness.(1)
Both these people, and those whose
chief difficulty Los in having come
to a 'dead end', have often read
widely, thought deeply, and explored
all the possibilities offered by
religion and philosophy; they know
all the answers that consciousness
can give. It is at this point that
Jung makes his most significant
contribution to psychotherapy.
I have no ready-made
philosophy of life to hand
out. ... I do not know what
to say to the patient when
he asks me, 'What do you
advise? What shall I do?' I
don't know either. I only
know one thing: when my
conscious mind no longer
sees any possible road
ahead and consequently gets
stuck, my unconscious
psyche will react to the
unbearable standstill.(2)
This coming to a standstill is such a
familiar human situation, and has so
often been repeated in the history of
mankind, that it has become the theme
of many a fairy-tale a myth of the
'Open Sesame' type, where the locked
door opens to the magic words, or the
hidden way is revealed by some
helpful animal or strange creature.
'Getting stuck' is one of those
typical events 'which in the course
of time have evoked typical reactions
and compensations'.(3) It is quite
likely, therefore, that when this
psychic situation is repeated in the
life of modern man his unconscious
will react to it with a dream of a
similar type.
1. 'Problems of Modern
Psychotherapy' (C.W., 16),
par. 161.
2. 'The Aims of
Psychotherapy', par.84.
3. Ibid., par. 85.
The aim of therapy at this stage is
for the patient to explore the latent
possibilities in himself, to find out
what kind of a person he really is,
and to learn to live accordingly. The
analyst must therefore set aside all
preconceived ideas as to the way his
patient should develop, and the
emphasis lies not on 'treatment', but
on the relationship between analyst
and patient, for neither knows the
answer or can predict the outcome.
'By no device,' says Jung 'can the
treatment be anything but the product
of mutual influence, in which the
whole being of the doctor as well as
that of his patient plays its
part.'(1)
Between doctor and patient,
therefore, there are
imponderable factors which
bring about a mutual
transformation. In the
process, the stronger and
more stable personality
will decide the final
issue. I have seen many
cases where the patient
assimilated the doctor in
defiance of all theory and
of the latter's
professional intentions.
The stage of'
transformation is grounded
on these facts.(2)
Jung has likened this meeting of two
personalities to the contact of two
chemical substances; if there is any
reaction both are transformed. Nor is
this a fanciful or vague analogy, for
it formed part of the basis of Jung's
researches into alchemy.(3) This
process (i.e. that of mutual
transformation) demands as much of
the analyst as it does of the
patient, the same honesty and
perseverance, the same readiness for
change; and it makes heavy demands on
him, for in the last resort it is
always his own personality rather
than a method or technique which is
the determining factor.
If the patient's problem is a
religious one, then the analyst must
face his religious problems too, and,
what is more, he must be able to
discuss them frankly with his
patient. If the patient's task is one
of higher cultural development, then
the analyst must also develop in this
way.
Psychotherapy [as Jung
says] transcends its
indexical origins and
ceases to be merely a
method for treating the
sick. It now treats the
healthy or such as have a
moral right to psychic
health, whose sickness is
at most the suffering that
torments us all.(4)
1. 'Problems of Modern
Psychotherapy', par. 163
2. Ibid., pars. 164-5.
3. Cf. 'The Psychology of
the Transference' (C.W.,
16).
4. 'Problems of Modern
Psychotherapy', par. 174.
The earlier stages of analysis deal
largely with personal problems, and
therefore with the personal
unconscious, but the last stage, in
which the individual needs to find
his place in the life of the
generations, touches the collective
unconscious, and it is Jung's theory
of a collective as well as a personal
unconscious that differentiates his
psychology from all others.
Donald Williams
