what does Jungian psychotherapy do?

Jungian — or analytical — psychotherapy explores your inner world. It does not focus only on resolving a symptom. Its aim is to help you express your true nature. This goal is called the process of individuation. It means becoming the unique person you are meant to be.

When the term Jungian therapy is used, it refers to an approach based on the principles of analytical psychology, which originates from the thought and works of the Swiss physician and analyst Carl Gustav Jung.

One could say that Jungian analytical therapy was born from a “rib” of Freud’s psychoanalysis, of which C. G. Jung was a student and collaborator.

It is the most important alternative to Freudian psychoanalysis within analytical approaches, and it represents its evolution in a non-reductionist direction.

Jungian therapy is both a psychological theory and a method of investigating the depths of the psyche.

It takes into account the entire psychic dynamic: past, present, and even future, in the sense of intentions and tensions toward one’s own “destination,” one’s life project, which tends toward the development of the Ego and its convergence into the broader Self.

For Jungian analysts, there exists within the human being a psychic energy, a vital impulse, that drives the individual toward self-realization and personal growth — in C. G. Jung’s words, toward “individuation.”

Analytical psychotherapy is primarily aimed at analyzing the defenses that the individual has built over the course of their existence; in other words, at “making manifest” what of the “Self” — the essence of the individual’s personality — has been removed or repressed.

Rather than focusing on the symptom, it is interested in the unconscious dynamics underlying that symptom.

Analytical therapy is an analysis that involves every aspect of the person. Symptoms are signs and symbols of distress, which can reveal the elements that underlie the generalized malaise affecting the subject.

The symptoms of neuroses cannot be understood only as consequences of repressed traumas, but also as attempts by the psyche to arrive at a new synthesis.

Symptoms reveal conscious and unconscious elements that lead to the understanding and resolution of internal or interpersonal conflicts.

For Jungian analysis, neurosis — psychic disorder — is the expression of a lost balance caused by a blockage of psychic energy.

In abnormal behaviour, one must understand and integrate the states that the patient is struggling to reach in order to free the libido. The liberation of libido leads to its normal flow and, therefore, to psychic healing. Thus, one could say that this therapeutic path pursues a better adaptation of the patient to their inner and outer world.

For C. G. Jung, in psychological treatment, the relationship that is created with the patient is fundamental. It is a two-person relationship, special and unique with each individual: therapy as the magic of the encounter.

In analysis, the therapeutic path should be considered a journey toward the discovery of the subject’s complexes, the traits of their shadow, and the elements of their own soul — understood not as a metaphysical substance, but as the “set of feelings, emotions, and sensations that a person possesses and perceives, and which constitute the most pleasant and harmonious part of the Self.”

The concrete method is roughly the same as the psychoanalytic one, although the theory and some subsequent developments have differentiated it and distanced it with regard to its interpretation of the unconscious and of libido. It consists of the analyst’s interpretation, starting from the analysis of dreams, events of real life, fantasies, the person’s expressive methods, the type of transferential relationship between patient and analyst and counter-transferential relationship between analyst and patient, and free associations.

Dreams speak to us of the unconscious and should be considered as bearers of symbols, which in turn carry meaning and are therefore transformative elements of the personality.

It is a therapeutic path indicated for the treatment of neuroses, for achieving a readjustment to reality, and for analyzing the subject’s deep motivations.

Analytical therapy aims to achieve a readjustment to reality that is, however, inclusive of the subject’s deepest needs and motivations.

It is also a suitable path for those who decide to investigate the depths of their own psyche in order to discover the hidden reasons behind problems and anxieties, which may also be expressed through symptoms such as phobias or eating disorders.

“...To have a vocation, in its original meaning, means to be guided by a voice. [...] The inner voice is the voice of a fuller life, of a broader, further consciousness. In the inner voice, the lowest and the highest, the sublime and the abject, truth and falsehood often mingle inscrutably, opening within us an abyss of confusion, bewilderment, and despair. The person who, by betraying their own law, does not develop their personality has missed the meaning of their own life...”

C. G. Jung