Jungian Psychology

Jungian Psychology is a psychodynamic tradition that has incorporated elements from Alchemy and Gnosticism. It became a distinct tradition in the early part of the century, separating out from psychoanalysis starting in 1912. It did, however, retain a full psychodynamic model of the psyche and the working through of resistance. Jungian psychology deemphasizes the sexual aspect of libido and includes spiritual issues, extending the idea of the unconscious to include a collective aspect through which archetypal or spiritual influences can be experienced. It has a Romantic structure and character, including the Hegelian dialectic model of evolution and, in its understanding of synchronicity, the 'doctrine of correspondences' originally enunciated by Paracelsus, then Goethe. Jungians particularly value the dream as a focus of psychotherapeutic work and as a model for understanding the Mundus Imaginalis. A key focus in Jungian psychotherapy is 'individuation', the innate evolutionary tendency toward full manifestation of the whole being. Related themes are integration of the 'shadow' (forbidden and dangerous elements of identity that have been excluded in the formation of the ego), going beyond the 'persona' (the mask we wear to cope with the everyday world) and integration of the 'masculine' (anima) and 'feminine' (animus) aspects of an individual in both women and men. Caroline Mardon