Analytical psychology

From New World Encyclopedia


Analytical psychology is part of the Jungian psychology movement started by Carl Jung and his followers, after his break with Freud. It is distinct from Freudian psychoanalysis. Analytical Psychology primarily explores how the collective unconscious, the part of consciousness that is cross-cultural and common to all human beings, influences personality. It is utilized not only for those with a mental disorder, but also for those who desire to promote their own psychological development and well-being.

Jungian psychology

Jungian psychology is a theory developed by Carl Jung, and is central to Analytical psychology (the "Neopsychoanalytic school"). The goal of Analitical or Jungian psychology is to explore the unconscious, both personal and collective, and integrate the conscious and unconscious through a variety of disciplines and psychological methods. His approach to psychology emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of anthropology, astrology, alchemy, dreams, art, mythology, religion and philosophy. Jung believed the unconscious to be a great guide, friend and advisor of the conscious mind. A major tool used to communicate with the unconscious is through dream analysis. Dreams, in Analytical Psychology, are considered an integral, important, and personal expression of the individual's unconscious. They reveal the symbols and archetypes contained in the person's unconscious which can be keys to the individual's growth and development. Jung once said that just as a biologist needs the science of comparative aatomy, a psychologist needs the experience and knowledge of the products of unconscious activity and mythology.

Jungian psychology is geared largely toward the nature of symbolism and the effects of the symbol as a "transformer of consciousness", "Symbolic power" then has the ability to transcend and permeate through all conscious thinking.

Levels of consciousness

Analytical psychology distinguishes between a personal and a collective unconscious.

The personal unconscious

Main article: Unconscious

The basic assumption is that the personal unconscious is a potent part — probably the more active part — of the normal human psyche. Reliable communication between the conscious and unconscious parts of the psyche is necessary for happiness.

Also crucial is the belief that dreams show ideas, beliefs, and feelings of which individuals may not be readily aware, but need to be, and that such material is expressed in a personalized vocabulary of visual metaphors. Things "known but unknown" are contained in the unconscious, and dreams are one of the main vehicles for the unconscious to express them.

Collective unconscious

The collective unconscious contains archetypes common to all human beings. That is, individuation may bring to surface symbols that do not relate to the life experiences of a single person. This content is more easily viewed as answers to the more fundamental questions of humanity: life, death, meaning, happiness, fear. Among these more spiritual concepts may arise and be integrated into the personality.

Comparison: Psychoanalysis and Analytical Psychology

Main article: Psychoanalysis

Analysis is a way to experience and integrate the unknown material. It is a search for the meaning of behaviors, symptoms, events. Many are the channels to reach this greater self-knowledge. The analysis of dreams is the most common. Others may include expressing feelings in art pieces, poetry or other expressions of creativity.

Giving a complete description of the process of dream interpretation and individuation is complex. The nature of the complexity lies on the fact that the process is highly specific to the person who does it.

While Freudian psychoanalysis assumes that the repressed material hidden in the unconscious is given by repressed sexual instincts, Analytical psychology has a more general approach. There is no preconceived assumption about the unconscious material. The unconscious, for Jungian analysts, may contain repressed sexual drives, but also aspirations, fears, as well as archetypes of the collective unconscious.

Key terms

Archetype

Main article: Archetype

Jung is best known for his term "archetype" which connotes a structural view of psychological life. The term archetype can be understood as quite similar to - and was probably directly influenced by - Kant's term "a priori." Jung often seemed to view the archetypes as sorts of psychological organs, directly analogous to our physical, bodily organs: both being morphological givens for the species; both arising at least partially through evolutionary processes. Current Jungian-influenced thinking has explored nearly diametrically opposing paths from Jung's structural thinking. Some have pursued deeply structural views, along the lines of complexity theory in mathematics, and some have tried to work with Jung's ideas in a seeming post-structuralist way (most obviously, James Hillman). Jung's work with mythology and archetypes was one of the most significant influences on mythologist Joseph Campbell.

The self

Main article: Self

Perhaps the most important archetype to Jung would be what he termed the "self." It could be described as the ultimate pattern of psychological life; he characterized it as both the totality of the personality, conscious and unconscious, and the process of becoming of the whole personality. It could be described as both the goal of one's psychological life and that which pulls one toward it teleologically. One important point to note here about Jung's thinking is that he did not hold to be absolute the four-dimensional space-time continuum that we conventionally conceptualize.

We can better understand Jung's views of the self by looking at two other archetypal or structural views that were highly important to him: the idea of "the opposites" and his work describing many old, largely despised and forgotten alchemical texts. Jung saw these texts as valuable psychological treatises rather than dry descriptions of arcane magical practices.

The complex

Early in Jung's career he coined the term and described the concept of the "complex". Jung claims to have discovered the concept during his free association and galvanic skin response experiments. Freud obviously took up this concept in his Oedipus complex amongst others. Jung seemed to see complexes as quite autonomous parts of psychological life. It is almost as if Jung were describing separate personalities within what is considered a single individual. But to equate Jung's use of complexes with something along the lines of multiple personality disorder would be to stretch the point beyond breaking.

Jung saw an archetype as always being the central organizing structure of a complex. For instance, in a "negative mother complex," the archetype of the "negative mother" would be seen to be central to the identity of that complex. This is to say, our psychological lives are patterned on common human experiences. Interestingly, Jung saw the Ego (which Freud wrote about in German literally as "the I", one's conscious experience of oneself) as a complex. If the "I" is a complex, what might be the archetype that structures it? Jung, and many Jungians, might say "the hero," that who separates from the community to some extent to ultimately carry the community further.

Self-realization and neuroticism

Main article: Psychoneurosis

An innate need for self-realization leads people to explore and integrate these rejected materials. This natural process is called individuation, or the process of becoming an individual.

If a person does not proceed toward self-knowledge, neurotic symptoms may arise. Symptoms are widely defined, including, for instance, phobias, fetishism, depression. Symptoms are interpreted to be similar to dreams in that there is a concealed meaning in the apparently useless symptom.

Psychological type

Analytical psychology distinguishes several psychological types or temperaments.

  • Extrovert
  • Introvert

The terms introvert and extrovert (spelled extravert by Carl Jung) were originally employed by Sigmund Freud and given significant amplification later by Jung. The terms refer to "attitudes" and show how a person orients and receives their energy. In the extroverted attitude the energy flow is outward, and the preferred focus is on people and things, whereas in the introverted attitude the energy flow is inward, and the preferred focus is on thoughts and ideas.

Thus, one who is introverted is more likely to spend time alone or in contemplation, as these activities are rewarding. They may avoid social situations entirely, not because of shyness, but because they choose to.

While most people view being either introverted or extroverted as a question with only two answers, the reality is that this is probably more of a scale, with people falling on both ends and in between. The term ambivert was coined to denote people who fall more or less directly in the middle and exhibit tendencies of both groups. An ambivert is normally comfortable with groups and enjoys social interaction, but also relishes time alone and away from the crowd. Ambiverts tend to be moderate thinkers and weigh more than one side to an issue. Most have warm but controlled personalities.

The attitude type could be thought of as the flow of libido (that is psychic energy, or qi). The Introvert's flow is inward to the subject and away from the object, ie. external relations. The Extrovert's is outward toward the object, ie. towards external relations and away from the inner, subjective world. Extroverts desire breadth, while introverts seek depth.

The Introversion/Extroversion attitude type may also influence mental breakdown. Introverts may be more inclined to catatonic type schizophrenia and extroverts towards manic depression.

Post-Jung

Samuels (1985) has distinguished three schools of "post-Jungian" therapy - the classical, the developmental and the archetypal.

Classical school

The classical school is that which tries to remain faithful to what Jung himself proposed and taught in person and in his 20-plus volumes of work.

Developmental school

The developmental school, associated with Michael Fordham, Brian Feldman etc., can be considered a bridge between Jungian psychoanalysis and Melanie Klein's object relations theory. Laings and Goodheart are also often mentioned.

Archetypal school

The archetypal school (sometimes called "the imaginal school"), with different views associated with the Mythopoeticists, such as James Hillman in his intellectual theoretical view of Archetypal psychology, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, in her view that ethnic and aboriginal people are the originators of archetypal psychology and have long carried the maps to the journey of the soul in their songs, tales, dream-telling, art and rituals; Marion Woodman who proposes a feminist viewpoint regarding archetypal psychology, and other Jungians like Thomas Moore, as well. Most mythopoeticists/archetypal psychology innovators either imagine the Self not to be the main archetype of the collective unconscious as Jung thought, but rather assign each archetype equal value...Others, who are modern progenitors of archetypal psychology (such as Estés), think of the Self as that which contains and yet is suffused by all the other archetypes, each giving life to the other.

Robert L. Moore, one of Jung's most dedicated followers, has explored the archetypal level of the human psyche in a series of five books co-authored with Douglas Gillette, which have played an important role in the men's movement in the United States. R. Moore likes to use computerese, so he likens the archetypal level of the human psyche to the hard wiring of a computer. Our personal experiences of course influence our accessing the archetypal level of the human psyche, but personalized ego consciousness can be likened to the software in a computer (e.g., Microsoft Word).


Depth psychology, Archetypal psychology are related.


Clinical theories

Main article: Clinical_psychology

Jung's writings have been of much interest to people of many backgrounds and interests, including theologians, people from the humanities, and mythologists. Jung often seemed to seek to make contributions to various fields, but he was mostly a practicing psychiatrist, involved during his whole career in treating patients. A description of Jung's clinical relevance is to address the core of his work.

Jung started his career working with hospitalized patients with major mental illnesses, most notably schizophrenia. He was interested in the possibilities of an unknown "brain toxin" that could be the cause of schizophrenia. But the majority and the heart of Jung's clinical career was taken up with what we might call today individual psychodynamic psychotherapy, in gross structure very much in the strain of psychoanalytic practice first formed by Freud.

It is important to state that Jung seemed to often see his work as not a complete psychology in itself but as his unique contribution to the field of psychology. Jung claimed late in his career that only for about a third of his patients did he use "Jungian analysis." For another third, Freudian analysis seemed to best suit the patient's needs and for the final third Adlerian analysis was most appropriate. In fact, it seems that most contemporary Jungian clinicians merge a developmentally grounded theory, such as Self psychology or Donald Winnicott's work, with the Jungian theories in order to have a "whole" theoretical repertoire to do actual clinical work.

The "I" or Ego is tremendously important to Jung's clinical work. Jung's theory of etiology of psychopathology could almost be simplified to be stated as a too rigid conscious attitude towards the whole of the psyche. That is, a psychotic episode can be seen from a Jungian perspective as the "rest" of the psyche overwhelming the conscious psyche because the conscious psyche effectively was locking out and repressing the psyche as a whole.

John Weir Perry's book The Farside of Madness explores and fleshes out this idea of Jung's very well. Note: this is a psychological description of a psychotic episode.

Jung hypothesized a medical basis for schizophrenia that was beyond the understanding of the medical science of his day (and seems to still be beyond present medical science in a satisfactory sense). Twin studies and plenty of clinical material seem to point clearly to a medical basis for schizophrenia. It perhaps can best be said that schizophrenia is both medical and psychological. A medical understanding (again, as yet still lacking) would not change the fact that schizophrenia is lived by those who have it psychologically; that is to say, as theorists and scientists, we may be able to say that schizophrenia happens in genes, brains, and the electrochemical, but for one who has schizophrenia it also happens in their mind and experience. This is to say a purely medical treatment of major mental illness is inadequate, as is a purely psychological treatment of major mental illness.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Samuels, Andrew. (1986). Jung and the Post-Jungians. London: Routledge. ISBN 0710208642.


External links


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