Analytical work in the here and now
In Analytical Psychology according to C.G. Jung, it is only in the theory of complexity that a consideration of the past is required. Jungians are much more likely than representatives of other analytical disciplines to understand the importance of the "here and now" for recognizing and processing disorders and clinical diagnoses. Therefore, it is not assumed in the therapeutic process that the effectiveness of the treatment is only caused by the "processing" of the past.
Therapeutic Methods
Analytical psychology does not use standardized methods, as identification with a particular school of therapy is not its primary concern. This perspective stems from the fact that analytical psychology does not assume a single optimal method of human behavior and experience. What is optimal for each individual is developed collaboratively within the therapeutic process. The therapeutic relationship provides a safe and trusting space, which in the analytical process is primarily established through conversation and exploration of unconscious processes.
The goal of therapy is to bring unconscious processes into conscious awareness in order to understand why blockages occur in the psyche that lead to suffering. Therapy involves collaboratively exploring the client's inner landscape and then, like a jigsaw puzzle, assembling the discovered pieces to create a revised picture that the client can work with and understand.
Analytical psychology is an exceptionally creative therapeutic method that relies far more on imagination than on language. This work on the self-regulatory process, the communication between the ego and the self, as well as between the conscious and the unconscious, is supported by numerous creative approaches.
I offer the following creative methods:
- Exploring fairy tales and (also modern) myths (such as films, literature, etc.)
- Dealing with dreams (amplification)
- Symbolization
- Therapeutic painting and drawing
- Active Imagination
Therapeutic Relationship
The differentiated and sublime understanding of the therapeutic relationship and the therapeutic process is one of the major characteristics of analytically oriented therapeutic disciplines, which consider the relationship to be a psychodynamic process built over decades with a well-founded theoretical basis. This theoretical assumption can also be seen as a major distinguishing feature in contrast to non-analytically oriented therapeutic schools.
During their education, psychodynamically oriented therapists undergo sound professional and personal discussions in their therapeutic relationship work. In the analytic schools, one subjects oneself to one's own long-term training analysis. Only this specialization in psychodynamic processes in a relationship enables the profitable application of a therapeutic method.
Only this intensive engagement with oneself and one's own shadow, and thus with one's own self-awareness, as well as the specialization in psychodynamic processes within relationships, enables the ability to support clients in the important and beneficial work of self-awareness.
For Jungians, psychotherapy is working on the therapeutic relationship, where the gradual recognition, the gentle change, the transformation, the "inner allowance to always start over again" is rehearsed.
Overcome fears and conflicts and use them as a resource
In my psychoanalytical work, I have found that anxieties and conflicts want to be acknowledged. This creates the opportunity to get to know these aspects of oneself and transform them into supportive and protective resources of one's own character. Clients come with anxieties and conflicts, and it is precisely these that often create the opportunity to look beneath the surface, because behind the pain lie the potential for transformation.
Pics © by Bianca Bernabé – www.bernabe.studio
What do dying people regret?
"I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."
– B. Ware 2013