Jungian Approach to Psychotherapy Represents

Jungian approach to psychotherapy represents a total transformation of the Self, the Soul, the Psyche. As such, the Jungian approach remains one of the most powerful methods by which a clinician can help guide a client towards the healing process. Healing is truly conceived of as wholeness in the Jungian tradition. Rather than seek for a pathology, the Jungian therapist searches earnestly for roadmaps and blueprints. The client explores the Self in ways that illuminate the numinous, using Jung's term for the efficacy of meaningful soul elements.

My personal encounters with the Jungian tradition have transformed my self-concept as a clinician, as well as my perception of what the psychotherapeutic process entails. Jungian psychology alters not just the methods by which to facilitate healing but also the goals of that healing.

The client engaged with a Jungian psychologist seeks wholeness via unification of the Self. Fragments of the Self may be found in the memories, dreams, and reflections contained within the individual's numerous -- and numinous -- life experiences. Moreover, Jungian therapy is especially efficacious in a diverse clinical environment. As Gambini (1998) points out, exploring the roots of one's self requires a thorough and honest examination of the roots of one's ancestral cultures. Via the exploration of the special archetypes, images, and myths, the client can reach an elevated, heightened, and complete sense of Self.

Gambini's (1998) chapter on the "challenge of backwardness" is especially illuminating for a therapist. The saying "two steps forward, one step back" is a hallmark of recovery, such as that from drug or alcohol addiction. Taking forward steps usually do signal growth, although the therapist should understand that forward motion is not necessarily a sign of maturation, growth, or healing. Back-stepping can, as Gambini (1998) shows, be a potent factor for positive growth and change. Backwardness is too often feared when actually going backward "forces one directly into alchemy as the only alternative to nothingness," (Gambini 1998, p. 149).

To recognize the relevance of backwardness is a revelation for me as a therapist, and this shift in consciousness has tremendously heartening clinical implications. It may not, as Gambini (1998) notes, be "so obvious" to therapists that backwardness "contains in itself a germ of movement and transformation in the form of a challenge," (p. 149). In fact, we who cultivate the awareness of backwardness as a positive element in the therapeutic process can fertilize the roots of a patient's being. I also appreciate Gambini's (1998) revelation that we Jungian therapists address the "phenomenology of the spirit," (p. 149).

From Robertson (2005), I gained much in terms of Jung's role in the history of psychology. Jung's instrumental role in affirming psychology as a science is downplayed by modern researchers. Yet as the author notes, much of what Jung unearthed in his research and clinical work has bled through to modern clinical psychology. The most obvious implication that Jungian psychology has become part of the mainstream social sciences is the Myers-Briggs test.

However, the concept of the archetype is Jung's. So, too, are issues like extraversion and introversion. Jung is renowned for detailed personality typing, a process that is integral to healing. Typing indicates the quest for self-awareness. Like going backwards, the process of being more aware of the self is often akin to diving into a dark pool.

We Jungian therapists might sometimes be called upon to delve into primitive landscapes ourselves, searching for cultural emblems and icons that match a client's budding self-awareness. The Cambridge Companion to Jung, which contains a plethora of useful essays on various aspects of the Jungian tradition, outlines various ways that Jungian theory is put into practice. We read about classically psychanalytical issues like transference and countertransference; we also examine a case study from the various perspectives and learn how Jung would have commented on issues as diverse as sexuality and politics.