Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Jung: Analytical
Psychology
(^134) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
In 1961, Jung wrote about his experiences with active imagination during his
midlife confrontation with the unconscious:
When I look back upon it all today and consider what happened to me during the
period of my work on the fantasies, it seems as though a message had come to me
with overwhelming force. There were things in the images which concerned not
only myself but many others also. It was then that I ceased to belong to myself
alone, ceased to have the right to do so. From then on, my life belonged to the
generality.... It was then that I dedicated myself to service of the psyche: I loved
it and hated it, but it was my greatest wealth. My delivering myself over to it, as it
were, was the only way by which I could endure my existence and live it as fully
as possible. (p. 192)
Psychotherapy
Jung (1931/1954b) identified four basic approaches to therapy, representing four de-
velopmental stages in the history of psychotherapy. The first is confession of a path-
ogenic secret. This is the cathartic method practiced by Josef Breuer and his patient
Anna O. For patients who merely have a need to share their secrets, catharsis is ef-
fective. The second stage involves interpretation, explanation, and elucidation. This
approach, used by Freud, gives the patients insight into the causes of their neuroses,
but may still leave them incapable of solving social problems. The third stage, there-
fore, is the approach adopted by Adler and includes the education of patients as so-
cial beings. Unfortunately, says Jung, this approach often leaves patients merely so-
cially well adjusted.
To go beyond these three approaches, Jung suggested a fourth stage, trans-
formation.By transformation, he meant that the therapist must first be transformed
into a healthy human being, preferably by undergoing psychotherapy. Only after
transformation and an established philosophy of life is the therapist able to help pa-
tients move toward individuation, wholeness, or self-realization. This fourth stage is
especially employed with patients who are in the second half of life and who are con-
cerned with realization of the inner self, with moral and religious problems, and with
finding a unifying philosophy of life (Jung, 1931/1954b).
Jung was quite eclectic in his theory and practice of psychotherapy. His treat-
ment varied according to the age, stage of development, and particular problem of
the patient. About two thirds of Jung’s patients were in the second half of life, and a
great many of them suffered from a loss of meaning, general aimlessness, and a fear
of death. Jung attempted to help these patients find their own philosophical orien-
tation.
The ultimate purpose of Jungian therapy is to help neurotic patients be-
come healthy and to encourage healthy people to work independently toward self-
realization. Jung sought to achieve this purpose by using such techniques as dream
analysis and active imagination to help patients discover personal and collective un-
conscious material and to balance these unconscious images with their conscious at-
titude (Jung, 1931/1954a).
Although Jung encouraged patients to be independent, he admitted the impor-
tance of transference,particularly during the first three stages of therapy. He re-
garded both positive and negative transference as a natural concomitant to patients’
128 Part II Psychodynamic Theories