About the Jungian process

About the Jungian approach

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.) 

Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Each of us contains within us an inner universe with a number of characters - parts of ourselves that can cause conflict and distress when not understood. Most of us are relatively unfamiliar with these players and their roles and yet they are constantly seeking a stage on which to perform their dramas personally, relationally and collectively.

C.G. Jung called these aspects of ourselves 'complexes,' and, as Jung so succinctly put it:

 "Everyone knows nowadays that people 'have complexes'. What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us." 

(C.G. Jung Collected Works 8, paragraph 210)

Paradoxically, it is these very obstacles, these complexes that can also become the incentives and openings to further new development.

At the heart of the Jungian process is a realignment of conscious and unconscious energies so the psyche gains balance. Jungian Psychotherapy is very much experience driven, keeping one foot in the outer world and the other in the realm of dreams, synchronistic events, fantasies, and symbols. Knowing yourself involves a journey into the unconscious, so that repressed or unknown elements are released, not only for the relief of discomfort or distress, but so that transformation occurs and the individual becomes more conscious.

 The psychological work involves connecting the past to the present, the personal and collective, the spiritual and mundane, and so on; and through this process creating an embodied and meaningful life. This is a process that is individual and collective, personal and relational and the work occurs in an atmosphere of 'non-judgemental curiosity' oriented to becoming all that one is destined to become.

Everything good is costly, and the development of personality is one of the most costly of all things. It is a matter of saying yea to oneself, of taking oneself as the most serious of tasks, of being conscious of everything one does, and keeping it constantly before one's eyes in all its dubious aspects -- truly a task that taxes us to the utmost.

~ C.G.Jung

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