Jung At Heart Archive November 2008

Seven Questions

Thanks to Ryan Howes for this next series of posts, for he is doing a project in which he contacted several influential psychotherapists and asked seven questions regarding their approach to psychotherapy. Over the next week or so, I will answer these questions in terms of my own work, so I can represent the not-influential Jungian psychotherapists.

Here are the questions:

1. How would you respond to a new client who asks: "What should I talk about?"

2. What do clients find most difficult about the therapeutic process?

3. What mistakes do therapists make that hinder the therapeutic process?

4. In your opinion, what is the ultimate goal of therapy?

5. What is the toughest part of being a therapist?

6. What is the most enjoyable or rewarding part of being a therapist?

7. What is one pearl of wisdom you would offer clients about therapy?


I want to start with this quote from Jung, because it establishes the ground for the approach I take.

"The psychotherapist...must decide in every single case whether or not he is willing to stand by a human being with counsel and help on what may be a daring misadventure. He must have no fixed ideas about what is right, nor must he pretend to know what is right." (CW 11, para. 53)

When a new patient comes to see me for the first time, I suggest she tell me about herself. That is usually enough to get things started. I do not do a structured interview. In this first session, I am listening for basic background information, for what she doesn't tell me as much as for what she does. I see how she frames the problems or issues which concern her most. I interrupt only to get clarification or if there is something I don't understand. This is a way to help her get used to the reality that this is her time, to use as she wished and that the subject of our sessions will be what she brings, that I do not set the agenda or the topic. 


Nov 29, 2008 11:06 AM

Catching up

After the holiday, I have a long post I plan to do on the latest revelations about the scandals rocking academic psychiatry and on what might lie ahead in the DSM V. But for now, how about some useful resources?

First, there is a Jungian podcast, which you can find on iTunes. It is produced by John Betts, a Jungian analyst in Victoria, B.C.. I have listened to several of them, and while he is more a classical Jungian than I, the content is solid and not a bad way to become familiar with Jungian psychology.

The New York Association for Analytical Psychology hosts the Jung Lexicon on their website. This is a terrific resource for solid explanations of Jungian terms.

The C.G. Jung Page is full f valuable material, including articles not available elsewhere. There is a very nominal subscription fee for full access and it is well worth it.

Meta Religion.com has a Gallery of Archetypes. I wouldn't take these as definitive but they are interesting.

And finally for today, there is this collection of links to articles on a variety of things Jungian, centering on dream interpretation and active imagination.

Added Dec. 1:

Full text of Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections

The film, A Matter of Heart


Wishing you all a bountiful Thanksgiving!



Nov 26, 2008 9:51 AM

Comings and Goings

The vicissitudes of private practice -- over the course of a few months  new people start work with me and some  end. It's like that. A long term patient reaches an end and leaves. Of new people, some stay, some do not. I can usually tell in the first visit if a person is going to stick with the work. Something in how they make even the initial contact on the phone tells me that the basic commitment has already been made and that it is a matter of the two of us seeing if we are a good fit. And with those who feel iffy from the start -- wanting to be seen less frequently than weekly, or who locate the source of their problems outside themselves -- it's all there from the outset. 

That first hour is critically important. I find out what they're wanting, what brings them to talk with me. And I have to strike a balance between just listening and beginning the process of  going inside, of interpreting what I hear and making connections in their story while at the same time not going too deep too fast. A delicate process of carefully monitoring the depth of the conversation, because it is too soon to go too far.

And paying attention to how I feel with this person. What is going on in my body while I listen. What images the story calls to my mind. What associations. 

And if it goes well, we agree on a time and a fee and the work begins. 

Sometimes, the work takes them in directions they hadn't expected. The point is reached where the story they have told themselves about why things are not as they wish they were isn't holding up and to go further is to take on examining themselves and things they have pretty much avoided. And sometimes at this point, they leave. Because they aren't yet ready to go there. And may never be.

It is different every time. And there is a reassuring sameness as well. I never get tired of it.

Nov 16, 2008 11:31 AM

We practice what we believe

A terrific supervisor once said that to me -- we practice what we believe. And I come back to it again and again as I see ever more clearly how much that is what our field is about.

Recently I participated in an online seminar sponsored by IARPP (the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy) on the use of the telephone in analysis and therapy. Nearly all of the participants utilized the telephone for sessions at least once in a while and several had also experienced analysis as a patient utilizing the telephone. What interested me most was that it came down to whether the analyst is comfortable with the telephone, comfortable with the therapeutic space that forms between analyst and patient in that modality, that seems to be the determinant of how successful the work is. A few people, myself included, who have fairly clear ideas about how the therapeutic space is different -- different, not inferior -- from meeting in the office, expressed greater comfort with the use of the telephone than did those who simply do not like the phone.

In "Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience", Yi-Fu Tuan explores what makes a space become a place. As space becomes known with recognized landmarks, it becomes place. So therapeutic space is what exists when the patient first enters. The development of place, of home comes with learning the language and habitat of *this* therapist until that room becomes therapeutic place.

Each dyad of patient and therapist has to develop this sense of home, even though it feels relatively constant for the therapist. We have the challenge of opening to the strangeness of new with each new patient, understanding that in reality it is also new for the us because as the person sitting across from us changes, so does the place.

The therapeutic space which develops when the work is done by telephone differs from that when therapist and patient sit face to face, but it is therapeutic space nonetheless. When my patients call. I am sitting in my customary place, just as if they were sitting in front of me. And I suggest that my patient similarly be in the same place each time. We then create the space between us -- the sound of our voices and the time creating a temenos between us. Therapy works in part because it is contained. There is confidntiality, there is a fee, and a set time. Our work together is contained in this virtual space, just as it would be were we both in my office.

Constancy of place when speaking with patients on the telephone seems to me to be critical. We develop habits of how we sit, settle into our chairs, where we look and the like when we meet face to face with patients -- these are our rituals for entering the work with each patient. It seems to me that we need the same when working with patients via telephone. That is how on our end we create the therapeutic place.

I was surprised at how few of those who use the phone for sessions with patients do so in their offices, sitting as they would were the patient present in the room. And that they seem not to set a similar expectation for the patient. 

My office is in my home. Whether I meet with a patient on the telephone or face to face, I sit in the same chair in my office. That is where I do my work. It would feel odd to me to wander about or sit in a different room. I strongly suggest my patient do the same, for those with whom I meet telephonically. And I explain a bit about why.

We practice what we believe.


Nov 13, 2008 5:12 PM

What it's all about

The medical model would have us believe that treatment is all about curing or placing into remission disease. But is that really it, especially given that once a DSM diagnosis is given it is never removed? 

I see therapy quite differently, as being about assisting the process of individuation, of becoming ourselves. Individuation is a journey, not a destination, a goal which remains forever in front of us:

The goal is important only as an idea; the essential thing is the opus which leads to the goal: that is the goal of a lifetime.  ("The Psychology of the Transference," CW 16, par. 400.)

One of my favorite ways of describing individuation comes from Jolande Jacobi in her book, The Way of Individuation:

"Like a seed growing into a tree, life unfolds stage by stage. Triumphant ascent, collapse, crises, failures, and new beginnings strew the way. It is the path trodden by the great majority of mankind, as a rule unreflectingly, unconsciously, unsuspectingly, following its labyrinthine windings from birth to death in hope and longing. It is hedged about with struggle and suffering, joy and sorrow, guilt and error, and nowhere is there security from catastrophe. For as soon as a man tries to escape every risk and prefers to experience life only in his head, in the form of ideas and fantasies, as soon as he surrenders to opinions of ‘how it ought to be’ and, in order not to make a false step, imitates others whenever possible, he forfeits the chance of his own independent development. Only if he treads the path bravely and flings himself into life, fearing no struggle and no exertion and fighting shy of no experience, will he mature his personality more fully than the man who is ever trying to keep to the safe side of the road."  

And isn't that what it is all about -- treading the path bravely and flings himself into life, fearing no struggle and no exertion and fighting shy of no experience? Though heaven knows, no insurance company will pay for that.

Nov 7, 2008 9:15 AM

Civic ritual

On Election Day, I worked as an election clerk in my town. For 9 hours I sat at a little table in City Hall and checked in voters, who came in droves. I have voted in every election since I turned 21 but this time was different. Because I became a part of the process that made it all work.

Yesterday, as I reflected on my experience, I became aware of the rituals involved in establishing the voting temenos, a word I use here because indeed it felt like the civic analogue of sacred space. We followed established ritual, not unlike the rituals surrounding preparation for the Eucharist. The clerks all sworn in. The voting booths had to be set in particular ways, posters and documents hung in proper places. Marks to be made on voting lists in red pen. And when the scanner had to be emptied because it had filled with ballots, another ritual for pausing the vote, opening the box, removing the ballots, witnessing the removal and placement of the ballots into sealed boxes for counting later. And knowing that all over this state and with minor variations all over this country, the same rites and rituals were being followed. 

If you haven't read Andrew Samuels' Politics on the Couch, I recommend it. 

Nov 6, 2008 11:37 AM

© Cheryl Fuller, 2007. All  rights reserved.