Carl Jung was a Swiss medical doctor and psychiatrist, who became fascinated by the inner working of the human psyche and the interconnectedness of life. He spent his life working on his new “empirical science” of the psyche, and developed a multitude of theories and way of accessing its secrets.
It is a type of psychotherapy which utilizes the instinctual drive for psychological growth and wholeness, to achieve healing and wellness by aligning the conscious and unconscious aspects of psyche. Unfortunately it is usually painful symptoms in life that bring us to psychotherapy.
When that natural drive for individuation and authenticity is blocked or disrupted by life’s myriad situations and traumas, mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and destructive relationship patterns occur as maladapted coping strategies and effects. It can result in downward spirals of hopelessness and despair.
It is a holistic psychotherapy that works toward the health of the overall person, not just symptom relief. It looks backwards at causes and events, patterns and history, and it looks forward to where we want to be, and how to get there.
Discovery of our diverse parts, making them conscious and having a relationship with them is an important path toward individuation, or wholeness. These parts often show themselves in relationships, and in dreams and allow an entry place to work with them.
These parts are associated with more amorphous archetypes in everyone’s psyche. The mother or father archetype, the winner, the loser, the powerful, the lover, the hater, the vulnerable are all archetypes. These inform how we think and feel in different situations. We may be aware of some and not others. Some are triggered by situations or others. Making them conscious is part of becoming whole.
Tarot is a set of images reflecting the archetypes and parts of psyche. These images tend to highlight, or activate different parts that when made conscious, enlighten us to certain things. The psyche works largely with images, and the archetypal images on the cards speak to that.
Dreamwork tells a story with their images as well. This too can make conscious those areas of the unconscious that wish to be known in their coded dream messages.
Jung also believe in something beyond us, something larger than ourselves, in a divine aspect to the Self. This has lead him to at times being dismissed as metaphysical. While this is a derogatory label to some, to others it is desirable. He did feel that connection to something larger, something beyond ourselves, was important to our wholeness. He also researched and wrote endlessly in his efforts to stay in scientific realm.
To become a fully accredited Jungian analyst is a rigorous, decade long process, and I am not that. But I have studied his many works, taken numerous classes and worked in this arena for over twelve years, and it informs my overview of the work I offer.
