The Practice of Psychotherapy

Jung wrote in his 1958 Foreword to the Swiss edition of this book, "This volume ... contains both early and late writings on questions concerned with the practice of psychotherapy... The reader will find in these essays not only an outline of my attitude as a practising psychotherapist and of the principles on which it rests. They also contain an historical study of a phenomenon that may be regarded as the crux, or at any rate the crucial experience, in any thorough-going analysis---the problem of the transference, whose central importance was recognized long ago by Freud." Here are some representative quotations from the book: "Although I was the first to demand that the analyst should himself be analyzed, we are largely indebted to Freud for the invaluable discovery that analysts too have their complexes and consequently one or two blind spots which act as so many prejudices." "The first beginnings of all analytical treatment of the soul are to be found in its prototype, the confessional." "Nevertheless psychology has profited greatly from Freud's pioneering work; it has learned that human nature has its black side---and not man alone, but his works, his institutions, and his convictions as well. Even our purest and holiest beliefs rest on very deep and dark foundations..." "But it is extremely important, in his own interests, that the psychotherapist should not in any circumstances lose the position he originally held in medicine..." "Nor should we gloss over the fact that that classification of the neuroses is very unsatisfactory, and that for this reason alone a specific diagnosis seldom means anything real." "The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgment go, is completely neutral."

This book provides some insight into Jung's views on how to perform therapy (dealing with psychological problems) and analysis (assisting individuation). p. 20 the cause of neurosis is the discrepancy between the conscious attitude and the ...unconscious. This dissociation is bridged by the assimilation of the unconscious contents. One of the most important things to Jung is the analyst/therapist's psychological state of development since the analysis itself is a reflection of the patient-analyst dyadic relationship. p. 71 the personalities of doctor and patient are often infinitely more important for the outcome of the treatment than what the doctor says and thinks (although what he says and thinks may be a disturbing or healing factor not to be underestimated). For two personalities to meet is like mixing two different chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed. In any effective psychological treatment the doctor is bound to influence the patient; but this influence can only take place if the patient has a reciprocal influence on the doctor. You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence. But, people are primarily unconscious which dominates the analysis/therapy. p. 78 The final appeal to reason would be very fine if man were by nature a rational animal, but he is not; on the contrary, he is quite as much irrational. Hence reason is often not sufficient to modify the instinct and make it conform to the rational order. And the primary catalyst is the transference between patient and therapist. p. 134 Transference is the alpha and omega of psychoanalysis. The therapy is a partnership and the patient must be treated as a partner. p. 147 Consider every dream interpretation invalid until such time as a formula is found which wins the assent of the patient. And the therapist must be honest within the container of the therapy. p. 145-6 It is therapeutically very important for the doctor to admit his lack of understanding in time, for there is nothing more unbearable to the patient than to be always understood...In the end it makes very little difference whether the doctor understands or not, but it makes all the difference whether the patient understands. Additionally, one's life experience and age can affect the analysis. p. 39 It seems to me that the basic facts of the psyche undergo a very marked alteration in the course of life, so much so that we could almost speak of a psychology of life's morning and a psychology of its afternoon. Analysis is an individual effort to individuate beyond the mass of humanity. Jung states in many volumes the mass unconsciousness of groups of people. p. 6 Since it is notorious that a hundred intelligent heads massed together make one big fathead, virtues and endowments are essentially the hallmarks of the individual and not of the universal man. The masses always incline to herd psychology, here they are easily stampeded; and to mob psycholo

This is Volume 16 of the Collected Works of Carl Jung (1875-1961), "The Practice of Psychotherapy". The first half of the volume is a collection of essays in which Jung explains his views about the interaction of a therapist and a patient. Two themes are striking. First, Jung insists that therapy is a mutual interaction, not something the therapist "does" to the patient: "the therapist is no longer the agent of treatment but a fellow participant in a process of individual development" (p. 8). Secondly, Jung is iconoclastic and utterly unsystematic: for him, the process of growth and healing is a process of individuation, so what is needed for healing at each step of the psychotherapeutic process will be unique to the individuals involved. Jung borrows ideas from Freud, such as dream-analysis and transference, but Freud would not even recognize the way Jung uses these terms in this volume. Indeed, the final work, "The Psychology of the Transference" (1946), is one of his late alchemical works; it uses the *Rosarium philosophorum*, a 16th century alchemical text, as the basis for elucidating the spectrum of issues around an individual's relationship with the Unconscious. I suspect this volume would be of particular interest to practicing therapists, because Jung discusses the profound existential issues that are often overlooked in current professional programs in psychology.

....several interesting pieces, including the Jungian view of the transference as an alchemical dialog between anima and animus. Clinical wisdom mixed with analytic theory.