Jung's Methods in Psychotherapy Jung's method in psychotherapy follows
the Freud's one, as he often admitted. In rare cases, when Freudian approach of the psyche is not sufficient, Jung would apply also other methods that should guide the patient to a personal confrontation with the collective unconscious and its archetypes
. This confrontation aims at the assimilation of
archetypal images, in short,
the individuation, an extensive process that leads to the realization of the psychic wholeness
that includes a conjunction of the conscious and the unconscious. In common terms, it is all about an extension of the conscious mind, which includes the archetypal materials pointing to basic requires of the complete psyche.
The entire process is achieved through the following methods of exploration:
Free Associations Test
Test used in psychotherapeutic treatment
that consists of recording the average response time to certain stimulus-words. The patient is asked to answer to the inducted words pronounced by the analyst with any word that comes to his mind. The response time can
be an indicator of the activated unconscious complexes.
here...
Dream Analysis
Up to a point, Jung's dream interpretation method follows the Freud's one including the free associations, subject level,
retrospective approach. But he later added several new concepts, such as amplification of dream content, the idea that the dream brings a compensation
to the one-sided individual ego, and its finality that aims at the the psychic wholeness. Learn more... Active Imagination
Jung invited his patients to let all the things flow in their mind.
That is, the inner fantasies must flow freely but the patient must proceed not as a detached and contemplative viewer, nor as a psychotherapist, but as an actor that takes part in his/her fantasies, that plays a role in them. The fantasies are products of the unconscious and must be fully integrated in his/her conscious mind.
Learn more. Symbol Analysis
A large part of dream interpretation technique at Jung consists in symbol analysis. It aims at the integration of
the unconscious contents and the extension of conscious mind. Learn more.
Playing, painting, building and other such activities
may lead one to explore and manifest his/her own unconscious contents. In painting one may express a visual representation of the psychic wholeness. Also in building, one may relieve his/her inner creative forces blocked or inhibited by his/her one-sided moral or ethical values.
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