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| Specific Anxiety Disorders |
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Clinical descriptions of
the DSM disorders
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| Dealing with Anxiety |
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Links coming soon
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| Links coming soon |
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Links coming soon
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| Additional Links |
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Fall 2002
To be announced
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Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss Psychiatrist who developed a revolutionary new form of depth psychology. He called his own model analytical psychology and based it upon the existence of a psyche comprising the totality of conscious and unconscious individual life. Jung adopted the ancient method of introspection to explore the deep reaches of his own, and the collective, unconscious. Initially a follower of Freud, Jung expanded and deepened Freud's concept of the unconscious to include the spiritual essence of all human beings.
Although Jung presented his ideas within the context of modern psychiatry...that is, understanding and treatment of mental disorders...Jungian ideas have found broader support among mystics, theologians, philosophers, and New-Agers than among psychologists. Jung often couched his models of psychology in esoteric and mystical terms, including parallels with alchemy, gnosticism, and religion. Indeed, Jung believed that explorations of the unconscious depths of the personality is not just an academic excersize or a concern for psychologists; it is everybody's business to go on a spirit journey. Jung believed that the fate of humanity depended on the willingness of ordinary individuals to do their "inner work."
In contemporary times, analytical psychology is a state of lamentable neglect. Indeed, few people (psychologists included) recognize Dr. Jung’s psychological perspective by that name at all. What was a rich, powerful, and rewarding model has essentially disappeared from, or more accurately, failed to ever appear in the mainstream of clinical theory, research, or practice. There is a thriving Jungian school which has Institutes in Zurich, New York, and a few other centers. However, these devotees of Jung’s ideas remain insular and clannish to the point that analytical psychology remains an obscure and nearly irrelevant footnote in the history of psychology. The result has been an unfortunate lack of cross-pollination and exchange of ideas with other models, which is generally the sort of path that leads to increased vitality in a scientific hypothesis. Mainstream clinical psychology, which is under the sway of the cognitive-behavioral paradigm by and large, sees nothing useful in analytical thought, because it appears so obscure. Jungians, on the other hand, are generally happy to remain in their ivory towers, and care too little that the world is going by with little notice. It is probably true that the Jungian perspective invites those of an elitist and exclusionary turn of mind; but I believe it was Jung’s intention to found a model of applied psychology, not a mystery cult. As a result, most training psychologists encounter Jung as a curious footnote in their graduate level History and Systems class, and never give it a second look.
Analytical psychology stands very nearly alone in its emphasis on the “autonomous spiritual principle,” and is certainly unique among psychological models in its attempts to bring the empirical method to spiritual experience. Jung acknowledged that the spiritual aspect of mankind if ineffable and beyond the direct reach of the empirical methodologies of science; however, he did endeavor to make an empirical study of the effects of the spiritual principle. The problem is, Jung’s idea of “empirical” research often included chatting with Australian aborigines and decoding obscure medieval manuscripts. I happen to believe that these are useful ways of getting a read on the human psyche, because the study of psychology ought to include study of the products of the psyche; that is, the things people write, say, do, and even paint and dream.
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