The analyst in action: An individual account of what Jungians do and why they do it

Abstract

This paper describes some similarities and differences between contemporary approaches to analysis as practised by ‘Freudians’ and ‘Jungians’ in London today. It aims to contribute to mutual understanding between different schools of analysis by showing how the analyst’s interventions can only be understood in terms of the theoretical context from which they arise (cf. ‘the analyst’s preconscious’, as discussed by Hamilton [1996]). A discussion of five key themes of Jungian theory is followed by an account of clinical work with a patient who enacted her inner world through the use of material objects brought to the consulting room, presenting difficult technical dilemmas concerning boundaries and enactment. The paper aims to shows how these Jungian themes influenced the analyst’s response, particularly in relation to ideas of symbolic transformation, the unknowable nature of unconscious processes and the purposive orientation of the self towards wholeness and integration.

Key words:

• boundaries
• Jungian analysis
• similarities and difference
• symbols
• the self

1. This is a slightly revised version of a paper first presented at a scientific meeting of the British Psychoanalytical Society on 18 June 2003. Publication was not possible at that time due to the confidentiality of the clinical material. The patient described has now given her permission for the paper to be published.

1. This is a slightly revised version of a paper first presented at a scientific meeting of the British Psychoanalytical Society on 18 June 2003. Publication was not possible at that time due to the confidentiality of the clinical material. The patient described has now given her permission for the paper to be published.

Notes

1. This is a slightly revised version of a paper first presented at a scientific meeting of the British Psychoanalytical Society on 18 June 2003. Publication was not possible at that time due to the confidentiality of the clinical material. The patient described has now given her permission for the paper to be published.

2. Jung took this term from Rudolf Otto’s (1917) book, The Idea of the Holy.