Jungian Psychotherapy

Eve Barton M.Ed. , LPC, LLC

Active Imagination: Jung created the concept of active imagination as a way to describe bridging the gap between unconsciousness and consciousness. Using imagination, fantasy, dreams and meditation, a client is able bring their unconscious into the present through narrative or action.
Individuation: Individuation is a process of analytical psychology, by which an individual develops into who they truly are intended to be. Individuals with emotional difficulties often feel like they live fragmented, disjointed lives filled with varying degrees of emotional experiences. Forward progress is often impaired as a result of inner conflict and self-sabotage stemming from segregation of the different selves within a person. Individuation involves integrating all of a person’s past positive and negative experiences in such a way that the person can live a healthy, productive, and emotionally stable life. Individuation allows a person to become unique and essentially individual from other human beings and the collective unconscious. The process of individuation occurs through various methods, including dream interpretation and active imagination, and gives birth to a mature, holistically healthy and harmonious individual.
Collective Unconscious:
Jung was the first to use the term collective unconscious as a means for describing an expression of the unconscious that is exhibited by every living being with a nervous system. Rather than only possessing experiences from our personal history or our psyche, the collective unconscious organizes all of the experiences within a species. Jung believed the collective unconscious was inherited and inherent to each being, rather than a result of specific events. The collective unconscious holds mental images that cannot be explained historically or through experience, but exist only as an evolutionary by-product.
Eros/Logos: Jung also used the term logos in his philosophical theories. Logos, according to Jung, represented fact or reason. Jung often referred to the contrast between conscious versus unconscious as logos versus mythos. Additionally, Jung believed that logos was the male version for rationality, where the female counterpart, eros, represented psychic availability or emotion.
Nekyia: Nekyia is a key component of Jung’s analysis. Nekyia, or the process of delving into the unconscious, is, according to Jung, a deliberate and decisive action. He believed that Nekyia, a journey into an “unknown place”, was a necessary process by which to achieve individuation. Those who travelled to the depths of their inner psyche and back were far better for having done so.