Carl Gustav Jung is one of the early great men of psychology, whose influence of theory and practice remains strong even to this day. His approach of analytical psychology is concerned with bringing the conscious and unconscious into balance of being, so that the patient is able to move forward to a sense of completeness and wholeness and their creative potential may be realized through psychological growth. He developed the concepts of key archetypes, symbolic persona that exist within us all and that manifest in our dreams. By harnessing their meaning, understanding their role in our life, individuals can reach their fullest potential. This process of individuation is key in his psychoanalytical treatment and impact on healing by the application of this type of treatment is the concern of this paper. The idea of the archetypes crosses cultural boundaries indicating how entrenched they are in the psyche of all human beings. They present in our dreams and are a significant part of our healing physically and emotionally as well as psychologically. In this paper the application of Jungian psychological analysis in two different regions of the world, Africa and Puerto Rico, is examined and we find that the concepts for dream therapy and for spirits are closely related to Jungian analytical psychology in ways that enable healing to occur in multiple cultures. Jungian treatment is also used as part of healing for patients facing serious illness. To exemplify the tremendous impact of this treatment, a clinical study based on Jungian dream therapy with cancer patients is presented. The results are astounding in their potential for patients to confront death and dying with a sense of purpose and strength in this ultimate individuation experience.
Summary
Jungian analytical psychology in South Africa
Working with clients from another culture can present a challenge to the therapist. Unfamiliar with cultural norms, values, language and behavior can lead to difficulties in successful outcomes and can serve to increase the existing cultural divide. Prompted by an effort to improve psychological treatment for black South African clients, Van Breda (Van Breda, 1999) explored the parallels between Jungian and black African views on dreams so as to use dreams as a possible means of linking consciously to the clients and enabling psychotherapy to progress. The similarities are striking in terms of the dream concepts and dream therapy itself.
The dream concept of Jung involves a more holistic view as Jung sees the psyche as an integrated whole between mind, body and spirit. There is interdependence between them. This view is completely in line with the black African view that physical illness is also spiritual and visa versa, such that healing a physical ailment also involves spiritual healing as well. The Jungian concept of collective conscious formed from universal archetypes translates well into black African culture. The archetypes are identical although there may be numerous images that represent the archetypes and they may be different from those expressed white people. Furthermore, black Africans have a strong connection to their ancestors whom they believe are living in the invisible part of life and they commonly visit and communicate with the living through dreams. The communications are sacred and revered. According to Van Breda, the ancestors may be equated to the Jungian archetype of wholeness, “Self”, the core of one’s being, which similarly communicates with us giving highly significant messages in our dreams. Aspects of dream healing between Jungian and black Africans ideas are also in sync.
Jung made clear distinction between subjective (dream relates to processes in the psyche) and objective (dream relates to persons, relationships, objects in the world) dream interpretation. For the black African, the dream is objective with strong subjective connotations expressed by symbols. Dreams from ancestors invariably are an attempt to guide the dreamer to correct an imbalance in their life or the community. For Jung, dreams could be used as a guide to maintain equilibrium between the conscious and the unconscious and he would use dreams to diagnose medical conditions. As such, for Jung, dreams can be a healing tool, as they can be used to realign the psyche and restore balance. Healing from dreams for black Africans is held in high esteem and they often report actual healing from them. They don’t analyze them but embrace them and carry them out. Finally from both a Jungian and black African perspective, loss of dreaming is considered a sign of illness. Jung considered the dream as a tool for treatment and in black African culture, ignoring a dream is an illness or misfortune and loss of dreaming is a danger.
Black Africans have a high regard for dreaming and the healing it can bring. For them, dreaming is fundamental to health of self and health of the community at large. There are strong similarities between the dream concepts of the black peoples of South Africa and Jung, which would allow for Jungian dream analysis to be used for treatment successfully. Indeed it has already been demonstrated as an excellent means of treatment on the Xhosa people who originate from the south east coast of South Africa. Jungian analytical psychology is so universal that it has application in a completely different culture in the Americas.
Jungian analytical psychology in Puerto Rico
There is another aspect of Jungian analytical psychology that for many evokes some level of discomfort. This aspect may be seen as dabbling in the occult and certainly not accepted by mainstream psychological science. However, from the standpoint of healing and Jung’s method of analytical psychology, this part cannot be ignored. Jung is probably one of the few well-known psychologists to explore the aspect of spirit possession. While he wrestled with remaining scientific and entertaining the existence of ghosts, spirits and demons, he explored the possibility through personal involvement and incorporated spiritual healing into his method of analytical psychology (Molina, 1996).
While the thought of a spiritual type of healing may concern some, Jung recognized that certain individuals are affected to the point of being under control of a non-resident persona and he sought a method of treatment. Jung made a distinction between neurosis or soul-complex, where a patient is dissociated from the ego, and psychosis or spirit-complex, where a spirit associates with the patient and possesses them. Analytical psychology attempts to remove the complex in order for healing to occur. The technique he uses for healing psychosis, or mental illness, is remarkably akin other traditional spirit based healing systems such as Espiritismo (Molina, 1996) which attempts to heal illness caused by a spirit cause. In an article comparing Jungian analytical psychology and Espiritismo (Molina, 1996), the spiritual healing notion and process have much in common with Jungian analytical psychology.
Espiritismo is a spiritual healing with occult and religious undertones practiced in Puerto Rico. Espiritismo began in the mid 19th century and involves a meeting with mediums, the client and spirits. Spirits are believed to be part of a hierarchy of spirits with low ranking ignorant spirits who possess and harm people and higher-ranking spirits who protect and guide people. A medium will connect with the ignorant spirit possessing the afflicted and allow the spirit to possess them. The first dialogue involves the spirit talking through the medium and expressing the reason why they are harming the client. The second part of the dialogue involves guiding the spirit to stop doing harm. The other attending mediums, possessed by their personal spirit guides will deliver messages to help right the situation. The process is ritualistic and involves prayers and offerings. For healing to occur, the ignorant spirit must repent and leave the afflicted person. In analytical psychology, with the help of the psychoanalyst as a mediator, the client deals with the shadow archetype by becoming aware of and assimilating it. The anima and animus are manifest. The wise old man archetype is brought into the treatment process for ultimate healing to take place.
Both Espiritismo and Jungian analytical psychology recognize the situation of “possession” and the physical illness that can result. They involve establishing a relationship with a transpersonal dimension (spirits or archetypes) beyond the physical world in order to confront the cause of troubles. Finally, they resort to other beings in the non-real dimensional space for help and guidance. By exorcising the source of the trouble, the individual can be healed. This exorcism is a form of individuation that permits transformation of individuals to greater effectiveness in the their life through validation of immaterial beings. Viewed from this light, the possibility of non-drug treatment for more mentally ill persons is less threatening than the consideration that possession by spirits is real.
Jungian analytical psychology in therapy for cancer patients
Jungian analytical psychology is typically applied to neuroses and character disorders as already discussed, but there is a growing area that reports success in counseling for patients coming to terms with illnesses of a life threatening nature (Goelitz, 2001). Cancer is one such disease, which evokes tremendous fear in patients. Cancer patients are a particularly vulnerable group of people who experience not only the fear associated with facing terminal illness and painful treatment, but isolation and inadequate support from family and friends who do not know how to deal with the situation. In a clinical study on female cancer patients, the application of dream work in counseling was explored and reported (Goelitz, 2001).
The method of dream work counseling was based on Jung’s approach to dream analysis. As such, the method used focused on the feelings evoked during the dream rather than a conscious analysis. The dreamer was asked to re-experience the dream, recall their feelings and the feelings of other characters in an effort to extract insight and learn from the dream experience. In the first instance, the dreamer is asked to re-count the dream, slowly, in the first person, to encourage the dreamer to re-enter the dream. In order to extract meaning, the counselor then asks the dreamer about the setting of the dream and what was happening in the dreamer’s life at the time of the dream. Finally, to obtain further meaning of the dream, the dream is explored using Jung’s amplification whereby elements of the dream are associated with collective meanings from the shared human experience. In this way, the meaning and sense of dreams may be assimilated back into the psyche of the dreamer, which can then bring about profound change in the life of the dreamer. This can be especially healing for patients who confront death and dying, which Jung considered to be part of personal individuation. Dream work carried out in this manner was surprisingly effective.
The focus on bodily sensations was particularly important as it allowed the cancer patients to connect with and express feelings and thoughts, which were previously repressed. Patients who had denied formal counseling were intrigued and joined dream work sessions. They were also more likely to continue counseling after the formal clinical study was complete. Most astounding was the short time in which patients confronted key and frightening aspects of death and dying and furthermore, they had found some strength and comfort from the dream work. The outcomes of this clinical study are encouraging and show the importance and potential for Jungian style dream counseling.
Conclusion
The potential of Jungian analytical psychology for healing is both culturally diverse and medically broad. The concepts of archetypes, dreams, individuation, balance between the conscious and unconscious are of universal importance in mind, body based healing modalities. In this paper, the impact of healing through the application of various aspects of Jungian analytical psychology was explored in different areas of illness.
The use of Jungian dream analysis in black African culture was the successfully applied for healing issues relating to the psyche. The archetypical persona, developed by Jung were clearly understood by European and black Africans alike and the process of healing by connecting with the “Self” could be used to resolve issues of personal importance for black African patients. In Puerto Rico, a strong parallel between the spiritual healing practice of Espiritismo and Jungian archetypical healing in psychosis could be drawn. This comparison shows how Jungian analytical psychology can be used to heal patients that normally would be confined and or heavily medicated. Finally, Jungian dream analysis was successfully used to counsel cancer patients facing death. These patients, many of whom had refused other forms of counseling were able to face their life threatening illness with strength and optimism in an amazing short time through the dream work. In summary, the three situations examined here show the power of Jung’s analytical psychology to heal across cultural and societal boundaries as well as to heal patients with serious physical illnesses.
References
Van Breda, A. D., (1999). Parallels between Jungian and black African views on dreams. Clinical Social Work Journal, 27, 141-153.
Goelitz, A., (2001). Nuturing life with dreams: therapeutic dream work with cancer patients. Clinical Social Work Journal, 29, 375-385.
Molina, N. M. (1996). Archetypes and spirits: a Jungian analysis of Puerto Rican Espiritismo. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 41, 227-244.
