In a broad sense, psychotherapy means healing or therapy of the psyche, its difficulties, disorders, and manifestations by psychological, non-medical means. Jung defines psychotherapy as the treatment of the soul (CW 16, § 212), and at the same time, a kind of therapy that is guided by the soul. This implies that the soul itself is simultaneously the object of transformation and the subject that makes this transformation possible. To sum things up, in psychotherapy, it is the soul or psyche that drives and directs change, and the very place where the change occurs.
Analytical psychotherapy or analysis is a psychotherapeutic method derived from the theory and practice of analytical psychology, which means a dialectical relationship between two psyches - analyst and analyst (client), and which is aimed at studying and researching conscious and especially unconscious psychological content of the client. Analytical psychotherapy is an intimate, deep, dedicated, caring relationship of exchange between two personalities, a dialectical process between two psychic systems that react to each other, in order to explore the client's mental state, process and content of his psyche. The fact that analysis is a dialectical process means that both participants, the analyst and the analyst, are equally involved and present in the process, that is, that there is a two-way interaction between them.
Jung put it this way: "You cannot influence if you are not subject to influence."(CW 16, §176).
In technical terms, Jungian analysis is a procedure that includes the following: 1) regular meetings; 2) individual work with the client / analyst; 3) face-to-face work; 4) u in the analyst's workspace and 5) for monetary compensation..
Analytical psychotherapy can be defined as therapy of the psyche in an atmosphere of mutual trust, warmth, confidentiality and affection between the analyst and the analyst for an agreed monetary compensation. And the therapy of the psyche itself is an educational, ethical and / or healing process that results from mutual research and interpretation of maladaptive behavior, traumatic events and various types of psychological phenomena, traditionally called affects, feelings, memories, dreams, fantasies, ideas, daydreams, constructs. , attitudes. The research is undertaken using the usual methods and techniques that originated mainly from Jung, but also his followers, and the emphasis is on irrational, unpredictable, affectively colored material, while the goal of treatment is change or transformation (observed both subjectively and objectively by both participants) and completion of therapy.
Although the analyst is a professional with higher education who has many years of experience in personal analysis, as well as the necessary knowledge about the principles of manifestation and functioning of the psyche, it is his personality that heals, not his knowledge or the method itself. The analyst also brings into the analytical process his entire personality, professional and life knowledge and experience. It is for this reason that Jung, among the scholars of the soul, was the first to insist training analysis - personal psychotherapeutic process that the future analyst is obliged to go through, as a precondition for engaging in psychotherapeutic work with clients - as a necessary precondition (sine qua non) for all those who intend to engage in psychotherapy (CW 4, § 536). Jung believed that the basic healing element in psychotherapy is the so-called. internal knowledge analysts - knowledge acquired through personal experience and understanding of the psyche.
Analyst (client) is a person who voluntarily undertakes a psychotherapeutic process in order to improve or enhance their mental health and psychological functioning, get to know themselves better and solve psychological difficulties or / and become an analyst (in the latter case it is training or didactic analysis). In order for someone to be a "good enough candidate" for a future analyst, it is necessary to have the following personality traits: to be sufficiently interested and motivated to work on themselves and their psychological content, intelligent, psychologically sensitive, educated, sensitive, reflective, imaginative and introspective. - capable of observing one's own psychological contents and processes.
Although analytical psychotherapy grew out of the analytical methodology of deep psychology, especially Freud's psychoanalysis, Jung developed his own theory, and various psychotherapeutic practices emerged from it.
In a few words, some of the basic assumptions of analytical encounter in Jungian psychotherapeutic practice are as follows: bearing in mind that the psyche acts through a game of opposites, Jung emphasized a synthetic sintetički approach in analysis, which aims to synthesize opposing psychological contents, not a reductiveone, which is more tied to Freud and his approach; although Jung neither denied nor diminished the significance and influence of instincts on psychological life, he highlighted the duh spirit as an archetypal force necessary for the well-being of an individual; Jung emphasized a prospective ili teleološku or teleological perspective in dealing with the psyche, believing that “it is necessary to see a person through what is healthy and healing and not what is disturbed or missing” (CW 4, §773-4); he highly valued religious contents, believing that they were related to the Self and the meaning of life. His personal and professional experience helped him understand the existence of the so-called instinct for religiosity, that is, the instinct for meaning.
Analytical psychotherapy aims to establish an optimal connection between the self and the rest of the psyche, especially a continuous and uninterrupted dialogue between the conscious and the unconscious. Although it is a lifelong process, the ultimate value is not reaching the goal, but only the journey, a process of constant psychic integration facilitated by the symbolic sharing of the unconscious.
Getting in touch and entering into a relationship with the symbolic, creative, and healing potentials of the unconscious is the path to individuation, unification, the process by which a person becomes a psychological individual, that is a separate, indivisible unity or “whole”, being at the same time distinct from other people and collective psychology and in relation to them. All material that comes to light during the process of analytical work (fantasies, symptoms, dreams, defenses, resistance, performances) is analyzed in line with its creative and teleological dimension (what it leads to, and less where it comes from and why it is there).
While we go through the most important features of Jungian psychotherapy, it is important to keep in mind that it is not guided by the idea of making the unconscious conscious (nor is it possible), nor by analyzing the difficulties of the past, although it is on the agenda if and whenever is required. The object of analytical psychotherapy is the process itself - coming into contact and developing a relationship with the unconscious that will make it easier for us to completely resolve current and future psychological difficulties and improve the creative integration of psychological experience.
