About Jungian Analysis

While most schools of psychology prioritize resolving disturbances in outer life, Jungian analysis particularly engages one’s inner life or self to achieve balance between the demands of life in the external world and the need for a meaningful internal world. Jungian analysis goes beyond the relief of symptoms to seek their symbolic meaning and unseen opportunities for growth. It honors depth, complexity and wholeness.

People may engage in an analytic process due to emotional distress or because they feel a persistent need for greater meaning and self-discovery. An initial period of psychotherapy can become a more analytic process that emphasizes working deeply rather than quickly.

The analyst will engage with you in processes that increase understanding of the unconscious influences in your life so that unrecognized or denied aspects of your personality can be recognized. Jungian analysis values working with dreams, a nightly pathway to those unknown parts of yourself that inform and enlarge your waking life. The analyst will also pay special attention to symbols, images, and complexes (ingrained ways of feeling and behaving charged by emotion).

The goal of Jungian analysis is individuation, Jung’s term for wholeness. It is characterized by an awareness of an abiding sense of self, steady presence in the world, and aliveness even in the face of difficulties. The analytic process fosters the discovery of your innate potential and allows it to unfold so you can become who you were truly meant to be.

FAQs About Jungian Analysis

What is the Difference Between Jungian Therapy & Jungian Analysis?

Jungian therapy often describes a therapist’s general orientation without the level of training required for Jungian analysis. Only a Certified Jungian Analyst is qualified to provide Jungian analysis.

Jungian analysis is also referred to as Jungian psychoanalysis or Analytical Psychology (the term Jung used to distinguish his theory and methodology from Freud).

What is a Certified Jungian Analyst?

Only someone who has graduated from a Jungian training program approved by the International Association of Analytical Psychologists (IAAP) is a Certified Jungian Analyst. This training requires an existing graduate degree, personal analysis and supervision as well as mastery of a wide-ranging body of knowledge. Analytic training, with its high standard of professional competence and personal integrity, takes years to complete.

How does Jungian Analysis work?

Analysis requires both commitment and regularity. Sessions may be held one or more times per week depending on an individual’s situation and preference. In current practice analysis usually takes place over several years.

Jungian analysis seeks to understand unconscious influences in your life, integrate unrecognized or denied aspects of your personality, and achieve deep, long lasting changes in the personality. The goal of Jungian analysis is to foster the discovery of innate potentials from which you have become estranged and integrate these potentials into conscious living.

How is Jungian Analysis Different From Other Forms of Analysis?

Jung believed symptoms have meaning and provide us with opportunities to understand ourselves more deeply. Symptoms develop as a response to imbalances in life and are a call to discover more of oneself. Jungian analysis recognizes the importance of personal history, emotions, and relationships, and it also honors a connection with the unconscious, the wellspring of healing, meaning, and vitality. To develop this connection, Jungians utilize dreams, symbols and other spontaneous expressions of psychic energy.

The goal of Jungian analysis is individuation, Jung’s term for wholeness.

Who Can Benefit From Jungian Analysis?

Jungian analysis can help people who have a genuine desire to learn about themselves and are able to commit to regularly scheduled meetings over a sustained period of time. This process can be helpful for people with a wide range of personal issues, from depression and anxiety to a quest for relationship or deeper meaning and purpose in life.

Analyst and patient work together to bring relief and understanding to emotional suffering, increase consciousness, and move toward wellbeing and wholeness. Because Jungian analysis fosters dialogue between conscious and unconscious, it embraces all aspects of psyche. It has the potential to be a rich and life-changing experience for a broad range of people.

Are analytic sessions confidential?

Yes. Strict confidentiality is necessary for the trust and honesty essential to success. An exception can be made only if someone’s personal safety is at risk.

Do I need to remember my dreams to work with a Jungian Analyst?

There are many ways to access the unconscious: memories, fantasies, creative practices, physical experiences, and analytic interaction are all ways to engage the psyche. Engaging in Jungian analysis often helps people recall their dreams.

Are Jungian Analysts licensed?

Most Jungian analysts have earned licenses in psychology, social work or another psychological specialty prior to Jungian training. In some states, a Certified Jungian Analyst can be licensed as a psychoanalyst.

Will a Jungian Analyst take my insurance?

Because insurance depends on many variables—especially a person’s particular policy—this is a question best asked and answered by the two individuals involved. A Jungian Analyst can likely provide a receipt or invoice to submit to an insurance company.

What can I expect from an initial meeting with a Jungian Analyst?

Analysts often meet with prospective clients for one or two sessions in order explore needs and goals, answer questions, and assess whether both parties feel their connection seems promising. If so, a regular schedule for sessions will be arranged.