Topic Adlerian and Psychoanalytic Therapy

Read: Tan: Chapters 5 – 6

Chapters 5

Adlerian Therapy

Alfred Adler (1870–1937), the founder of individual psychology (Adlerian therapy), was originally part of the inner circle of Sigmund Freud’s Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and even served as its president and editor of its journal. However, Adler had substantial disagreements with many of Freud’s psychoanalytic views, which Freud could not tolerate. Adler therefore parted ways with Freud in 1911, founding his own school of therapy as well as a new society and journal. Individual psychology, or Adlerian therapy, emphasizes social motivation and subjective perception more than sexual drives in human behavior. In particular, Adler was much less deterministic and more optimistic in his view of human nature. He focused more on the significant influence of life goals on behavior, the crucial role of a basic striving for superiority in every individual, the importance of social interest and connecting with the community, the effects of birth order, and especially the substantial influence of a person’s core assumptions and beliefs (erroneous or valid) about their lifestyle, with some freedom of choice (Corey 2021).

Adler’s great impact on contemporary counseling and psychotherapy is not limited to his own individual psychology or Adlerian therapy school. His theoretical ideas and therapeutic techniques have significantly influenced so-called neo-Freudians such as Karen Horney and Erich Fromm, as well as founders of other schools of therapy like Carl Rogers and Albert Ellis, as well as Viktor Frankl and Rollo May. He also helped to popularize his ideas for the general public, who often associate Adler with the concept of the inferiority complex.

Biographical Sketch of Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler was born on February 7, 1870, in a small Austrian village near Vienna. He was the second son (and third child) in a family of six children with Hungarian-Jewish parents. He grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood and was more Viennese than Jewish in his identity. He became a Protestant when he was thirty-four years old.

Adler had an unhappy early childhood, filled with emotionally painful experiences and various serious illnesses, including a brush with death due to pneumonia when he was five years old. Two years earlier, when Adler was three years old, a younger brother died in a bed next to him. Adler himself was seriously injured in a couple of bad street accidents near his home. His older brother was very successful and talented, and Adler was deeply envious of him and felt inferior to him. Adler did not do well academically as a young child, so much so that his teacher advised his father to apprentice him to a shoemaker so that he could learn a trade rather than continue in school. However, his father ignored this teacher’s advice and instead encouraged Adler to pursue further schooling. Adler did so and ultimately did well academically. He chose to study medicine at the University of Vienna and graduated with his medical degree in 1895. His childhood experiences obviously had a strong effect on his subsequent ideas, such as those regarding inferiority and the inferiority complex and the basic striving for superiority or mastery and perfection.

Adler married Raissa Epstein in 1897, and they had four children, two of whom also pursued careers in psychiatry and psychotherapy. His wife, who was from Russia, was seriously committed to socialism and feminism. She had a significant influence on Adler and his emphasis on the equality of women and men.

In 1898 Adler began his private practice as an ophthalmologist but changed to general practice. Later, he specialized in neurology and psychiatry. As a practicing psychiatrist, he took a keen interest in the whole person, paying attention to the psychological, social, and physical aspects of an individual’s life.

In 1902 Freud invited Adler to become part of the psychoanalytic group that Freud was forming at the time. Adler was one of the four original members of the group, and in 1910 he succeeded Freud as president of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society. However, he had serious disagreements with many of Freud’s ideas, especially with Freud’s emphasis on sexual drives. Adler focused more on social motivations and subjective perceptions in explaining human behavior. He also did not undergo psychoanalysis for himself. Freud was unable to tolerate Adler’s significant differences with him, and Adler parted ways with Freud in 1911. Adler founded the Society for Free Psychoanalytic Research or Investigation, which was later renamed the Society for Individual Psychology, and in 1914 he and a colleague launched the Journal of Individual Psychology.

Adler interrupted his theoretical work to serve as a medical officer in the Austrian army during World War I. After the war, he demonstrated his social interest, especially in children, by establishing over thirty child guidance clinics in the Vienna school system. He also began training other professionals to use his ideas and the techniques of individual psychology, which focused on the whole individual. Adler advocated for school reforms and better child-rearing practices and spoke out against prejudices that were responsible for conflict.

Adler also wrote for the general public and was able to popularize his ideas and the methods of individual psychology. His book Understanding Human Nature (1959) became a widely read bestseller in the United States.

Adler first visited the United States in 1926 and later made many trips to lecture in the United States and other countries. In 1935 he and his wife moved to New York, where he held a faculty position at Long Island College of Medicine. Adler kept a very busy, grueling schedule. Although his friends urged him to slow down, Adler ignored their warnings. He died of a heart attack on May 28, 1937, in Aberdeen, Scotland, during a lecture tour. After Adler’s death, Rudolph Dreikurs played a major role in the expansion of individual psychology in the United States.

For further information on Adler’s life and work, see Bottome (1957), Orgler (1963), Rattner (1983), E. Hoffman (1994), Mosak and Maniacci (1999), J. Carlson, Watts, and Maniacci (2006), J. Carlson and Maniacci (2012), J. Carlson and Englar-Carlson (2017), Sweeney (2019), and Sperry and Binensztok (2019).

Major Theoretical Ideas of Adlerian Therapy

Perspective on Human Nature

Adler’s perspective on human nature was much less pessimistic and deterministic and more optimistic than Freud’s view. Adler emphasized the individual’s freedom to responsibly choose life goals and purpose in life, which can guide one’s life and lifestyle. He has therefore been considered a forerunner to the existential school of therapy by existential therapists such as May and Frankl, who also emphasized one’s freedom to choose and be fully responsible for one’s own life. Although Adler acknowledged that a person’s basic approach to life is already formed within the first six years of childhood, he focused more on one’s interpretation of the meaning of early childhood experiences and a longing for social connectedness as crucial motivations of human behavior. Adler also emphasized the teleological, or goal-oriented, nature of human beings, focusing on conscious choice more than the unconscious, in seeking fulfillment and meaning in life.

A major aspect of Adler’s theory is his description of inferiority feelings, which are seen as normal, occurring in every human person. Every individual has some area of deficiency that will lead to feelings of inferiority. To compensate for such feelings, however, a person will be motivated to strive for mastery, competence, or success: a basic striving for “superiority” or perfection, but not necessarily in an arrogant way. Adler was therefore basically optimistic in his view of human beings as capable of positive compensation for inferiority with a creative striving for superiority.

Adler also emphasized the whole person or total personality of an individual, with attention to all aspects of functioning, including the social and systemic context and the psychological and physical dimensions. He called his approach to therapy individual psychology to emphasize that it focused on the whole person in social context instead of being reductionistic and narrowly attending to only the internal psychological or biological aspects of the individual.

The major theoretical ideas of Adlerian therapy are subjective perception or interpretation of reality; unity and holistic development of personality (including goal-oriented and purposeful behavior, inferiority and a basic striving for superiority, and the lifestyle of an individual); social interest and community feeling; the life tasks; and birth order (see Corey 2021, 99–104).

Subjective Perception of Reality

Adlerians take a phenomenological approach to understanding their clients by focusing on how a client perceives or interprets reality and gives meaning to personal experiences. In other words, the crucial element is a client’s subjective experience of reality in terms of their own perceptions, interpretations, assumptions, beliefs, values, thoughts, and feelings, not some objective reality out there. This subjective, phenomenological view of the client’s experience of reality as a major influence on human behavior is a key concept not only in Adlerian therapy but also in many other contemporary approaches to counseling and therapy, such as existential therapy, reality therapy, cognitive behavior therapy, rational emotive behavior therapy, solution-focused brief therapy, family therapy, and feminist therapy (Corey 2021, 125). Eventually attempts have been made to integrate Adlerian therapy with cognitive and constructive therapies (R. Watts 2003).

Unity and Holistic Development of Personality

Adler viewed human personality holistically, with the individual developing in a unified way by self-selecting a basic life goal formed in the context of the person’s unique life experiences as well as specific family, social, and cultural environments. The interpersonal relationships in the social context of an individual are considered in Adlerian therapy much more than the person’s internal or psychological dynamics.

Three major concepts in Adlerian therapy relating to human personality development in a holistic way are goal-oriented and purposeful behavior, inferiority and a basic striving for superiority, and lifestyle.

Goal-Oriented and Purposeful Behavior

In addition to Freud, with whom he increasingly disagreed over time, Adler was also influenced by several significant historical figures, including Pierre Janet, who asserted that the general reason for neurosis is an underlying sense of inferiority; Friedrich Nietzsche, who stressed the central significance of the individual as well as the striving for perfection; Karl Marx and his ideas on socialism and social forces as the major influence on human behavior; and especially Hans Vaihinger, a philosopher who wrote The Psychology of “As If” (1911), emphasizing that people form their own perceptions of truth or reality and live by their own self-selected purposes and fictional goals (Parrott 2003).

Adlerians therefore view human behavior as being goal oriented and purposeful, motivated more by future goals than past experiences, a teleological explanation rather than a deterministic one. Fictional finalism is a term often used by Adlerians to refer to a self-selected, imagined life goal that influences an individual’s behavior and actions. However, Adler himself eventually replaced this term with others such as “goal of perfection” or “guiding self-ideal” to refer to a person’s basic striving for mastery or superiority (R. E. Watts & Holden 1994). Clients can choose their own subjective life goal, which will help them to act in ways consistent with it and to perceive and interpret their experiences accordingly.

Inferiority and Striving for Superiority

Adler assumed that fundamental feelings of inferiority and the need for their compensation expressed in a basic striving for superiority or perfection or completion are innate in all human beings. Earlier he had written about organ inferiority, referring to physical defects or personality deficiencies, in the causation of neurosis (1917). However, Adler was optimistic that human beings can compensate for their feelings of inferiority originating in childhood by striving for superiority, competence, and mastery, resulting often in creative and successful achievements in life.

Nevertheless, feelings of inferiority can become abnormal when they form an inferiority complex, in which an individual appears to self and to others as someone unable to solve a problem in a socially useful way (Ansbacher & Ansbacher 1956). Abnormal feelings of inferiority can also result in a superiority complex, whereby a person appears to self and to others as someone who is capable and strong, but the external appearance of self-importance and inflated self-confidence actually mask deep and abnormal feelings of inferiority (Sharf 2016).

Lifestyle

A person’s lifestyle in the Adlerian context refers to a plan for living or a style of life based on one’s fundamental beliefs, a lifestyle that pulls together reality for the person and lends meaning to life experiences. One’s lifestyle is thus the typical way that one lives or moves toward a self-selected life goal. Adlerians view people as proactive participants in life and society. Although they believe that an individual’s life goal is mainly set within the first six years of life, they also believe one can still correct faulty or invalid assumptions and beliefs and consciously choose a more appropriate life goal based on more accurate and valid assumptions and beliefs and hence a new lifestyle guided by the revised life goal (Corey 2021).

Social Interest and Community Feeling

Adler’s ideas about social interest and community feeling may be his most unique and important theoretical contributions to individual psychology (Ansbacher 1992). Social interest refers to a person’s sense of empathy and identification with others and interest in achieving a better future for all humanity. Social interest is usually demonstrated through shared social activities with respect for others. Adler viewed social interest as a crucial characteristic of mental health. Community feeling is closely associated with social interest and refers to a sense of belonging and social connectedness with others in the contexts of family and society and the world (Corey 2021).

The Life Tasks

Adler described the following three universal life tasks that everyone seeks to successfully accomplish: (1) the social task of building friendships; (2) the love-marriage task of achieving intimacy; and (3) the occupational task of work, making significant contributions to society (see Dreikurs & Mosak 1966). Three other life tasks that Adlerians have added are these: (4) the self-acceptance task of learning to get along with oneself (Dreikurs & Mosak 1967); (5) the development-of-spirituality task, which involves growing in one’s life goals, meaning, values, and relationship with the universe (Mosak & Dreikurs 1967); and (6) the parenting and family task (Dinkmeyer, Dinkmeyer, & Sperry 1987).

Birth Order

Adler viewed birth order and sibling relationships as another crucial factor influencing a person’s social relationships and lifestyle. He emphasized that the psychological, or perceived, birth order of the child is more significant than the actual, chronological, birth order. He provided possible influences of birth order on the oldest child (who is treated like an only child, with some pampering, until the next child comes along), the second child (who must share attention with another child, often with some competitive struggle), the middle child (who often feels forgotten or squeezed out and can be a problem child or a peacemaker), the youngest child (who tends to be the most pampered child), and the only child (who is often pampered by parents and may have trouble sharing with others) (see Corey 2021, 103–104). Adlerians often criticize birth-order research that focuses only on actual position or birth order in the family. A good example that illustrates the need to look more at the psychological birth order rather than simply at actual birth order in a family is provided by Sharf, using the model of a family with three children, in which the first child is one year older than the second (or middle child), who in turn is twelve years older than the youngest (or third child). Adlerian therapists may approach this specific family as consisting of two subsystems: the first as a family with a younger and an older sibling (the first two children), and the second as a family with an only child, with the youngest child viewed more like an only child (2016, 132).

Therapeutic Process and Relationship

In helping their clients, Adlerian therapists use a model that is more psychoeducational than medical. They do not view their clients as mentally ill and in need of a cure. Instead, Adlerian therapists believe that the major problem for their clients is that they are discouraged in dealing with problems and struggles in living. Encouragement is therefore the most important therapeutic method employed in Adlerian therapy, which also involves directly informing, teaching, and guiding clients to help them change their faulty assumptions and the mistaken goals in their private logic or thinking, so that they can be reeducated to live more on the useful rather than the useless side of life. Clients will then experience more social interest and community feeling, with greater courage and self-confidence to live this way.

The therapeutic relationship between the Adlerian therapist and the client is a warm and collaborative one: they can work together to make the changes necessary for the client to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The Adlerian therapist focuses on strongly encouraging and affirming the client, in order to counter the significant discouragement that often brings clients into therapy in the first place. The Adlerian therapist is therefore active and directive, but also very empathic, supportive, and encouraging. The client needs to be open and willing to disclose personal and family information. For example, the Adlerian therapist will use a questionnaire to assess the client’s family constellation: relationships and experiences with parents, siblings, and others who are living with the client at home. The therapist will also ask the client to provide early recollections, memories of specific events in childhood that the client is able to reexperience, in order to further assess how the client views self and others, as well as envisioning the future. The Adlerian therapist uses such methods to assess the client’s lifestyle, so that clearer goals for therapy can be collaboratively set. Adlerian therapy tends to be relatively short term, usually lasting from several months to a year or so.

Some of Adlerian therapy’s main psychoeducational goals for the client include fostering social interest, countering discouragement, reducing feelings of inferiority, and modifying faulty assumptions and mistaken goals—that is, changing a person’s lifestyle, changing faulty motivation and values, encouraging an individual to have a sense of equality with others, and helping the client to become a productive member of society (see Mosak & Maniacci 2008, 79).

Major Therapeutic Techniques and Interventions

Adlerian therapy is usually conducted in the following flexible and sometimes overlapping phases (Dreikurs 1967):

Establishing a therapeutic relationship

Conducting an assessment of the client’s dynamics

Providing insight and interpretation

Facilitating reorientation and reeducation

More-specific therapeutic techniques and interventions in each of these four major phases of Adlerian therapy are here briefly described. Adlerian therapists are quite pragmatic and eclectic in the specific therapeutic techniques they use to help clients achieve their therapeutic goals (e.g., see J. Carlson & Englar-Carlson 2017; Sperry & Binensztok 2019; Sweeney 2019).

Establishing a Therapeutic Relationship

The Adlerian therapist works at forming a warm, empathic, and collaborative relationship with the client, based on genuine caring, encouragement, and mutual respect and trust. The therapist does not rush to problem-solve but instead provides much support and understanding to facilitate client exploration and disclosure.

In this first phase of therapy, the Adlerian therapist employs the following therapeutic techniques: listening and attending with deep empathy, sensitively understanding and tracking the client’s subjective experiences as far as possible, clarifying and setting goals, and making tentative interpretations of the possible purposes of the client’s behaviors and symptoms (Corey 2021).

Conducting an Assessment of the Client’s Dynamics

This second phase of Adlerian therapy uses two main types of interview: the subjective interview and the objective interview (Dreikurs 1997). In the subjective interview, the Adlerian therapist, through active and demonstrated deep interest, supports the client in telling their life story as fully as possible. The therapist attempts to identify the purposes and meanings of the client’s life experiences. Toward the end of this subjective interview, the client is often asked whether they have anything else to share with the therapist so that the therapist can better understand the client and their concerns. To further clarify the client’s problems and goals, Adlerian therapists often end the subjective interview by asking “The Question”: “How would your life be different, and what would you be doing differently, if you did not have this symptom or problem?” (Corey 2021, 109). A shorter version of The Question is this: “What would be different if you were well?” (Parrott 2003, 135).

The objective interview seeks to obtain information in the following areas: the history of the client’s problems; precipitating events, if any; medical history, with past and present medication usage; social history; reasons for the client coming to therapy at this specific time; the client’s way of coping and dealing with life tasks; and an assessment of the client’s lifestyle (Corey 2021). Adler conceptualized lifestyle as consisting of four major components: the self-concept, the view of oneself based on reality; the self-ideal, the view of oneself as one would like to be; the picture of the world, one’s view of the reasons for things working the way they do in the external world; and one’s ethical convictions. This lifestyle, meaning basic strategy or map for living, influences one’s choices and behaviors. There are three major “entrance gates to mental life” that Adlerian therapists explore with clients in order to assess and better understand their lifestyles: birth order and the family constellation, early recollections or memories, and dreams (Parrott 2003).

Birth Order and Family Constellation. Birth order, or perceived psychological birth order, is an important part of the assessment of the client’s family background and experiences or family constellation. With the client, the Adlerian therapist explores not only the client’s birth order, but also experiences with the mother and father, siblings, and others in the family; the marital relationship between the client’s parents, including how they dealt with conflicts; and the disciplinary methods they used with the children. Adler viewed such family-of-origin experiences as having a crucial effect on the personality development of an individual. Early Recollections or Memories. Adler emphasized the crucial significance of a person’s earliest memories or recollections of specific, clear events, especially in childhood, for understanding the client’s present lifestyle or current view of life. The Adlerian therapist often guides a client in recalling such early memories or recollections: “I would like to hear about your early memories. Think back to when you were very young, as early as you can remember (before the age of ten), and tell me something that happened one time” (Corey 2021, 111). In a shorter version of this request, the therapist says: “Think as far back as you can and tell me your earliest memory from your childhood years” (Parrott 2003, 126). The therapist will ask for more details about a specific recollection and not settle for vague, general memories. Clients often provide several specific early recollections, which the Adlerian therapist will record in order to identify possible themes that may be connected to the client’s current lifestyle or view of life.

Dreams. Adler viewed dreams not as wish fulfillments (as Freud did) but as an individual’s attempts to deal with future difficulties. The moods or emotions experienced in a dream may also be related to the next day’s anticipated events. Adler further interpreted dreams as possible reflections of progress (or the lack of it) in Adlerian therapy. He noted that dreams may become more active as therapy progresses more successfully and the client makes more therapeutic changes in life and lifestyle. Dreams can therefore be used—in conjunction with family constellation, including birth order, and early recollections or memories—to assess a client’s lifestyle in Adlerian therapy.

In addition to these three major ways of lifestyle assessment, Adlerian therapists may also use two others: assessment of a client’s basic mistakes and assets (Sharf 2016, 138–139). Basic mistakes are based on early recollections and refer to the negative, self-defeating aspects of a client’s lifestyle. Harold Mosak and Michael Maniacci (2008, 82) describe five categories of basic mistakes:

Overgeneralizations, for example, “Life is dangerous.”

False or impossible goals of security, for example, “I have to please everybody.”

Misperceptions of life and life’s demands, for example, “Life is so hard.”

Minimization or denial of one’s worth, for example, “I am stupid.”

Faulty values, for example, “Be first even if you have to climb over others.”

Identifying basic mistakes can be helpful in assessing a client’s lifestyle, but correcting or modifying such mistakes in thinking or worldview is more difficult because a client may not be consciously aware of making basic mistakes in thinking.

The assessment of assets involves focusing on what is good and positive in a client rather than on what is deficient and negative. In assessing and identifying a client’s assets, such as academic skills, athletic abilities, or integrity, Adlerian therapists can provide strong encouragement to a client by giving direct and affirming feedback about their specific strengths. Sweeney (2019) has therefore emphasized a wellness approach to Adlerian therapy, with scales to measure wellness, and recently integrated it more with neuroscience. Maniacci and Laurie Sackett-Maniacci (2019) have pointed out how Adlerian therapy actually is closely related to contemporary positive psychology (e.g., see M. E. P. Seligman 2011) in emphasizing the assets and strengths of clients, but positive psychology hardly acknowledges Adler and his ideas (see also Mozdzierz 2015).

Providing Insight and Interpretation

In this third phase, Adlerian therapists proceed to interpret material collected in the process of lifestyle assessment in order to facilitate the client’s self-understanding or insight into personal behavior. In Adlerian therapy, the therapist makes interpretations only with regard to the client’s goals and purposes, and not about the internal psychological dynamics (Dreikurs 1967).

Interpretations are provided in a tentative and well-timed manner, so that clients are less likely to react in a defensive way or with resistance. Adlerian therapists often present an interpretation in the form of a tentative suggestion or question, using statements such as “I wonder if . . . ,” “It seems to me that . . . ,” and “Could it be that . . . ?” Clients are more likely to accept interpretations phrased in this sensitive and tentative style and thus develop deeper insight and self-understanding into the purposes and goals of their current functioning as well as dysfunctioning, including symptoms. They may also discover how they can go about changing or correcting their basic mistakes in thinking or in their private logic and in their mistaken goals.

Facilitating Reorientation and Reeducation

The last phase of Adlerian therapy is action oriented and focuses on facilitating the client’s reorientation and reeducation or helping the client to translate insights into actions. Adlerian therapists employ several therapeutic techniques to do this, but the crucial intervention is the use of encouragement. Clients are encouraged as well as challenged to take courageous steps and risks to bring about constructive and positive changes in their lives.

Some clients may need to make enormous changes, but many clients need only to be reoriented to what is called the useful side of life. This term refers to several characteristics such as courage, being valued, having a sense of belonging and connectedness with the community, caring for others and their well-being, embracing imperfection, gaining confidence, a sense of humor, a willingness to contribute, and friendliness that is shown outwardly. In contrast, the useless side of life involves self-protection and self-absorption, avoiding engagement in life tasks, and committing negative acts against other people (Corey 2021, 113–114). Adlerian therapy seeks to help clients move from the useless side of life, which is associated with less functionality and more psychopathology, to the useful side of life.

The following are the main therapeutic techniques used in Adlerian therapy to facilitate reorientation and reeducation in clients: encouragement, immediacy, acting “as if,” catching oneself, creating images, spitting in the client’s soup, avoiding the tar baby, push-button technique, paradoxical intention, task setting and commitment, homework, life tasks and therapy, and terminating and summarizing the interview (see Sharf 2016, 140–145; also Bitter et al. 1998; Bitter & Nicoll 2000; J. Carlson, Watts, & Maniacci 2006; Dinkmeyer & Sperry 2000).

Encouragement. Encouragement is the most significant and unique therapeutic technique used by Adlerian therapists to support and affirm clients, as an antidote to their discouragement in life. Encouragement is especially crucial in helping clients to believe that they can make the changes they want and need to make and then to take action and even risks toward therapeutic and constructive change. Encouragement does not consist only of comments such as “Keep on trying; I know that you are capable of doing this.” Adlerian therapists use creativity and deep caring, as well as courage, to strongly affirm and support their clients.

Adler himself was once confronted by a young woman suffering from schizophrenia. Even though she physically hit him, he responded with friendliness instead of retaliation. He did this to encourage and affirm her, which led to her renewed courage. She then broke his glass window and cut her hand as a result. Instead of locking her in her room, Adler bandaged her hand without reproaching her and again engaged in creatively and courageously encouraging her. She responded well to Adler and these therapeutic interventions (see Ansbacher & Ansbacher 1956, 316–317, cited in Sharf 2016, 141).

Immediacy. With this technique, an Adlerian therapist comments on what the therapist is presently experiencing with the client in the actual therapy session as it is unfolding. It may involve verbal or nonverbal communication by the client that somehow relates to the therapy goals already agreed upon with the therapist. The therapist will make an immediacy response or comment in a tentative way and will often ask a question at the end of the comment such as “Is that right?” or “Is this correct?” This process will help the client to be more open and less defensive so that they can respond to the therapist’s immediacy expression by further exploring what may be blocking the achievement of therapeutic goals.

Acting “As If.” In this technique, the Adlerian therapist asks clients to act “as if” they are capable of executing or doing certain actions that they are afraid to try, and to actually do them as a homework assignment in the week ahead. For example, a very shy client may be encouraged by the therapist to act “as if” they were a confident person and to try to be assertive at work by asking the boss for a long-overdue pay raise. The therapist may also role-play this behavior in the therapy session with the client before the client attempts it in real life in the coming week.

Catching Oneself. The technique of “catching oneself” involves instructing clients to catch themselves just before engaging in negative or problematic behaviors, and therefore to be aware of it in time to change it before it occurs out of habit. Over time, clients may be able to catch themselves just before rather than after engaging in certain self-defeating behaviors and to stop just in time to replace them with more constructive and helpful behaviors.

Creating Images. This technique refers to suggesting that clients visualize an image of themselves doing well or succeeding in a situation that can be difficult or stressful. For example, a usually timid client may be encouraged to imagine being cool and assertive in asking a roommate not to smoke in their room, with the roommate responding well and agreeably (Mosak & Maniacci 2008).

Spitting in the Client’s Soup. This technique’s name is based on a bad habit that children at boarding schools used to practice in order to get another person’s soup by spitting in it. The Adlerian therapist uses this technique by making a comment about a specific client behavior that takes the reward or attraction out of it. For example, a mother may express how much she sacrifices in order to provide for her children. The therapist may then comment on how sad it is that the mother has no time for herself and her own enjoyment of life, thus removing the heroic aspect out of her self-sacrifice.

Avoiding the Tar Baby. Adler used the phrase “tar baby” to refer to an issue that is sticky (tar) or difficult for a client to face. A client may therefore be especially sensitive to how this issue is addressed and be defensive or resistant if the therapist deals with it in an insensitive or confrontational way. For example, a client may feel that colleagues at work tend to ignore him and now wonders if the therapist may also not really be interested in the client’s problems and thus may be ignoring the client. To avoid the tar baby, the Adlerian therapist reassures the client by asking more questions about what is happening in the client’s work situation.

Push-Button Technique. This Adlerian technique described by Mosak (1985) involves asking a client to close their eyes and first imagine a very pleasant memory (such as a beautiful sunset or a success experience) and attend to the positive feelings associated with it. The client is next instructed to imagine a horrible memory (such as the death of a loved one or a failure experience) and attend to the negative feelings associated with it. The third and final part of this technique involves asking the client again to imagine another very pleasant memory or go back to the first pleasant memory and experience the positive feelings associated with it. At the end of this three-part imagery technique, the client opens their eyes and realizes that one can have some control over personal feelings by the thoughts or memories one chooses. The Adlerian therapist therefore helps the client learn this push-button technique: that one can control one’s feelings through the thoughts, memories, or images one chooses, or by the buttons one pushes in one’s mind.

Paradoxical Intention. With this technique, the Adlerian therapist encourages clients to practice and even exaggerate the very symptoms or problematic behaviors troubling them. Adler has described this intervention as “prescribing the symptom.” For example, the therapist will instruct a compulsive hand-washer to wash their hands even more frequently. In so doing, the Adlerian therapist expects the client to find the inappropriate behavior, now exaggerated, to be less attractive and therefore be more likely to stop it or change it.

Task Setting and Commitment. This therapeutic technique involves the Adlerian therapist working closely with a client collaboratively to plan specific steps of action to overcome certain problems or achieve particular goals. The client chooses what the client is willing to do and therefore makes the commitment to perform certain tasks to achieve those goals. The therapist then helps the client to plan and implement the steps needed to accomplish a task that has been broken down to a manageable size, with a greater likelihood of success.

For example, a client who has decided to return to work after taking medical leave to have surgery will be asked by the therapist what specific steps they would take, such as looking at job ads and postings, applying for relevant job openings, going for job interviews, and finally accepting a job offer if appropriate. The therapist encourages the client to focus more on getting good job leads or possibilities first, rather than on getting a job, as the initial task set before the client.

Homework. Adlerian therapists frequently assign homework for clients to complete between sessions, to help clients accomplish the tasks they have chosen to do. The homework needs to be something clear, concrete, and relatively easy. To a client looking for a job, for example, the therapist may suggest contacting a social worker for possible job leads before their next counseling appointment. They can then discuss the job options and plan the next steps for the client to take.

Life Tasks and Therapy. This technique involves the therapist asking the client to rate their level of satisfaction or happiness in certain life-task areas, such as family, work, friends, and community. In doing this, the client may discover issues needing work that were previously unrecognized. This technique can also be helpful in assessing therapeutic change and progress toward achieving the goals of therapy throughout the course of therapy.

Terminating and Summarizing the Interview. This technique involves setting clear time limits for a therapy session so that the therapist ends a session on time with a client (e.g., thirty-minute sessions for a child and forty-five- to fifty-minute sessions for an adult client). The Adlerian therapist will usually summarize the interview at the end of the session with a client and assign appropriate homework.

By now it should be clear that Adlerian therapists use a variety of therapeutic techniques to help their clients. They also freely give appropriate and well-timed advice, suggestions, and direction in the reorientation phase of Adlerian therapy, which is more action-oriented, after insight and interpretation have already been provided. Helpful advice is therefore seen as an appropriate therapeutic intervention in Adlerian therapy (see J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2018, 78).

Adlerian Therapy in Practice

This hypothetical transcript of a small part of an Adlerian therapy session demonstrates the therapist’s use of several Adlerian therapeutic techniques: such as asking “The Question,” acting “as if,” and judiciously but clearly providing encouragement, suggestions, and some direction for the client. The therapist is also beginning to formulate homework for the client, in collaborative planning with the client.

Client: I’m feeling tired and lethargic, . . . like I have no energy to do anything, and I don’t feel like doing anything. . . . I guess I’m feeling depressed again . . . and stuck, with no real meaning or direction in my life.

Adlerian Therapist: You’re feeling down and fatigued again, as well as somewhat lost and aimless in your life. What would be different if you were well?

Client: If I were well and not so tired out and depressed and aimless? Well, . . . I am tired of being so tired and depressed! It would be nice to be well again. . . . I guess if I were well, I would of course feel better and want to do more things like I used to . . .

Adlerian Therapist: What things would you do more of, if you were feeling better, if you were well?

Client: I guess I would go bowling more often, something I used to enjoy so much that I belonged to a bowling team and played in bowling leagues. That was years ago. . . . I just don’t have the interest or energy to do this anymore. If I were well, I would also be more involved in community service, such as tutoring inner-city kids in math and English, which I did for a couple of months some time ago. I would also take up painting again, as a hobby . . .

Adlerian Therapist: Great! Sounds like you actually do have several enjoyable and fulfilling activities you would like to do if you were well, like bowling, tutoring, and painting. I actually believe that you can begin to take small, baby steps to do some of these things, to act “as if” you were better or almost well again. . . . What do you think?

Client: I’m not sure. . . . This constant fatigue really drags me down. My doctor has done all kinds of tests and not found anything physically wrong with me. However, I do feel a little hope and interest as I think of myself being well and doing some of these things such as bowling and painting. . . . The tutoring is a bit more difficult for me at this time. So, are you asking me to act as if I were better or almost well and perhaps start a bit of painting again?

Adlerian Therapist: Yes, you’re getting the hang of it, that if you begin to act as if you were better or almost well, you may be able to actually do some of these meaningful and enjoyable activities you mentioned. Your idea of starting to do some simple painting again sounds great, and I’m wondering if you can tell me more how you plan to go about trying to accomplish this in the coming week.

Critique of Adlerian Therapy: Strengths and Weaknesses

Adler’s theoretical ideas and therapeutic techniques were far ahead of his time and have had a pervasive and significant influence on the entire field of counseling and psychotherapy. His emphases on how one’s thinking significantly affects one’s feelings and behavior, how one’s future goals and current values influence one’s life, how one can choose to change a personal lifestyle, and how one is motivated by social factors such as social interest and community feeling—these emphases have all greatly impacted other schools or approaches to counseling and psychotherapy, yet often without acknowledgment to Adler (Ellenberger 1970). However, Albert Ellis did acknowledge Adler as the “true father of modern psychotherapy” (1970, 11).

Adlerian therapy has been used to help clients with a wide range of psychological disorders or problems such as anxiety disorders, some affective disorders, personality disorders, conduct disorders, and antisocial disorders (L. Seligman 1986). It has been applied in various settings and with different age groups: with children, parents, adolescents, families, teacher groups, and other social segments. It is therefore a versatile and broadly applicable approach to therapy (Parrott 2003). It has also been applied to education, parent education, couples counseling, family counseling, and group counseling (Corey 2021; see also Sweeney 2019).

Adlerian therapy is also a comprehensive approach that deals with the whole or total person—hence the term “individual psychology,” which emphasizes treating the individual in a holistic or comprehensive way, focusing on the physical, psychological, social, and even spiritual aspects of human life. The emphasis on social motivation makes Adlerian therapy more open and sensitive to social, cultural, and diversity issues, compared to a more traditional Freudian psychoanalytic approach, which tends to focus too much on internal or intrapsychic conflicts and dynamics.

Adler’s emphasis on the equality of women and men has shaped Adlerian therapy to be an egalitarian approach to counseling that can be incorporated more easily within contemporary therapies such as feminist and postmodern approaches.

Adlerian therapy also uses several practical and helpful therapeutic techniques with the clear, overarching therapeutic principle of facilitating encouragement of clients. Some of these counseling interventions are simple and straightforward, based on a more commonsense approach to helping clients. Adlerian therapy also views the judicious provision of advice, suggestion, and direction as therapeutically helpful and valuable. Thus Adlerian techniques can be used not only by counselors or therapists but also by teachers, parents, and the clergy, due to their simplicity and wide applicability.

Finally, Adlerian therapy can be practiced within a time-limited, short-term model of helping clients within several months to a year. This is another strength of the Adlerian approach since effective or efficacious short-term therapies are especially valued by managed care in the current health-care context in the United States.

Adlerian therapy, however, has several weaknesses. First, Adler was not that systematic and thorough in the development and description of his theoretical ideas and therapeutic techniques. Many of his writings and publications consist of lectures he had given. He emphasized teaching and practice more than careful, systematic theory building and clear operationalization and definition of terms used in individual psychology. In fact, even calling his approach “individual psychology” may be misleading since his unique emphasis is on social motivation rather than individual dynamics.

Second, some critics regard Adlerian therapy as somewhat superficial and simplistic since it emphasizes eventual reorientation and reeducation of the client and pays less attention to insight and interpretation, although it does not ignore interpretation and the need to explore early childhood recollections. Adlerian therapy, however, diverges significantly from traditional Freudian psychoanalytic therapy, which focuses mainly on interpretation of unconscious intrapsychic dynamics and conflicts. Thus Adlerian therapy has been criticized by traditional Freudians for not being deep enough.

Third, Adlerian therapy may not be the most appropriate approach for helping clients who need more direct assistance with addressing immediate concerns and stresses, such as poverty, unemployment, and violence. Although Adlerian therapy is more directive and short term than Freudian psychoanalysis, it still requires clients to explore their early recollections and dreams as well as engage in lifestyle assessments.

Finally, Adlerian therapy has not been sufficiently evaluated in well-controlled therapy-outcome studies. Most of the evaluations of Adlerian therapy have been uncontrolled case studies, which can be biased and methodologically flawed. Definitive conclusions about the effectiveness of Adlerian therapy therefore cannot be drawn at this time, although there is a recent emphasis on the need to conduct more and better controlled outcome studies or empirical research on the efficacy of Adlerian therapy (Curlette & Kern 2016).

A Biblical Perspective on Adlerian Therapy

Adler’s view of human nature is more optimistic and less deterministic than that of Freud. Although Adler believed that an individual’s basic approach to life is formed within the first six years of life, he allowed for change to occur through a person’s freedom to choose new goals and new ways of thinking and perceiving reality. His more positive view of human nature, emphasizing choice and the possibility of change, is somewhat consistent with the biblical view, which also emphasizes the need to choose (cf. Deut. 30:19; Josh. 24:15). However, Adler’s view may be too optimistic or positive, paying insufficient attention to the darker side of human nature as fallen and sinful (Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:23) and in need of redemption and salvation through Jesus Christ (Rom. 6:23; 2 Cor. 5:17).

Adler’s focus on how future goals can motivate and direct a person’s behavior is a good corrective to Freud’s overemphasis on the deterministic influence of early childhood and past experiences on an individual’s personality and current functioning. It is also more consistent with a biblical perspective that is future oriented, viewing Christ’s second coming or heaven and eternal realities as crucial motivational goals that Christians look forward to, in a way that purifies and positively affects their present behavior and life (see Titus 2:11–14; 1 John 3:2–3).

Adler’s emphasis on the need to identify and correct mistaken goals and basic mistakes in thinking is also consistent with the biblical perspective on the need to be transformed by the renewing of our mind (see Rom. 12:2). One’s thinking does greatly affect one’s feelings and behavior; truthful, biblical thinking is especially crucial from a Christian perspective.

Another aspect of Adlerian theory that is consistent with a biblical perspective is its focus on social interest and community feeling. Adler emphasized the need for every person to be connected with the surrounding community and to contribute to others’ welfare by having a genuine social interest in other people. Scripture also emphasizes the need for other people and connection, not only interpersonally but also spiritually as members of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12), serving one another with genuine agape love (1 Cor. 13), which is deeper than social interest. The Adlerian idea of social interest is therefore consistent with the Bible’s emphasis on body life and community.

The crucial role of encouragement in Adlerian therapy is another aspect that agrees with the Bible’s emphasis on encouraging one another (see, e.g., 1 Thess. 5:11, 14; Heb. 3:13; 10:25), especially with the spiritual gift of encouragement if one is blessed with it by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 12:8). The spiritual gift of encouragement may be particularly helpful in counseling and people-helping ministries (Tan 1999b).

The reorientation and reeducation phase of Adlerian therapy, which is action oriented, makes it a counseling approach that is more balanced and does not narrowly focus on insight and interpretation of personal, internal dynamics. The Bible similarly emphasizes the need to take steps of faith, to have appropriate works of obedience, because faith, without resulting works, is dead or not true faith at all (James 2:17, 26). Such action steps, however, should still be done in dependence on God and the power of the Holy Spirit, and not simply by self-effort.

Finally, the comprehensive assessment of life tasks in an individual’s life in Adlerian therapy includes the spiritual dimension as an important and valid part of human life. This is a good corrective to Freud’s reductionistic view of religious longings as an obsessional neurosis based on wish fulfillment and longing for a father. However, the Adlerian view of the spiritual dimension is still somewhat vague and generic and does not necessarily refer to God or religious beliefs. The Bible’s view of spirituality is more substantial and specific and ultimately Christ centered, emphasizing our goal to become more like Jesus in authentic Christian spirituality (Rom. 8:29).

Other criticisms of Adlerian therapy can be made from a biblical perspective. The emphasis on being action oriented with the use of some simple techniques to encourage change can be somewhat superficial and simplistic. Although Adlerian therapists do use interpretation to help clients gain insight, it may be necessary to focus on this aspect more and deal with the deeper and darker issues of the human heart, which is fallen and sinful (Jer. 17:9). Another emphasis of Adlerian therapy is the phenomenological or subjective view of one’s perception of reality. This Adlerian view can conflict with the Bible’s view of eternal biblical truth, which is more objective. The Adlerian perspective is actually somewhat contradictory because it does identify mistaken goals and faulty assumptions and delineates several basic mistakes in thinking that assume some objective measure of truth.

Finally, the Adlerian focus on inferiority and the compensatory striving for superiority (perfection or competence) in every individual as a foundational motivation can be problematic from a biblical perspective. Although such compensatory striving for superiority need not be prideful or arrogant, it nevertheless focuses on the human tendency, even if creative, to emphasize strength and mastery in oneself. Pride may very well be present, in subtle if not obvious ways. Even if the striving for superiority does not deteriorate into a more pathological and negative superiority complex, it is nevertheless dangerously close to sinful pride because it focuses on self-achievement and strength in oneself. The Bible’s emphasis on humility (see, e.g., Phil. 2:3–5; 1 Pet. 5:5–6) and how God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9–10) rather than in strength or superiority is not easily reconciled with Adler’s focus on striving for superiority. Ultimately, such striving must be surrendered to the Lord Jesus, who will enable us to experience sufficient grace and strength in weakness so that delightful security and stability in him will replace both feelings of inferiority and the striving for superiority. Our goals will also be directed by God and his will for us, rather than by us setting our own life goals, which may again be mistaken goals.

Research: Empirical Status of Adlerian Therapy

Research on the efficacy or effectiveness of Adlerian therapy has been limited: controlled outcome studies and especially randomized controlled trials have been scarce. However, there are many empirical studies on various aspects of Adlerian theory, such as birth order, lifestyle, and social interest (see Maniacci & Sackett-Maniacci 2019, 86–89; J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2018, 83, 85), including recent cross-cultural research with participants from Taiwan, Jordan, Iran, Turkey, and Lithuania (see Maniacci & Sackett-Maniacci 2019, 89).

The few previous outcome studies of Adlerian therapy (see M. L. Smith, Glass, & Miller 1980) are not well controlled enough for more definitive conclusions to be made; yet it can be tentatively stated that Adlerian therapy is slightly better than placebo treatment and seems to be as effective as person-centered therapy and psychoanalytic therapy (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2018, 83). However, several more-recent outcome studies of Adlerian therapy have been published, but most of them are not well-controlled evaluations (see Maniacci & Sackett-Maniacci 2019, 88; J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2018, 83, 85).

Adlerian group play therapy has been found to be effective in reducing disruptive classroom behaviors, improving poor social skills, and helping with externalizing behaviors in elementary school students; this is shown in several studies, including a randomized controlled trial with a small sample (n = 58), reported by Kristin Meany-Walen and colleagues (Meany-Walen, Bratton, & Kottman 2014; Meany-Walen, Bullis, et al. 2015; Meany-Walen, Kottman, et al. 2015; Meany-Walen & Teeling 2016).

A recent small Turkish study found positive results of Adlerian encouragement-based group counseling with college students in Turkey (Ergüner-Tekinalp 2017). Adlerian-based parenting programs have also been reported to be effective in many research studies, but they were not randomized controlled trials (e.g., see Burnett 1988; Gfroerer, Kern, & Curlette 2004). Two well-known Adlerian parenting education programs are Active Parenting (Popkin 2014) and Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (Dinkmeyer, McKay, & Dinkmeyer 1997).

Despite these more-recent outcome evaluations tending to support the effectiveness of Adlerian therapy, and especially Adlerian play therapy and parenting programs, there is still an overall lack of controlled outcome research on Adlerian therapy, since Adlerian therapists have preferred the case method, or uncontrolled clinical case studies (Mosak & Maniacci 2008). It is hoped that Adlerian therapy will be subjected to more randomized controlled trials in the near future so that the empirical status for its efficacy can be more solid and substantial (see Curlette & Kern 2016).

Future Directions

Adler has had a great impact on contemporary counseling and psychotherapy. Corey (2021, 125) believes Adler’s influence on current practice is actually greater than that of Freud. It is ironic that the success and popularity of many of his ideas and therapeutic techniques have resulted in their incorporation into other approaches to counseling and therapy, so that the distinctiveness of Adlerian therapy has become more diluted as time has gone by (J. Carlson & Englar-Carlson 2008, 2017). At the same time, Adlerian therapists are also becoming more eclectic in their views and therapeutic practice, incorporating ideas and techniques from other schools of counseling and therapy (R. E. Watts 2003). Adlerian therapy may therefore become less distinctive in the future. However, Mosak and Maniacci (2008) painted a more optimistic picture of the future of Adlerian therapy as that of a respectable, viable, and growing therapeutic system. Maniacci and Sackett-Maniacci (2019, 69) more recently have asserted that Adlerian psychology or therapy shows innovation and progress or forward movement.

An example of an area of innovation in Adlerian therapy is the focus on wellness, referring to the physical, mental, and social well-being of people, and the development of assessment instruments to measure wellness in the work of Thomas Sweeney (2019). A related topic is the Adlerian emphasis on the assets and strengths of clients and how these are closely connected to contemporary positive psychology, with potential for further work in this area (Mozdzierz 2015; R. E. Watts 2012).

There are many loyal practitioners of Adlerian therapy, as well as training institutes and schools, including the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago (www.adler.edu). The Journal of Individual Psychology is published by the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology (www.alfred adler.org), which has around twelve hundred members. Although less than 1 percent of psychotherapists surveyed in the United States indicated Adlerian therapy as their primary theoretical orientation (Prochaska & Norcross 2018, 2–3), the actual number of Adlerian therapists in practice is larger. Adlerians are also better known for their work in educational settings and public schools, therefore with children and families (Sharf 2016). Adlerian therapy will not only survive but even flourish if current practitioners preserve its unique approach, even with further refinements of Adler’s ideas and techniques, and if further controlled outcome research is conducted to establish a stronger empirical base.

Recommended Readings

Adler, A. (1958). What life should mean to you. New York: Capricorn.

Carlson J., & Englar-Carlson, M. (2017). Adlerian psychotherapy. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Carlson, J., & Maniacci, M. P. (Eds.). (2012). Alfred Adler revisited. New York: Routledge.

Carlson, J., Watts, R. E., & Maniacci, M. P. (2006). Adlerian therapy: Theory and practice. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Dinkmeyer, D. C., & Sperry, L. (2000). Counseling and psychotherapy: An integrated individual psychology approach (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Mosak, H. H., & Maniacci, M. P. (1999). A primer of Adlerian psychology. Philadelphia: Brunner/Mazel.

Sperry, L. & Binensztok, V. (2019). Learning and practicing Adlerian therapy. San Diego, CA: Cognella Academic.

Sweeney, T. J. (2019). Adlerian counseling and psychotherapy: A practitioner’s wellness approach (6th ed.). New York: Routledge.

Chapters 6

Jungian Therapy

Carl Gustav Jung (1875–1961), the founder of analytical psychology (Jungian therapy or analytical psychotherapy), was Sigmund Freud’s colleague. They first met in 1907 but agreed to end their close relationship in 1913 because of growing differences Jung had with Freud’s psychoanalytic views. Jung also resigned then as president of the International Psychoanalytic Association and as editor of the Psychoanalytic Yearbook. Freud had earlier treated Jung with deep respect and appreciation and in 1909 even considered him to be the crown prince of psychoanalysis, Freud’s successor. Both Jung and Alfred Adler eventually parted ways with Freud and went on to develop their own approaches to therapy, which differed from Freud’s psychoanalysis in significant ways. There were also tensions and differences between Jung and Adler. Although Jung’s analytical psychology has some foundation in Freudian and Adlerian views, it goes beyond them.

Jung’s unique contribution is his idea of a collective unconscious in addition to a personal unconscious in each person. In Jungian therapy, clients are encouraged to connect the unconscious and the conscious layers of their mind in constant dialogue. Jungian therapists use techniques such as dream analysis and the interpretation of symbols to help clients be more aware of their archetypes: the organizing patterns in their unconscious that are more transpersonal or collective. The goals of Jungian therapy include self-knowledge, reintegration, and individuation, all of which can best be achieved in the context of a healing and profound encounter and relationship between the Jungian therapist and the client (Douglas 2008).

Biographical Sketch of Carl Jung

Carl Gustav Jung was born in 1875 in the small village of Kesswil in Switzerland. He was the eldest son in his family and had a sister nine years younger. His father was a clergyman whose own father was a well-known physician and classical scholar. His mother’s ancestors included many theologians, including her own father. In fact, eight of Jung’s uncles were pastors. He was therefore exposed to Protestant theology and church tradition from an early age. He also received an excellent education, which included classical Greek and Latin. Later in his life, Jung struggled with the religious beliefs with which he was brought up.

Jung’s childhood was not happy. He often felt lonely and had some insecurities and fears. Jung also tended to be introspective. When he was three years old, his mother became ill and had to be hospitalized and absent from the home for a significant period, during which Jung felt abandoned. Jung was close to his mother, but he experienced her in a divided way, involving two sides of her personality: one was the intuitive side, which included an interest in parapsychology and more mysterious things that he feared; the other was her warm and maternal side, which comforted him. Jung’s relationship with his father, however, was less close.Not surprisingly, Jung developed a special attraction to intuitive women who were much like his mother. Many of his patients were women. He especially remembered a nursemaid who took care of him while his mother was recovering from her illness in the hospital for a few months. His cousin Helene Preiswerk, who conducted several parapsychological experiments, also greatly influenced him. He even wrote his medical school dissertation based on her exceptional psychic experiences and experiments with séances that he had witnessed (Douglas 2008).

After earlier considering training in theology and archaeology, Jung enrolled at the University of Basel in 1895 to study medicine. He read widely in diverse disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, theology, science, and mythology. Jung was influenced by several well-known philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant, Carl Gustav Carus, Eduard von Hartmann, Gottfried Leibniz, and Arthur Schopenhauer, as well as by early cultural anthropologists, including Johann Bachofer, Adolf Bastian, and George Creuzer (see Sharf 2016, 86). Familiarity with these thinkers helped him develop his ideas of the collective unconscious and archetypes.

After he completed medical school in 1900 and chose psychiatry as his specialty, Jung also trained with two well-known psychiatrists, Eugen Bleuler in Zurich and Pierre Janet in Paris (in 1902). He worked with Bleuler at the Burgholzli Psychiatric Hospital from 1902 to 1909 and saw many mentally disturbed patients, especially those suffering from schizophrenia. In 1907 he wrote a major work on schizophrenia, The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. Jung also developed the well-known word-association test and conducted numerous studies with it that supported the existence of the unconscious. As a result of his studies and work, Jung began to correspond with Sigmund Freud (Douglas 2008).

Freud initially appreciated Jung and respected his significant work. They met in 1907, after writing to each other in 1906. Freud appointed Jung president of the International Psychoanalytic Society and editor of its journal. In 1909 Jung traveled with Freud to the United States to give lectures on their perspectives on psychoanalysis at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Freud even considered Jung to be his successor. However, Jung’s theoretical ideas increasingly differed from Freud’s psychoanalytic views, and he was quite blunt in his private correspondence with Freud about these differences. Freud eventually wrote to Jung in January 1913, proposing that they abandon their personal relationship completely. Jung agreed in his response to Freud, and they permanently ceased writing to each other.

In 1903 Jung married Emma Rauschenbach; they had one son and four daughters. After leaving the Burgholzli Hospital in 1909, he eventually entered private practice. Jung began training others in his analytic psychology approach to therapy, including his wife, who was one of the earliest Jungian or analytical therapists.

After parting ways with Freud in 1913, Jung experienced a six-year period of deep introspection and exploration of his own unconscious by analyzing his visions and dreams. It was a time of suffering and what some considered a creative illness for him (Ellenberger 1970). He did not do much writing or research during these six years. However, he emerged from this dark period of his life with greater creativity and published an important work, Psychological Types, in 1921.

At this stage of his life, Jung became much more productive in his teaching, writing, and practice; he began traveling widely and frequently. Jung visited people in primitive cultures to learn more about symbols, myths, and folklore and thus have a better grasp of the collective unconscious and archetypes, crucial aspects of his theory. For example, in 1924 he traveled to New Mexico to meet the Pueblo people there. In 1925 he went to Tanganyika to visit an African tribe. He also visited Asia and studied Chinese folklore and writings, as well as astrology, alchemy, clairvoyance, fortune-telling, and divination. Jung accumulated an outstanding library of books and writings on medieval alchemy and used the symbolism found in these works to help develop his ideas of the collective unconscious and archetypal imagery (Sharf 2016).

Jung’s productivity was exceptional, and most of his work, totaling twenty-two volumes, has been published by Princeton University Press. He also received many awards and honors, including honorary degrees from Oxford and Harvard. Jung remained busy and productive until his death on June 6, 1961, at the age of eight-five. Jungian therapy and Jung’s theoretical views continue to exert weighty influence.

For additional information on Jung’s life and work, see Bair (2003), Ellenberger (1970), Hannah (1976), A. S. Harris (1996), Jung (1961), Papadopolous (2006), Shamdasani (2003), Storr (1983), Whitmont (1991), and Wilmer (2015) as well as Jung’s own Collected Works published by Princeton University Press (1953–).

Major Theoretical Ideas of Jungian Therapy

Perspective on Human Nature

Jung’s perspective on human nature was more optimistic and positive than Freud’s pessimistic and deterministic view emphasizing conflictual sexual and aggressive drives in the unconscious. Jung’s view of the unconscious went beyond basic instinctual or biological drives to include the collective unconscious, with transpersonal and universal archetypes based on symbol, folklore, myth, and even mystery. He focused more on the tremendous potential and creativity within people, individually and collectively, in the unconscious, which contained both powerfully positive as well as darker negative aspects (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2004).

Jungian therapy, analytical psychotherapy, emphasizes helping clients to achieve wholeness and self-realization, with the therapeutic goals of self-knowledge, reintegration, and individuation. The deep and healing therapeutic relationship between the Jungian therapist and the client is considered a crucial factor in achieving the therapeutic goals for the client. The therapeutic process involves helping the client to know and understand the archetypes in their personal and collective unconscious and to express them in personal life; this assumes that a client is capable of such insight and growth and eventual individuation and self-realization (Vitz 1994). The Jungian approach to counseling and therapy therefore is based on an essentially optimistic and positive view of human nature and the human ability for self-realization, although it does acknowledge the darker side of personality.

Personality Theory

Jungian personality theory can be described and summarized under four major areas: levels of consciousness, archetypes, personality attitudes and functions, and personality development (Sharf 2016, 89–98).

Levels of Consciousness

Jung described three levels of consciousness: the conscious, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious.

The conscious level of personality is an individual’s accessible side, with conscious awareness of thoughts, feelings, senses, desires, and behaviors. It is that aspect of self that a person can know or access directly and be aware of. The conscious level begins at birth and develops during one’s life: as a deeper level of consciousness is experienced, greater individuation or development of the whole person is achieved.

Jung used the term “psyche” to describe the total personality of an individual. The ego is at the center of consciousness and organizes the conscious mind. It selects what an individual will be aware or conscious of and screens out or represses other thoughts, feelings, and memories, which will remain at the unconscious level. The ego, therefore, is the unifying or integrating force in the psyche. It is one aspect of the psyche but not identical to the psyche. The ego is actually a complex: a constellation of thoughts brought together as a whole, usually by a unifying feeling. A complex of conscious thoughts and memories enables an individual to have a sense of continuity and identity. As a person develops and experiences more individuation or self-realization, integrating all aspects of the psyche in balance, a new center, the self, emerges to replace the ego, which still exists, but as only one aspect of the psyche (Ryckman 2008).

The personal unconscious is that aspect of personality in which thoughts, feelings, experiences, and perceptions that the ego has screened out of conscious awareness are stored below the level of consciousness. This stored material may be trivial, or it may include unresolved conflicts or concerns or emotionally laden thoughts that the ego has repressed.

Material kept in the personal unconscious often appears in dreams. When related thoughts are unified, typically by a powerful feeling with an obvious emotional effect on the person, a complex has developed. Jung’s idea of a complex focused especially on the emotional impact of a group of connected thoughts, feelings, and memories. He also emphasized the archetypal core of complexes, including material not only from the personal unconscious but also from the collective unconscious, which is more universal and transcendent. Some examples of complexes with archetypal roots include the father complex, the mother complex, the martyr complex, and the savior complex. Complexes are part of the unconscious and therefore need to be made conscious, usually with the help of a Jungian therapist. They can have both positive and negative dimensions. When a positive complex becomes negative, the transcendent function is triggered. This process involves bridging two opposite conditions or attitudes (e.g., an unconscious influence and a conscious thought), which results in a third force that is usually operative in the form of an emerging symbol (Sharf 2016; see also J. C. Miller 2004).

The collective unconscious is a unique Jungian concept; it is a deeper level within the psyche that is not conscious and contains materials that are transpersonal and universal to all human beings in their common ancestry. Jung did not propose that specific images or memories are universally inherited by all human beings. Instead, he emphasized that it is the predisposition toward specific ideas, archetypes, that is inherited. Archetypes, according to Jung, are specific ways of structuring and perceiving experiences. Jung’s idea of archetypes is crucial and foundational to his analytical psychology (Sharf 2016).

Archetypes

Archetypes have form but not content. They provide possible ways of perceiving experiences in certain patterns or themes that are present across cultures and history. Archetypes also connect the collective unconscious to the conscious and therefore can influence behavior in an individual. They can be considered organizing patterns that are unconscious (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2004). Jung had a special interest in archetypes that have endured for a long time in the history of humankind, with strong emotional aspects. Examples of such archetypes, according to Jung, are death, birth, power, the child, the hero, the wise old man, the earth mother, the god, the demon, the snake, and unity. They are manifested as archetypal or primordial images or symbols. However, Jung emphasized that the most crucial archetypes in the makeup of one’s personality are the persona, the anima and the animus, the shadow, and the self. The persona is most relevant to daily functioning, while the self is most critical to proper personality functioning (Sharf 2016; see also Shamdasani 2003).

The persona (“mask” in Latin) refers to the way people present themselves in public. It is figuratively speaking the mask we wear in order to interact with people in socially appropriate ways. The persona is an archetype that is universally present in all human beings. It can be helpful in controlling one’s thoughts, feelings, and actions in specific contexts and situations. However, the persona can also be overused, blocking deep feelings, and resulting in shallowness and superficiality in an individual.

The anima and the animus are characteristics of the other sex that individuals have and must integrate within themselves in order to experience a healthy and wholesome balance in personality functioning. This idea is partly based on the biological fact that each person has varying levels of male and female hormones. The anima is the feminine archetype in a man’s psyche, and the animus is the masculine archetype in a woman’s psyche. The anima is associated with feelings and emotional experiencing; the animus is related more to rational thinking and logic. However, the anima can also have more negative characteristics, such as moodiness and vanity; the animus likewise may be negative, with manifestations such as social insensitivity and argumentativeness. Although Jung viewed the anima and the animus as universal archetypes, some critics have charged him with being influenced by cultural stereotypes of men and women and therefore of being somewhat sexist and patriarchal (Ryckman 2008).

The shadow refers to the dark, potentially evil side of human nature, which exerts a powerful influence on people’s lives. This shadow includes repressed or unacceptable sexual and aggressive instincts in the personal unconscious as well as evil tendencies in the collective unconscious. Such negative characteristics of the shadow tend to be projected onto others, which can lead to conflicts and even wars. The persona archetype that tries to maintain socially appropriate behavior helps to keep the shadow under control. As with all archetypes, the shadow has both negative and positive aspects. Although the shadow is described mainly as a negative archetype that is potentially dangerous and evil, it can also be manifested more positively in experiences of creativity, spontaneity, and vitality.

The self is the center of personality and includes the conscious and the unconscious levels in an individual. The self integrates conscious and unconscious aspects and organizes one’s personality functioning. It encompasses the whole psyche or total personality, whereas the ego is only part of the psyche and is limited to consciousness.

According to Jung, we are all on a path toward self-realization and individuation, that is, to maturing into our unique self (and not to egotism or selfish individualism). Everyone strives for the goal of deeper knowledge and development of the self, which is an archetypal potentiality in each person. This goal is difficult to attain and in fact is never fully achieved. It requires an individual to be in touch with both conscious and unconscious material and to have enough experience in life to deal with conflicts and to integrate opposites in one’s psyche. Striving toward this goal results in more healthy and balanced personality functioning. Jung therefore believed that progress toward self-realization cannot be substantially made until at least middle age (Ryckman 2008). Dreams and religious or spiritual experiences can be quite helpful in making the unconscious to be conscious and in integrating conscious and unconscious processes.

Archetypes do not have content but are expressed through symbols, which are the content of archetypal images that only have form. Such symbols appear in dreams, visions, fantasies, myths, art, folklore, fairy tales, and other ways. Jung engaged in extensive study of many symbols across various cultures and in them found archetypal images containing the accumulated wisdom of human and prehuman history. With such knowledge of the history and meaning of symbols, Jung was able to use amplification for a specific patient: elaborating the meaning of a dream or some unconscious material. It is therefore important for Jungian therapists to learn as much as possible about symbols and their meanings in various cultures.

Jung described many symbols that represent specific archetypes: for example, the symbol of the mask for the persona archetype; the symbols of the Mona Lisa or the Virgin Mary for the anima archetype in men; the symbols of King Arthur or Christ for the animus archetype in women; and the symbols of evil, such as Hitler and the devil, for the shadow archetype. The mandala is a major significant symbol for the archetype of the self; it usually has four main sections in a circular shape, representing a search for wholeness (Sharf 2016).

Personality Attitudes and Functions

Jung viewed personality as consisting of two major dimensions, with conscious and unconscious elements: attitudes and functions that together form specific personality types. Extraversion and introversion are the two main personality attitudes described by Jung. Extraversion is an orientation to or preference for the outer world, consisting of people, activities, and things; introversion is an orientation to or preference for the inner world, consisting of ideas, concepts, and inner experience. Extraverts tend to enjoy social activities, have many friends, and are energized by being with people; introverts tend to enjoy spending time by themselves, have fewer friends, and are usually not comfortable in social situations. Although an individual may exhibit some characteristics of both an extravert and an introvert, there is usually a preference for one. However, Jung believed that at midlife an individual may change from one personality attitude to the other (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2004).

Jung also described four main functions of personality: the nonrational or irrational functions of sensing and intuiting for perceiving the world and oneself, and the rational functions of thinking and feeling for judging experiences.

Sensing involves using the senses of taste, smell, touch, sight, and hearing, and responding to sensations one experiences; intuiting, or intuition, involves having a guess or hunch about something or someone that is difficult to clearly articulate. These two personality functions of sensing and intuiting are primarily engaged in perceiving and responding to stimuli. Thinking involves using intellectual and rational processes to understand the world and ideas; feeling refers to making evaluations or judgments about one’s experiences based on having negative or positive feelings or values about them. These latter two personality functions of thinking and feeling are primarily engaged in making judgments and decisions (Sharf 2016).

Jung developed a theory of psychological types based on the two basic personality attitudes and the four main personality functions. He focused on eight major personality or psychological types: introverted and extraverted, thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuitive types (see Ryckman 2008, 91–94). Jung was greatly concerned, however, lest people be too quickly and inaccurately labeled as one of these eight personality types. It is important to be reminded of Jung’s emphasis on the uniqueness of each human person.

Personality Development

Jung’s theoretical conceptualization of personality development is not as systematic or well developed as Freud’s stages of psychosexual development. Jung described four major stages of personality development: childhood, adolescence (or youth and young adulthood), middle age, and old age. He was especially interested in middle age (see Sharf 2016, 96–97).

According to Jung, children in the childhood stage have mainly instinctual psychic energy that is expressed in activities such as eating and sleeping. Jung believed that parents need to help their children channel their energy in more constructive and disciplined ways. He related children’s problems to parental conflicts at home. If parental conflicts are reduced or resolved, children’s disruptive behavior and other difficulties will also be ameliorated. Children are also in a process of growing in their sense of personal identity and therefore need to separate from their parents in doing so.

In the stage of adolescence, the individual must deal with several major life decisions, including choosing an appropriate education and eventually a career. Adolescents also need to grapple with their sexual drives and learn to relate to members of the opposite sex. They will respond or react differently, depending on whether they are more inclined toward introversion or extraversion. However, they all need to develop an appropriate persona that goes beyond their parents’ influence in order to cope with the external world and social demands. As they grow into young adulthood, they must continue to be their own unique person.

In the middle age stage, Jung believed that crucial questions and issues emerge, such as searching for the meaning of life, because a deeper sense of emptiness and meaninglessness is often experienced by people in this stage of life. This experience is sometimes called the midlife crisis. Jung himself went through such a period in his life for six years, during which he engaged in deep introspection and analysis of his own dreams and visions, coming to know better his own unconscious. It was a painful and dark time of suffering and struggle for him, but he emerged from it more creative and insightful. Many of Jung’s patients were in this stage of life and therefore were similarly dealing with losses, emptiness, and meaninglessness in their lives. Religious and spiritual experiences are often a crucial part of middle age.

In the stage of old age, individuals spend even more time connecting with their unconscious, and Jung believed that older people should take time for deeper reflection so that they can grow in wisdom from their experiences and find greater meaning in their lives. Death and mortality are common preoccupations of older people, who can continue to grow and develop psychologically as they allow themselves to reflect more and be in deeper touch with their unconscious.

Therapeutic Process and Relationship

Jungian therapy focuses on helping clients not only to make the unconscious become conscious, but also to integrate the unconscious with the conscious so that each client can become a more whole person in the process of individuation, in becoming their own unique person. This is the overarching goal of Jungian therapy: the individuation of the client. There can also be secondary goals of therapy relevant to a particular stage of personality development. For example, the goal may be to help clients in midlife develop a deeper meaning in their lives, often with spiritual and religious elements, and therefore to go beyond just pragmatic concerns such as making money and taking care of a family. In pursuing therapeutic goals, Jungian therapists or analysts use a variety of therapeutic techniques or interventions such as dream analysis, active imagination, and dealing with transference and countertransference in the therapeutic relationship.

However, the most valuable factor in Jungian therapy is the therapeutic or analytic relationship between the Jungian therapist or analyst and the client. Jung placed major emphasis on the therapeutic relationship and believed that the therapist’s personality can have therapeutic effects on the client’s personality. For this to take place, Jungian therapists must be relatively mature and ethical persons, integrating their own unconscious and conscious. Therefore, having had one’s own training analysis is essential. The Jungian therapist also relates to the client in a more human and egalitarian way, which is mutually respectful and relational. Jung did not use the couch, as Freud did; instead, he saw his clients face-to-face. Transference and countertransference, including projections that occur in the context of the therapeutic relationship and interaction between the Jungian therapist and client, can be explored and interpreted. The therapeutic relationship is central to Jungian therapy because it can be viewed as providing a container for the personality of the client, much like an alchemical vessel in which the different aspects of a client’s psyche can be contained and eventually changed in a therapeutic way (Sanford 1999).

Jungian analysis is usually relatively long-term and involves meeting several times a week with a Jungian analyst; however, the session format for Jungian therapy is more flexible. The term “Jungian analyst” applies only to someone who has received formal training and certification by the International Association for Analytical Psychology or at a Jungian institute, including personal analysis. Coursework usually takes about four years, and the length of training lasts from six to eight years (Douglas 2008, 113–114).

Major Therapeutic Techniques and Interventions

Before describing the major therapeutic techniques and interventions of Jungian therapy, we should note that Jung wrote about four main stages of therapy in a flexible and not necessarily sequential or even essential way: confession, elucidation, education, and transformation (see Douglas 2008, 122–123).

In the first stage, confession, the Jungian therapist listens intently to the client in a warm, accepting, and empathic way, so that the client can relax, open up, and freely share personal feelings and secrets as well as basic conscious and unconscious material. It is a time for catharsis and release of emotions that may have been repressed or blocked for some time. The client is therefore helped to feel more human again. However, the client may also come to depend on the Jungian therapist and transfer some feelings and desires onto the therapist.

In the second stage, elucidation, the Jungian therapist interprets the transference relationship between the client and the therapist. The therapist does so to help the client gain insight, both intellectual and emotional, into the childhood origins of the client’s transference experiences with the therapist; this process is similar to the approach that a Freudian psychoanalyst would use. Dreams and fantasies are also explored and interpreted by the Jungian therapist in collaboration with the client.

In the third stage, education, the Jungian therapist helps the client to be more connected to society, dealing more with their persona and tasks that are ego related. Following a process similar to that of an Adlerian therapist, the Jungian therapist encourages the client to engage in socially responsible behaviors that are constructive and positive for themselves as well as for the social community.

In the final stage, transformation, the Jungian therapist is even more deeply involved in the transference-countertransference relationship with the client, who is motivated to delve more into archetypal material from their collective unconscious. Clients in this stage are often in midlife or older. Many clients in Jungian therapy do not progress to this final stage of therapy. The clients who do proceed to the transformation stage usually experience deeper self-actualization or individuation into a more mature, balanced, and whole unique person, valuing both conscious and unconscious experiences. The Jungian therapist’s own unconscious experience, especially through their own dreams, is often carefully brought into the therapy sessions to help clarify and interpret the transference-countertransference phenomena that usually occur in the therapeutic relationship with the client at this stage of therapy.

Although these four stages of therapy can overlap or even occur concurrently, Jung believed that a complete analysis or therapy will include all four stages. However, the length of each stage and the order in which each stage occurs are not fixed (Douglas 2008).

Jungian therapy uses different therapeutic techniques depending on the specific Jungian therapist and the professional background and training of the therapist. However, the following are the major therapeutic techniques or interventions in Jungian therapy using an analytical psychology approach: analysis and interpretation of transference and countertransference, dream analysis, and active imagination (Douglas 2008).

Analysis and Interpretation of Transference and Countertransference

Transference refers to the client’s unconsciously projecting, or transferring, aspects of themselves or significant others onto the therapist. Countertransference refers to the therapist’s projecting, or countertransferring, unconscious feelings onto a client. Both transference and countertransference phenomena that occur in the therapeutic relationship between the Jungian therapist and the client must be identified and analyzed. Doing so benefits the client, who can then acknowledge their own projections or transference and gain insight into their personal and collective unconscious.

Jung recognized four stages of analyzing the transference. The first stage involves pointing out the client’s projections of childhood or early relationships and experiences onto the therapist as if the therapist were the problematic figure from the client’s past. The client is thus helped to see and acknowledge their own projections, to remove such projections from the therapist, and to integrate them more consciously into their own personality (Douglas 2008). In the second stage, the client comes to realize which projections are from their personal unconscious and which are from the collective unconscious and is enabled to stop such projections. In the third stage, the unique personality of the Jungian therapist becomes clearer to the client, who can now begin to relate more normally to the therapist as a person. In the fourth and final stage, the client continues to connect with the therapist in deeper and healthier ways, with an even more accurate perception of the therapist, as the transference is resolved. The client usually experiences more self-realization and greater self-knowledge in this final stage of analyzing the transference.

The analysis and interpretation of transference and countertransference phenomena in the therapeutic relationship between the Jungian therapist and the client are therefore crucial therapeutic techniques in Jungian therapy.

Dream Analysis

Another major therapeutic technique in Jungian therapy, similar to Freudian psychoanalysis, is the analysis or interpretation of dreams. Jung, like Freud, believed that dreams are crucial pathways into the unconscious, but he did not agree with Freud that dreams are usually reflections of repressed unconscious material or wish fulfillments that can be interpreted following standard dream symbols. Instead, Jung felt that dreams should be viewed as significant reminders to an individual of what one should be paying attention to. Dreams therefore can have a variety of possible functions. They may reflect fears and wishes, express hidden or repressed impulses, or lead to solutions to problems in the internal or external world of the individual. They can also serve a prospective purpose of helping people anticipate their future and prepare for it, as well as a compensatory function in helping people to be more balanced, with better integration of opposites in their personalities (see Corey 2021, 78). In Jungian therapy, dreams and dream analysis are crucial for the deeper understanding of the client’s unconscious inner life and also for identifying changes in the client’s psyche, especially over the course of therapy (Douglas 2008).

Since not all clients remember their dreams, Jungian therapists usually ask their clients to record their dreams on paper or with a tape recorder as soon as possible after the dreams have occurred. As much detail as possible about each dream should be recorded. Jung differentiated “little” dreams from “big” dreams. Little dreams are more common; they come from the client’s personal unconscious and often include elements from the daily activities of the client. Big or significant dreams, however, usually contain images or symbols that may be from the collective unconscious. Such big dreams are usually remembered throughout the lifetime of a specific individual (Sharf 2016, 102).

According to Jung, the structure of dreams usually includes four main elements. The first part of the dream encompasses basic descriptions, such as the place (and time) of the dream, the main characters involved in the dream, and the dreamer’s relationship to the situation recurring in the dream. The second part is the dream’s plot and its development, often including conflicts and tensions. The third part of the dream usually involves a critical or decisive event that leads to a significant change in the dream. Finally, the last part of the dream concerns a solution or conclusion. Jungian therapists look for all four parts of a dream, but as noted earlier, clients do not always remember all aspects of their dreams. Dream interpretation of partial or fragmentary dreams should be more cautiously conducted than interpretation of dreams that are more fully recalled (Sharf 2016).

In dream analysis or interpretation, the Jungian therapist usually begins by using an objective interpretation in which the characters or objects in the dream are viewed as actually representing themselves. However, the therapist can also use a subjective interpretation of the dream: each character or object in the dream is viewed as representing a specific part of the client. Jungian therapists also find it helpful to analyze several dreams together, connecting current or later dreams to earlier ones, all for clearer interpretation of the possible meanings of the dreams (Sharf 2016). Jung also believed that dreams contain religious or spiritual meanings and have a transcendent source (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2004).

Jungian therapists often find the following types of dreams to be especially helpful and useful: the initial dream at or near the beginning of Jungian therapy; dreams that occur several times; dreams with material from the client’s shadow side, such as those involving violence, rage, or immoral behavior; and dreams that involve the therapist or the therapy (which may reflect the client’s unconscious transference of feelings onto the therapist). Dreams can also be a barrier to progress in therapy if the client fills the entire therapy session with an overload of dream material, becomes stuck in that dream world rather than dealing with real-life issues, or resists expressing emotional responses to the dreams. The Jungian therapist will point out such defensive behaviors on the part of the client at an appropriate time and help the client understand what is really happening (Douglas 2008).

Active Imagination

Active imagination is another major Jungian therapeutic technique. It uses meditative imagery: the client clears their mind and then focuses intensely on a specific inner image or figure that may have emerged from a dream or some other unconscious material. The client continues this active imagination until becoming involved in the scene and becoming part of what is happening in the imagination. A client must have a strong-enough ego to engage in such active imagination, which attempts to deal with unconscious images in a direct and intense way (Douglas 2008). This Jungian therapeutic technique of active imagination is therefore an intervention that enables the ego, as the center of consciousness, to connect with the collective unconscious (Sharf 2016).

Other Techniques

Jungian therapists may also use several other therapeutic techniques to facilitate a client’s integration of unconscious processes into consciousness. They include creative interventions or techniques such as painting and drawing, poetry, and dance and movement therapy; the empty-chair technique, often used in Gestalt therapy, in which a client talks to an imagined person in an unoccupied chair; and the sand tray: a sandbox and small forms and figures to which a client (adult or child) can give specific meanings (Sharf 2016).

Jungian therapists also pay attention to a concept that Jung termed synchronicity, referring to coincidences or random events occurring close together that nevertheless lead to new knowledge or an answer. The following are examples of synchronicity: premonitions that actually come true, the client having dreams that are very similar to the therapist’s dreams, and a solution suddenly appearing to a vexing problem (see J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2004, 124).

Jungian Therapy in Practice

This hypothetical transcript of a small part of a Jungian therapy session demonstrates the use of dream analysis and interpretation and empathic understanding by the therapist, who is helping the client to understand a recurrent dream and come to terms with his shadow, which is expressing rage and anger in the dream.

Client: I’ve been having a recurrent dream, . . . three times already in the last two weeks, . . . and so I thought I had better bring it up in our session today.

Jungian Therapist: Tell me more about the dream. It usually has significant meaning for you if it’s occurring so often.

Client: OK. In this recurrent dream, there is a priest who is very prim and proper and who commands great respect from his parishioners, who really appreciate him and his eloquent preaching. However, as he is preaching one of his sermons from the pulpit, his head suddenly turns into a monstrous-looking face, full of red-hot anger and rage, as if he were about to burst. He then suddenly stops preaching from the Bible and instead spews out curses and swear words at his congregation, who are shocked by his behavior and horrible words. He then takes out a machine gun and shoots at his parishioners, but only evil and curse words come out of the gun, . . . and some of his parishioners actually get killed by the words like bullets coming out in quick succession from his machine gun. It’s a horrible and weird dream that I’ve had three times already.

Jungian Therapist: Um-hmm . . . Who do you think the priest in your dream may represent?

Client: I don’t know; . . . maybe it could represent me since I’m a prim and proper sort of guy who is very religious and conservative. I am usually very self-controlled and soft-spoken in social situations, and I hold high moral and ethical standards that center on loving God and loving people.

Jungian Therapist: Let’s just assume that the priest in your recurrent dream is you; what other parts of the dream may have meaning for you?

Client: Well, . . . I’m not sure but I feel like maybe the monstrous part of the priest full of rage and anger, and curses and swear words used like bullets to kill or hurt people in the congregation, may mean that there is a darker side to my personality too . . .

Jungian Therapist: A darker side like . . .

Client: Well, . . . like a darker, hidden side of me that may have a lot of anger and rage, that wants to strike out at all the nice people out there who want me to always be so prim and proper.

Jungian Therapist: Do you think that you do have this darker or shadow side?

Client: I do get angry once in a while, and I sense the presence of such a darker or shadow side of me at such times. But I’m afraid of what’s inside that part of me, so I quickly get over my occasional anger and try to be nice and self-controlled again.

Jungian Therapist: So you’ve become somewhat aware of this less attractive side of your personality. Do you think you may need to be more connected to it, to be more aware of it, so that you can integrate it into your consciousness in a more constructive way rather than deny it or block it out or run away from it?

Client: You mean I should reflect on this angry side of me more and see what I can learn from it?

Jungian Therapist: It may be helpful for you to do just that. One way is for us to take a little more time to analyze your recurrent dream and see what else it may mean to you. What else comes to mind?

Critique of Jungian Therapy: Strengths and Weaknesses

Jung’s analytical psychology approach to understanding the human personality and conducting therapy with clients is, in some ways, similar to Freud’s psychoanalytic approach, for example, in emphasizing the unconscious and the crucial role of dreams and dream analysis in connecting with the unconscious. However, Jung’s unique contribution is his idea of the collective unconscious and the archetypal images contained in it, which are universal and transcend culture. His theory of personality is quite comprehensive, and Jung touched on a wide variety of other areas such as creativity, education, marriage, religion, and even the occult (Ryckman 2008). His contributions have influenced not only the field of psychology but also other disciplines, such as literature, art, history, philosophy, and metaphysics, with perhaps even more significant impact (Todd & Bohart 2006).

Jung made another meaningful contribution with his description of psychological or personality types, which has been popularized by the widely used Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), although there are some methodological problems or limitations with this instrument (see R. B. Johnson 1999). Nevertheless, Jung’s delineation of the basic personality attitudes of extraversion and introversion—and of the main personality functions of thinking-feeling and sensing-intuiting—is a helpful way of understanding personality functioning.

A third strength of the Jungian approach is the focus on midlife and the search for meaning in life that acknowledges the importance of religious and spiritual aspects and experiences.

A fourth strength is Jung’s emphasis on the tremendous wisdom and potential contained in the unconscious, which enable an individual to continue to grow throughout life by connecting the unconscious, both personal and collective, with the conscious. Jung’s view of the unconscious is therefore more hopeful and positive than Freud’s (J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2004).

Another strength is Jung’s focus on the need to integrate the darker side of human personality so that an individual can grow into a more mature and balanced person. Jung did not deny the potential for evil and destructive tendencies, especially in the shadow side of each person. However, he believed that acknowledging and accepting such a darker, shadow part of one’s personality without yielding to it will help a person to be more whole and balanced.

Finally, Jungian therapy also developed several useful therapeutic techniques such as analysis of the transference and countertransference in the context of a more mutually respectful and warm therapeutic relationship, dream analysis in a unique way that includes paying attention to both the personal and the collective unconscious and its archetypes, using active imagination, and other creative interventions. Some of these techniques are used not only by Jungian therapists but also by other counselors and psychotherapists practicing from other theoretical approaches to therapy.

There are, however, several weaknesses in Jungian theory and therapy. First, Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious and his belief that its archetypes are universal and transpersonal have been criticized as somewhat mystical and fuzzy, with confusing descriptions. It is also almost impossible to operationalize the collective unconscious and to subject it to empirical verification. However, recent research in the areas of neurobiology and cognitive science has led some cognitive psychologists to conclude that inborn or innate ways of organizing information may exist, similar to Jung’s idea of archetypes that are universal to all human beings (Todd & Bohart 2006; see also A. Stevens 1982; Browning & Cooper 2004). His focus on the unconscious, both personal and collective, is nevertheless an intrapsychic emphasis that tends to pay insufficient attention to biological and sociocultural factors that can also affect an individual’s psychological functioning and dysfunctioning.

Second, the psychological or personality types described by Jung have been popularized to such an extent that they may be used to erroneously label individuals as oversimplified personality types. There has therefore been some resistance from the psychological community, including many Jungian therapists, to the inappropriate uses of measures of personality types, such as the MBTI.

Third, although Jung’s focus on midlife and the search for meaning, including religious and spiritual aspects and experiences, is a good corrective to Freud’s antireligious stance, Jung is still somewhat biased against dogma and religious beliefs that seem to be more cerebral or cognitive and not experiential in nature. (This may have been partly a reaction to his father’s dry form of religious belief.)

Fourth, Jung’s emphasis on becoming aware and accepting of the darker, shadow side of one’s personality in order to grow in wisdom and mature balance may be somewhat naive. Although he acknowledged the reality of evil, he did not adequately deal with the full nature and meaning of evil and how to overcome it.

Fifth, some of the therapeutic techniques of Jungian therapy must be used with great clinical and ethical caution. For example, the use of active imagination and deeper analysis of dreams, which can be especially frightening or disturbing, may not be appropriate with clients who may have fragile egos or may be prepsychotic. Jung was aware of this danger, however, and he refrained from using such techniques with more severely disturbed clients. Dreams may also not always be the pathway to the unconscious, and they can sometimes be overinterpreted, with spurious or misleading meanings imposed on them.

Finally, because Jungian therapy is a complex, intense, and usually long-term approach to helping clients, there is little empirical evaluation in terms of controlled outcome studies of its therapeutic efficacy or effectiveness.

A Biblical Perspective on Jungian Therapy

Several strengths and weaknesses of Jungian theory and therapy have already been noted. From a biblical perspective, Jung’s attempts to understand the depths of a person’s psyche or “soul”—acknowledging both the tremendous wisdom and the potential residing in one’s personal and collective unconscious as well as in the darker, shadow side of human personality, which is capable of evil and destructive tendencies—are more balanced than Freud’s. They are also somewhat consistent with the biblical view of humankind as created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26–27), yet fallen and sinful (Jer. 17:9; Rom. 3:23). However, Jung’s conceptualization of evil is inadequate, with an ambivalent theory of evil that can be confusing (Browning & Cooper 2004). He does not ultimately see the full extent and substance of evil and the need to overcome it or the need for redemption from sin and evil through the saving work of Christ. Jung emphasized the need to become aware of and to accept the darker, shadow side of one’s personality, as if this were enough to deal with evil tendencies. To acknowledge sinful tendencies deep within one’s being, however, is only the first step in dealing with evil. Other essential steps include turning to Christ for redemption and cleansing and to the Holy Spirit for power to overcome sin and evil with the goodness and grace of God, in whom there is no evil, contrary to what Jung believed about God being amoral or having potentialities for both good and evil, like a human being (Browning & Cooper 2004). The reality of the evil one, the devil as our archenemy, and spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10–18) also need to be emphasized in a fuller and more biblical perspective on evil. The Jungian perspective can therefore be too optimistic and positive about human nature.

Jung’s views on the importance of dreams and how they can be religious messages from a transcendent source beyond the individual have been well received by some Christian therapists and clergy who also see dreams as possible messages from God. There are several examples in Scripture of how God spoke to people through dreams, but dreams can be overinterpreted and are not necessarily the chief way that God speaks to people. Although Jung uses religious and spiritual language and symbols, he does not seem to believe in a personal triune God and in the historicity of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to save and transform sinful human beings (S. L. Jones & Butman 1991). Jung’s analytical psychology comes close to being a religion itself, but with a gnostic approach emphasizing the need to know oneself and one’s personal and collective unconscious through a mystical archetypal force that guides one to become a unique person. As Paul Vitz has observed: “This goal of self-realization or self-actualization is at heart a Gnostic one, in which the commandment ‘know and express thyself’ has replaced the Judeo-Christian commandment ‘Love God and others.’ (In many respects, all modern psychology of whatever theoretical persuasion, because of the emphasis on special, somewhat esoteric knowledge, can be interpreted as part of a vast Gnostic heresy.)” (1994, 3). Implicit in the Jungian idea of self-realization is an optimistic reliance on the individual’s ability to engage in such individuation (normally with the help of a Jungian therapist), leading to what Don Browning and Terry Cooper have called “ethical egoism” (2004, 150), an ethic that falls short of the Christian ethic of loving God and others. Jung can therefore be viewed “as a particularly complex example of . . . the psychological culture of joy” (2004, 151).

Jung’s focus on religious and spiritual experience, including mystical experience rather than dry dogmatic beliefs, is another area for concern from a biblical perspective. Jung is well known for a statement he made in 1961, shortly before he died: “Suddenly I understood that God was, for me at least, one of the most certain and immediate experiences. . . . I do not believe; I know. I know” (see Kelsey 1972, 119; quoted in Hurding 1985, 80). It is difficult to interpret accurately what Jung really meant by this statement. Experiencing God, based on what we know of him through Scripture, involves encountering a real, personal God who exists (Heb. 11:6). This is not the same as psychological experiences of an idea of God that is in our collective unconscious as an archetypal image. Caution is needed in using some Jungian concepts because they may not be biblically consistent even if they sound familiar.

On the other hand, Roger Hurding (1985, 357) has pointed out that the Jungian approach can challenge Christians to take more seriously the Christian mystical tradition, which emphasizes devotional practice (e.g., contemplation and meditation) and godliness of life. This tradition can help us know God in a more experiential way, yet a way still based on Scripture, in the inner journey of our lives. Hurding especially reviewed and critiqued the writings of Christopher Bryant, William Johnston, and Morton Kelsey, who tried to integrate Jungian psychology with the Christian mystical tradition (see Hurding 1985, 334–360).

Jungian therapy, however, does have some noteworthy aspects that Christians and Christian therapists can appreciate: the use of a warm and empathic therapeutic relationship that is mutual and collaborative; the serious focus on dreams and dream analysis in order to connect deeper unconscious material to one’s consciousness, including honestly facing one’s darker, shadow side; and the exploration of religious and spiritual experiences and the search for meaning in life (especially at midlife and later) that comes close to the process of spiritual direction. However, Jung’s delving into the occult and Eastern mysticism can be potentially dangerous because some Christians view this as delving into the demonic and spiritually evil realm.

One conclusion with regard to a biblical Christian perspective on Jungian theory and therapy is a somewhat critical statement provided by Stanton L. Jones and Richard Butman: “C. G. Jung was a prolific and creative thinker with few equals in this [twentieth] century. . . . But while the issues he raised and questions he asked are vital, the answers Jung generated are of deep concern. . . . And the psychology of Jung, with its deeply flawed understanding of our religious nature and the most fundamental religious truths, would be a poor guide on that inner journey” (1991, 139–140). However, Ann B. Ulanov and Alvin Dueck (2008) have provided a more nuanced and appreciative perspective on what Christians can learn from Carl Jung. More recently, Christopher Kam (2018) has proposed integrating Christian theology with Jungian psychoanalysis in overcoming self-deception, including the use of the Jungian therapeutic technique of active imagination.

Research: Empirical Status of Jungian Therapy

Some of Jung’s theoretical ideas—such as psychological or personality types, especially as measured by the MBTI—and his theory of dreams have received some empirical support (for summaries of the research literature, see Ryckman 2008, 94–96; Sharf 2016, 114–115; also Douglas 2008, 127–128).

Outcome evaluations of the effectiveness of Jungian therapy have been relatively limited (Sharf 2016, 115). Previous research has consisted mostly of clinical case studies, often single-case studies using clinical observation of a client or patient over the course of Jungian therapy (Douglas 2008). However, more recently, since the 1990s, several empirical outcome evaluations or research projects on Jungian therapy have been undertaken, mainly in Germany and Switzerland. Christian Roesler provided a review of the following empirical studies on the effectiveness of Jungian psychotherapy.

Prospective, naturalistic outcome studies: naturalistic study on analytical long-term psychotherapy in Switzerland; San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Project, which had to be terminated early because of low participation of the analysts from the San Francisco Jung Institute; and naturalistic study on outpatient psychotherapy in Switzerland

Catamnestic/retrospective studies: Berlin Jungian Study and Konstanz Study—a German consumer reports study

Small samples and case studies: on Jungian sand-play therapy, psychosomatic disorders, and integration of shadow aspects

Qualitative and process studies: on complex theory and picture interpretation method (2013, 563–564)

However, the only study that had a parallel control group using a quasi-experimental design was the naturalistic study on outpatient psychotherapy in Switzerland, but only four Jungian cases ended up participating in this study, which included other psychodynamic and experiential approaches. The effectiveness of Jungian therapy therefore could not be evaluated because of the small sample size. The other studies did not have any control groups, and none of the studies reviewed was a randomized controlled trial (RCT). Other serious methodological problems with the uncontrolled outcome studies include biased sampling, low sample sizes, and some retrospective studies and case studies.

Based on the prospective, naturalistic outcome studies and retrospective studies reviewed, using standardized outcome measures and health insurance data, Roesler (2013) reported significant improvements in symptoms and interpersonal problems, as well as in personality structure and everyday life conduct. These improvements were maintained at follow-up of up to six years. Some studies even showed further improvements after termination of therapy. The average length of Jungian therapy in these studies was ninety sessions. Roesler concluded that Jungian therapy is an effective and cost-effective method and that finally it can now be called “an empirically proven, effective method” (2013, 563). However, this is too positive a conclusion, given the serious methodological problems even with the prospective naturalistic studies, and especially the lack of control groups and no RCT in any of these empirical studies. Roesler did state in his discussion of the results: “Nevertheless, the efficacy of Jungian psychotherapy is still to be proven in a randomized controlled trial design” (2013, 571).

Further controlled outcome research is needed on the efficacy or effectiveness of Jungian therapy. Due especially to the lack of any randomized controlled trial, no definitive conclusions can therefore be presently made about the efficacy of Jungian therapy, although more empirical but uncontrolled studies have been conducted beyond simple case studies.

Future Directions

Some authors of textbooks in the field of counseling and psychotherapy have recently reduced or left out detailed coverage of Jungian theory and therapy because of an apparent decrease in interest in Jungian therapy (see, e.g., Corey 2021; Prochaska & Norcross 2018; J. Sommers-Flanagan & Sommers-Flanagan 2018; Wedding & Corsini 2019; also S. Jones & Butman 2011). Jung was especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s, but interest in Jung and Jungian therapy seems to have decreased; less than 1 percent of psychotherapists in the United States have identified themselves as Jungians in recent surveys conducted (see Prochaska & Norcross 2018, 3).

However, other authors have reached quite different conclusions about the current status and future directions of Jungian therapy. Claire Douglas, a Jungian analyst herself, has described the growth of Jungian therapy and the apparent increase in interest in Jung’s analytical psychology approach. She reported that the International Association for Analytical Psychology, the IAAP (www.iaap.org), had more than 2,860 certified analyst members in 28 countries; 57 professional societies, including 19 in the United States; and 19 developing groups, according to 2006 statistics. Several professional journals focus on Jungian theory and therapy, including the well-known British Journal of Analytical Psychology (Douglas 2008, 113), and Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice. There is also the Society of Analytical Psychology (www.Jungian-analysis.org). More recently, Sharf mentioned that there were over 3,000 qualified Jungian analysts belonging to the IAAP (2016, 88).

Training in Jungian analysis is rigorous, requiring six to eight years on the average before a therapist can be formally certified as a Jungian analyst. An essential and required part of the training is the personal or training analysis of the therapist, which usually lasts many years, often involving work with two different Jungian analysts. Other requirements in the formal training leading to certification as a Jungian analyst in the United States usually include four years of coursework or seminars in clinical theory and practice from Jungian as well as neo-Freudian perspectives, archetypal psychology, and dream analysis; personal interviews; oral and written examinations; and a clinical dissertation (Douglas 2008, 113–114).

Douglas (2008, 114) also describes exciting current and future developments in Jungian theory and therapy, including integrating object relations psychology with Jungian analytical psychology and integrating more multicultural and feminist perspectives with Jungian theory and therapy. However, she notes that more-conservative Jungians are reacting to some of these contemporary developments with a backlash, asserting that Jung’s original views should be preserved and not diluted and reinterpreted in ways with which he might not agree today.

Jungian theory and therapy, therefore, seem to be doing well enough and may actually be growing in influence. Douglas mentions a growing number of therapists who have not undergone the rigorous training required to become certified Jungian analysts, but who nevertheless consider themselves to be “Jungian-oriented therapists” (2008, 113), although they are not Jungian analysts. Surveys showing that less than 1 percent of therapists identify themselves as Jungians thus may be somewhat misleading because the therapists participating in the surveys may be interpreting “Jungian” in the strict sense to mean Jungian analysts, rather than more broadly to include Jungian-oriented therapists. The actual number of counselors and clinicians who practice as Jungian-oriented therapists may therefore be greater than these surveys indicate.

Outcome research on the effectiveness of Jungian therapy has now gone beyond simply case studies to prospective naturalistic studies and retrospective evaluation, with some positive results, but no well-controlled outcome study or randomized controlled trial has been done so far (see Roesler 2013). Further outcome research on Jungian therapy is being planned, but randomized controlled trials are needed before more definitive conclusions can be made about the effectiveness of Jungian therapy.

Recommended Readings

In addition to Jung’s own collected works (22 volumes published by Princeton University Press, 1953–), the following books are recommended for further reading:

Bair, D. (2003). Jung: A biography. Boston: Little, Brown.

Harris, A. S. (1996). Living with paradox: An introduction to Jungian psychology. Albany, NY: Brooks/Cole.

Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Random House.

Papadopolous, R. (Ed.). (2006). The handbook of Jungian psychology: Theory, practice, and applications. New York: Routledge.

Storr, A. (1983). The essential Jung. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Wilmer, H. A. (2015). Practical Jung: Nuts and bolts of Jungian psychotherapy (2nd ed.). Asheville, NC: Chiron.