jungian analysis
The depth-psychology corpus treats psychoanalysis not as a monolithic doctrine but as a contested field of practice and theory whose boundaries are perpetually being renegotiated. Jung's own engagement with Freudian psychoanalysis — documented at length in the Collected Works Volume 4, which bears the title 'Freud and Psychoanalysis' — moves from early discipleship through systematic critique to a decisive theoretical rupture, particularly over the concept of libido and the primacy of infantile sexuality. Post-Jungian writers inherit this ambivalence: Samuels maps the differential between classical Jungian analysis and psychoanalytic technique, noting that 'very few Jungian analysts have been unaffected by developments in psychoanalysis,' while simultaneously insisting on distinctly Jungian structures such as the four stages of analytical process (confession, elucidation, education, transformation). Hillman, from within archetypal psychology, presses the mythic underpinnings of analysis itself, questioning whether 'sublimation' and cognate psychoanalytic terms distort rather than clarify psychological events. Sedgwick carves out a Jungian psychotherapy distinct from both classical analysis and Freudian technique, emphasising mutual influence in the therapeutic relationship. Meanwhile, Carhart-Harris documents how the psychoanalytic paradigm shaped early psychedelic research, revealing the framework's reach into adjacent clinical domains. The central tension across the corpus is between psychoanalysis as reductive causal explanation and Jungian analysis as prospective, teleological, and ultimately individuation-oriented practice.
On the Criticism of Psychoanalysis... Concerning Psychoanalysis... The Theory of Psychoanalysis... A REVIEW OF THE EARLY HYPOTHESES . THE THEORY OF INFANTILE SEXUALITY . THE CONCEPT OF LIBIDO . NEUROSIS AN
Jung's collected essays on Freudian psychoanalysis constitute the foundational primary source in which he systematically reviews, critiques, and ultimately redefines the theoretical core of psychoanalytic doctrine.
, Collected Works Volume 4: Freud and Psychoanalysis, 1961thesis
Post-Jungian debates can be seen as occurring within the overall psychotherapeutic milieu; very few Jungian analysts have been unaffected by developments in psychoanalysis.
Samuels argues that analytical psychology cannot be understood in isolation from psychoanalysis, since Jungian clinical practice has been continuously shaped by psychoanalytic developments even as it differentiates itself from them.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985thesis
As long as we look at life only retrospectively, as is the case in the psychoanalytic writings of the Viennese school, we shall never do justice to these persons [neurotic] and never bring them the longed-for deliverance.
Wiener cites Jung's early letter to Dr. Löy to establish the fundamental divergence between Freudian retrospective causality and Jung's prospective, purposive orientation — the core theoretical fault-line separating Jungian from classical psychoanalysis.
, The Therapeutic Relationship: Transference, Countertransference, and the Making of Meaning, 2009thesis
The second stage Jung referred to as elucidation. This he equated with Freud's 'interpretive method' and he referred in particular to the working out of the transference relationship, involving reductive explanation.
Samuels delineates Jung's four-stage model of analytical process, locating psychoanalytic interpretation specifically within the limited stage of elucidation and identifying transformation — not reductive explanation — as the distinctively Jungian telos.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985thesis
the difference from classical psychoanalysis is intact... Jungian treatment has almost always involved a style and frequency close to what is currently known as psychotherapy.
Sedgwick argues that Jungian practice diverges structurally from classical psychoanalysis in its frequency, style, and relational ethos, and that this divergence is not incidental but constitutive of its identity.
, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001thesis
As in psychoanalysis, some form of compromise has been proposed and we would then refer to 'analytical psychotherapy' to describe treatment of less than analytical intensity but with analytical methodology and goals.
Samuels maps the terminological negotiation between psychoanalysis and Jungian analysis, showing how 'analytical psychotherapy' functions as a hybrid category mediating the intensity debate that divides the two traditions.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
the idea that there could be a 'technique of analysis' is, for some Jungians, quite foreign to Jung's conception of analysis as an art, as defying formulation.
Samuels identifies a tension internal to Jungian analysis between those who embrace psychoanalytically-influenced technical formalism and those who regard any systematised technique as a betrayal of Jung's conception of analysis as art.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
The dominant theoretical and therapeutic approach during the early era of psychedelic research was psychoanalytic. Psychedelics were used therapeutically under the rationale that they work to lower psychological defenses to allow personal conflicts to come to the fore.
Carhart-Harris documents how the psychoanalytic model — with its emphasis on defence mechanisms and conflict resolution — governed the first wave of clinical psychedelic research, demonstrating the paradigm's historical reach beyond the consulting room.
, The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs, 2014supporting
This cultural process is mistakenly called 'sublimation' (another of those words like 'transference,' 'psychodynamics,' 'therapeutic eros' that disturb our perception of psychological events).
Hillman challenges the adequacy of canonical psychoanalytic vocabulary — sublimation above all — arguing that such terms distort rather than illuminate the cultural and archetypal dimensions of what occurs in analysis.
, The Myth of Analysis: Three Essays in Archetypal Psychology, 1972supporting
Jung was the first psychotherapist to emphasize this mutuality... My chief goal is to define a Jungian style of psychotherapy in terms of the therapeutic relationship itself.
Sedgwick establishes Jung's priority in foregrounding the mutual influence of analyst and patient, positioning this relational emphasis as the key innovation distinguishing Jungian practice from classical psychoanalytic technique.
, An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy: The Therapeutic Relationship, 2001supporting
these observations have led to more precision about details of the technical procedure of analysis and to a great appreciation and valuation of transference/countertransference phenomena, not only as therapeutic and diagnostic tools, but also as the immediate situational structure in which neurotic behaviour and ideation can be observed.
Samuels documents the Developmental School's assimilation of psychoanalytic transference-countertransference theory, showing how this cross-fertilisation produced greater technical precision within Jungian clinical practice.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
in the ID view, interpretation is the cornerstone of analytical technique... But the idea that there could be a 'technique of analysis' is, for some Jungians, quite foreign to Jung's conception of analysis as an art.
Samuels articulates the internal Jungian controversy over interpretation, which tracks the broader fault line between psychoanalytically-inflected technical approaches and classically Jungian conceptions of analysis as non-systematisable craft.
, Jung and the Post-Jungians, 1985supporting
Psychoanalysis, I, 14, 19, 28, 52, 54, 64, 178, 182, 183, 164, 192, 201, 202, 203, 207
Rank's index entry for psychoanalysis in The Trauma of Birth signals its ubiquitous presence throughout that work, situating the concept as the theoretical matrix within which the birth trauma hypothesis was developed and contested.
, The Trauma of Birth, 1924aside
empirical dream research, psychoanalytic dream theories, psychotherapy process, typical dream patterns
Roesler positions Jungian dream theory in explicit dialogue with psychoanalytic dream theories, using empirical methods to test and support distinctly Jungian claims about dream function within psychotherapy.
, Jungian Theory of Dreaming and Contemporary Dream Research: Findings from the Research Project Structural Dream Analysis, 2020aside
when theory follows scientific models, there are corresponding methods: statistics, questionnaires, measurements and machines for the study of dreams, types, psychosomatics, psychopharmaceutics, and synchronicity. The patient now may become an empirical subject and the clinic a laboratory setting.
Hillman critiques the scientistic drift in complex psychology, implicitly distancing archetypal psychology from both orthodox psychoanalysis and empirically-oriented Jungian research that reduces the clinical encounter to data collection.
, Archetypal Psychology, 1983aside