Carl Jung abandoned the use of “Abreaction.” [Lexicon]
A method of becoming conscious of repressed emotional reactions through the retelling and reliving of a traumatic experience. (See also cathartic method.)
After some initial interest in “trauma theory, ” Jung abandoned abreaction (together with suggestion) as an effective tool in the therapy of neurosis.
I soon discovered that, though traumata of clearly aetiological significance were occasionally present, the majority of them appeared very improbable.
Many traumata were so unimportant, even so normal, that they could be regarded at most as a pretext for the neurosis. But what especially aroused my criticism was the fact that not a few traumata were simply inventions of fantasy and had never happened at all. . . .
I could no longer imagine that repeated experiences of a fantastically exaggerated or entirely fictitious trauma had a different therapeutic value from a suggestion procedure.[ “Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis, ” CW 4, par. 582.]
The belief, the self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the analyst does his work, are far more important to the patient (imponderabilia though they may be), than the rehearsing of old traumata.[Ibid., par. 584.]
Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000-year-old man that is in all of us.
Carl Jung in New York Times
Carl Jung on Patients – Anthology
As therapists we are subject to the unavoidable destinies of our patients. ~Carl Jung; Conversations with C.G. Jung, Psychotherapy, Page 113.
[One of my patients] dreamed that she was commanded to descend into “a pit filled with hot stuff.” This she did, till only one shoulder was sticking out of the pit. Then Jung came along, pushed her right down into the hot stuff, exclaiming “Not out but through. ~Carl Jung; from “From the Life and Work of C. G. Jung” by Aniela Jaffe.
Only then I learned psychological objectivity. Only then could I say to a patient, ‘Be quiet, something is happening.’ There are such things as mice in a house. You cannot say you are wrong when you have a thought. For the understanding of the unconscious we must see our thoughts as events, as phenomena. ~Carl Jung, Liber Novus, Page 249, Footnote 188.
Two days later I was again at Kusnacht to be met at the door by the famous two dogs at the entrance to Dr. Jung’s house. I had heard that he arranged to have his two dogs meet a new patient, the dogs being more sensitive to a potential psychotic than any human observation. ~Robert Johnson, C. G. Jung, Emma Jung and Toni Wolff – A Collection of Remembrances; Pages 36-39.
As therapists we are subject to the unavoidable destinies of our patients. ~Carl Jung; Conversations with C.G. Jung, Psychotherapy, Page 113.
The belief, the self-confidence, perhaps also the devotion with which the analyst does his work, are far more important to the patient (imponderabilia though they may be), than the rehearsing of old traumata. ~Carl Jung; CW 4; par. 584.
An exclusively sexual interpretation of dreams and fantasies is a shocking violation of the patient’s psychological material: infantile-sexual fantasy is by no means the whole story, since the material also contains a creative element, the purpose of which is to shape a way out of the neurosis. ~Carl Jung; “The Therapeutic Value of Abreaction,” CW 16, par. 277.
As a doctor it is my task to help the patient to cope with life. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 32
The patient must be alone if he is to find out what it is that supports him when he can no longer support himself. Only this experience can give him an indestructible foundation. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 32
The labours of the doctor as well as the quest of the patient are directed towards that hidden and as yet unmanifest “whole” man, who is at once the greater and the future man. ~Carl Jung, CW 12, Para 6
More than once I have had to reach for a book on my shelves, bring down an old alchemist, and show my patient his terrifying fantasy in the form in which it appeared four hundred years ago. ~Carl Jung, CW 13, Para 325.
[The dream] shows the inner truth and reality of the patient as it really is: not as I conjecture it to be, and not as he would like it to be, but as it is. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 304
The patient must learn to go his own way. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 26.
Freud rightly recognized that this bond is of greatest therapeutic importance in that it gives rise to a mixtum compositum [composite mixture] of the doctor’s own mental health and the patient’s maladjustment. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 358.
The therapist must be guided by the patient’s own irrationalities. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 82.
Here we must follow nature as a guide, and what the doctor then does is less a question of treatment than of developing the creative possibilities latent in the patient himself. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 82.
One cannot help any patient to advance further than one has advanced oneself. ~Carl Jung, CW 16, Para 179
You can’t wrest people away from their fate, just as in medicine you cannot cure a patient if nature means him to die. ~Carl Jung, CW 18, Para 291
Seldom in my analytical work have I been so struck by the “beauty” of neurosis as with this pat1ent. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Pages 4-8
He [Jung] said he had learned never to start an interview beyond a few pleasantries – ‘How are you?’ – but to wait for the patient, because the instincts, the archetypes, lie in between and we don’t know what may be there. ~E.A. Bennet, Meeting with Jung, Page 55
At times C.G. has had to re-create a neurosis in order to get vitality into the treatment – for instance when a pat1ent is just flat and deflated. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 89
Also he [Jung] spoke of his great interest on reading that a neuro-surgeon, concerned with epilepsy, had stimulated the corpora quadrigemina and the patient had had a vision of a mandala, a square containing a circle. This vision could be reproduced – and was reproduced – by the stimulation. ~E.A. Bennet, Meetings with Jung, Page 157
Carl Jung on Transference.
To Olga Frobe-Kapteyn
Dear Frau Frobe, 16 August 1947
The dissolution of the transference often consists in ceasing to describe the nature of one’s relationship as “transference.”
This designation degrades the relationship to a mere projection, which it is not.
“Transference” consists in the illusion of its uniqueness, when seen from the collective and conventional standpoint.
“Uniqueness” lies simply and solely in the relationship between individuated persons, who have no other relationships at all except individual, i.e., unique ones.
Of course it is all right with me if the lectures begin at 9:30.
Kindest regards,
Ever sincerely,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. 1, Page 475
Carl Jung Depth Psychology Blog