Analytical Psychology
Founded by Carl Gustav Jung, the field of analytical psychology is the descendent of the “Zürich School” of psychoanalysis which Jung spearheaded while still the heir apparent to Freud and the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association (1910–1914).
The first written occurrence of the name “analytical psychology” is in a lecture delivered by Jung to the Psycho-Medical Society in London on August 5, 1913 (“General Aspects of Psychoanalysis”). Conceived by Jung as a general (depth) psychology, the field grew in size and developed in complexity both during Jung’s lifetime and after his death in 1961. By 1997 it had come to embrace some two thousand professional analysts on five continents.
In the years 1907–20 Jung worked out the main outlines of his theory, which set the course for analytical psychology. By the end of this period, the theory included psychological types, the theory of complexes and archetypes, the notions of persona, shadow, and anima/animus, and the individuation process.
Among the factors that have distinguished analytical psychology are: (a) a synthetic/symbolic component in analytic treatment; (b) a view of libido that includes a broad range of instinct groups, as well as a theory of culture that sees it based not on sublimation of sexuality but on symbolic transformation processes native to the psyche; (c) a notion of the unconscious that includes strivings toward growth and development, intelligent purpose, and orientation to meaning rather than narrowly limited to a pleasure orientation and a drive to tension release; (d) minimization of the psychosexual stages of development in childhood in favor of lifelong psychological development.
Technique also contributes important distinguishing features to analytical psychology: (a) while retaining a strong sense of the importance of transference and regression, Jung placed patients in a chair vis-à-vis the analyst and asked them to interact and maintain a dialogue; (b) frequency of sessions is variable from twice to five times per week, depending on the need; (c) the personality of the analyst as well as the analyst’s associations (“amplifications”) to dreams and other unconscious material come into play in a more open and explicit fashion, and the analyst seeks to be somewhat transparent and self-disclosing of emotional reactions.
Already when Jung broke with Freud at the end of 1912 he enjoyed an international reputation and quickly attracted his own students from many parts of Europe and the United States.
These men and women typically returned to their countries of origin and began Analytical Psychology Clubs or similar study groups in their home cities: London (1922), Paris (1926), New York (1936), San Francisco (1939), Los Angeles (1942), Tel Aviv (1958). Interest in Jung’s ideas was strong also in Berlin, but since many of the physicians drawn to him were Jewish (Gerhard Adler, Ernst Bernhardt, Werner Engel, Jean Kirsch, Ernst Neumann) and fled to the United States, England, Italy, and Israel during the 1930s, and because of the Nazi rise to power and the outbreak of World War II, the founding of a Jungian organization in Germany was delayed until 1962.
Gradually these Analytical Psychology Clubs fostered professional analyst societies which, after the Second World War, began sponsoring training institutes.
The Society of Analytical Psychology, London (1945) led by Gerhard Adler, Michael Fordham, and Edward A. Bennett founded the first training program. Next came the Carl Gustav Jung Institute/Zürich (1948) with Carl A. Meier as President. In the 1960s, training institutes appeared in many parts of the world: Italy (1961), New York (1962), Germany (1962), San Francisco (1964), Los Angeles (1967), and France (1969). In the following decades, professional societies and training institutes also developed in Austria, Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Israel, South Africa, and many urban centers in the United States. By 1996 there were twenty-three training institutes in existence worldwide.
The International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), founded in 1955 to serve as an international umbrella organization for all professional analyst groups within the field of analytical psychology, provides a network of communication and collegiality for Jungian analysts throughout the world. There are presently thirty-two member groups of IAAP. Every three years the IAAP sponsors a Congress and publishes the papers presented. The Zürich Congress of 1995 was the thirteenth to be held.
As the field of analytical psychology developed, it experienced a vigorous display of diversity and polarization. The issue that has most divided it is the same one that originally caused the rupture between Jung and Freud: a symbolic, prospective approach to interpretation and clinical practice vs. a reductive one.
Within analytical psychology this has been referred to variously as the Zurich vs. London, the classical vs. developmental, or the symbolic vs. clinical tension. In every version of this debate, the questions revolve around whether to give more prominence to working synthetically and symbolically with dreams and other direct manifestations of the unconscious or to devote one’s efforts exclusively toward technique and the analysis of personal issues involving early childhood and developmental traumas, resistance, and transference.
The classical school bases itself centrally on the writings of Jung and his close followers such as Marie Louise von Franz, Carl A. Meier, and Edward Edinger, while the developmental school incorporates many ideas from modern psychoanalysis, particularly object relations theory. The leading figure of the latter movement was Michael Fordham.
The most recent generation of analysts has attempted to synthesize these two opposing trends and to find a balanced approach. Some have carried out investigations of the character disorders, dissociative states, and the interactive field (transference-countertransference). There have also been movements in recent decades to apply analytical psychology to the analysis of children and adolescents, society and politics, art and popular culture, small groups and large corporate organizations, and marriage and family dynamics.
Scientific studies testing the hypotheses of analytical psychology continue in many universities and institutes throughout the world. Journals of analytical psychology appear regularly in English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Portuguese. The most important of these are: The Journal of Analytical Psychology (London, est. 1955), the Cahiers Jungiens de Psychanalyse (Paris, est. 1974), and the Zeitschrift für Analytische Psychologie (Berlin and Zürich, est. 1969). ~Murray Stein, International of Psychoanalysis, Page 79–81
Bibliography Dyer, Donald. (1991). Cross-currents of Jungian thought: An annotated bibliography. Boston-London: Shambhala. Henderson, Joseph L. (1995). Reflections on the history and practice of Jungian analysis. In Murray Stein (Ed.): Jungian analysis. La Salle, IL: Open Court. Jung, Carl Gustav. (1966). Memories, dreams, reflections. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1962) Samuels, Andrew (1985). Jung and the Post-Jungians. London-Boston: Routledge. Stein, Murray (Ed.). (1995). Jungian analysis. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
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