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BUDDHISM COUNSELLING
FOCUSING
PHILOSOPHY
Published
in Person-Centered Review, 4 (4) (1989) pp. 403-419
THE PERSON-CENTERED JUNGIAN
In this article I explore some aspects
of the relationship between the work of Carl Rogers and Carl Jung. I
consider first some of the interesting similarities between their ideas, and
then look at the ways in which their viewpoints are complementary. Next, I
discuss how the Jungian conception of the unconscious mind can be related to a
person-centered approach, and suggest that it can be accommodated if we extend
the core conditions of the person-centered approach to include a condition
which I call "openness to the unconscious." I conclude with a
discussion of the relevance these ideas have for therapeutic practice.
Campbell Purton is a counsellor
at the
In my therapeutic work I am
conscious of a dual allegiance. Many years ago—in my late teens—I began to read
Jung, and Jungian concepts, such as those of psychological type, the
compensatory nature of dreams, the healing power of the unconscious, archetypal
images and themes, which became part of the background of my thinking. Later,
as a postgraduate student, I had some sessions with a Jungian analyst, which I
found very illuminating. I never studied Jung in an academic way, my academic
background being in philosophy, but I feel that to some extent I have lived in
a Jungian world, a world of experience that fits the Jungian conceptions of
life.
When I first considered becoming
a therapist, I investigated the possibilities of training as a Jungian analyst.
There were practical obstacles to this, but also I had read a number of books
by Jungians that seemed to me simply to emulate the master without extending or
challenging his ideas. I had the impression of a kind of fossilized Jungianism
that didn't appeal to me at all. I was also impressed by a dream I had in which
Jungian themes were portrayed in a garishly colorful and superficially
attractive way, rather than as deeply true and serious. This dream made a
double impression on me. First there was an element of truth in what it
portrayed. Second, I think that in trusting the dream and taking it seriously I
was being true to the essence of Jung's thought, which I believe involves a
distinctive attitude that I shall refer to as "openness to the
unconscious."
The practical possibility of
training as a therapist in the Rogerian
tradition raised the question of
whether such a training could square
with my Jungian background.
Reading Rogers, and talking to client-
centered therapists convinced me
that it could. Brian Thorne and Aude
de Sousa gave me copies of talks
they had given, independently, on
the links between Jung and
Rogers, and I found these very encourag-
ing. For example, in his talk on
"The Two Carls" Brian Thome (1983)
gives a list of quotations from
the two men such that only someone
very familiar with their writings
could tell which extract comes from
which pen. However, I think that
the relationship between Rogerian
and Jungian ideas is not a simple
one, and in this article I will consider
separately, the following: (1)
areas in which there seems to be a
remarkable commonality of
thought, (2) areas in which the Jungian
and Rogerian approaches
complement one another, and (3) ways in
which Jungian ideas can be seen
as extending the notion of what is
involved in a being
"person-centered."
COMMONALITY OF THOUGHT
CLIENT AUTHORITY
One of the most characteristic
features of the person-centered
approach is the insistence that
clients know best what their situation
is, and what they need. It is not
for the therapist to impose his or hei
conceptual scheme on the client.
Jung shares this basic attitude. For
example, he remarks (1984, p. 3):
In analysis we
must be very careful not to assume that we know all
about the
patient or that we know the way out of his difficulties. If the
doctor tells
him what he thinks the trouble may be, he follows the
doctor's
suggestion and does not experience himself. .. It is important
that the
doctor admits he does not know.
Similarly Jung (1935, p. 5)
remarks "If I wish to treat another
individual psychologically at
all, I must for better or worse give up
all pretensions to superior
knowledge, all authority and desire to
influence."
TECHNIQUES AS SECONDARY
definitely secondary to
attitudes; that if a therapist has the attitudes
we've come to regard as essential
probably he or she can use a variety
of techniques." A parallel
quotation from Jung (1934b, p. 159):
Whether he likes it or not, the
doctor and his assumptions are involved
just as much as the patient. It
is in fact largely immaterial what sort of
technique he uses, for the point
is not the technique but the person who
uses the technique.
PERSONALITY DIVISIONS
experience . . . a discrepancy
frequently develops between the self as
perceived, and the actual
experience of the organism." In the course
of therapy a client often
learns how much of his
behavior, even how much
of the feeling he
experiences, is not real, is not something which flows from
the genuine reactions of
his organism, but is a facade, a front, behind which
he has been hiding. He
discovers how much of his life is guided by what he
thinks he should be, not
by what he is. (Rogers, 1961, p. 110)
This "facade" is close
to what Jung calls the "persona" (both writers
have used the term
"mask" in explaining the concept):
The persona . . . is
the individual's system of adaptation to, or the
manner he assumes in
dealing with the world . . . One could say, with
a little
exaggeration, that the persona is that which in reality one is not,
but which oneself as
well as others think one is. (Jung, 1950, p. 122)
Jung develops the theme of the
divided personality in ways that go
far beyond this, and it is worth
noting that for
divisions do not exist simply
between "self-concept" and "organismic
experience," but between
various parts of the personality as a conse-
quence of that primary division:
"He can no longer live as a unified
whole person, but various
part-functions now become characteristic"
(Rogers, 1959, p. 226).
ACTUALIZING TENDENCY AND INDIVIDUATION
This is the inherent
tendency of the organism to develop all its capac-
ities in ways which serve
to maintain or enhance the organism. . . . It
involves development
toward the differentiation of organs and of
functions, expansion in
terms of growth, expansion of effective-
ness . . . It is
development toward autonomy and away from heteron-
omy, or control by
external forces.
Jung (1939, p. 275) says of
"individuation":
I use the term
"individuation" to denote the process by which a
person becomes a
psychological "individual," that is, a separate,
indivisible unity or
"whole" ...in so far as "in-dividuality" embraces
our innermost, last, and
incomparable uniqueness, it also implies
becoming one's own self.
We could therefore translate individuation
as "coming to
selfhood" or "self-realization" (Jung, 1928, par. 266).
Both notions, I believe, involve
the idea of a process of change
through which one moves in the
direction of a "self" that is not a mask,
and is not divided against
itself, a self that is an autonomous whole.
COMPLEMENTARY CONCEPTS
Both Rogers and Jung emphasize
the importance of the human
individual, but with
tonomy, internal locus of
evaluation, experience, growth, maturity,
etc.) whereas with Jung the
emphasis is on the "human" (human
instincts, common archetypal
structures, types of personality, shared
responses to situations, human patterns
of development, etc.) To
emphasize only these aspects
would be to caricature either side: the
idea of a shared humanity runs
all through
emphasizes the intrinsic value of
the individual. Yet it remains the case
that
beings, whereas Jung can lose
track of the individual in the world of
the archetypes. It seems to me
that these different emphases bring with
them different strengths and
weaknesses in practice.
A science fiction fantasy may
help to clarify this. Suppose that a
Rogerian and a Jungian are
transported to a distant planet (call it
Alteros) and are requested by the
indigenous beings to continue with
their work as psychotherapists.
The indigenous beings are very differ-
ent from humankind—they are
persons, but not human persons. They
are aerial nocturnal creatures
whose mating arrangements involve
relationships between four
different sexes, they sleep on the wing (like
an albatross), and contact with
water is fatal to them. Now the
Rogerian will not be disturbed by
the radical differences from earthly
experience; he (or she) can
continue to listen, try to empathize, and be
congruent and accepting. The
Rogerian will be open to this strange
new world and will need to be
more of a Rogerian than ever he (or
she) was on Earth.
The Jungian will be fascinated by
the differences between human
and Alterosian forms of
experience. Here is a world that is archetypally
different from the human world. What
kinds of projections go on when
there are four sexes rather than
two? What happens to dream symbol-
ism when the element of security
and safety is air, when consciousness
is linked with night, and sleep
with day? What role will water imagery
play in the imagination of these
creatures? And what will fulfill the
roles that water images play in
human imagery? The Jungian will want
to read up on Alterosian myths
and folk tales; he or she will want to
get a better feel for how the
shadows generally fall in the psyches of the Alterosians.
The approaches of the Jungian and
the Rogerian are different, but complementary. The Rogerian is likely to miss a
great deal that the Jungian sees, simply because the Rogerian is relying purely
on his (or her) own experience and not making use of the accumulated wisdom of
Alteros. (As Karl Popper used to say in his lectures on the philoso-
phy of science, "If each of
us had to start where Adam started, then we would not have got further than
Adam”).(1) The Jungian, on the other hand, is likely to be so entranced by the
collective Alterosian psyche that he or she may be insufficiently open to
Alterosians as people, and to the individual differences between them. (2)
From a person-centred point of view, the problematic issue is that if a
therapist is sympathetic to Jungian ideas he or she may be inclined to impose a
conceptual scheme on the client rather than work from within the client’s
framework. Yet, while it is true that Jung provides something like a list
of archetypes, a classification of personality types, and a set of relatively
fixed dream symbols, I do not think that there is any evidence that Jung
“imposed” this scheme on his clients. In the case of dream symbolism and
archetypal imagery he makes his therapeutic stance very clear. He remarks
that “if there were no relatively fixed symbols, it would be impossible to
determine the structure of the unconscious” (Jung, 1933, p. 25). But this
is in the context of acquiring psychological knowledge. He goes on to
say:
It is advisable, for the purposes of therapy to look for the meaning of symbols
as they relate to the conscious situation – in other words to treat them as if
they were not fixed. This is as much to say that we must renounce all
preconceived opinions, however knowing they may make us feel, and try to
discover the meaning of things for the patient. (Jung, 1933, pp. 26-27)
Similarly, the idea of “psychological types” may seem to conflict with the
Rogerian emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual. Yet if we look
closely at Jung’s own way of approaching typology there seems little cause for
concern. Jung did not see typology as a rigid classificatory system, but
as a general means of orientation in the landscape of the psyche: “The
four functions are somewhat like the four points of the compass; they are just
as arbitrary and just as indispensable” (Jung, 1933, p.108). In a
late interview, he said:
My scheme of typology is only a scheme of orientation. There is such a
factor as introversion, there is such a factor as extroversion. The
classification of individuals means nothing, nothing at all. It is only
the instrumentarium for the practical psychologist to explain, for instance,
the husband to a wife or vice versa. (Jung, 1957, p. 305)
It is only when the concepts, which are for Jung useful psychological
instruments, get turned into a dogmatic system, that the Rogerian and Jungian
paths must diverge. In other words it is not the existence of a
conceptual scheme that is the problem, but how one uses it. There is an
important general point here. It is not uncommon to hear that we should
approach our clients with no preconceptions, with no conceptual scheme at
all. It seems to me that this is impossible, and that the therapist who
claims to do it is in fact unconscious of what his or her preconceptions
are. Nor does it help to say that we should have as few preconceptions as
possible – how do you count preconceptions? Rather, I think, we need to
be aware of what our preconceptions are. Instead of trying to eliminate
them, they need to be focused on, developed, brought out into the open.
It is only then that they can function effectively as tentative hypotheses, as
initial ways of orienting that are always subject to correction, refinement, or
rejection.
The work of Karl Popper (1959, 1963) and of later writers such as Kuhn (1962)
and Feyerabend (1970) has shown how inadequate is the view that scientific
knowledge begins with experience. It begins rather with assumptions, with
hypotheses, with theories, which are accepted until they conflict with
experience, or with other accepted theories, or are found to be internally
inconsistent or unfruitful. It is unscientific to cling to a theory dogmatically,
but this is not to denigrate theory; it is to criticise the way in which the
theory is held. I believe that the same applies in therapy; that is it is
not theories and preconceptions that are harmful; rather it is their employment
in an authoritarian or dogmatic manner.
“THE
UNCONSCIOUS”
I want
now to address the crucial issue in the relationship between the Jungian and
Rogerian viewpoints, which I think takes us beyond the commonality and
complemetarity discussed here. This is the issue of the “unconscious
mind.” In brief what I shall suggest is that if we follow up Roger’s
(1980, p. 106) theme that “our organisms as a whole have a wisdom and a
purposiveness which goes well beyond our conscious thought," we arrive in
the area of what Jung calls the unconscious, and that we then have some
rethinking to do about what it means to be person-centered.
It will be useful to begin with
ments on the theme of unconscious
feelings and thoughts. He writes:
First, empathy dissolves
alienation. For the moment, at least, the recipi-
ent finds himself or
herself a connected part of the human race. Although
it may not be articulated
clearly, the experience goes something like
this: "I have been
talking about hidden things, partly veiled even from
myself, feelings that are
strange — possibly abnormal — feelings I have
never communicated to
another, nor even clearly to myself. And yet,
another person has
understood, understood my feelings even more
clearly than I do."
It is his {L. L. Whyte's]
theory, in which he is not alone, that great steps
in human history are
anticipated, and probably brought about, by
changes in the unconscious
thinking of thousands and millions of
individuals during the
period preceding the change . . . For me, this
line of thought is wholly
congenial. I have stated that we are wiser than
our intellects, that our
organisms as a whole have a wisdom and pur-
posiveness which goes well
beyond our conscious thought (
1980, p. 106).
I believe that the next
great frontier of learning, the area in which we
will be exploring exciting
new possibilities, is a region scarcely men-
tioned by hard-headed
researchers. It is the area of the intuitive, the
psychic, the vast inner
space that looms before us . . . There is a
growing body of evidence,
which is hard to ignore, that shows capacities
and potentials within the
psyche that seem almost limitless . . . It
appears that our inner world
is continually up to something we know
nothing about, unless we
shut off the outer stimuli. (
pp. 312-313)
This idea of a vast inner world
that is "up to something we know
nothing about" is not a new
one. Lancelot Law Whyte (1960) traces
something of its history in his
important study. The Unconscious
Before Freud. A quotation from
Schopenhauer, whose thought was a
major influence on Jung, may help
to give something of the flavor of
this conception:
Let us compare our
consciousness to a sheet of water of some depth . . .
Judgments, sudden flashes
of thought, rise from these depths unexpect-
edly and to our own
astonishment. A letter brings us important news
not previously expected,
and in consequence our ideas and motives are
thrown into confusion. For
the time being we dismiss the matter from
our minds, and do not
think about it again. But on the next day, or on
the third or fourth day,
the whole situation sometimes stands distinctly
before us with what we
have to do in this case. Consciousness is the
mere surface of our mind,
and of this, as of the globe, we do not tarow
the interior, but only the
crust. (Schopenhauer, 1966, pp. 135-136)
Jung's ideas are not a variation
of Freud's; they belong in a much
broader tradition of thought that
runs through the work of Kant,
Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, and
Nietzsche, a tradition that cannot
easily be dismissed. I suggest
that
also at home within this tradition,
in spite of the utterly different
background of his thought.
In the person-centered tradition
it is fair to say that the unconscious
has been largely neglected.
Person-centered therapy tends to assume
that the "person" is a
conscious organism that may to some extent have
misrepresented its own states,
but which, given suitably facilitative
conditions, can regain full
conscious functioning. In other words there
are aspects of thought and
feeling of which one is not fully aware, but
this is seen as an unfortunate
falling away from one's potential nature
as a fully conscious, fully
responsible being. This view of the person,
which has been explored in detail
by existentialist thinkers, especially
Sartre (1943/1966), was clearly
The passages that I have quoted
from
are evidence of the evolution of
his ideas along a path that I believe
brings him much closer to Jung
than one could reasonably claim on
the evidence of his earlier
writings. The crucial idea in
writings is summed up in the
remark quoted earlier that "our organisms
as a whole have a wisdom and
purposiveness which goes well beyond
our conscious thought"
(Rogers, 1980, p. 106). I think that it is this
notion with which the
person-centered tradition has yet to come to
grips. For if there is such
unconscious wisdom and purposiveness, then
in conceiving of our relationship
to the client only in terms of what is
conscious, or on the borderline
of consciousness, we are not relating
to the whole person.
To be fully person-centered, I
suggest, requires in addition to the
core attitudes of empathy,
acceptance and congruence, an attitude that
could be called "openness to
the unconscious." This attitude is asso-
ciated with the recognition that
there is much more to the person than
what that person is conscious of.
Thus the central theoretical issue lies
in how we conceive of the person.
We can see the person in broadly
existentialist terms as a free,
conscious, responsible being who may
unfortunately not live up fully
to being what he or she could be.
Alternatively, we can see the
person as an essentially mysterious
creature whose consciousness and
responsible activity arise from a
background of unconscious
activity and purposiveness whose nature
can only be hinted and guessed
at. Jung's view is clearly closer to the
second of these pictures,
although he is far from dismissing conscious-
ness and responsibility. There
are indications in the quotations I have
given that
pity if thinkers in the
person-centered tradition spent the next few
decades retracing a path that
Jung has already traversed. The concepts
that Jung developed in his
exploration of the unconscious may be
inadequate or in some ways
misleading, but they are fruit of many
years of struggling—both
personally and intellectually—with "the
unconscious," and they are
worthy of our consideration.
CONSEQUENCES FOR THERAPY
It may be asked whether the
bringing together of Rogerian and
Jungian themes is a purely
theoretical matter, or whether it has
implications for therapeutic
practice. I think myself that the latter is
the case, and that it may be
possible to develop a variety of person-
centered therapy that gives due
respect to both Rogers and Jung.
I see this Jungian
person-centered therapy as grounded in the
Rogerian conditions of empathy,
acceptance, and congruence. The
additional element from the
Jungian tradition is the attitude that I call
"openness to the
unconscious." Jungian theory comes into the picture
only by way of giving some
conception of what it is to which we are
being open. Some specific topics
may help to explain what is involved:
BASIC TRUSTWORTHINESS OF HUMAN NATURE
The theme of trusting one's
organic self, one's human nature, is
central in the Rogerian therapy
(Rogers, 1961, p. 194). Jung, in
parallel, speaks often of the
psyche as a self-regulating system. Yet,
while the basic attitude of trust
in natural processes is fundamental,
there may well be circumstances
in which it helps to know a bit about
that nature that one is trusting.
Blind faith is not always the best attitude
in complex situations. As
toes, like people, grow in all
kinds of unpropitious situations. They
have an inner potential that may
well be trusted to secure survival in
adverse circumstances. Yet it may
sometimes help to know some
botany, some details of the
natural growth processes in the potato, the
way in which different kinds of
soil and other aspects of the environ-
ment affect growth, and so on.
Inshort, one might say that some
knowledge of the potato
"archetype," far from interfering with a
loving trust in the potato's
growth, may well enhance and give sub-
stance to that trust. Jung would
argue that just as there are natural
patterns in the life of plants,
patterns that have evolved over millions
of years to give the
extraordinarily well-adapted growth we observe,
so there are similar patterns in
the lives of human beings. We can trust
these patterns, and the feelings
and intuitions associated with them,
because they have been "tested"
over a period of some two million
years (Jung, 1936, p. 88). This
is not to say that our trust will not
occasionally be misplaced. It is
a mistake to think that biological
adaptations always work, but the
built-in promptings of our nature
should be listened to at least as
much as our conscious reasoning. Thus
I would see the Jungian element
in therapy here as giving context and
substance to the Rogerian notion
of "trusting the organism." The more
the therapist knows of the ways
of the u.nconscious — through experi-
ence, and study of literature,
myth, religion — the more readily will he
or she be able to "trust the
organism."
INTUITION
In one of his last papers, Rogers
(1986, p. 25) wrote of his relation
to a client: "What I wish is
to be at her side, occasionally falling a step
behind, occasionally a step ahead
when I see more clearly the path we
are on, and only taking a leap
when guided by my intuition."
Such taking of leaps guided by
intuition raises important questions
for the person-centered approach.
There is first the question of whether
the therapist can ever "see
the path ahead." Rogers clearly believed
this to be possible, and it seems
to me that there is no difficulty in
principle in understanding how
such intuitive knowledge is possible.
Leaving aside the possibility of
paranormal communication, it seems
to me that intuition is largely a
matter of perceiving the pattern and
significance of things, and is
not essentially mysterious. There may be
all sorts of cues one is picking
up. One may have had experience of
people in similar situations in
the past; there may be echoes from one's
own experience, and so on. The
Jungianwill add that another source
of intuitive knowledge lies in
the fact that, as human beings, client and
therapist share all manner of
archetypal patterns of thought and
feeling. One may know
"intuitively" where a client is going partly
because one knows through being
human oneself the sorts of tracks
that human beings follow.
Granted that the therapist may
beable to see the path ahead, and
may be able to see it more
clearly than the client does, the question
remains of what the therapist is
to do with such knowledge. I do not
think there is any simple answer
to this question; my point in raising
it is to draw attention to the
fact that the question arises for the
person-centered approach as much
as for the Jungian and psychoana-
lytical approaches. The
analytical approaches have the advantage here
of not having any reservations
about saying that the therapist can see
the path ahead more clearly than
the client can. Hence they can
straightforwardly get down to the
problem of whether or how the
therapist is to share his or her
insight with the client. The classical
person-centered approach, it
seems to me, is so concerned about the
dangers of forcing therapeutic
interpretations onto the client, that it
can pretend that the therapist is
not ever able to see the way ahead
more clearly than the client is.
Thus it seems to me that the person-
centered approach may in this
respect be able to learn something from
how the analysts approach the
problem.
THE CLIENT'S UNCONSCIOUS
There can be no evading the issue
that "being open to the uncon-
scious" makes a difference
in how a therapist sees a client. For once
we think in terms of "the
unconscious," we open oufselves to the idea
that much else is going on in the
session than those things of which
either therapist or client is
consciously aware. In relating to the client
a Jungian will want to relate to
the unconscious as well as the conscious
side of the client's personality.
This means that it will be natural to
give special attention to such
things as dreams, fantasies, and projec-
tions, which from a Jungian point
of view are our chief means of
contact with the unconscious.
Dreams will be given special
significance, since the dream provides
a view of the client's problem
that is different from his or her conscious
view, yet is still an aspect of
the client's view. If someone's conscious
view of his or her difficulty is
adequate he or she probably will not
come for therapy. People tend to
come for therapy partly because they
need a new slant on their
situation. But, from a person-centered point
of view, they need a new slant
that comes from themselves, not from
the therapist, and it is
precisely this that the dream can supply. Needless
to say, a person-centered Jungian
approach to dreams will not involve
pushing interpretations onto the
client. Rather it will proceed along
the lines that Jung (1934a, 1938,
1940) employed, exploring the mean-
ing for the client of each dream
image, and considering how the atti-
tudes expressed in the dream
relate to conscious attitudes. Exploring
dreams in a person-centered way
is a topic that has recently been
discussed by Jennings (1986), who
also points out (p. 313) how the
neglect of dreams in
person-centered therapy can disrupt the condi-
tions of congruence, acceptance
and empathy.
Another manifestation of the
unconscious is seen in projections.
One of Jung's central ideas is
that we tend to see in others those aspects
of ourselves of which we are
unconscious. This has become a familiar
enough idea with respect to
emotions such as anger, but Jung holds
that whole aspects of the
personality can be seen in projection on
another person if they are not
adequately integrated with one's own
conscious experience. Among the
possibilities for projection are as-
pects of oneself that are seen as
appropriate to the opposite sex, and
that therefore tend to be
repressed. In the case of a man, this projection
of his feminine side onto a woman
can result in a compulsive attach-
ment, which from the conscious
point of view can seem absurd.
Further, Jung holds, it is not
just repressed aspects of ourselves that
are projected. There are also
those aspects of the personality that he
calls "archetypal." For
example, there is, according to Jung, a "built-
in" feminine aspect to the
male personality that Jung calls the "anima."
When this very deep aspect of the
personality is projected it can make
a woman seem for the moment
entirely magical, "the girl of his
dreams." It would take too
much space to explore in any detail here
Jung's conceptions of
"archetypes" and "projection," but if there are
realities corresponding to these
ideas I think it is important for thera-
piststo know something about
them. To be open to these manifesta-
tions of unconscious thought and
feeling makes a difference in one's
relationship with a client.
For example, a client of mine
began to speak of a girl, who had
rejected him, as if she were
"more than human," that it was "more like
relating to a goddess than to a
human being." This captures very much
the flavor of the anima as
portrayed by Jung (1940):
With the archetype
of the anima we enter the realm of the gods. . . the
anima is the serpent
in the paradise of the harmless man with good
resolutions and
still better intentions, (p. 77)
As long as a man is
unconscious of his anima she is frequently
projected upon a
real woman, and the man's fantasy equips her with
all the fascinating
qualities peculiar to the anima. (p. 23)
I think it was important in my
relationship with this client that I had
no difficulty in taking his
vision of the girl-as-Goddess seriously.
Because the theme of the anima
was familiar to me I had no tendency
to dismiss this vision as a
misperception of the situation, or as merely
a projection of his feminine
side.
From a Jungian point of view
there is more to the anima than this.
Part of what is projected is the
man's feminine side, but mixed with it
is the vision of the archetypal
feminine which, in Jung's view, is not
a matter of individual psychology
but is an aspect of collective human
nature. Thus, in entering into
some kind of relationship with the
archetype, one is making contact
with something that goes beyond the
personal or individual. Images
such as that of the anima touch us at a
deep level in the way that
stories, poetry, or music can. They can, for
the moment, lift us out of our
personal concerns, and link us in what
lies beyond the individual.
"And you are the music-while the music
lasts" (Eliot, 1944,
movement 5). I believe it is very important for a
therapist to be able to relate to
such aspects of the client's unconscious,
difficult though these things are
to conceptualize adequately. If he or
she cannot do so, then, as
Jennings argues, the core conditions of the
person-centered approach are likely
to be jeopardized.
THE THERAPIST'S UNCONSCIOUS
If the unconscious is a reality
it follows that therapists bring to the
session many attitudes and
feelings of which they are not conscious.
The congruence condition of
Rogerian therapy clearly requires that
therapists be in touch as much as
possible with their subliminal
feelings, a point that has been
noted by Maria Bowen (1986, p. 300):
When therapists are not in
contact with their own fears, needs, attach-
ments, and aversions, and
other unconscious forces, these forces can
interfere insidiously with
the client's process. Interventions that divert
the client from the course
that is subliminally uncomfortable to the
therapist become frequent.
Highly charged emotional issues such as
sexuality, illness, and
death become particularly absent from therapy,
even though they might be
central in the client's life at the moment.
The person-centered Jungian has
to function with the knowledge
that there will always be much in
his or her therapeutic relationships
that is unconscious, and much
that will remain so. Thus there will
always be the possibility that
the client will touch on areas of the
therapist's unconscious that will
make it impossible to work effec-
tively with the client and may
even result in the relationship being
damaging to the client. I think
this is a possibility that the therapist
needs to bear in mind however
much he or she consciously pursues
the ideals of congruence,
empathy, and acceptance.
418 PBRSON-CENTERED REVIEW
/ NOVEMBER 198<
CONCLUSION
My purpose in this article has
been to draw attention to the similar-
ities between the ideas of Rogers
and Jung, and to suggest how in other
respects their ideas are
complementary. There remain, of course,
significant differences between
the two, but I think that a deeper
exploration of the Jungian
concept of "the unconscious" together with
a fuller development of the
Rogerian concept of the "wisdom and
purposiveness of the
organism" could lead to a creative synthesis of
the two approaches.
NOTES
1. I remember this remark from
Pepper's lectures at the London School of Economics in the late 1960s. I
believe it also appears in one of his published works, but I have been unable
to trace the reference.
2. In a memorial article on Jung,
Michael Fordham (1975, p. 109) tells of a mealtime conversation at the Jungs'
home. Jung had been holding forth about children, when Emma Jung interrupted,
"You know very well that you are not interested in people, but in your
theory of the collective unconscious," and Jung munched the rest of his
meal in silence.
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