C. G. Jung Institute Zurich

JUNE 30, 2020: PUBLIC LECTURE & SEMINAR: CG JUNG INSTITUTE, ZURICH—THE DARKNESS OF EROS & JUNGIAN SEX THERAPY 

Public Lecture

“The Darkness of Eros: Sex, Shadow, and Subversion”: Jung's Perspectives and Post-Jungian Contributions toward Understanding the Nature and Healing of the Sexual Underworld 

This lecture brings together important contributions from Jung, Cowan, Hillman, and others on the nature of sexual compulsion and shadow. Jung described Eros as a "questionable fellow" beyond any cultural legislation or moral code, as both a divine and hellish expression of the soul. Jung and other depth psychologists contributed critical perspectives to help support our modern understanding of what drives shadow phenomena and the nature of its healing. There is also a beauty to be found in these dark expressions of the soul, as the tortured psyche tries to find itself through the mysterious labyrinth of desire. 

Seminar for Training Analysts

“Jungian Sex Therapy”

Clinical Treatment of Sexual Compulsions/Addictions. Depth Psychological Perspectives of Kink/BDSM, and the Abyss of Sex & Technology

an excerpt from Jung and Sex...

"Jung’s main concern was to investigate sexuality primarily for its spiritual aspects and numinous meanings (1961/1989, p. 168), but he also believed in the importance of understanding its instinctual and physical aspects. Jung was trying to move psychology beyond the predominant reductionistic views of his time, attempting to expand the cultural and psychological meaning and value of sexual phenomena. This is an aspect of his legacy, however, that is rarely recognized.

"He believed many disorders affecting patients were mostly unconscious and 'unsuccessful attempt(s)' to cure themselves (1939/1966, p. 46) and he attacked moral establishments for placing blame squarely on individuals for their sexual problems. He also challenged early psychological theories and medical science that did similar injustices to sexual complexity. Jung’s views, particularly about Freud’s fixed theories of sexuality, more closely match many modern perceptions now, although Jung is seldom credited for challenging these ideas in such a progressive way at the time. Nearly a century later, there is still a need for treatments that recognize how symptoms can actually be valuable expressions of unconscious situations.

"Despite our understanding that many complex sexual issues generally have larger mysteries at their roots, large numbers of patients turn first toward medical providers or pursue various superficial solutions. This leaves many patients in the dark after various treatments, medications, and self-help methods fail. Cultural taboos and lack of social awareness remain harsh impediments to sexual expression. Many are unconsciously driven by splits between competing demands and they lack a path to awareness and integration. Many individuals require treatments that elucidate and address the complexities and conflicts unconsciously manifested in their symptoms. Jung detested the victimization of patients suffering from instinctual and unconscious problems, because it left them to struggle in the dark with no one in their environment helping them to understand or solve them (1939/1966, p. 46). He considered this a direct failing on the part of the medical community, science, and the culture.

"When working with patients with sexual concerns, I ask patients in the grip of an overwhelming attraction or compulsive erotic need, 'What makes these feelings so strong?' Their voices echo themes of connection, disconnection, uncertainty, emptiness, shame, anger, confusion, joy, liberation, and hunger. Culturally and clinically, how can we create space for Eros’ many ways of speaking? How can we unveil the mystery behind various symptoms and serve the real needs that live under the surface needs being expressed? How can we learn where Eros lives for the patient, how the symptoms serve, and discover what fuels these diverse expressions? Even in our modern age, much remains mysterious and concealed about our personal sexual struggles and expressions." Jung and Sex: Re-visioning the Treatment of Sexual Issues, p. 121.

Book Review of Jung and Sex by Ginette Paris, Ph.D.

“Edward Santana, in his brave book Jung and Sex, (Routledge 2017), does something that is long overdue: a critical review of the moralism that has affected the Jungian community. He attacks the bigotry of the psychological establishment when dealing with sexuality, homosexuality, and sexual infidelity.

"This moralism is not so much a problem that comes from Jung’s writing, but rather a cultural trend in psychotherapy. Too many devout Jungians prefer to forget that Jung slept with former patients, had a long-time mistress, and did not believe in the absolute sanctity of sexual fidelity.

"In his own way Santana champions the Jungian perspective, but in a refreshing and more contemporary way. He writes: ‘Neuroses are more commonly experienced today as anxiety or depression, and if we follow Jung’s interpretations, they are also forms of sexual dysfunction and addiction.’

"The analyst’s task is to provide the link to the unconscious aspect of the sexual problem, which is at the same time a cultural problem. Both the person and the culture need therapy. That is the task that Santana gave himself, in a magnificent effort to renew our thinking about the spiritual dimensions of sexuality. The style is jargon-free, pleasant and sharp!”

~ Ginette Paris, Ph.D., Clinical Psychologist, author of Wisdom of the Psyche: Beyond Neuroscience, Heartbreak: New Approaches to Healing, Pagan Grace, and Pagan Meditations.

Available on Amazon: https://amzn.com/1138919152

20 Essential Perspectives from C.G. Jung on Sex and Psychotherapy

Published by Routledge Mental Health, September 2017.

Edward Santana, author of Jung and Sex, reflects on the founders of psychotherapy and their critical focus on the mysteries of sexuality more than 100 years ago, as well as its vital role in mental health, both then and now…

"History reflects the harsh reality that many complex sexual symptoms throughout the ages have proven difficult to understand and treat. Humankind also has a terrible legacy of repression and ignorance about sex, the most perplexing and challenging of our basic instincts. Within the psychotherapy profession, this cultural symptom is reflected in the lack of sexual training and education in most of our academic institutions, despite the hunger of many clinical students for these critical topics. These impoverishments are further impacted by the limited amount of focus and offerings on sexual health from many of the profession’s largest associations. Despite the widespread prevalence of sexual concerns and their tremendous cultural significance, human sexuality remains largely imbedded in the unconscious dimensions of society—and unfortunately in the shadow of the profession. 

"More than a hundred years after the birth of psychotherapy, which had its roots firmly planted in rich explorations of sex and sexuality by Freud and others, there has been limited progress as a profession in integrating wider perspectives on sexuality from a diverse range of psychotherapeutic contributors. Despite some advancements, many respected leaders in the field of sex therapy and sex research agree that the current models of treatment require an important re-visioning and more extensive collaboration. My book, Jung and Sex, explores this essential bridging of perspectives and brings forward many of C. G. Jung’s essential contributions.

"Though not widely understood, Jung developed an extremely diverse and comprehensive body of work on sex and sexuality—ideas that offer important perspectives for contemporary psychotherapists. As an early defender of the numinous aspects of sexuality, Jung risked his entire professional career combating limited and reductive ideas about the nature of sexuality and libido. As a victim of childhood sexual abuse and its lingering trauma, he understood the powerful forces and painful extremes of sexuality. The erotic sphere was also at the root of Jung’s early discovery of the complex, which he tracked in psychiatric patients when erotic material suddenly triggered bizarre or defensive reactions. 

"Here are some of Jung’s perspectives on working with sexual concerns (from Jung and Sex, which includes a more extensive and specific primer of depth-oriented approaches to treatment):

1. One encounters sexuality everywhere; thus in anything one is involved, their sexuality will appear too.

2. Pressures to conform or deny natural instincts create neuroses and psychological splits between inner needs and outer demands.

3. Fear of complexes is a deeply-rooted prejudice; complexes are normal and basic parts of the psyche.

4. Sexual symptoms also reflect universal issues of the culture; many symptoms do not belong exclusively to the patient.

5. Every important affective event becomes a complex; complexes are signposts to the unconscious.

6. Denial of instincts and complexes increases power of the unconscious.

7. Complexes and struggles manifest in places where one is most weak or less adapted.

8. Individuation and a new level of consciousness are possible through integration of the erotic complexes.

9. Must expect powerful emotions and difficulties to congregate around sex because it is where adaptation is least complete and where one faces the most challenges to natural expression.

10. Sexuality can express deep levels of the psyche’s symbolic, archetypal, and mythic elements.

11. Repellent things belong to the psyche and are natural.

12. Patient senses something repellent in their own psyche; the shadow is a difficult moral challenge to ego consciousness.

13. Psyche is purposive and directed; symptoms have meaning.

14. Psyche cannot be defined by categories or labels.

15. Illnesses affecting patients are mostly unconscious attempts to cure themselves.

16. All-simplifying theories serve an injustice to the patient and the soul.

17. No single method of treatment; not mechanical or procedural work.

18. Therapists must first know how symptoms help or serve their patients in some unconscious or paradoxical way.

19. Main concern is being non-reductive toward the psyche; viewing the psyche as complex and teleological.

20. Treatment goal is integration and rebalancing of inner conflicts through conscious awareness.

"As the world grows vastly in population and diversity, issues of sex and sexuality will only increase in severity and complexity for future clinicians. This is an important time for expanding collaboration among the therapeutic fields and for increasing focus within academic training programs. As Jung indicated, the erotic or sexual sphere is always problematic because it is where adaptation is least complete. To address these challenges, therapists can help lead conscious efforts to look beyond mere surface expressions of sexual difficulties and simple approaches to symptom reduction—to help forge deeper understandings of the great mysteries of sex and sexuality for our patients."

Understanding Depth Psychology: An Invitation from the Soul

Understanding Depth Psychology: An Invitation from the Soul

I was brought to depth psychology through my love of typology. As a corporate consultant, each time I taught a workshop on the Myers-Briggs assessment I found that people were finding new ways of seeing themselves and others. Bridges of understanding were being formed and those I trained were accessing new insights about the paradigms they operated within.

As I ventured deeper into the work, I spent a year doing a program on transformational leadership at Georgetown University. It was rich, imaginal, and deep. It was my first direct experience with C.G. Jung, James Hillman, and Robert Johnson. Through archetypes my work deepened into finding new ways to see and understand the world. It wasn’t too long after that the study of archteypes led directly to the source—Classical Greek mythology and the works of Joseph Campbell.

From the earliest days of ancient Greece, myths were an expressive and symbolic way of understanding human nature and relationships, including love, conflict, and the challenges of personal and collective experiences. Throughout the Renaissance and later centuries, artists and writers kept Greek mythology alive with super psychological depictions of the vastly powerful and complex gods. Explaining mythology from a psychological perspective, Jung said “Myths are original revelations of the preconscious psyche, involuntary statements about unconscious psychic happenings” (1951).

The field of psychology and the work of psychotherapy, from early beginnings with Freud and Jung and their forbearers, understood the importance of applying mythological themes to patient narratives and symptoms. Today, psychology has moved too far away from its traditional and deep-rooted connections to Greek mythology, and the result has been to lose sight of the range and depth of human experience, as well as to significantly increase the pathologizing of patients. Jung said, “We are still as much possessed by autonomous psychic contents as if they were Olympians. Today they are called phobias, obsessions, and so forth; in a word, neurotic symptoms” (1954). The gods of ancient Greek mythology have taken center stage in our pathologies.

But the Greeks made room for a much broader range of psychological variation within their culture. Charles Boer, translator of ancient Greek texts, wrote decades ago about the value of a mythological perspective (1970): “These days, as our own country increasingly narrows its own single-minded focus on things, one realizes again why what the Greeks have given us is “classic” and for all time. How helpful it must have been in their day to have had this network of Gods and Hymns, to know that one was not crazy or alone or odd in one’s fantasies and dreams, as one always must feel in a monotheistic system when the God of that system does not authorize the way one wants to see things.”

Today, these broader perspectives are being re-introduced and championed by archetypal and depth psychologists across the globe. The late psychologist James Hillman put it quite literally, Archetypal psychology can put its idea of psychopathology into a series of nutshells, one inside the other: within the affliction is a complex, within the complex an archetype, which in turn refers to a God. Afflictions point to Gods; Gods reach us through afflictions (1975).” In our afflictions we access the shadows of our being, but also experience the numinous forces driving us toward wholeness.

As the financial crash of 2008 swept the globe and businesses shrank overnight, I decided to put aside a nearly completed manuscript I had been working on for more than a year. I placed it in a marked box and tossed it into storage where it remained for the next ten years. By complete surprise, late last year I awoke from a mysterious dream that sought to bring this book back to life. I reluctantly dug out the long-forgotten work, dusted off the old pages and found the research I had collected. As I began reviewing it again, I came to realize that I had quite unconsciously laid out on its pages a rough blueprint for my life, much of which had transpired over the unfolding decade. The numinous dream had purposely brought me back to the original spark of this important personal work. 

The Missing Dimension is an examination of the nature of individuation, spirituality, and the dynamics of consciousness in a search for meaning—mostly emerging from a winding personal journey through various clinical treatment settings, the halls of Congress, corporate boardrooms, and from visits to spiritual outposts such as the temple of the Dalai Lama.

Through collected stories and research, this book provides just one spectrum of possibility in our world—through an exploration of how we approach relationships, business, politics, psychology, and spirituality.

An excerpt from Chapter 2: 

“Ascending to Dharamsala, I felt great relief from the fourteen-hour drive from New Delhi, which included navigating hundreds of narrow blind curves above sheer mountain inclines. I settled into a hotel in the village where, every morning, I watched day break over the glistening white snow-covered Himalayas, as the sound of the Dalai Lama leading monks in their morning chants echoed through the valley below my window. In the evening, from the same window, I watched the lights go out in his home as the sunlight faded across the Kangra Valley below. I stood in enchantment at every turn. Across India there is disease, hunger, begging, pollution, and smells so rotten they turn the stomach. Yet there is the magical chanting of monks, the smell of incense flowing from ancient temples, women in brilliantly colored silks, spices that bring the senses alive, and the unforgettable eyes of the people, large and engaging. It is as difficult as it is life giving. 

“Many mornings and afternoons, I attended the Dalai Lama’s teachings at the temple near his home. Welcoming a few hundred people into the temple square, he sat atop a beautiful platform in the lotus position for hours, his chanting interspersed with teaching and funny stories. His laughter and smile infected the crowds. He could speak for hours about a single word or phrase from ancient texts. I remember thinking, “he seems the humblest person in the world.” It is easy to admire such a simple and joyful man. His positive energy could be felt everywhere in the village. Among the monks I spoke with, I never heard a word of complaint, only gratitude and commitment to their learning. To escape Chinese oppression, many had traveled on foot long distances over the most rugged mountains in the world. Yet they viewed their experiences without personal attachment. I felt their gracious sense of altruism and compassion. 

“Some days I would set off walking out of the village and into the mountains to be alone. While hiking one morning along a deserted road, I saw a monk emerge like a vision from a high trail leading into the forest. He spoke no English and could not tell me where the trail led. But I took a chance, listening to my inner voice, and followed the trail straight up the mountain for forty minutes. After coming through thick brush, I arrived at the top of a small peak. I thought I would find a scenic vista or glacial lake. But instead, I discovered a Tibetan refugee school. Like a dream within a dream, I was suddenly surrounded by the most wonderful, loving children I had ever seen. Standing there amongst the children, I met a smiling monk who taught at the school. In an immediate act of friendship, he kindly led me around the grounds and talked to me about the school. As we walked grounds, I saw children washing their own clothes, cooking meals, and taking care of one another. I cannot explain how profoundly humbled and warmed I was by their instantaneous kindness. I could feel the powerful archetypal energy of the innocents and orphans in the pristine landscapes all around me. The place brought me to tears. It was a blessing.

“As I walked the trail back to town alone, I felt clarity about my life coming to me. I was learning about them, but finding me. All of a sudden, I began enjoying my own company and feeling moved by the smallest sights. Filled with wonder, and sometimes with fear, I let myself be guided each day by my heart. There was something spiritual about this place, which I find hard to describe. These are compassionate people who lost their homeland. They are refugees who know great loss and suffering, but who choose to practice loving kindness everyday. Spinning prayer wheels, chanting, and meditating, they are constantly focused on being more content and peaceful. I never experienced such harmony in the presence of life’s cruel circumstances. Love and poverty coexist here in miraculous ways. The more I engaged with them, the more I came to realize how much suffering I was placing on myself. But here I found a deep sense of peace, not only from being with the Dalai Lama and the monks, but from rediscovering who I was by surrendering my attachments and listening to the powerful voices within me. 

“The calling to go immediately on this journey was not for an adventure, but rather to reconnect with the flow of life. And, this is the point. It does not matter whether we travel to India or begin a new business or create a masterpiece, the only way we are served in life is by discovering who we are and what we are here to do. Nothing else matters. My calling to go on a journey had nothing to do with the journey itself, the Dalai Lama or India, it was about listening and acting from the intelligence and wisdom within.”

THE POWER OF THE EROTIC FOR PROFESSIONAL LIFE: TAPPING THE INTELLIGENCE AND WISDOM OF EROS, LONGING, AND DESIRE

Many understand the powerful pull of attraction and desire in personal domains, but what is it to live a life that taps into the same kind of passion and longing for one’s work? The Greek god, Eros, is symbolic for one of the most powerful and numinous archetypal forces we can ever experience—one which emerges in every creative act, innovation, and artistic expression known. Eros is not limited to personal domains through sex and love; Eros is much greater and includes the highest expressions of passionate pursuit, driving desire, and a soul-level longing to merge with something other. This salon will bring attention to the ubiquity of Eros and the importance of allowing those creative forces to awaken parts of oneself in professional domains. The event will also celebrate the first anniversary of Jung and Sex, an acclaimed book that reveals C.G. Jung’s spiritual and archetypal contributions to a deeper understanding of human sexuality. Free registration: Click Here to Learn More

Leaders and innovators must come to grips with the realities of human complexities in the workplace and forge a greater capacity to understand the light and shadow aspects of individuals and groups. Too often dysfunctions and disorders run rampantly, wreaking havoc on individuals, teams, operations, and projects. Few organizations gather the intelligence needed to run conscious high-performing environments.

Businesses and organizations are built and driven by the human psyche and emerge from human relationships, yet too little focus or effort is paid to the conscious and unconscious dynamics that underpin our actions and endeavors. These issues include individuals (and groups) that demonstrate high levels of conflict, contempt, and/or common disorders such as high narcissism, borderline behaviors, and addictions.

Many situations and conflicts that seem too relationally or psychologically complex, go unrecognized or are swept under the rug. However, these create lingering perils and missed opportunities to deepen organizational wisdom and relationships. Join this salon to examine how to explore this difficult territory, from identifying and getting honest about dysfunctions to seizing new approaches for expanding the depth of organizational life. Free registration: Click Here to Learn More

Healing Through Numinous Encounters: A Jungian Approach

C.G. Jung described synchronicity as having an incomprehensible numinous quality, such that the experience has an element of a “third” or “other” being present. For Jung, there were three key elements to these kinds of experiences: acausal connection, meaningful coincidence, and numinosity. Jungian Analyst, Lionel Corbett, explained numinous experiences as having a significant physical component as well:

“The feelings of awe, dread, and amazement that accompany a numinous experience are important not simply because they help us to identify the experience as sacred. These emotions tell us that the experience has been embodied. Emotions are felt in the body as a result of the action of the autonomic nervous system. They make the heart beat faster, make us pale, and produce muscle tension and sweating. Our hair may stand on end, and a variety of hormones may be secreted. A powerful emotional reaction provokes the response of the whole organism.”

The numinous has an incredible healing capacity too, since it has the potential to reconnect us to a greater whole. Numinous experiences, such as prophetic dreams or stunning synchronicity, are an invitation and can signal a transition or important new phase beginning to unearth itself. Within these experiences there is a union of matter and spirit, a connection between something real and something more than real. It is this alchemical marriage of two realities that want to equally create something new from the experience.

According to Jung, any work with unconscious material affects the psyche in a way that can be disorienting, such are the effect these encounters can have on one. Jung, from his own experience, learned that working with unconscious elements re-shapes our entire orientation toward the world:

“Once we give serious consideration to the hypothesis of the unconscious, it follows that our view of the world can be but a provisional one; for if we effect so radical an alteration in the subject of perception and cognition as this dual focus implies, the result must be a world view very different from any known before.” 

On a personal level, these kinds of experiences seem to bolster my regard for the unconscious and the cosmological forces at work. Embracing these encounters creates a larger reality, expands psychic space. Suddenly, “the other” wants to be known, and through its visibility to the individual or group, something of the cosmos has been touched—something of our connectedness to each other and everything else has been realized. These are the riches of a kind of double-sight, to allow us to be addressed by the incomprehensible. When one is truly open, these experiences resonate because there is already something deep within us that recognizes them, whether it be a connection that was once lost or because it offers a sense of harmony, balance, and togetherness. In these precious moments of numinous experience, one is suddenly not alone in the universe.

These raw experiences are true gifts for the psyche and hold the power to re-orient the individual. Though these moments can be quite painful or frightening or mysterious, they often hold treasures beyond our wildest imaginings.

Sex and the Soul

C.G. Jung’s approach to sexual issues in therapy involved expanding ideas about the sexual impulse and its pathology into the spirit or archetypal realm to understand the meaning and purpose of the soul’s need for expression through a particular symptom. He wrote:

“I think that one should view with philosophic admiration the strange paths of the libido and should investigate the purposes of its circuitous ways” (1912).

Archetypal psychology, which has its roots in the works of Jung and his study of archetypes, was championed by post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman, who expanded Jung’s ideas on myth, symbol, and image into a focus on the imaginal realm and the soul. Hillman wrote extensively about the soul’s expression through sexuality.

He instructed, “Nothing is repressed; in fact, nothing can be repressed” (1975), inferring that the soul always finds a way for expression through unhappiness, violence, strife, discourse, or the dark shadows surrounding symptoms and pathologies. Hillman’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated Re-Visioning Psychology reexamined the modern approach to psychology. He applied this approach to the soul at work in sexual pathology:

“There’s nowhere for love to go but to another person. So the magnetic pull that therapy calls ‘sex addiction’ or ‘loving too much’ is nothing other than the end-station of our isolated individualism.” (1992)

Why is this important? Sexual issues and responses to them are prevalent in Western culture today. There has been a rapid rise during the last decade in the number of sex therapists and sex addiction treatment centers. Though the term sex addiction is one that is not currently accepted by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Hillman, however, pointed out that the real problem is even larger, “sex education, sex talk shows, sex help books, sex therapy, sex workshops—Aphrodite’s pink ribbons wrap our culture round. The billion-dollar porn industry is minor league compared with the haunting sexual obsessions endemic in the culture at large” (1995).

What many mainstream approaches lack is a means for addressing the soul at work beneath the symptoms. And as a profession, more research and focus are needed to explore the mysteries of sexual symptoms and their need for healing and expression.

*

Hate your job? 5 tips to stay happy and fulfilled at work

James Armstrong, Global News : Monday, April 09, 2012 3:23 PM

TORONTO – A new study by Montreal researchers has found that sticking with one job too long can lead to emotional and physical burnout, but according to one psychotherapist, if you are feeling burnt out, there are a number of things that can help. 

Ed Santana, a psychotherapist and career coach in Toronto noted that everyone experiences “malaise in our careers,” but if interpreted correctly, that malaise can be a stepping stone to greater things. 

Global News spoke with Santana about five things that people can do if they find themselves unhappy with their current career choice.

Have a driving vision

According to Santana, a large part of being happy at work is having a dream and setting goals to get yourself there. A lot of people get a job and get complacent, Santana says, and when that happens you need to re-evaluate your dream, and if you have to, change it.

Get support

If you find yourself unhappy at work, use that feeling as information that something is wrong and seek support, according to Santana. Whether it is a colleague, mentor, or a career coach, everyone needs a sounding board, Santana advises. Most importantly, he says, is to not hide or be embarrassed by your feelings. “Come out of the shadows…and realize that we all hit plateaus.”

Take Risks

Don’t stop taking risks – that is some of the advice from Santana, who says many people become complacent when reaching a certain level of success and stop taking the risks that helped bring that success. Santana describes risks as “how we push ourselves to get better.”

Refocus your job

Everyone has parts of their job that they love and others that they hate, according to Santana. When people are feeling unhappy with their current workload, it may be time to refocus what you do.Though it may seem impossible to simply drop the parts of your job that you dislike, Santana suggests that you can refocus your job and over time to make it more enjoyable. 

“The key is to get conscious about what one really feels a passion for doing, then the challenge is to constantly try to get more of the good and less of the bad. In other words, keep pushing to reshape your job to do what you are best at and what truly motivates you. Over time, you might be able to refocus your entire career or worklife,“ he says.

Design long-term goals

Unfortunately we can’t make goals that apply throughout a career, but as Santana suggests, goals should be made and evaluated yearly. Pick a time every year and look at the goals you made the previous year, and ask yourself are you meeting these goals? And if you are, are they helping you move forward?

© Shaw Media Inc.

A Primer on C. G. Jung’s Writings and Perspectives on Sexual Concerns and their Treatment

(These statements are paraphrased directly from Jung's writings on analysis, sex, and sexuality.)

On Human Instincts:

• One encounters sexuality everywhere; thus in anything one is involved, their sexuality will appear too

• No instinct rivals the spirit as strongly as the sexual instinct

• Essential to give instincts their rightful place

• Pressures to conform or deny natural instincts creates psychological splits between inner needs versus outer demands

• Natural sexual instincts are reduced to widespread denial and repression

• Psyche is formidable, hostile, and can even thwart one’s will; sexual instinct is often beyond human ability to expressly control or direct

• Some psychic contents have an autonomous nature

On the Nature of Complexes:

• Fear of complexes is a deeply-rooted prejudice; complexes are normal and basic parts of the psyche

• Complexes are signposts to the unconscious

• The erotic complex is omnipresent in the psyche, acausal, and paradoxical in nature

• An erotic complex can dominate at the expense of other psychic material, then everything becomes sexualized and geared toward the sexual purpose

• Every important affective event becomes a complex

• The strongest feelings and symptoms are connected with the most powerful complexes

• Denial of instincts and complexes increases power of the unconscious

• Complexes and struggles manifest in places where one is most weak or less developed

• The presence of an erotic complex is certain even if denied by the patient

• Must expect powerful emotions and difficulties to congregate around sex because it is where adaptation is least complete and where one faces the most challenges to natural expression

On Individuation:

• Individuation and a new level of consciousness are possible through integration of the erotic complexes

• Goal of wholeness is achieved through the union of conscious and unconscious aspects of the psyche

• Struggle in reaching wholeness is rooted in the conflict between instinctual nature and civilization

• Must work out the problems of our moral aspects or risk repression

On Cultural Issues:

• Cultural pressures are to blame for making struggles with sex difficult and universal

• Best opportunity for society is for each person to be in possession of one’s own personality

• Culture must unburden itself from the erotic shame and guilt carried from previous centuries

• Jung’s own contradictory statements demonstrate the challenges of overcoming cultural and moral biases, which are mostly unconscious

On Sexual Phenomena:

• Essential to penetrate the deeper layers of the psyche common to all humans

• Sexual struggles are deep driving forces that seek expression

• How things are expressed by the psyche are not as important as what needs to be expressed

• Repellent things belong to the psyche and are natural

• Must place greater value on the roots of psychological problems than on surface expressions of symptoms

• Psyche is purposive and directed

• Should always search for the meaning of psychological phenomena

• Disregarding psychological phenomena creates consequences, such as a split personality or loss of consciousness

• Psyche communicates through powerful experiences, images, and symptoms

• Sexual phenomena have multiple layers and meanings beyond universal or simple explanations

• Psyche cannot be defined by categories or labels

• The conscious psyche is always the smaller circle within the greater circle of the unconscious

On Spiritual Dimensions:

• Spirituality and sexuality cannot be excluded from each other

• Sexuality is a creative power equal to the spirit

• Grave consequences for ignoring the spiritual side of sex; one becomes unconsciously driven by instinct and it hinders individuation and development

• Sexuality has numinous aspects

• Numinous experiences simultaneously elevate and humiliate

• Concerned with engaging the numinous not with the treatment of neuroses; the numinous ultimately helps release one from the curse of pathology

• Sexuality is both divine and hellish; it compels one to experience forces beyond ordinary domains

On Treatment of:

• Illnesses affecting patients are mostly unconscious attempts to cure themselves

• Analytic approach is symbolistic

• All-simplifying theories serve an injustice to the patient and the soul

• No single theory to explain the human psyche; no general criterion of judgment

• There is no single method of treatment; it is not mechanical or procedural work

• Profound experiences and conflicts, like sexual ones, evoke deep parts of the psyche, which explains the cautionary approach to engaging sexual issues in therapy

• One can thrive and feel harmony only when instinct and spirit are balanced, otherwise imbalance creates one-sidedness and veers one toward neuroses or pathology

• The main concern in treatment is being non-reductive toward the psyche; viewing the psyche as complex

• There is a breaking point for the suppression of instincts that creates a split or neurotic individual, which is not usually conscious and requires support for realization and integration

• Shadow aspects might produce violent responses from conscious positions of patients

• The treatment goal is integration and rebalancing of inner conflicts through conscious awareness

• Every situation requires the context of the individual

• Expect high patient resistance, difficulty of treatment, and prevalence of sexual material; the unconscious erects significant barriers to treatment

• Most patients are highly resistant to disclosure and create insurmountable obstacles to exploration

• The patient senses something repellent in their own psyche; the shadow is a difficult moral challenge to ego consciousness

• This work places extreme difficulties on the patient and the therapist; therapy is painful and challenging to both

• Analyst or therapist must be appropriately trained and prepared by examining their own psychic contents

• First duty is to keep close to the patient’s psychic material and not allow prejudice and subjectivity to distort emerging psychological phenomena

• Important for therapists to open themselves to deeper and unknown experiences

• A patient’s deviation into sex is sometimes used to escape one’s true problems

• Therapists must first know how symptoms help and serve patients

• Can never know beforehand what is what

• Sexual issues may not have direct sexual aspect or direct means of treatment

• Avoid attitude of a missionary out to cure patients and eradicate symptoms

• Requires emerging crystallization of goals and a direction originating from the patient

• Requires conscious attitude of cooperation and dialogue or the unconscious can be driven into opposition

Implications of a Depth Psychological Approach for Patients

Potential Benefits:

• Reduce the labeling of sexual dysfunctions and the pathology of categorically defined symptoms

• Help patients view their symptoms as potentially deeper aspects of the psyche or soul; remove stigmatizing perspectives regarding the surface expressions of psychopathology

• Open up possibilities for viewing symptoms as important aspects of psychic expression calling for healing or attention from the unconscious

• Provide a view of the numinous or spiritual aspects in the psyche expressed through sexual symptoms

• Assist development and growth through the process of integration and individuation by becoming conscious of inner struggles and conflicts raging within

• Develop understanding of deeper cultural and universal layers of the psychic situation

• Provide an approach to understanding the root causes of sexual issues that are beyond symptomatic appearances

• Develop greater awareness and consciousness of self and spiritual dimensions

• Engage in mysteries of sexual expressions and desires by viewing them through wider perspectives

• Recognize how diverse aspects belong on a spectrum of human complexity

• Work toward integration with the shadow and unwanted aspects to foster a greater sense of wholeness

• Understand how disunity of the self creates psychic suffering and split personalities or dissociation

• Potentially reduce reliance on pharmaceutical solutions or medical interventions

• Provide individualized treatment approaches tailored to patients’ unique psychological positions

• Offer archetypal, imaginal, and mythological perspectives to help patients understand layers of the psyche and to add collective context to the repellant or unknown elements of the psyche

• Allow more room to explore a range of potential affective causes and how the unconscious is purposive and directed in its expressions of suffering

Potential Challenges:

• Some might not be ready for or welcome the challenges of the depth approach

• Some patients might wrestle with a lack of answers or the uncertainty of a direction or method, which can increase frustration and impatience with the process

• Difficulty coping with their own challenging psychic material, which creates feelings of confusion and more entanglement with the unknown

• Experiencing greater vulnerability and feeling exposed on a level for which one’s conscious mind or ego is unprepared

• Making the problem feel worse and more complex than originally thought

• Havingresistances and avoidance of sexual issues brought into awareness

• Facing the possibility of intensifying a patient’s resistance, which drives the unconscious into greater opposition and fuels increased symptoms

Get the PDF version here: Primer on C. G. Jung’s Writings on Sexual Concerns and their Treatment

Jung and Sex: Re-visioning the Treatment of Sexual Issues, Edward Santana, Ph.D.

Available at Amazon:  https://amzn.com/1138919152