A CRITIQUE OF JUNGIAN THERAPY

__________________

A Paper

Presented to
Dr. Eric Johnson

The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

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In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for 87715

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by

Matthew Brett Vaden

May 2, 2013
 A CRITIQUE OF JUNGIAN THERAPY

This paper will give a basic description of Jungian therapy (i.e. Analytical

Psychology) and a Christian critique. The thought of Carl Gustav Jung was extensive and has

been preserved in twenty volumes of his collected works. This paper will draw upon some of his

own writings as well as those of his followers, but it will also bring in the voices of others

outside Jung’s tradition, especially Christians, who have endeavored to understand Jungian
therapy and to evaluate it.

Descriptive Overview
The following descriptive overview presents a look at the historical background of the

Jungian therapy model, followed by a description of its worldview assumptions, techniques,

maturity telos (i.e. model of health), the particular problems it seeks to address, and the

modalities it utilizes.

Historical Background
Two periods of Jungian therapy will be reviewed: first, the life and work of C.G. Jung

and second, the decades since Jung’s death in which other Jungians have taken up his ideas,

disseminated them and sometimes gone beyond them.

C.G. Jung was born in 1875 in Switzerland. Immediately, Jung was exposed to

religion and spirituality. When once asked to speak on the role of pastors, Jung said, “I can talk

quite freely about this, I am the son of a parson, and my grandfather was a sort of bishop, and I

had five uncles all parsons, so I know something about the job!” 1 Jung’s father and uncles were

1
C. G. Jung, The Symbolic Life: Miscellaneous Writings, trans. R. F. C. Hull. Vol. 18 of The Collected
Works of C.G. Jung, eds. Herbert Read, et. al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 268.

2
pastors in the Swiss Reformed Church, and his maternal grandfather was a well-known

theologian in Basel. As a child, Jung responded to his father’s faith with reservation and even

aversion; he hated going to church. This was due in part to the arid, intellectual way in which his

father displayed his religious beliefs, but it also had roots in diabolical oppression. Jung’s mother

was fascinated with the occult and would nightly hold conference with spirits. Jung’s earliest

remembered dream, which forever rooted itself in his spiritual thinking, was of a monstrous

ritual phallus under the earth. This vision became associated with Christ in Jung’s mind, partly

due to the fact that whenever his father or another parson performed a burial, it was to ‘Lord
Jesus’ that the deceased was sent, and this destination was somewhere in the ground. Jung

reflects, “Lord Jesus never became quite real for me, never quite acceptable, never quite lovable,

for again and again I would think of his underground counterpart.” 2 At the same time, Jung was

drawn to the beauty and wonder he saw in the natural world, e.g., the glowing snow-covered

Alps in evening and Lake Constance stretching away into the distance. Longing and pleasure

were attached to these experiences, but also a sense of mystery. There was a ‘secret’ lying out

there, elusive but near:

I always hoped I might be able to find something—perhaps in nature—that would give me

the clue and show me where or what the secret was [...] I was constantly on the lookout for
something mysterious. Consciously, I was religious in the Christian sense, though always
with the reservation: “But it is not so certain as all that!” or, “What about that thing under
the ground?” 3

These early experiences were formative for Jung’s life and career, as can be divined

from his dissertation title, On Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomenon,

published in 1902. Jung had begun his professional studies with the aim of becoming a medical

doctor, specializing in either surgery or internal medicine. It was not until studying for his final

2
C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe, trans. Clara Winston and Richard
Winston, Revised ed. (New York: Vintage, 1989), 13.
3
Ibid., 22.

3
examinations that psychiatry and psychology really captured his attention. As he read the preface

of his textbook, the author said two things that gripped Jung: first, that psychology was partially

a “subjective” pursuit, and second, that it deals with “diseases of the personality.” 4 Why this was

so important to Jung becomes clear when one understands that he had come to see himself as

having two opposite yet inextricable interests: nature and spirit. He says, “Here was the empirical

field common to biological and spiritual facts [...] Here at last was the place where the collision

of nature and spirit became a reality.” 5 Psychiatry, Jung now understood, was about treating

something deeper than biological ailments (i.e., mental disease); it treated “diseases of
personality”, which had to do with spirit as much as with nature. Not only that, but this discipline

required the professional to apply his whole self, engaging his work as “he stands behind the

objectivity of his experiences” and treats his patient’s disease “with the whole of his own

personality.” 6 Jung’s professional trajectory after this moment was decided. Perhaps more

significantly, Jung’s peculiar interests and fascinations were given an outlet that would amplify

and continually refine and sharpen them.

Before Jung fully came into his own, however, he met Sigmund Freud. Their

relationship began as one of mutual respect and partnership; they joined minds to bolster and

propel psychological science forward to wider audiences and to greater appreciation. If Freud

considered himself the father of psychoanalysis, he considered Jung his son; Jung was to succeed

Freud as Alexander the Great did his father Philip. 7 This relationship was short-lived, however,

due to core differences in their thinking. In 1911, four years into their friendship, Jung wrote

Symbols of Transformation, and in it he fundamentally disagreed with Freud’s conception of the

4
Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 108.
5
Ibid., 109.
6
Ibid.
7
Richard S. Sharf, Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling: Concepts and Cases (Pacific Grove:
Brooks/Cole Publishing Company, 1996).

4
Oedipus complex, arguing that instead of being the result of repressed feelings of sexual

attraction and hostility, it was an “expression of spiritual or psychological needs and bonds.” 8

This particular disagreement, which probably instigated Jung and Freud’s estrangement less than

two years later, was an example of some key distinctions between Jung’s approach to psychology

and Freud’s, related by Jung several years later when he wrote, “In Freud’s case I disagree with

his materialism, his credulity (trauma theory), his fanciful assumptions (totem and taboo), and

his asocial, merely biological point of view.” 9

After the break with Freud, Jung spent six years of self-exploration, a dark period for
him, but one that preceded a great increase in Jung's productivity. In the decades after until his

death, he wrote voluminously, lectured to students and other professionals, treated patients,

traveled far and studied widely. He worked assiduously until his death in 1961.

After Jung, those who have taken up his model fall into three divisions:

developmental, classical and archetypal. 10 The developmental school is an integration of Jung’s

ideas with object relations theory, directing special attention to the development of personality

and to transference and countertransference. 11 Michael Fordham is a leading voice in this branch

of the tradition. 12 Fordham co-edited the collected works of C.G. Jung, helped establish the

Society of Analytical Psychology for the training of clinicians, contributed greatly to the theory

and practice of analytical psychology and notably led the way in applying Jungian concepts to

treating children. 13 A task of Fordham’s was to show the value of Jung’s archetypal psychology

8
Sharf, Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling, 86.
9
C.G. Jung, The Symbolic Life, 440.
10
Andrew Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians (New York: Routledge, 1986).
11
Ibid.
12
Sharf, Theories of Psychotherapy and Counseling.
13
“Michael Fordham,” The Society of Analytical Psychology: Jungian Analysis and Psychotherapy.
http://www.thesap.org.uk/michael-fordham (accessed May 1, 2013).

5
to others, especially to those that think Jungian ideas are scientifically incompatible with

Freud’s. 14

The classical division of Jungian thought sticks closest to Jung’s own articulations of

his theory and practice. Leaders in this division include Emma Jung (C.G. Jung’s wife), Marie-

Louise Von Franz, Erich Neumann, and Gerhard Alder. 15

The archetypal division focuses on a wide array of archetypes rather than limiting

itself to some of the more prominent in Jungian theory, such as the persona, anima-animus, and

the shadow. 16 James Hillman, who had worked alongside Jung, led this school for many years,
having taken the helm of the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich in 1959, two years before Jung’s

death. 17 Hillman worked with other leaders in the Men’s Movement of the 1990’s, leaders such

as the poet Robert Bly and the writer Michael J. Meade. 18 Archetypes at the fore of the men’s

movement are the King, Warrior, Magician and Lover. 19

Worldview Assumptions
This section will describe some key concepts in Jung’s analytical psychology, Jung’s

philosophical influences, and Jung’s view on God.

Being a familiar concept in psychology, the ego was defined by Jung in a way many

would expect: he described it as “the centre [sic] of consciousness.” 20 The ego is the person’s

14
“Michael Fordham,” The Society of Analytical Psychology.
15
Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians.
16
Ibid.
17
Benedict Carey, “James Hillman, 85, Therapist in Men’s Movement, Dies,” The New York
Times.Com, October 27, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/health/james-hillman-therapist-in-mens-
movement-dies-at-85.html?_r=0 (accessed May 2, 2013).
18
Ibid.
19
Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of
the Mature Masculine (New York: HarperCollins, 1991).
20
C. G. Jung, Analytical Psychology: Its Theory and Practice (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 10.

6
control center, the active self-aware part of the person that takes action as an agent. The ego is

the helm of consciousness. The ego utilizes conscious functions in its processing; these functions

include sensation, thinking, feeling, and intuition. These “ectopsychic functions” of

consciousness are used by the ego to process and relate to everything we are consciously aware

of in our environment. 21 What about those things that we are not aware of, that are not within the

purview of sensation, thinking, feeling or intuition, or that are ‘beneath’ the ego?

Jung said the ego is like an island that rises from the depths of the ocean: “The ego is

only a bit of consciousness which floats upon the ocean of dark things.” 22 While the ego is the
center of one’s consciousness, Jung believed in a much deeper center or source of the individual

psyche, from which growth and life come. The realm from which an individual person arises is

an unconscious, inner place, with “endopsychic” functions including memory and deep

emotions. This place is one’s personal unconscious. The functions of the personal unconscious

can be accessed by the ego, though it requires much will-power, and a person may theoretically

whittle down the unknown parts of his psyche to the point that he is fully conscious of

everything within himself. As will be discussed (c.f. Maturity Telos), this bridging of the ego and

the unconscious is what Jung called individuation, the process and goal of therapy. When a

person reaches the point of fully balancing his conscious mind with his personal unconscious,

then he has reached the totality of his personality, or what Jung termed the Self.

Although the personal unconscious is part of the hidden realm of the psyche, like an

ice-berg submerged in the depths, it is not the deepest source of the person. A person, according

to Jung, does not arise out of himself; an individual human mind is connected to the collective

unconscious of humanity. Although the concept of the collective unconscious is difficult to

define succinctly, it was Jung’s most original contribution, and so it must be as clearly and fully

21
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 10.
22
Ibid., 21.

7
described as time and space allow. The following definition is a good beginning:

The collective unconscious makes up the bulk of the psychic iceberg and is the primary
source of creativity and wisdom. The collective unconscious reflects not personal
experiences but is the repository of the latent memories and accumulated experiences of the
human species. 23

Note that while it belongs to the human species in general, the collective unconscious

is located within the individual psyche. Jung’s thinking about the collective unconscious is

somewhat akin to how we often think of genetics. An individual human body is connected to the

collective human species by virtue of his or her genetic code; one’s genetic structure is derived

from parents and ancestors, and these structures reflect that ancestry in a way that allows us to
see family or ancestral resemblances. In a similar fashion, Jung believed that the individual

human mind is connected to the human species by virtue of his or her collective unconscious.

This analogy may have been more than a metaphorical way of speaking, since Jung seems to

have seen the brain and the mind as integral, if not synonymous:

The brain is born with a finished structure, it will work in a modern way, but this brain has a
history. It has been built up on the course of millions of years and represents a history of
which it is the result. Naturally it carries with it the traces of that history, exactly like the
body, and if you grope down into the basic structure of the mind you naturally find traces of
the archaic mind. 24

The structure of a person’s mind holds traces of “the archaic mind,” which Jung also

called “the mind of mankind” 25 and the “archetypal mind.” 26 What are these traces? They are

symbols, analogies, or images. These unconscious images become conscious when one projects

them onto something outside oneself, as when people in ancient times saw the sun run its course

from dawn to dusk and construed it to represent the story of a hero or god. In modern times, the

23
S.J. Sandage, “Analytical Psychology,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology and Counseling, ed.
David G. Benner and Peter C. Hill, 77-79 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), 78.
24
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 45.
25
Ibid., 46.
26
Ibid., 50.

8
traces of the archaic mind appear in other kinds of images, such as dreams, visions and religious

images like the cross and baptism. These images, however, are not the contents of the archaic

mind in itself. It is not as if particular images are inherited by all human beings. Rather, the

images human beings find most meaningful, and even mythic, bear some trace resemblance to

basic human archetypes.

Jung wrote, “The archetype is essentially an unconscious content that is altered by

becoming conscious and by being perceived, and it takes its colour [sic] from the individual

consciousness in which it happens to appear.” 27 Archetypes, therefore, are what make up the
archaic mind or the mind of mankind, but they are not perceivable to the individual person.

Rather, the individual sees traces of them. Jung’s conceptualization does not hold that certain

images are inherited by all human beings, but that a certain “predisposition” toward archetypes is

inherited. 28 Important archetypes in Jung’s theory include the Self, Anima, Animus, Persona, and

Shadow.

Techniques
Jung advocated no universal methodology for treatment. He believed that everyone

given treatment should be looked on as an individual with a unique personality; there is no one-

size-fits-all approach in Jung’s therapeutic framework. Jung said, “Each patient is a new problem

for the doctor, and he will only be cured of his neurosis if you help him to find his individual

way to the solution of his conflicts.” 29 Nevertheless, Jungian therapy has a few characteristic

techniques that its therapists employ to guide a person toward mental health, or what Jung called

individuation. The primary techniques used are dream analysis, active imagination, analysis and

27
C. G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, trans. R. F. C. Hull (New York: Pantheon
Books, 1959), 5.
28
Siang-Yang Tan, Counseling and Psychotherapy: A Christian Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker
Academic, 2011), 85.
29
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 204.

9
interpretation of transference and countertransference, and others. 30 These techniques do not take

the place of basic skills in psychotherapy, but Jungian therapy builds upon this foundation by

adding to it “analysis”, that is, the “attempt to work with unconscious material as it emerges in

dreams, fantasies, slips-of-the-tongue, etc.” 31

Dream analysis is a technique that both Freud and Jung used, but it is helpful to note

the differences in their approach to dreams. Freud analyzed dreams to uncover a patient’s

complexes and reveal pathology. In Freud’s theory, dreams do not make sense in themselves

because they are part of one’s unconscious, which is a repository of repressed and irrational
aspects of the mind that one’s ego tucks away out of awareness. Dreams are complexes in the

form of images, and so they can be analyzed to show how a person’s thinking is out of sorts.

Jung considered this view too negative, and instead he saw dreams as “the natural reaction of a

self-regulating psychic system.” 32 In other words, while dreams are related to a particular

problem in one’s thinking, it is better for the therapist to consider them as data that carry

meaningful symbols and clues to finding wholeness. Dreams tell what needs to change to

achieve healing and balance in a person’s psyche.

Jung saw dreams as objective data for the therapist to analyze, but he held that the

therapist should never interpret a dream without asking the person what he associated with the

dream’s images. 33 Ideally, dreams should be interpreted together and not individually, so as to

lessen the chance of the therapist interpreting a single dream “arbitrarily.” 34 The mysterious

nature of dreams, which seem to hold an important but inaccessible truth, could be unlocked,

30
Tan, Counseling and Psychotherapy.
31
John A. Sanford, “Jungian Therapy,” in Psychotherapy in Christian Perspective, ed. David G.
Benner, 184-190 (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 1987), 186.
32
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 123.
33
Ibid.
34
Ibid., 87.

10
Jung said, if the analyst was well trained in the language of dreams, and particularly if he or she

knew how to use a philological tool called amplification, which refers to understanding a word

by reference to other texts that contain and apply it. 35 A dream’s images can be understood both

by noting the associations that the person attaches to the images and by observing how those

same images appear and work in other dreams. Jungian therapists usually ask clients to record

their dreams as soon as possible, describing as much detail as can be remembered. When

interpreting a dream, the therapist looks for four main elements: 1) the setting and characters, 2)

the plot and development, 3) a climax, and 4) a resolution. 36

Lastly, some dreams may contain archetypal symbolism that arises from the collective

unconscious. When a person’s dream images derive from archetypes, the trained Jungian analyst

is most necessary. Jung put it this way:

When an analyst has to deal with an archetype he may begin to think. In dealing with the
personal unconscious you are not allowed to think too much and to add anything to the
associations of the patient. Can you add something to the personality of somebody else? [...]
But inasmuch as he is not a person, inasmuch as he is also myself, he has the same basic
structure of mind, and there I can begin to think, I can associate for him. 37

There are some elements of a person’s dream that he or she will recognize as obscure and

unassociated with anything from prior experience, and this is the point where the Jungian

therapist has been trained to “enrich the process” by directing the patient “to incorporate new

symbols and meaning” in his or her self-understanding. 38

Active imagination is a technique used to focus a person’s attention on a particular

piece of material that has been drawn out of the unconscious (e.g., a character from a dream).

The person meditatively centers attention on this material to initiate a vivid engagement with it,

35
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 93.
36
Tan, Counseling and Psychotherapy, 92.
37
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 101.
38
Richard M. Ryckman, Theories of Personality (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, 1978), 76.

11
which usually takes the form of a conversation with a human or nonhuman figure. Active

imagination requires the person to have a strong will and a lively imaginative capacity. 39 This is

what makes it active, rather than how one may often passively encounter images and experiences

without bringing conscious attention to bear on unconscious parts of oneself. 40

Transference and countertransference are not techniques as much as an understood

reality in Jungian therapy. Both are specific forms of projection. “Projection,” Jung said, “is a

general psychological mechanism that carries over subjective contents of any kind into the

object.” 41 Jung uses the example of color: we see a room and say it is the color yellow, and doing
so is an act of projection, since ‘yellow’ is not an objective attribute of the room but a subjective

description of our own. Transference and countertransference are specific kinds of projection.

Transference occurs in therapy when a patient projects unconscious ideas and emotions onto the

therapist and this projection forms a link, which can be either positive or negative. Jung

recognized that transference always occurs and that it affects the therapist, whether he or she is

aware of it or not. 42 Therefore, Jungian therapists eschew aloofness and intentionally reflect the

patient’s transference, in order to guide the patient into conscious awareness of the projections

being put on the therapist. When such an awareness is attained, a person can draw back the

projection and thereby “enlarge the scope his personality.” 43

Countertransference occurs when the therapist unconsciously projects onto the patient.

When projections are made by the patient, the therapist can employ them as material for analysis

and progress can be made, but when they originate from the therapist’s side of the relationship,

39
Tan, Counseling and Psychotherapy.
40
Sharf, Theories of Psychotherapy & Counseling.
41
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 153.
42
Ibid.
43
Sanford, “Jungian Analysis,” 188.

12
therapy can be derailed. Jung described countertransference as “mutual unconsciousness,”

meaning that both patient and analyst are unconscious of significantly detrimental aspects of

their relationship, in which “all orientation is lost, and the end of such an analysis is disaster.” 44

Because of the threat of such an outcome, Jungian therapists are required to receive extensive

personal analysis and to use their self-knowledge to identify countertransference whenever it

shows up.

Other techniques often implemented by Jungian therapists include painting and

drawing, poetry, dance, and the sandtray. The content of dreams and material worked on in active
imagination can be brought to greater awareness through these forms of expression. By bringing

material out of dreams and mental imagery into tangible form, the person further objectifies it,

making it easier to grasp and understand.

Maturity Telos
The goal of Jungian therapy is individuation. Jung used the term “to denote the

process by which a person becomes a psychological “in-dividual,” that is, a separate, indivisible

unity or “whole.” 45 The goal of individuation is to know oneself as fully as possible, and the

achievement of this goal happens by becoming conscious of unconscious material and by

organizing what is known of oneself into a coherent whole. 46 Individuation is a life-long process

that is never fully completed, but to the degree that one can achieve wholeness, a person will

become his or her truest self. 47

Jung was more optimistic than Freud about the maturational capacity of the human

44
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 157.
45
Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 275.
46
Sharf, Theories of Psychotherapy & Counseling.
47
Stanton L. Jones and Richard E. Butman, Modern Psychotherapies: A Comprehensive Christian
Appraisal (Downers Grove, Ill: InterVarsityPress, 1991).

13
personality. While Freud thought personality became relatively static by the end of early

childhood, Jung saw personal growth as a dynamic process that can continue throughout life. 48

The dynamism and flux of growth, however, can be both progressive and digressive.

Individuation progresses as a person actively balances opposing forces in the psyche (e.g.,

animus-anima), but sometimes a psychic force can become too dominant, as in the case of

neurosis and psychosis. 49 Jungian therapy attempts to help a person discover where such

imbalance lies and work to equalize the forces in tension.

The goal of individuation is difficult because imbalances within the psyche are
unconscious to the person, and therefore aspects of oneself that seem benign are actually the

result of psychic imbalance. For example, in one of Jung’s cases, a successful businessman

approached him seeking help. 50 The man was in many ways a high-functioning individual with

no obvious dysfunction. He described a dream in which he entered a large medieval building

with many halls, lined with beautiful pictures. As the dream went on, light faded outside and the

dreamer began to frantically search for an exit; he came instead to the center of the building, a

vast dark space, in the center of which he saw a small child smearing feces on himself. Although

the man could make associations with other aspects of the dream, this last part was totally

obscured to him. From the man’s description, Jung recognized this image as a latent psychosis.

Jung concluded that the man had been trying to compensate for this hidden “skeleton in the

closet” with an outwardly optimal appearance for most of his life.

Particular Problems
Because of Jung’s focus on the unconscious, Jungian therapy tends to reach a certain

swath of people: educated, high-functioning persons, who are ideally “the relatively normal or

48
Ryckman, Theories of Personality.
49
Ibid.
50
Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

14
moderately dissatisfied or maladjusted, middle-aged individual seeking greater wisdom or

enlightenment.” 51 In Jungian therapy, the unconscious is a treasure trove, but it is difficult to

access for many people, especially those who lack the willingness to do so. Many of Jung’s

patients were successful, middle-aged individuals who were seeking deeper meaning in their

lives; Jung himself went through such a mid-life crisis, in which he took several years to delve

into his own unconscious. 52

Further, the focus on the unconscious typically takes the place of working on

particular problems, disorders, or behaviors. On the other hand, Richard Sharf shows that a
Jungian approach can be applied certain diagnostic categories, including anxiety neurosis,

compulsive disorder, depression, borderline disorders, and psychotic disorders. 53 Jungian therapy

is suitable for treating many problems, yet its focus is not on the patient’s particular problem but

on the solution. Whereas a common approach to counseling consists of diagnosing symptoms

and then following a particular treatment plan for the problem that is identified, Jungian therapy

relies on the patient’s own “self-righting” system, which already knows the ailment and even has

the cure.

Modalities
Eric Johnson defines a counseling modality as “particular, irreducible and justifiable

intervention pathways for soul care.” 54 Johnson identifies the following modalities as those most

pertinent to Christian soul care: biomedical, cognitive and behavioral, relational, family and

group, symbolic and narrative/dramatic, experiential and dynamic, experiential/emotion-focused,

51
Jones and Butman, Modern Psychotherapies, 128.
52
Sharf, Theories of Psychotherapy & Counseling, 97.
53
Ibid.
54
Eric Johnson, Foundations for Soul Care: A Christian Psychology Proposal (Downers Grove: IVP
Academic, 2007), 569.

15
spiritual direction, and character. 55 Jungian therapy has points of contact with all of these

modalities, but the most prominent modalities in this school are the relational, symbolic and

narrative/dramatic, and dynamic.

An important departure from classical Freudian psychoanalysis in Jungian therapy is

the value placed on the relational dynamic between therapist and patient. For example, Jung

deliberately rejected the couch technique employed by Freud, in which the therapist sits out of

the patient’s view. Instead Jung promoted a face-to-face encounter, saying, “I put my patients in

front of me and I talk to them as one natural human being to another, and I expose myself
completely and react with no restriction.” 56 In this fashion, Jungian therapy not only anticipates

transference issues but instigates them. The relational modality fits well in Jungian treatment for

other reasons besides, including the characteristically long-term duration of Jungian therapy and

the positive focus of Jungian analysts, who place more emphasis on the capacity of the person

for change rather than on identifying pathology and dysfunction.

Jungian therapy also focuses heavily on the symbolic and narrative/dramatic modality.

Jung made a life-long study of symbols and mythology, and he believed, as many of his

followers still do, 57 that it was the symbolic and mythological side of life that psychology and

psychoanalysis were in danger of overlooking. Thus one of the core techniques in analytic

psychology is dream analysis, the intent of which is to explore the symbols and archetypes

arising from one’s personal and collective unconscious. Another core Jungian technique using

this modality is active imagination, in which a person pulls out images from the unconscious (i.e.

remembered from dreams) and interacts with it through conversation and narrative and dramatic

55
Johnson, Foundations for Soul Care.
56
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 155.
57
Murray Stein, ed., Jungian Psychoanalysis: Working in the Spirit of Carl Jung (Chicago: Open Court,
2010).

16
retelling.

Analytical psychology is a form of psychodynamic therapy, and so the dynamic

modality is central to it. The dynamic modality deals with hidden or repressed conflicts in the

mind. Jung understood dynamic conflict as a lack of balance between two basic aspects of a

person’s psyche: consciousness and unconsciousness. Every conscious symptom is coordinated

with an unconscious structure that needs attention. To correct the disequilibrium, Jungian

analysts help patients name and understand the unconscious structures causing the symptoms

they experience: “The primary therapeutic goal of analytical psychology is for the analysand to
come to terms with the unconscious so that he or she may gain insight into the specific structures

and dynamics that emerge out of the unconscious.” 58 Analytical psychology is a “depth

psychology” in that it addresses and attempts to draw out the deepest parts of the human psyche

in order to reveal the whole person so that one can become a more integrated, self-aware

individual.

Christian Worldview Critique

This final section will identify some important strengths and weaknesses in Jungian

therapy by judging it under the auspices of the Christian worldview.

Strengths
The legacy of C.G. Jung has and will likely continue to influence the theory and

practice of psychotherapy for a long time. There are several reasons why he is a voice worthy of

attention. Perhaps behind of all the insights and strengths we find in Jung there is one that

explains or gives source to all the others. I think that Jung’s followers, at least, may have

considered the most beneficial contribution Jung made to have been the attempt to re-integrate

58
D.J. Frenchak, “Analytical Psychology,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Psychology, ed. David G. Benner,
55-58 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1985), 57.

17
what modernity had bifurcated: nature and spirit. At the beginning of the Tavistock Lectures,

which Jung presented in London in 1935, a colleague introducing Jung to the audience said to

him,

Many have come here because they look upon you as the man who has saved modern
psychology from a dangerous isolation in the range of human knowledge and science into
which it was drifting [...] above all things you have not relinquished the study of the human
psyche at the point where all science ends. 59

Jung boldly defied the rationalistic, materialistic hegemony of his day by refusing to accept the

limitations being placed upon the scope of psychological study and practice. Jung championed

the idea that the human mind has a depth that reaches beyond the material or natural world to the
realm of the spiritual. Because of Jung’s exploration into this realm, he furthered the work of

Freud in understanding the unconscious mind and made his most unique contribution: his

conception of the collective unconscious.

The focus on the unconscious in Jung’s psychology parallels Scripture’s focus on the

inner life and transformation of the person. The psalms of David display the internal workings of

his psyche, and he is an exemplary Old Testament model of one who sought to open up the deep

things of his soul, expressing them with his poetry and asking God to search him, know him and

discover the hidden ways within him. In the New Testament Jesus focuses on the heart and

inward desires of the person. Christ came to uncover the hidden motives that control how we

think, feel and behave, and he exposed the façade of Pharisaic living: “You Pharisees clean the

outside of the cup and the platter; but inside of you, you are full of robbery and wickedness”

(Luke 11:39). Jung shared a similar concern for going to a level that is, as Jones and Butman

state, “at a depth and intensity that has been seldom matched by even our most respected and

articulate theological or psychological spokespersons today.” 60 Not only did Jung bring light to

59
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 3.
60
Jones and Butman, Modern Psychotherapies, 139.

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the personal unconscious, for he saw the deepest part of the psyche rooted in the collective or

archetypal unconscious. Scripture also acknowledges a depth to the human mind that may indeed

go beyond the individual’s experience. Jones and Butman acknowledge this possibility, saying,

“The Christian understanding of creation would assert that we are one human family, and hence

the idea of a shared species repository of common experience is not incredible.” 61

Consider also the focus that Jung and other Jungian therapists put on dreams. In our

culture today, where are dreams taken seriously? Perhaps the immediate response is in New Age

spirituality or other occult circles. As a result, Christians seem either to dismiss dreams as
irrelevant to life, or if we do care about dreams we have still not put much effort into

understanding their purpose or meaning. There are few psychological writings by Christians that

speak to the matter of dreams and their importance. 62 God’s Word in Scripture, however, seems

to assign dreams a significant, albeit mysterious place in life. In the book of Daniel, the prophet

speaks to Nebuchadnezzar about his dream, telling the king, “To you, O king, as you lay in bed

came thoughts of what would be after this, and he who reveals mysteries made known to you

what is to be” (Dan. 2:29). God revealed to the king a mystery about the future through a dream;

God could have used another means to tell the king, but He chose to speak to Nebuchadnezzar’s

unconscious mind. At the least then we should admit that God considers dreams useful. Daniel

continues, “But as for me, this mystery has been revealed to me [...] in order that the

interpretation should be made known to the king, and that you may know the thoughts of your

mind” (Dan. 2:30). John A. Sanford, a Christian Jungian analyst, points to this instance in

Scripture as an acknowledgement of the inner life of the unconscious mind and says, “A

realization that conscious life is grounded upon a secret inner life is at least as old as the prophet

Daniel.” 63 Because dreams occur in the unconscious, they are not subject to the conscious mind;

61
Jones and Butman, Modern Psychotherapies, 130.
62
Ibid.
63
John A. Sanford, The Kingdom Within: The Inner Meaning of Jesus’ Sayings, rev. (New York:

19
one does not control what happens in the unconscious, but if Sanford’s reading of Daniel is

correct, the unconscious has a significant influence on one’s conscious life. If the conscious life

is grounded upon the life of the unconscious mind, and if dreaming is a way we experience the

unconscious, then dreaming could be a profound source of knowledge about the self and wisdom

for life. The New Testament confirms at least this much about dreams: they can be a means for

God’s guidance in our lives. Joseph was told to take Mary as his wife through a dream

(Matt.1:20-24), and later the Lord warned him in a dream to flee to Egypt (Matt. 2:13-14).

Likewise the wise men were warned to depart another way to avoid Herod (Matt. 2:12). That
dreams should not be considered on par with Scripture does not invalidate their significance.

Jung validated this truth by making dream analysis a centerpiece of his therapeutic technique,

because he believed in the potential for dreams to tell us something we need to know but that is

blocked from our conscious awareness. Christian psychologists must listen closely to Scripture’s

own teaching about dreams and what significance God assigns to them:

In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on
their beds, then he opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings, that he may turn
man aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man; he keeps back his soul from the pit,
his life from perishing by the sword (Job 33:14-18).

Another contribution Jungian therapy offers is a return to the power and importance of

symbolism in psychological growth and maturity. Jung valued empirical science and rational

thinking in psychotherapy and in the personal pursuit of individuation, but he considered the

emotional and intuitive aspects of the human personality to be just as necessary for growth. Jung

saw these ways of knowing partitioned by modern Enlightenment thinking, but also by the

Church. Jones and Butman observe, “Through history, Jung asserted, the enduring truths of

Christianity gradually lost some of their meaning as religious symbols deteriorated into mere

signs or into dogmas.” 64 Jung experienced the Church’s one-sided emphasis on rationality

HarperOne, 2009) 10.

64
Jones and Butman, Modern Psychotherapies, 135.

20
personally with his father, a Swiss Reformed pastor. He saw the Church’s failure to nourish the

emotional side of faith and the impoverishment of its most powerful symbols, which instead of

being allowed to support and complement doctrinal teaching had been subsumed by it. Jungian

therapy reminds us that symbols are supposed to be mysterious; it is a mistake to think that

symbols exist in order to be explained rationally. Rather, symbols exist in order to communicate

with another part of our mind, a part that feels, desires deeply, and intuits realities that reason

cannot appreciate on its own. 65

Weaknesses
While Jungian therapy has much to offer to the way Christians understand and practice

the cure of souls, there are serious problems in the theory and model of therapy established by

C.G. Jung. At the core of Jung’s worldview, there is an obvious lacuna: Christ is absent. So much

that is bold and wonderful about Jung’s project—exemplified by his willingness to go beyond the

scientific reductionism of his day—is skewed by his philosophical starting point and misdirected

by his therapeutic goals. At the foundation of Jung’s thinking he conceived of nature and spirit as

mutually inclusive aspects of the world. Psychology should be viewed from both vantage points,

and, at least implicitly in Jungian therapy, the spiritual vantage point takes priority. Although

Christians can appreciate the value Jung placed on spirituality, we cannot adopt his particular

version of it. Jung’s view of the spiritual realm had more affinity with Eastern mysticism and the

occult than with Christianity. For example, Jung eschewed the view that God and Satan are

opposed to one another; instead, he considered them to be complementary sides of the spiritual

realm, even going so far as to say that Satan should be included in the Godhead. 66 God and

Satan, however, are not of greatest concern to Jung; he seems not have seen God as a separate

65
Leanne Payne, Real Presence: The Holy Spirit in the Works of C. S. Lewis (Westchester, Illinois:
Good News Publishing, 1979).
66
C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion: West and East, trans. R. F. C. Hull. Vol. 11 of The Collected
Works of C.G. Jung, eds. Herbert Read, et. al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1975).

21
entity from human beings. In fact, Jung’s worldview is fundamentally anthropocentric, because it

is in the human mind that the spiritual realm is found, not in an external deity. 67

This starting point stains everything in Jung’s system, and, most disastrously, it defines

his most profound contributions to understanding the unconscious. Although Jung differentiated

between a good side to the human mind and a shadow side, he saw them as just two poles of the

same reality. While he warned about the perils of the dark side of the mind, he nonetheless

considered the evil aspects of the unconscious to be a source for transformation and maturity.

Not surprisingly, the telos of Jungian individuation is not conformity to Christ, in whom is no
evil at all, but a balance of the psyche in which evil and good are both fully known and

understood—a goal that is not without attraction, as Adam and Eve could attest. Christians who

admire Jung’s emphasis on spirituality and symbolism may be tempted to accept his ideas

without considering their origins. 68 Jung’s fascination with Eastern mysticism and the occult and

the way he tried to integrate such knowledge is alarming, since such areas are under the

immediate influence of Satan. Because Jung saw Satan as a personification of the evil side of the

human psyche, rather than as a real person, he ascribed human beings with the power and

freedom to control and manipulate the evil within, and therefore he thought the dangers of

exploring the shadow worth the risk. He would not have agreed with Christian psychologist

Siang-Yang Tan when he writes, “The reality of the evil one, the devil as our archenemy, and

spiritual warfare (Eph. 6:10-18) also need to be emphasized in a more biblical and fuller

perspective on evil.” 69 Christian psychologists must recognize, contrary to Jung, that Satan is

real and, though those in Christ are ultimately victorious over the Satanic realm, it is foolish and

naïve to believe that we can fully comprehend his designs or usurp his instruments and weapons

67
Ryckman, Theories of Personality.
68
Leanne Payne, Restoring the Christian Soul Through Healing Prayer: Overcoming the Three Great
Barriers to Personal and Spiritual Completion in Christ (Westchester, Illinois: Good News Publishers, 1991).
69
Tan, Counseling and Psychotherapy, 98.

22
in our own strength and apart from the Holy Spirit.

The last weakness we will consider lies in Jung’s understanding of symbolism. Jung

believed that symbols function like a mirror: they serve to capture and reflect truth about oneself

in the form of an image. One can use symbol as a tool for self-knowledge because symbols have

the power to show us truths we otherwise would miss, as Jung explains: “They cast their magic

into our system and put us right, provided we put ourselves into them. If you put yourself into the

icon, the icon will speak to you." 70 This definition seems adequate, until one realizes that such a

view of symbol is too one-sidedly focused on the self. Are symbols only meant to teach us about
ourselves? Jung apparently thought so, even so far as making Christ and Scripture a symbol of

the Self: “For Jung, Christ exemplified the archetype of the self [and] the power of Scripture lay

in its ability to symbolically capture the dynamics and structure of the struggle for the soul. 71

First, we should note that to adopt Jung’s reliance on symbols and dreams as sources of

knowledge and wisdom in themselves would negate the primacy of God’s revelation in Scripture

through the Holy Spirit. It is not the symbols of the unconscious that are the Word of Life, but

the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Bible. Second, a Christian view of symbol must recognize

that it is not knowledge of self alone that symbolism can elucidate, but also knowledge of the

God who made us. By focusing on the reflective function of symbol alone denies one the path to

true healing, which is the path of knowing oneself and knowing God. Vitz conveys the greatest

danger of adopting Jungian therapy wholesale:

Jung’s discovery of the psychology of religious symbols is important, but there is with all
this focusing on one’s inner life a real danger for substituting the psychological experience
of one’ s religious unconscious for genuine religious experience that comes through a
transcendent God who acts in history. Those who make this mistake have truly treated
psychology as religion. 72

70
Jung, Analytical Psychology, 203.
71
Frenchak, “Analytical Psychology,” 58.
72
Paul Vitz, Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1994), 4.

23
Jungian therapy fails in itself because it has omitted the need for a transcendent God. It is not

man’s unconscious that guides us into all truth but the Holy Spirit (John 16:13).

24
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