The Jungian Psychological Approach to Healing
Jungian or Depth psychology is defined by its inclusion of the whole person: conscious and unconscious, body and imagination, feeling and thinking, waking and dream life, clarity and fantasy, culture and Nature, person and World.
The depth psychological approach supports the development of the whole person and stretches us to include ways of knowing that are outside of our comfort zone. More than anything else, it requires a commitment to honesty and authenticity in process. Spurred on by this honesty, we come to better recognize our faults and honour our gifts; we learn to sing our own praises more confidently and to have a keener eye for our shadow. This self-understanding helps us to better identify that in us which is new and emergent, transform our unconscious, compulsive patterns, and host our own abundance.
The Other, too, is seen more clearly through such an approach; for in identifying and releasing our projective responses to the world, through letting go of “seeing what we want to see,” we come to know more truly who the Other really is. Identifying archetypal patterns living through us, and personality type differences amongst us, promote not only better self-understanding but also greater understanding of, and patience for, others; we love better and more easily.
The reward of this approach is both inner and outer. It helps us live out our drives and achieve success, to have more compassion for those around us and for the other voices inside of us. But, most of all, its reward is that of the soul because depth psychology fundamentally develops our connection to center. Through inner attentiveness, we come to know better the deeper world living through us and recover for ourselves a sense of awe and love for the endless mystery of life.