Jung's Psychology and its Relevance to Clinical Social Work

Lisa A. Mullins, LCSW

Presented to the Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Work 11/18/07



Introduction

Why is Jung relevant today? How is a Jungian approach compatible with a clinical social work perspective? As social workers, we are oriented to be concerned with empowering our clients, seeing what is healthy in them as well as where there may be maladaptive patterns. Jung's psychology is fundamentally a prospective one. That is, he was not only interested in understanding the etiology of a given symptom, (what he termed the reductive approach). He saw symptoms as the psyche's attempts (albeit, sometimes maladaptive) to regulate itself and to further the psyche's inherent plan of growing into wholeness, a task that Jung termed individuation. Hence, when a client comes to treatment for the first time, the questions about the presenting problem become not only, "what might have caused this problem?" but also "what is the meaning of this problem?" and "to where might it be leading this person?"

A Jungian perspective is also very consonant with social work in that it provides a psychoanalytic framework that accommodates an appreciation of a spiritual dimension to psychopathology and treatment. When I was in social work school, there was much discussion of a need to include an assessment of a client's spirituality, and how this might be a strength that could be drawn upon throughout the therapeutic process. As clinicians, most of us recognize that, whether the issue being addressed is addiction, grief and loss, or trauma, a person's spiritual resources can have a significant effect on treatment outcomes. Jung explicitly acknowledged a spiritual drive, and much of his psychology concerns itself with the individual's relationship to something greater than the conscious ego.

Jung's Model of the Psyche

The Jungian psyche is complex, made up of many different elements. I will briefly review the main elements.

Persona – Jung's term has found its way into the culture at large. He drew the name from the Greek word for the masks that tragedians wore when they performed. Such masks were designed not only to cover the face, but to help the actor's voice project further. A persona is the mask we wear to the outer world. It is the mediator between our ego, and the world at large. It is also our "mouthpiece." In this, it plays the vital, positive function of helping us get our viewpoint out there so that we can be heard. While the term persona carries a slight negative connotation in popular speech, and tends to be associated with what is false or shallow, it is necessary and adaptive to have a persona, even multiple personas. We have a persona we wear when we are working with clients. We probably have a different one when we are functioning as parents or spouses, and probably another for when we are socializing with our friends, and so forth. The persona is problematic in a person's psychology when it is too inflexible, or when the person is identified with their persona, for example, the military leader who insists on being called "General" even by his friends.

"The persona is that which in reality one is not, but which oneself as well as others think one is." C.G. Jung

Ego – The Jungian ego is defined most simply as the center of consciousness. It is our "I," who we experience ourselves as being. Jung wrote that the ego is "the subject of all personal acts of consciousness." The ego must contend with adaptation to the outer world (which is usually done with the help of the persona), as well as the inner world. That is, the ego must manage those contents that come up from the unconscious.

Personal Unconscious – Jung's personal unconscious corresponds well to Freud's notion of the unconscious. Its contents consist of things that have been forgotten or repressed, subliminal sense perceptions, or those things that are "not quite ripe for consciousness." Jung's personal unconscious differs from Freud's notion in that it is the home of the personal complexes.

Complexes – Jung's complexes correspond roughly to the introjects of object relations theory. A complex is an emotionally-charged group of ideas or imgs that can have its own specific energy, a kind of consciousness all its own, and can act as a splinter personality. In Jungian terms, our unconscious is populated by these complexes, and they can either lie relatively dormant, or greatly disturb our consciousness. In this way, they function similarly to "internal objects". We can say that we have a mother complex, or a father complex. And these can be either negative or positive.

Complexes form through the gradual accretion of similar emotional experiences. If I have a mother who more or less reliably meets my needs and mirrors me, then I will likely develop a web of positively-toned feelings that will become my mother complex. Later in life, I am probably going to have a basic, perhaps unconscious expectation that the world is an essentially good place that will meet my needs most of the time. On the other hand, if I have repeated traumatic interactions with my mother, the web of associational material will have a significantly darker tone, and will effect my later perceptions and expectations in predictable ways.

We know when a complex has been activated – or in Jungian terms, constellated – when we find ourselves doing things that surprise us, being caught up in strong affects that seem disproportionate to the external situation, etc.

Jung's complexes do differ from introjects (or internal objects) in one important way. According to Jung, every complex has an archetypal core. My father complex is not only informed by my experiences with my personal father, but by the universal suepattern of "father" imprinted in my psyche. The tremendous energy of the archetype lends a numinous, spiritual feeling to experiences of father in the young child, especially when it is not appropriately mediated by the personal father.

Collective Unconscious – Below the personal unconscious lies the collective unconscious, a strata of the psyche that "contains the whole spiritual heritage of mankind's evolution, born anew in the brain structure of every individual." The collective unconscious is home to the archetypes, patterns of energy, behavior, and image that are inherent in humanness. The collective unconscious is the primordial ocean that gave birth to consciousness, and as such, it can threaten to overwhelm the ego and wipe out consciousness, as in psychosis. On the other hand, because it is the wellspring of psychic life, it is also potentially generative, renewing, and creative. Dreams are often informed by this level of the psyche. Myths and fairy tales are, in Jungian thought, always expressions of the collective unconscious. Unlike Freud's unconscious, Jung's collective unconscious is capable of spontaneously generating some new content.

Archetypes – The archetypes are psychic constants. They correspond to the instincts, but are not derived from them. They may be seen as the spiritual expression of an instinct. Examples of archetypes include the shadow, the anima or animus, the senex, the divine child, etc. The gods of any mythological system can be seen as representations of archetypal energy. When archetypal energies manifest in our lives, we may feel overwhelmed by their numinosity, which can be experienced as either dark or light. This is the realm of religious experience detailed by the mystics throughout the ages, but it is also something that all of us can relate to in one way or another. One of the most common ways that it may enter our lives is in the experience of falling in love. When we fall in love, we experience through our partner that treasured but mysterious other that resides within. The energies that may be brought forth through such an experience can "sweep us off our feet," reorienting us in ways that can be delightful, unexpected, and terrifying.

The Self -- The Self is one archetype among many, and yet it is also the central, organizing principle inherent in the psyche. It is the regulating center, and the transpersonal power that transcends the ego. Jung wrote that it might be called the "God within us." We may see the Self at work in our own lives or in the lives of our clients in that force that seems to guide the unfolding of individual wholeness. Sometimes, the Self acts in our lives in a way that feels like a defeat for the ego. It may only be many years later that we see some hidden "purpose" or meaning in these events.