Existential Therapy and Jungian Analysis: Toward an Existential Depth Psychology

Abstract

Existential therapy and Jungian analysis share much in common. The early Jung, with his self-professed scientific study and “empirical” description of the human psyche focused strictly on “observed facts,” fancied himself a phenomenologist of sorts, loosely using a philosophical method first described in detail by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) at the start of the 20th century. In this article, the author, a clinical and forensic psychologist, compares the contemporary practices of existential therapy and Jungian analysis, citing essential similarities and differences, and proposing and describing the complementary synthesis of these two penetrating and potent theoretical orientations in a reimagined form of therapy he calls “existential depth psychology.” He argues here that contemporary existential therapy’s reflexively broad dismissal of depth psychology and its profound clinical wisdom diminishes it immensely. And vice versa. Given the inherent bias against such sagacious, depth-oriented counseling and psychotherapy in today’s increasingly vapid mental health marketplace, Jungian analysis and existential therapy, despite, or really due to, their differences, desperately need each other to become more balanced, whole, efficacious, relevant, and viable humanistic treatment approaches.

Existential–Jungian Analysis: Reconciling the Personal and Archetypal Realms in the Consulting Room

“…Existential psychotherapy, as its name suggests, implies an engagement with one’s own existence and the meaning that is made of this existence. The therapeutic frame for this is an engagement with the individual person’s experience through the philosophical method of phenomenology (see, e.g., Diamond, 2021 [this issue]; Längle & Klaassen, 2021 [this issue]; Spinelli, 2008). The most salient features of this approach are unbiased observation, engagement with, and the reflective pondering of one’s experiences.…”

“…Both existential psychotherapy and Jungian analysis approach the person and the therapeutic encounter through a phenomenological lens (Diamond, 2021 [this issue]; Spinelli, 2005; van Deurzen, 2010). As Diamond (2021 [this issue]) points out, with the possible exception of his controversial theory of archetypes, Jung’s concepts are firmly founded on phenomenological experience, as evidenced in his ideas around the process of individuation , since such notions, rooted partly in his own subjective experience of strange and irrational psychological states, seem incompatible with a more static, Cartesian view of reality.…”

“…Both Jungian and existential therapies emphasize the importance of engaging with fundamental existential facts of life such as pain, suffering, evil, despair, and death, but also a search for meaning, purpose, and hope (see Frankl, 1946/2011). The necessity of confronting and integrating the patient’s experience of the “daimonic” in existential therapy (see Diamond, 1996, 2016, 2021 [this issue]; May, 1969) corresponds closely to Jung’s teleological drive toward individuation and acknowledgement of the shadow —the basic source of personal, collective, and archetypal evil but of vitality, spirituality, and wholeness as well—engages these spiritual dimensions, as does the so-called “constrictive–expansive” dynamic within existential–humanistic therapy, as posited by Kirk Schneider (1998; Greenberg et al, 1998), whereby awareness and understanding are developed around how consciousness shifts dialectically between these polarities (or what Jung referred to as the “tension of opposites”), and shapes individual freedom and destiny.…”

“…While many of the reductive psychologies of the previous century remain reluctant to confront the deeper questions of human life and its limitations, both Jungian and existential analysis came closest to addressing the individual’s need for ultimate meaning. Though these two disparate schools of thought have historically clashed (see Diamond, 2021 [this issue]), this could be explained by the fact that they approached the same problem—namely suffering that follows inevitably from human limitations—from different angles: Jung postulated a transcendent world of universal archetypes that were essentially beyond time and used them for understanding personal experience, while existentialists preferred to confront the reality of temporal existence, the anxiety that this entails, and wield this tension toward the promotion of self-understanding (see Hinton, 2021 [this issue]). Jung’s primary focus on the deeper, so-called collective unconscious seemed, to the existential analysts, to devalue existential reality, the personal nature of the mind, and thereby, of individual freedom and the human condition (see Hinton, 2021 [this issue]).…”

“…While this theoretical and philosophical debate has been discussed at length elsewhere (see, e.g., Diamond, 2021 [this issue]; Hinton, 2021 [this issue]), we wish here to address the impact of these issues on the psychotherapeutic experience and argue that both approaches have limitations, if followed too rigidly. We contend that many aspects of the existential therapeutic method could serve to enrich the Jungian approach insofar as they encourage the analyst to remain grounded in the present reality of patients’ subjective experiences.…”