Jung’s and Groddeck’s Analytic Practice

Abstract

This paper shows that Georg Groddeck and Carl Gustav Jung shared a common cultural background, in which Carl Gustav Carus’s theory of the psyche was preeminent. Accordingly, they emphasized symbolization and unconscious creativity. These aspects affected their clinical work, aimed at pioneering therapies: Jung with schizophrenics, Groddeck treating physical diseases. They overcame the limits of the psychoanalysis of their time and, going beyond neurosis, discovered the pre-Oedipal period and the fundamental role of mother-child relationship. While Freud’s technique was based on a one-person paradigm, both Jung and Groddeck considered analytic therapy as a dialectical process, ushering in a two-person paradigm. Therefore, they did not use the couch; a setting that is assessed in the light of recent research on mirror neurons. It is also highlighted that the analytic groups influenced by Groddeck and Jung have developed similar ideas in both theory and technique; a fact that may induce further studies on the history of depth psychology.