In the late 1970s, when the “psychotherapeutic wave” had swept in over Sweden, I saw Man and His Symbols in a book sale. I was fascinated by the pictures, and that a deep psychological theory, the Jungian Analytical Psychology, could be as complex and pervasive in images and words.
During my psychotherapist training in the late 1980s, humanity and philosophy of life was in the center. The basic theory was systemic, based on Gregory Bateson and his understanding of how living processes connected, in people and in nature. The underlying concept that permeated the entire Stage II course was epistemology. It means to put into words the contexts that describe how we know what we know. How does our knowledge, about ourselves, about our relationships and the context where we are, come about? The importance of dialogue and the creation of a we, with or without words became a central perspective of the psychotherapeutic process of meeting with families, couples and individuals. C G Jung floated up to the surface again when I read that G. Bateson was heavily influenced C G Jung’s early text from 1916, Septem Sermones ad Mortuos. Based on the reading experience Gregory Bateson could put together his whole theory, as described in “Mind and Nature – a Necessary Unity“. It moved me strongly that C. G. Jung’s words from 1916 could be so powerful!
The view of man as a biological, psychological and spiritual being unites systemic theory with Analytical Psychology. But the Jungian Analytical Psychology deepens human vision fundamentally by taking in the unconscious and the unknown as decisive dynamic movements of the human individuation.
So in the 1990s, I had the opportunity to work analytically on myself, in meeting with the first Jungian analyst who established herself in Sweden, Stina Thyberg (1925-2007). When I later was able to participate in the international Jungian psychoanalyst education in the IAAP, then available for licensed psychotherapists from different countries, it was not something I planned but the possibility emerged through key relationships. It came about as a learning path, for my part, tied to the Jungian Institute ISAP in Zurich. Formally, I was ready in 2007 and I continue to travel to Zurich for personal and professional development.
“You will never be finished, and that is as it should be.”
So writes the Swedish Nobel laureate and poet Tomas Tranströmer in the poem Romanesque Arches. A comforting and life interpretive perspective on our human journey of individuation.
You can read more about Analytical Psychology and its concepts under the tab Analytical Psychology
