We all agree that the therapeutic relationship and the emotions that develop in the patient and the therapist lie at the heart of transformative therapy, including its various alchemical models and accompanying archetypes.
"Psychotherapy is based on a dialectical relationship between the therapist and the patient. It is an encounter, discussion, and conversation between two souls in their entirety, in which knowledge serves only as a tool. The goal is transformation, which is not predetermined, but never-ending change…." ( 1958(Jung c/w 11
Additionally, we acknowledge that most of us entered this profession due to our needs, wounds, and perhaps even our complexes. Initially, we focused on healing those around us, but as Jung suggests, we ultimately began healing ourselves.
We attract patients who resonate with our professional and personal development at the right time. As Jung states, "Everyone will discover over time why they chose a therapeutic profession and what wound they heal by making that choice." It is not only about addressing a wound but also about a desire for change, a journey toward self-discovery, and an ongoing process of development often aided by external influences rather than just the therapeutic setting itself.
Therefore, we, as therapists, understand the beauty of the relationship, its essentials, the possibilities of inherent transformation, and its complications.
Not every treatment will reach the phases developed according to the ideal model, such as rebirth and building a relationship that undergoes death and resuscitation in which the "new soul returns." Not ever treatment accumulates "what we both went through together," and not in every treatment does the new soul of the treatment that is unique to the two manage to be created.
Any therapy and every theory behind it will advocate those relationships that open the patient's soul to internal dialogue and observation. Everyone will agree that relationships also serve as a foundation, a ground for treatment, and a kind of steering wheel for treatment. In-depth treatments, the connection is also the measure of what is happening and the "X-ray." If you, as a therapist, don't know what's going on between you and the patient, and it's happening, you don't fully know the treatment. Dreams of the patient and the therapist about the treatment and the therapist-patient relationship are the leading indicators that help you understand what is happening in therapy. And why is what happens in the relationship a metric? The connection between the two and what happens in them is an external expression of what is happening inside the patient's psyche.
Beyond what we know from any therapeutic theory, several principles from the Jungian approach are most important to understand the function of the relationship in therapy. First, the principle that says that external events and situations are parallel to those internal, there is a unity or parallel between what happens to a person with his immediate exterior and what happens with his internality, between what happens to him with the inner psychic parts and between his occurrences with his environment. This is a clear Jungian principle behind the reality of unity.
Another principle related to transference is that beyond the fact that the therapist helps to correct a missing or traumatic figure in the patient's childhood, as any other approach sees, and beyond the experience of repairing the object or using the therapist as someone else's self, a transition that helps the patient to see himself, the therapist serves for the patient as a kind of leader, a messenger as a mediator to the unconscious, and it does not matter under which transformative figure he appears. It mediates the patient to the unconscious, which, according to Jung, is a permanent part of the psyche which is always present. This is the same unconscious with whom the encounter is fused, out of the dialogue with which the process takes place and the soul develops. Specifically, the therapist often mediates between the personal and personal level and the archetype level. This discussion leads us to the principle of, according to Jung:
The principle of transcendent function is a principle that operates when the fertilizer, the "midwife," is encountered, and the unification is created between the conscious and the unconscious. An encounter that leads to the birth of the third thing. This is a function in many parts of the treatment, and especially in the first parts, the patient has difficulty doing it, and the therapist takes it upon himself. This is a function that brings about the result of a movement, a change of mind, but this change will only be possible, Jung says if the person is aware and acknowledges the existence of the other.
The therapist's medium and use as a mediating function can be in specific therapy episodes, such as an anime or animus, the wounded therapist, a mercurial, and more. The therapist mediates the transcendent function for the patient, that is, helps him bring conscious and unconscious to the encounter and thus reach a new approach.
It may do so realistically, carrying the content until the patient can internalize the new approach or holding a suitable potential space in the treatment process. It can be used as a model for working with the unconscious or as a subject for the patient's unrealized potential for psychological transformation.
Jung heralded what others call constructive transference.
According to Jung, the patient also projects on the therapist to discover what has not been developed in him.
The function above leads with the time to the birth of the personal self. Still, its basis lies in the Self-archetype that exists as a super factor that inspires and influences both the therapist and the patient and even connects them at times. It is not that this cosmic archetype does not encourage other approaches to therapy, but that in the different theories, it is not really or even part of the theory or therapy. The difference, then, is perhaps mainly in the awareness of the archetypal self and the belief in some factors that both parties have in common and motivate the treatment.
In any case, the emphasis in therapy on discovering this archetype stems from a belief in the higher self, about love, creativity, and development, that comes from an archetype about it.
Another principle is reciprocity and mutual influence, the principle of staying together in the "therapeutic bath" and the joint creation of the process. Jung sees dialogue as central to the treatment of both the self and their unconscious, as well as between the two who share the relationship and the journey. Both should have equality in their statements. The term dialogue is, therefore, highly critical to Jung and means exchanging information between two or more equal entities. This is the true meaning of dialogue. Jung says that the ability to have internal and external dialogue is the key concept for individuality, wholeness, and mental health!
Jung makes another conceptual leap, especially at the end of his life, when he explicitly makes the parallel between you, the internal, psychic, and you, the extrapsychic other, which will be expressed through the same transcendent function.
The inability to listen to the other creates a barrier to listening to yourself, and the failure to listen unconsciously prevents the ability to listen to the other.
Jung: "Anyone who intends to meet himself must deal with the problem of relationships!! If he does not acknowledge the validity of the other, he denies both the other and the other within himself and his existence. "In short, "Halls for internal dialogue is also a touchstone for objectivity on the outside.
It is also important to note the importance of human connection in therapy, within the loneliness required in individuation, which is a significant chapter in Jungian therapy. The connection means, among other things, giving and love, which is the redemption required through familiarity with the self, as Rosenzweig and Buber will argue.
In Jung's therapeutic model and the parallel to the alchemical process that he does, it can be seen that throughout the rosarium, which describes a composite process, which also includes the pairing of opposites, but no less important, also a method of resuscitation, the restoration of the soul, which will come after death and decay – Negredo.The soul, which returns to the connection between you and me after the problematic situations they went through together, turns into a unique dyad with a soul of its own.
With all the learning of these principles, we as therapists tend to go halfway and not see enough of what Jung said about reciprocity in therapy, about entering the standard container. We tend to forget the mutual influence of the two working souls and the third thing that arises between them, corresponding to the personal self that develops in each of them.
Moreover, when we relate to the archetypal world and the archetypal forces that operate in therapy, we tend to see these forces as, in theory, coming through the self as the therapy's operator, giving possibilities of healing, renewal, and inner revelation. But we forget again that what activates this power, what unconsciously gives the possibility of opening and reaching a dialogue, is the transference, the therapist-patient relationship. The openness created through mutual connection makes it possible to transfer all this to a personal place. Everything would be too theoretical and meaningless if it weren't for him.
We also forget another thing: the ability to activate the connection of the self to the archetype is always in the context of a relationship, in which the complexes are opened to action, and there can be movement and later internal flow. And we forget another essential thing: entering the deep unconscious outside the context of a relationship with another person can even be disastrous.
A person grows up in a relationship, emerges—or even is born out of the archetypal world—and develops his consciousness and self through a relationship. A person enters again into an encounter with the unconscious within a relationship. This includes mother-father-son relationships, sibling relationships, peers, marital relationships, relationships with children, relationships at work, and relationships with patients. It will be difficult to talk about evolution when a person is alone. This important axis between the personnel and the archetype is always built within relationships.
And even in the mythological, archetypal characters who make their journey, we can see how much their journey would have gone down the drain without connection.
The heroic Theseus could not enter the Labyrinth to overcome the Minotaur without the help of Ariadne, who held the knotted thread on the other side of the Labyrinth.
Psyche, on her final mission to take another step in the knowledge of love, is supposed to descend into the world of Hades to bring the Persephone beauty box. But she could not come out entirely conscious of Hades, which symbolizes the unconscious, without the help of her beloved Amor. Amor, who wakes her up from her sleep when she is tempted to open the forbidden box again, serves as a mediator, a wake-up caller, and a guard.
Odysseus, the cunning hero, would not have made his way home had it not been for his critical descent to Hades if it had not been for his conversation with the spirit of the prophet Theresias (the wise old man archetype), and without an encounter with his mother's ghost that evokes in him repressed memories. He would not have done anything without his relationship with Circe, the Knowing Witch, with whom he was immersed in a close relationship. She is the other, the mediator, the one who helped him and guided him on how to go down to Soul Land so that he would know how to live in the two worlds, the one above and the one below, and thus wake up to his way home, literally!
Even Jung himself was always accompanied by various relationships that kept him safe in his journeys into the depths of the unconscious. He told others about his dreams, described the characters, shared his paintings, and used his meaningful surroundings in close relationships to maintain his sanity. He says this in his quotes. The connection opened, the connection and the house were preserved, and the connection was possible. On the other hand, Nietzsche, the lonely philosopher, lost his sanity after making his deep private journey into the depths of the unconscious and lacking meaningful connections.
Regardless, the deep entry into the unconscious will be life-threatening in the complete sense of the word.
And let's move on to the practice of therapy
From what I mentioned, there are several things that the patient needs from the context, and they are the therapeutic elements that allow growth :
While creating a workout, he must open an inevitable dissolution of the defenses and transfer other relationships and his internal relationships with the therapist. He needs to get closer to a human soul that understands, contains, observes, and connects with him. He needs a figure to project on or recreate with. Still, he also needs a character that he touches, who influences, a figure who makes the journey with him and is willing to be influenced beyond the return of the consequences – and a character who is not just the leading Hermès or an imaginary figure but is a person-human being in the complete sense of the word
The therapist is supposed to be a figure who will help him do the inner wedding, the inner encounter, but no less than that, a figure with whom he can lose his soul in death out of Negredo's illness, a figure with whom he can rot if necessary, crumble into pieces with him, but also do the cleansing, purification, and re-acceptance of the new old soul together after the united body is ready for it
This is not just about taking the consequences and not just about restoring and repairing the mother figure. This is not just a leading figure. And not just a wounded figure that you treat after you've gone through things about yourself; you're the wounded healer. Even the injured therapist, if he is the dominant archetype throughout the treatment, can be a problem in the process! Just as any complex, if it takes over, diverts the self from its path, so too does the wounded therapist: it is possible to identify with the patient, to lead the patient by mistake if we direct him exactly to what we were on our journey, excessive mutual identification. Or is there a danger of fixing the emotional wound in the service of principle
We remind ourselves that we must first treat our wounds in our care, and what remains and will always remain may arise in relationships with patients
In therapy, contact is made with real signs. And in this real connection in therapy, situations of mutual influence will also be created. Various mutual emotions and special dedication will be developed, all of which will lead to a special love for the treatment that will be revealed during the process. It is love that stems from the revelation of the self. It is a love that goes beyond or unlike other loves in life, such as the love of a mother and the love of a woman and is more like the love that opens with the revelation of God, as Rosenzweig claims in The Star of the Redemption.
It is created and desirable that, over time, love for the other, with all the meaning of the non-family other, be made. At a particular stage in the therapy and by the relationship itself, there is also a certain cooperation because a chapter of the therapist's individuality sometimes takes place, which he does part of simultaneously in his journey as a therapist with the patient
We will try to look for a moment at the situation in which the patient comes to us for treatment with his distress, which is always related to the symptoms that express the inhibition, the split, the amputation, or the conflict that interferes with the process, of individuation, with all the parallels to the life situations that this failure projects on them: relationships, functioning, lack of fulfillment, etc.Blowing. The therapist is supposed to help him with the inner dialogue, but also for a while to sustain his connection to it with the typical archetypes of therapy that are powerful as healers but also as poor and sweeping because archetypes are divine forces but can also be demonic forces.
So, as we have already mentioned, archetypes as partners in the process have no meaning without a context of relationships. The patient needs this medium while practicing, having a real connection, having feelings towards the therapist, and influencing the therapist. And, of course, also the love of the therapist who loves the process. In the sense of alchemy, Jung also quotes: "The alchemists saw that the process required laboratory work, reading books, meditation, patience but also love."
Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption, in which he deals with the self, God, and the world, brings and raises the three stages: creation, revelation, and redemption. According to him, although creation has always existed, when the revelation of the self is created within life, creation takes on a new meaning. Through the revelation, a new love develops, and the religious person will say that it has descended from God, and the believer in the therapy process will say that it has opened from within the Self. The Archetype of the self is like the image of God to those who believe in the process. Rosenzweig adds, "Redemption is realized through the connection to the other and the transfer of this new love to the other. Love from the self is new and fundamentally different from a familiar love that has constantly reminded us of the feelings of love and heart wisdom, like the Gideon Dew that descends from above from the Jungian alchemical model.
Regarding the treatment process, Jung says: "Two substances, if there is any chemistry between them, they will both change." Jung's sentence raises questions, but in my experience, it is true. In the treatments in which I was most influenced, from which I changed, something new happened to me, and it doesn't matter if it came through positive or negative things; more occurred in the therapy. Where I was angry the most, I was hurt, I was tormented with guilt, I had trouble containing, I lost empathy, I loved too much, I defended it a lot, I failed, I made the biggest mistakes, they are what led to development! Sometimes, there is more mine, and unfortunately, sometimes, it is only mine. However, where the patient developed the most and underwent transformation and change, it was in those cases where mutual relationships rewarded both parties.
As you all know, there are huge differences between patients and what they do and what they are capable of – with us, of course, but maybe with another therapist, it will be different, and it is essential to remember this. Some patients need to survive, to be strengthened or strengthened through what you went through with them, not to be destroyed. That's what you got, and then maybe they got it, too. Sometimes, there was destruction that did not lead to positiveness. Still, from it, it was also possible to learn about my shadow and, in general, about the boundaries of giving, the container, innocence, and the unshakable belief in goodness. And, of course, about relationships and intimacy, even though things are always done within the therapeutic setting
It is essential over time to find the uniqueness of the patient, the uniqueness of the soul of relationships that suddenly appear or reappears; it is necessary not to get into something without uniqueness, patterns, the treatments of a moving tape, the perception, the thinking, the principles. The self-revealed in therapy is inducted, accelerated, and built in a delimited place with rules, but it lacks clear rules in advance. If you say the same things several times daily, it's a sign that you're tired! If you see patterns repeatedly, it's you, a sign that you are burning out or that there is some problem of yours that is in line to recall. The same goes for if you are bored and lack iris and creativity, and the patient only provokes desolation with a desire that the hour will end. It is always worth asking ourselves. What's going on
I will briefly describe parts of therapy that helped with the opening and transformation from the context.
Erga (60) (Strong yearning) – A pseudonym is a woman without a family. She came to treatment after the discovery of cancer and the beginning of treatment for it. Erga grew up in a family that was mostly lost in the Holocaust, a dysfunctional family in which her mother, father, and grandmother lived, and she is an only child; each of the characters in the family has their disorders and is detached from life.
Erga, whose Hebrew is pure and fluent, grew up in a Yiddish-speaking home. Her descriptions of the house that opened with the treatment ranged from comedy to tragedy. Seeing the girl Erga in the crazy situation, it was possible to understand that her only way to survive was to say no to life, no to emotion, as Jung said, to petrify as a salt commissioner, as Lot's wife does not look back. Act only from the intellect, the cerebral cortex, and within the unique language created between us. Longing did not live; she did not feel her soul or body. As she said, the unmet needs and the soul remained orphaned without a soul and life. What guided her was the personality of an uncle she had, a brilliant, charismatic man full of personal charm that she admired, imitated, identified with, and embraced as a leading but detached and deadly animus.
It was against this background that she arrived. Without a very great awareness on my part of what I am transmitting outside of emotional touch, empathy to create a container for participation in her condition, in her unhappiness, the patient liked me more and more, both as a person and as a woman. I also saw the beautiful things that she can describe and her rich language. I noticed her beauty, talents, aesthetic sense, and sensuality. Looking back, she says she saw the spark in my eyes, and I immediately gave her a clear feeling that something was in her.
Erga was shocked by her rapid infatuation and the influence she had on me. She cried a lot and felt that she had reached a safe shore. It was opened with the help of Eros's arrow (Freud thought that the arrow and falling in love were sometimes resistant in therapy). Still, the emotions were overwhelming, unprocessed, and incomprehensible. She talked a lot about the fear of illness and death, about her need to land, to be grounded about the lights she sees from all the distant houses, and the deep feeling that she is out of life. On the one hand, there was an overflow, and on the other hand, detached and rational speech, with a determined desire to feel everything to the end. She was determined to find out everything with courage. In terms of transference and countertransference processes – transference I was at an initial stage, it is a lot of being a great mother, containing, understanding, participating with her in her story, and on the other hand, as a beloved man, maybe on an Oedipal level, but not only…A man is interested in and intrigued by her, awakening some dormant and longing femininity in her.
Erga felt more and more her love, her fears, the frustration of this therapeutic situation, and her grandmother's suspicion about money. Yet, she was constantly aware that she needed the therapeutic framework: that she was sick! And her reactions were relatively balanced, and she accepted the situation. My emotions inside the container and my situation were interesting and strange. My curiosity, interest, and involvement, the intensity of which surprised me, helped me to see and understand that I, too, am in love with her; the conversations became important, and the reactions to her words were also on a more personal level, that is, out of feelings and genuine caring.
The first turning point in the treatment was after about a week of traveling abroad and stopping the treatment. She was longing and missed it very much, but she expressed it as soon as we met. Since I also felt a longing, it came out spontaneously, "Me too. Erga was excited about it, and I felt satisfied with this sharing. From here on out, something completely different came out of longing. Femininity, at least externally and internally, began to emerge over time. She opened to her feelings and began to dress for every meeting as if preparing for a romantic meeting of lovers. She would ask me about her choices, and with the therapist's attitude, I allowed myself to give her authentic responses from within myself. A somewhat artificial but important distinction began to form in her at the time between the caregiver's father and the man's father, and at the same time, she was aware of her parental search for me. During that period, there was a great revolution in which a miracle happened to her when she met me, and she also began to believe that she had indeed received gifts such as sensitivity to beauty, love, and creativity. She sculpted, worked with material, and more. As she discovered her strengths, she could cope with the tragedy of her life, as she called it. Processing the unsuccessful experience of marriage and more. An in-depth process began, touching on the most hidden points of her personality. There was, of course, idealization.
I asked myself what this love gives me in the personal sphere, whether it meets some need, narcissistic or otherwise, and what I get beyond the therapeutic work. Like her, I asked myself where Avi, the therapist, is, where Avi, the man, is, and how they connect.
Longing became very strong, and at the same time, she felt that there were things that still didn't come out, such as rage and madness that came out in a storm. It started against the background that she wanted to be sure I wasn't taking advantage of her like her father, who was busy with my approach to femininity, my mother, and the romantic girl Erga, that it was time to grow up from her. In her words, she wanted to contribute her part to our Dyad and tell me things he sees in me.
Over time, she recognized the insanity and pent-up rage and could see the need to destroy that she had so much to do with her grandmother. These harsh episodes didn't hurt, later, not love. On the contrary, the more they went out in therapy, the stronger the bond, and the more the love gained the necessary depth.
Later, Erga dealt extensively with our differences, especially her uniqueness, and she was very friendly to herself, her emotions, and her body.
Only after a great cleansing of her past, the images that guided her life in childhood, and the things that filled her as solutions, such as illusions and survival behaviors, could it be expressed that now the body is ready to absorb the soul anew through a very significant process with my personal and therapeutic self in connection with Erga and the concept of love in the countertransference. What is love that comes from the self in the service of the process?
Without going too far into the intricacies of the treatment, the main points that I wanted to emphasize and that have been solved in this treatment were complex, and they are also mine.
Here are some that could be shared.
*That there was a new love in it
*That it was a revelation of love, of that love
*That created uniqueness and a special language
*That the third thing was created
*A relationship was formed in which I helped clean and change characters
*A connection was formed in which I discovered things about myself in the context of love
*Relationships that connected archetypes that were dormant in me as well
*There was an emphasis on the patient's otherness, which became very important to her
*Honestly, I could lose things off my ego if necessary.
*A relationship that I, as a therapist, became open with my sensitivity and witnessed rebirth and self-fulfillment and the level of awareness of the return of the soul and the ability to leave Jung aside.
*I want to point out that the special love that Arga felt from me and that was visible on the table gave a lot of strength to the treatment and to herself to open more and more layers and secrets. And yet I felt
that Pygmalion was going on between us, and we had to be careful but not stop it
