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FrancoAngeli Journals

Articoli

No. 57 (2023)

The philosophy of nature as the foundation of C.G. Jung’s analytical method

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/jun57-2023oa16029
Submitted
giugno 9, 2023
Published
2023-07-24

Abstract

Jung was particularly influenced by Paracelsus, Johann von Goethe, Friedrich Nietzsche and Carl Gustav Carus. Of the latter Jung followed the theory of the psyche published in 1846, where for the first time the unconscious plays a central role. James Hillman had pointed out in 1970 that it is not possible to understand Jung’s thought without the background of Carus and the philosophy of nature, but analysts and biographers of Jung have mostly overlooked this fact. An omission which has contributed to favouring a Freudocentric vision of Jungian theory and an undue approach to psychoanalytic technique. The “fundamental rule” adopted by Jung was indeed to consider each case as new and unique. Recent research has shown that this personalized approach was very similar to Georg Groddeck’s therapeutic method. The fact that both Jung and Groddeck were followers of the philosophy of nature shows that this cultural background marked their therapeutic concepts. They actually shared the idea of natural healing and the purpose of therapy. Jung and Groddeck only conducted vis-à-vis analyses and were the first to propose a dialectical conception of the analytic relationship, so their therapeutic methods were profoundly different from the Freudian technique. If anything, Jung’s approach turns out to be close to that of Carl Rogers.

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