Digesting Jung: Food for the Journey - Inner City Books

The Analytic Process 61
. . . Any interference on the part of the analyst, with the object of
forcing the analysis to follow a systematic course, is a gross mistake
. . . . So-called chance is the law and order of psychoanalysis. 46
And this:
As far as possible I let pure experience decide the therapeutic aims. .
. . The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no universal
recipe for living. Each of us carries his own life-form within
him—an irrational form which no other can outbid. 47
However, Jung did describe four characteristic stages of the analytic
process: confession, elucidation, education and transformation.
48
In the first stage, you get things off your chest. Its prototype is
the confessional practice of almost all the mystery religions of antiquity
and their historical continuation in the Catholic Church. You
confess to the analyst everything consciously concealed, repressed,
guilt-laden, etc.—thoughts, wishes, fantasies, emotions like fear,
hate, aggression and so on, and whatever else about yourself you
are not proud of.
In the second stage, elucidation, you become aware of personal
unconscious contents that have not been concealed or repressed but
rather have never been conscious: dormant character traits, attitudes
and abilities. You develop an understanding of complexes, projection,
persona and shadow, anima/animus, and become aware of a
regulating center in yourself, the so-called Self. This comes about
mainly through close attention to your responses to daily events and
the nightly images in your dreams.
Once these contents have been assimilated to consciousness, the
next task is that of education, which refers to discovering your role
46 “Some Crucial Points in Psychoanalysis,” Freud and Psychoanalysis, CW 4,
pars. 624f.
47 “Problems of Modern Psychotherapy,” The Practice of Psychotherapy, CW 16,
par. 81.
48 Ibid., pars. 122ff.; see also Marie-Louise von Franz, C.G. Jung: His Myth in
Our Time, pp. 66ff.