Individuality, Therapy for Anxiety, & Jungian Analysis
Therapy for anxiety and Jungian analysis might seem to be two very different things. But if a person really wants to get to the roots of anxiety, there are some very real and powerful connections to be made between anxiety and /a-midlife-transition.
Therapy Isn’t Modular; Everything Interconnects
My recent post on case studies for depression stressed the key differences between a computer and the human psyche, and the need to avoid the trap of thinking that humans are healed the same way we fix machines. We cannot pull out a broken “module” that creates anxiety in a person and replace it. Anxious states often have deep roots in personality, upbringing and overall stance towards life.
Anxiety Has a Human Meaning
Our anxiousness connects meaningfully to our inner life and to the deep story each of tells ourselves about our lives. Anxious states are often tied to the real life happenings that a person has experienced. However, these anxious states are also tied to simply being alive as individual, mortal, vulnerable beings.
Anxiety Has an Individual Meaning
A person struggling with anxiety encounters it in a very personal and individual way. It is his or her anxiety, and it has emerged in a particular unique way within them. Only when that individual meaning is fully and carefully understood, will the individual be able to move beyond that anxiety.
The Grounding Power of Myth
This could be a whole post, or whole series of posts. An anxious psychology can be deeply connected to whether or not people have a working framework of meaning within which they can see their lives. As James Hollis says, “entire generations may be anxious if the mythological carpet is pulled out from under their feet.” Humans inevitably confront the question of whether the world is a secure place, and whether life is a meaningful journey, or merely a chaotic “tale told by an idiot”, in Shakespeare’s words. For many in our time, , the standard, institutional answers provided by religious institutions, and secular authorities no longer adequately serve this foundation function. There is need to find a truly grounding world view, or philosophy of life.
Jungian case studies often provides an appropriate means to find a vibrant, vital and individual connection to a uniquely personal myth, in C.G. Jung’s phrase. For many, this holistic journey can provides a key form of healing for the particular anxiety that they experience.
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© 2011 Brian Collinson
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[…] Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and father of Jungian psychology, took a different view on anxiety, which can be summed up in his wise saying: “What you resist not only persists but will grow in size.” […]