How can we achieve an attitude to our difficulties and disturbances that enables us to develop a more constructive way of thinking and feeling again? In most cases, crises want to initiate a change, because the previous life plan, the long-standing relationship with oneself and others, reaches limits that make adaptation necessary. In my work I would like to help my clients to understand the logic of their inner and external dynamics, in which they are trapped, and help them to build new structures that enable the initiation of the transformation process. As a Jungian-trained analyst, I acknowledge the wisdom of our unconscious, which, despite all the difficulties it can confront us with, always strives for a fulfilled, meaningful and satisfying way of life. I see it as the task of the therapeutic process to recognize and remove the inner and outer hindrances that prevent my clients from living a more conflict-free and more fulfilling life.
Symptoms have a function. From a Jungian perspective, the unconscious is an autonomous force within the psyche that has various tools at its disposal to draw the individual's attention to inner conflicts. Often these inner conflicts are projected into real situations, leading to distortions of reality. Dreams are the window to the inner psyche. They allow us to understand the disruptive processes that make it difficult to adapt healthily to life and the realities in which we all have to organise our lives.
We often have to accept conditions that part of us rightly rejects. Nevertheless, a healthy process of adaptation is necessary to ensure a stable framework for the development of our inner and outer life. The unconscious wants to help us with this, although sometimes with painful lessons. Working Jungian means gaining access to the healing powers of the psyche, correctly assessing the unconscious reactions to external events and learning appropriate coping patterns.
Not everything can be resolved immediately. Tolerance of frustration is often necessary in order to initiate and endure difficult and protracted processes of development. You can't build a good life in one year. This includes strengthening the ego so that it becomes a good player in the game of life. Many aspects of that game are initiated by the unconscious. The right activity and enduring certain situations at the right time can enable a good balance of life forces. In summary, we want to achieve a restructuring of certain life - and thought-processes in order to achieve a more purposeful use of life energy.