C.G. Jung famously said, "I would rather be whole than good." This idea, in its myriad forms, is the foundation for successful psychodynamic therapy. Wholeness, or experiencing oneself as fully genuine and expressed, is recognized as the foundation of psychological health. Symptoms such as depression, loneliness, anxiety, grief, unwanted behaviors, or problems in relationships are viewed not merely as negative experiences to be done away with. Rather, they may reflect unconscious (unknown) parts of ourselves that need our attention. Painful symptoms may underlie a frustrated longing to know and discern one's true self or calling in life, for example. Psychodynamic therapy addresses both symptoms and the unconscious thoughts that give rise to them through an honest dialogue between the ego (one's constructed persona) and the non-ego or genuine self.

Vocatus atqua non vocatus deus aderit. (Called or not called, God is present.)

-Carved over the door of Jung's Kuessnacht home

A Tribute to Dr. James Hillman (1926 - 2011)

For the Sake of Soul

Archetypal Psychology grew out of Jung's ideas and focuses on the notion of what James Hillman called "soul-making" as a primary component of therapeutic work. But here we are speaking not of soul in a spiritual or metaphysical sense; soul is not seen as a substantiated "thing" but rather as the very essence and exhilaration of life itself - what we experience when we are confronted by deep love, profound beauty, art, adventure, poetry and literature, major life events, global history, and world cultures. Archetypal psychology provides a perspective, a way of seeing. This perspective is committed to imagining problems metaphorically rather than literally: it strives to see through the obvious

“Love alone is not enough. Without imagination, love stales into sentiment, duty, boredom. Relationships fail not because we have stopped loving but because we first stopped imagining.” - James Hillman

Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority

The study of psychology as the discipline of interiority (PDI), developed by Wolfgang Giegerich, extends both Jung's and Hillman's ideas about soul into the realm of thought proper. Soul, according to Giegerich, is the mutual and interdependent process of the authentic unfolding of one’s own life and life at large. This unfolding is intelligent in that it has a logic to it, as one can see if one looks back throughout history (including one’s own lifetime). From this perspective, neurosis is seen as the resistance to the logical unfolding of soul - or of the ego’s refusal of becoming conscious of itself. The practice of psychology as the discipline of interiority entails a rigorous dialectical discourse that often culminates in a radical re-orientation of one's initial perspective and identity. 

"In the deepest sense we exist not as organism, but as soul or Geist."

-Wolfgang Giegerich 

Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas.

(I love Plato, but I love the truth more. -Socrates)

-A favorite saying of Dr. Giegerich