Jung said that every time you serve as a therapist, you always have to deal with your own issues. In Jungâs words (1966), âThe doctor must change himself if he is to become capable of changing his patient. We have learned to place in the foreground the personality of the doctor as a curative or harmful factor; and that what is now demanded is his own transformationâthe self-education of the educatorâ (p. 73).
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This will not surprise cognitive psychologists, of course, who have known for years that knowledge does not translate into action. Psychotherapists, too, regard it as fairly unremarkable that the self can be so damaged as to be incapable of acting in its own interests.
As Jungian analyst James Hillman remarked, âPsychotherapy is only working on that âinsideâ soul. By removing the soul from the world and not recognising that the soul is also in the world, psychotherapy canât do its job anymore. The buildings are sick, the institutions are sick, the banking systemâs sick, the schools, the streets - the sickness is out there.
Through his knowledge of mythology Jung was able to see meaning in the apparent gibberish of people being treated in a psychiatric hospital. He (1973) said that a story is more important than a diagnosis: âClinical diagnoses are important, since they give the doctor a certain orientation, but they do not help the patient. The crucial thing is the story. For it alone shows the human background and the human suffering, and only at that point can the doctorâs therapy begin to operateâ (p. 124). Diagnosis can take away the individuality and complexity of a clientâs experience. It puts a client into a box. It serves the therapist more than the client. It can be demeaning. It places the therapist above the client. A diagnosis can be full of shadow, even if it might please the client to have a name for what heâs going through. That, too, is an illusion. Now we know how to treat the syndrome, and we donât have to face it as a unique invitation to become an individual. The diagnosis puts you in a pen with other people who have given up their individuality, as well. Your story is individual. Remember Hillmanâs warning to keep your images, your stories, exactly as they present themselves. Donât adjust them so they fit into a box of syndromes and disorders. Each time you tell a story it is differentâdifferent nuances and tones. You call up a story from the past and you tell it in the present with the full impetus of who you are right now.
The therapist is seeing the situation differently, and that itself may be helpful. When therapist and client are not in the same narrative, there is space for change.
19. A THERAPISTâS SELF CARE
âThe main tool in therapy is the person of the therapist. You have to boldly enter the emotional field of a troubled person or a conflicted couple and use everything you have to help them sort out their lives. Ideas and techniques help, but they are for the most part in the background. The therapist has to use himself, at some risk, to care for the otherâs suffering. If anyone needs care of his own soul, it is a therapist. This is also true of the informal âtherapist,â the friend counseling a friend, a coworker helping another make a big decision.