Personality and the Unconscious Mind

Jung believed that emotional problems originate from a one-sided development

of personality. He believed that this is a natural process and that people

must constantly seek a balance of their traits. An example might be a person

who becomes overly logical and rational in his behavior and decision

making, while ignoring his emotional and spontaneous side. Jung believed

this one-sided development eventually would lead to emotional difficulty

and that one must access the complementary personality forces that reside

in the unconscious. Even psychotherapists must be aware that along with

their desire to help others, they have complementary darker desires that are

destructive to others. Jung believed that emotional problems are a signal

that one is becoming unbalanced in one’s personality and that this should

motivate one to develop more neutral traits.

The process of analytical psychotherapy, as in most psychodynamic approaches,

is to make the patient conscious or aware of the material in his or

her unconscious mind. Jung believed that if the conscious mind were overly

logical and rational, the unconscious mind, to balance it, would be filled

with equally illogical and emotional material. To access this material, Jung

advocated a free and equal exchange of ideas and information between the

analyst and the patient. Jung did not focus on specific techniques as did

Freud, but he did believe that the unconscious material would become evident

in the context of a strong, trusting therapeutic relationship. Although

the patient and analyst have equal status, the analyst serves as a model of an

individual who has faced her or his unconscious demons.