What is Depth Psychology? by Liana Yip (Clinical Director)
Photo Credit: Anastasia Taioglou
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - C.G. Jung
In a world of countless psychological modalities, it can be hard to know how to make heads or tales of what therapists are offering in their work. While I cannot speak at length to other modalities, I am here to speak to depth psychology. A depth psychological perspective gives context to not only the foundation of my work, but my felt sense, and lived experience of the world. While I acknowledge that this blog only touches on a few major concepts of depth psychology, it is my hope that it can shine some light on what depth psychology is and what it means to work therapeutically within its framework.
Firstly, I would like to give a brief shout-out to the history and lineage of depth psychology. Swiss Psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler coined the term “depth psychology” at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was the director of the Burgholzli, an asylum in Zurich when Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung began his career there. I work from a foundation of Jungian and archetypal psychology and am influenced by the many post-Jungians who continue to work and rework outdated concepts. In compiling his theories, Jung was highly influenced by, and “drew from” (through our present lens, some may say he appropriated) eastern spiritual traditions and indigenous cultures from the United States, Africa, and around the world. He was also highly influenced by the women in his life who not only supported him and his work but significantly contributed to it through their research and sharing their work with little acknowledgement. A massive shout-out to Toni Wolff, Emma Jung, and Sabina Speilrein to name a few.
Indeed Jungian psychology is not just the work of Carl Jung, but a culmination of the wisdom and work of many cultures, spiritual traditions, and people.
The main aspect of depth psychology that sets it apart from other frameworks is that depth psychology acknowledges and works within the unconscious. It views our conscious self (aka our ego) as a small island within a vast ocean of the unconscious. This ocean has a great, yet unseen, influence on the weather patterns on the island and our day-to-day experience. The unconscious appears in our automatic thoughts, emotions, actions, and how we perceive and interact with the world; it shows up in our pathology, our neurosis, and our symptoms. Anxieties, insecurities, perfectionism, depressive states, creative blocks, charged and seemingly uncontrollable emotions, are all influenced by, and connected to, what lies beneath the surface. Rather than focusing solely on the island, depth psychology gets curious about our island experience, then puts on scuba gear to follow that experience into the ocean. It works within the depths, at the foundational origins of our experience, contributing to the long-standing transformation of our lived experience.
The Process of Individuation
Jung used the term individuation to describe the main work of depth psychology. Individuation is the process of gaining a clearer sense of self, of stepping into our authority, and consequently a greater sense of purpose, meaning, and fulfillment in our lives. This involves disentangling and differentiating from messages we have received from our culture, families, religions, media and other external sources around what we should or should not do, think, be, and achieve. It also requires remembering and reclaiming whatever fragments of self we have had to split from to adapt to our family systems, social structures, and culture at large.
Splitting and the Shadow
Just by the fact of being born into this world, to be socialized as functioning human beings, we need to be constantly splintering off “unacceptable” parts of self. For example, we need to split from certain emotions that are deemed unacceptable, gifts and talents that are not valued, or thoughts and voices that may not fit into the norms of our family or cultures. These split parts of ourselves do not disappear, they get suppressed or repressed to the unconscious where they can ferment and grow in potency until, like an underwater volcano, they burst into our conscious lives as symptoms. From a depth psychology approach, we work to reclaim these fragments of self to de-potentiate the power of our symptoms and cultivate a greater sense of wholeness within our lives. From a Jungian perspective, the unconscious is not just a garbage dump of thoughts, emotions, and experiences, oftentimes our greatest gifts lie within the unconscious waiting to be reclaimed.
Symptoms as Messengers
Rather than attempting to fix or figure out our symptoms, we are curious about them as messengers from the depths of the unconscious. We honour them as autonomous, and by following their threads deeper, we can see more clearly their origins and inquire about what they are needing. This inquiry involves listening deeply to our symptom’s unique and autonomous expressions. When we move towards our symptoms with curiosity, they often reveal needs that our conscious mind would never have thought up. As we integrate unconscious content, the symptoms no longer need to be as loud to get our attention. Depth psychology aims not for a quick fix, but a long-standing transformation of consciousness. Rather than a band-aid approach, it involves powerful shifts, over time, towards a sense of wholeness and a more fulfilling and meaningful life.
Multiplicity of Psyche
Depth psychology views the psyche as a multiplicity. Though our conscious mind may like to believe that it is the only presence in the psyche, there are many archetypal presences that live within. These many within have, at best competing, at worst, totally opposing opinions, beliefs, and needs. Ever feel like you have multiple personalities? Well from a depth psychology perspective, in a way, you do. When we are not conscious of these multiple presences within, we are at risk of being possessed by them, acting out their wishes or believing their voices as ultimate truth, regardless if it is in our best interest or not. When we move towards them with consciousness, we have a choice whether or not to believe them or to act on their impulses. We can choose to become allies with some and protect ourselves from others.
Complexes
Jung considered complexes to be the royal road to the unconscious. When we are in the grips of a complex it can truly feel as though we are possessed. Rational willpower alone cannot help us to evade being swept up by obsessive thinking and hyper-charged emotion. We know a complex has us when we experience reactivity, compulsion, and seemingly infinite thought loops.
The vulnerable parts and wounds that we carry within lie at the centre of our complexes and are protected by a defensive system, when activated our defences show up in our everyday lives in our symptoms, including critical or shaming narratives towards ourselves, projections onto others, or both.
Depth psychology works to not only shine the light of consciousness on complexes but to soften their defences and work with the vulnerable parts of self at their core. For more on complexes check out my blog Demystifying Personal Complexes.
Tools of transformation
If you have made it this far, firstly, congratulations! Thank you for staying with me. You may be thinking, well all this theory is well and good, but how does one work within the unconscious? Here are a few tangible methods that can be used to explore the depths.
Curiosity through dialogue
Rather than trying to figure out, fix, or eradicate symptoms, we are curious about what the message in the symptom is, and what is it needing from us? This involves seeing through or looking behind the symptom. All symptoms arise as messengers from the unconscious. This curiosity can unfold through dialogue within the therapeutic relationship.
Curiosity through journaling and other creative practice
Automatic writing, the act of allowing words to flow through the pen, can glean access to unconscious material and parts of the psyche other than ego consciousness. Engaging with creative ways of being in general, whether that be painting, sculpting, cooking, meditating, daydreaming, dancing, gardening, or just letting the mind wander about freely allows access to unconscious content.
Practicing Dream Tending
Dreams are considered to be unfiltered contents of the unconscious. Dreams speak in symbol and metaphor and can contain a great deal of information that ego consciousness does not have access to.
We tend our dreams by writing them down, being curious about them, associating to them, and perhaps even working with them through active imagination and embodiment (see below). By doing this, we gain insight into the needs of the unconscious and actions that may need to be taken in our daily lives. Over time, we begin to notice patterns and themes in our dreams, and they can become a compass to which we can turn to navigate our decisions and facilitate transformation.
Engaging in Active Imagination
Active imagination is the conscious act of inviting in dream figures or images from the unconscious, honouring their autonomy, and interacting with them through dialogue, action, or observation. This can look like going into a meditative state, dropping into breath and body and softening ego consciousness to access non-rational ways of knowing. Unconscious contents can also be externalized, by imagining images and figures of the psyche with us in the room to be interacted with. In this way, we are bringing ego consciousness to parts of the psyche that lie in the unconscious and vice versa.
Cultivating Somatic Awareness
While ego consciousness can be considered to live in our heads, our bodies are the keepers of emotion and the unconscious. Building somatic awareness through identifying where emotions, dream figures, and images from active imagination are held in our bodies helps to uncover and cultivate non-rational ways of knowing. Embodiment facilitates a deeper connection to intuition, it can help cultivate a greater sense of safety and trust within ourselves. As we practice noticing how our body responds to certain topics or thoughts, we cultivate a felt sense of discernment to know if something feels true and safe to us. Somatic awareness gives us access to a homing system that can be far more efficient and accurate than trying to figure things out rationally.
Making our experience of the unconscious tangible
Bridging our insights from the unconscious into our daily lives is an important transformative element of working from a depth psychological lens. Can we bring images from the unconscious into our daily lives? Whether this is creating a tangible image through painting, drawing, or writing, or bridging what we encounter in the unconscious into daily life through our choices and decisions, we need to have a bridge for integration. Action through the choices and decisions we make each day from our inner compass helps build trust and a connection to the psyche. When we turn towards the psyche, the psyche turns toward us.
So there you have it, a very brief overview of some of the main aspects of depth psychology. Clear as mud right? I have found that the more I learn about depth psychology, the less I know. These concepts are not meant to be easily digested by the rational mind, however, If rational thinking alone were the answer to our suffering, we would have figured it out a long time ago. Non-rational symptoms need to be met from a non-rational place. Depth psychology recognizes this. Its concepts can be hard for the rational mind to understand because they come from a place of honouring the whole psyche, including the vast ocean of the unconscious.
Depth psychology places Psyche back in Psychology, engaging in depth-oriented therapy can be considered soul-tending.
The word psyche has roots in the Greek word psykhe meaning soul, When we are curious about and listen deeply to our inner world, when we make space for creativity, non-rational ways of knowing, dreams, when we inhabit our bodies, participate in ritual, when we act in service to what is wanting to come through us, these are all acts of soul-tending. Depth psychology recognizes more than ego consciousness, it acknowledges and trusts that psyche knows what it needs to heal. Because each of us who seek depth-oriented therapy is different, each person’s experience may be different according to our own psychic needs. By becoming conscious of the multiplicity that lives within, we can choose to act on what is true to us, leading to a more authentic life, a life with greater purpose, dignity, and meaning.
Resources:
For further information on depth psychology and a list of evidence-based research for depth psychology: https://www.pacifica.edu/about-pacifica/what-is-depth-psychology/
Link to Youtube video What is Depth Psychology by Share Ideas: https://youtu.be/SJ6ZHAJ9NE8
