Depth Psychology Therapy Flashcards
Depth Psychology Therapy
Theory of Change
Change occurs through exploring and integrating material from both unconscious and conscious levels of understanding. Unconscious processes include dreams,
images, symptoms, intuitions and other non-volitional experiences.
Depth Psychology Therapy
Role of the Therapist
• Client and therapist form a critical alliance, which invites client into exploration of connections and meanings that are below the surface of conscious awareness and engages the transpersonal, mysterious space between therapist and client.
Depth Psychology Therapy
Treatment Goals
• Increase self-awareness and inner wisdom.
• Integration of repressed experiences and
shadow material.
• The goal is often referred to as
individuation: a process that fosters self-awareness through inner and outer exploration of the unconscious, the individual and the wider community. By which one discovers a more potent sense of meaning and purpose in life
Depth Psychology Therapy - Key Concepts
Collective Unconscious
Archetypes
• “Depth” refers to a way of seeing that which lives underneath the cultural, historical, spiritual, psychological manifestations of human experience.
• Recognizes the “collective unconscious” which is passed down through generations and is shared by all people. Could be described as a universal
library of human knowledge often represented by “archetypes” or basic patterns of human behavior and situations that seem to be common amongst all people. Such as: the hero, the mother, the father, the orphan, the explorer etc.
Depth Psychology Therapy - Key Concepts
Active Imagination
•Active Imagination is an intervention used to amplify, interpret and integrate the unconscious and includes working with dreams and the creative self via
imagination, images etc. Active imagination relies on a client’s undirected observation of their imagination or dreams, allowing the images or dreams to speak for themselves as much as possible without overbearing influence from the conscious mind.
Depth Psychology Therapy - Key Concepts
Psyche and Soul
•Psyche and Soul are widely used terms in Depth Psychology. The soul is the dimension of the person that makes meaning possible, turns events into
experiences and deepens the human experience.
Therefore, Depth Psychology attunes itself to the way psyche reveals itself.
Depth Psychology Therapy - Key Concepts
Mythology
•Mythology: Personal symptoms, conflicts, and stucknesses contain a mythic or transpersonal/archetypal core that when interpreted can reintroduce the client to the
meaning of his struggles (e.g., the pain of leaving home can be reimagined as the ageless adventure of the wanderer setting out into the unknown).
Depth Psychology Therapy - Phases of Treatment
Beginning
Invitation and exploration of material the client brings to therapy, including relational situations, dreams, experience, imaginings etc.
Depth Psychology Therapy
Middle
Placing client experience into a mytho-poetic lens, looking at images, myth, story, imagination and archetypal patterns within the conscious and unconscious happenings of the clients life. Looking for meaning by orienting one’s experience into the greater
human story.
Depth Psychology Therapy
End
Integration of unconscious material often marked by acceptance of taboo subjects and previously discarded aspects of the personality. Acknowledgement
of self-awareness and inner wisdom.
