Jung's general ideas on therapy seem especially appropriate today in light of so many forms being available. Whether or not many are based on hit-or-miss assumption is unclear, as what is presented as deduction is often selectively pre-arranged to reiterate the premise. Aristotle introduced the idea of a "petitio principii" in 350 B. C.; but philosophical sophistries aside, there are other factors to be considered. Jung wrote in The Practice of Psychotherapy:

"Each of them rests on special psychological assumptions and produces special psychological results; comparison between them is difficult and often well-nigh impossible... Objective appraisal of the facts shows... that each of these methods is justified up to a point, since each can boast not only of certain successes but of psychological data that largely prove its particular assumption."

But, consciousness is a partial complex; relative to inner conditions. Without a concept of unconscious psychic functioning, processes outside it can only be seen as physiological. Hazy notions of "drives" and "reflexes" euphemize the instinctual psyche, and the projection of subjective ideas onto objective data results in logical contradictions:

"Thus we are faced... with a situation comparable with that in modern physics... where there are two contradictory theories of light... Contradictions in a department of science merely indicate that its subject can be grasped only by means of antinomies -- witness the wave theory and the corpuscular theory of light. Now the psyche is infinitely more complicated than light; hence a great number of antinomies are required to describe the nature of the psyche satisfactorily. One of the fundamental antinomies is... psyche depends on body and body depends on psyche. There are clear proofs for both sides of this antinomy, so that an objective judgment cannot give more weight to thesis or antithesis...

"The existence of valid contradictions shows that the object of investigation presents the inquiring mind with exceptional difficulties, as a result of which only relatively valid statements may be made... the statement is valid only in so far as it indicates what kind of psychic system we are investigating."

That two psychic systems co-exist in the human head should be apparent to anyone who's ever looked inside his own -- a mystery which is profoundly expressed in dreams. It's a vast and fluctuating continuum of body/mind that Jung showed to be scientifically uncertain territory; where the precision of the concept must replace direct measurement:

"Since the individuality of the psychic system is infinitely variable, there must be an infinite variety of relatively valid statements. But if individuality were absolute... if one individual were totally different from every other individual, then psychology would be impossible as a science, for it would consist in an insoluble chaos of subjective opinions. Individuality, however, is only relative, the complement of human conformity or likeness, and therefore it is possible to make statements of general validity, i. e., scientific statements. These statements relate only to those parts of the psychic system which do in fact conform, i. e., are amenable to comparison and statistically measurable; they do not relate to that part of the system which is individual and unique. The second fundamental antinomy in psychology therefore runs: the individual signifies nothing in comparison with the universal, and the universal signifies nothing in comparison with the individual."

Here lies the inconsistency in those methods founded on averages and statistics: where the individual coincides with the universal can't be assumed any more than where body becomes mind. How does therapy proceed from such logical contradictions?

"When, as a psychotherapist, I set myself up as a medical authority over my patient and on that account claim to know something about his individuality, or to be able to make valid statements about it, I am only demonstrating my lack of criticism, for I am in no position to judge the whole of the personality before me. I cannot say anything valid about him except in so far as he approximates to the "universal man." But since all life is to be found only in individual form, and I myself can assert of another individuality only what I find in my own, then I am in constant danger either of doing violence to the other person or of succumbing to his influence." 

Considering some therapies today, the danger is more for the patient than the therapist: "If I wish to treat another individual psychologically at all, I must for better or worse give up all pretensions to superior knowledge, all authority and desire to influence. I must perforce adopt a dialectical procedure consisting in a comparison of our mutual findings. But this becomes possible only if I give the other person a chance to play his hand to the full, unhampered by my assumptions. In this way his system is geared to mine and acts upon it; my reaction is the only thing with which I as an individual can legitimately confront my patient."

Freudians, Behaviorists, and Eye Rotation therapists may want to leave off here: "Any deviation from this attitude amounts to therapy by suggestion... Suggestion therapy includes all methods that arrogate to themselves, and apply, a knowledge or an interpretation of other individualities. Equally it includes all strictly technical methods, because these invariably assume that all individuals are alike. To the extent that the insignificance of the individual is a truth, suggestive methods, technical procedures, and theorems in any shape or form are entirely capable of success and guarantee results with the universal man -- as for instance, Christian Science, mental healing, faith cures, remedial training, medical and religious techniques, and countless other isms. Even political movements can, not without justice, claim to be psychotherapy in the grand manner."

Jung's method is a way of asking the questions we need to ask to arrive at a discourse with ourselves. Those who already have answers have no reason to ask questions. It's a symbolic process that begins with self-reflection.

Culture has changed in the last fifty years as in no comparable period in history. The religious perspective of the last century, indeed centuries, is quickly losing relevance for an increasingly material viewpoint. Media technology now serves and promotes a commercial thing-orientation as calculated and contrived as it is self-serving -- and self-alienating.

Beneath the changing viewpoints lies a major shift in cultural values (in case you haven't noticed). The social networking craze is only one small example of how unconscious effects turn conscious desires into their opposites. Though electronic devices bring the world to our fingertips, they alienate as much as they connect.

(I watched a young couple in a restaurant on Valentine's Day spend most of the meal texting. Whether they ate or talked -- maybe a quarter of the time -- their phones were either in their hands or right next to their plates as ready as the silverware.)

The new technological reality is purely artificial: a commercial fantasy-world where relationships are secondary; emotions pre-packed, pictured, profiled, and projected. But, the partial focus required for its manipulation is an unconscious recipe for disaster. Few concede any personal contribution to it; but multiply it by several billion, and it's easy to see how half the world's animal species have disappeared since the 1970's -- of those still extant at that time.

The critical thinking which once threatened Church control need no longer be suppressed; merely diverted by subliminal ego-appeal -- or simply ignored. A pre-arranged conformity curried to exploit mass consumers is the new norm. A compulsive herding process now begins to replace the values which have taken eons of human sacrifice to evolve. That's not just personal judgment. The individual struggle for consciousness which has historically directed human evolution is quickly becoming the caricature of a manufactured individualism as collective as it is self-centered.

Jung showed empirically how human behavior is rooted in instinct -- natural functions designed for a natural world. 'Instinct' and 'compulsion' are perceived only negatively -- who accepts the idea of being subject to natural laws? Though conscious reality is no less real than its 'objective' counterpart, because the first is subject to the latter, conflicts and contradictions occur when they come into opposition.

Any intense interest has a compulsive (instinctual) character. Though its end-effects are as much creative as destructive, our ideas of compulsion are mostly negative descriptions of the mysteries of psychic life beyond our understanding. And if you don't think our behavior is beyond our understanding, you don't keep up with world events.

Jung explained compulsive behavior as psychic functions lacking the form and purpose for which nature intended them. When, for instance, the energy specific to symbolic understanding is too literally conceived, an unconscious opposition can give the loftiest ideal a destructive character. Only the symbol can direct the energy of opposed impulses toward a unified flow. Jung:

"... the symbol presupposes a function that creates symbols, and in addition a function that understands them. This latter function takes no part in the creation of the symbol, it is a function in its own right, which one could call symbolic thinking or symbolic understanding. The essence of the symbol consists in the fact that it represents in itself something that is not wholly understandable, and that it hints only intuitively at its possible meaning. The creation of the symbol is not a rational process, for a rational process could never produce an image that represents a content which is at bottom incomprehensible."

This is the religious instinct: a vital function of  value and relationship specific to our natures. It's the first clue of the symbolic side of our commercial, social obsessions. The collective over-valuation of literal fact and the aversion to symbolic needs is balanced by an increasing egotism: the exaggerated effects of a decline in inner value which only deepens unconscious opposition.  Jung:

"... to settle the conflict, it must be grounded on an intermediate state or process, which shall give it a content that is neither too near nor too far from either side... this must be a symbolic content, since the mediating position between the opposites can be reached only by the symbol. The reality presupposed by one instinct is different from the reality of the other... This dual character of real and unreal is inherent in the symbol. If it were only real, it would not be a symbol... Only that can be symbolic which embraces both.

"The rational functions are, by their very nature, incapable of creating symbols, since they produce only rationalities whose meaning is determined unilaterally and does not at the same time embrace its opposite. The sensuous functions are equally unfitted to create symbols, because their products too are determined unilaterally by the object and contain only themselves and not their opposites. To discover, therefore, that impartial basis for the will, we must appeal to another authority, where the opposites are not yet clearly separated but still preserve their original unity.

"It would... be pointless to call upon consciousness to decide the conflict between the instincts.  A conscious decision would be quite arbitrary, and could never supply the will with a symbolic content that alone can produce an irrational solution to a logical antithesis.

"... Thus, besides the will, which is entirely dependent on its content, man has a further auxiliary in the unconscious, that maternal womb of creative fantasy, which is able at any time to fashion symbols in the natural process of elementary psychic activity, symbols that can serve to determine the mediating will."

For more on the analogical thinking which would re-establish a sense of inner value, continue reading or visit Amazon.

By the year 2050, it was beginning to dawn on humanity that it had a deeper working knowledge of outer space than its own inner nature. The uncertainty attending the shift in perspective produced strange effects within a generation. A crippling stasis gripped cultures world-wide. Medication therapies no longer allayed symptoms which had steadily ballooned over a century.

Irrational obsessions and compulsive urges of the weirdest subjective varieties were pandemic, threatening the very fabric of human relations. The sovereign sanctuaries of home and neighborhood transformed into violent hot-boxes of emotional projection seemingly overnight. Ongoing armed conflicts dotted the world map.

Disaffected loners and accumulations of like-minded tribal personalities choked law enforcement, fueling its own guarded paranoia. Entire governments were insolubly locked in petty dispute. Divorce statistics soared with birth rates, even as traditional marriages plummeted and same-sex partnerships splurged. The heavy burdens of civilization called psychiatry to task. 

The year: 2070. We join Capt. Abnorm Drowze aboard the Starship Innerguise, deep in inner-galactic space. The crew's mission: to locate the most elusive and mysterious form of matter ever conceived. Psychiatry wouldn't survive without it; indeed, life as mankind had hitherto known it now appeared so irrational that half its world was estimated as unassimilable by reason.

Science called it "the God factor," and it would furnish the first truly objective reference point for human nature. The neurosciences knew it involved chemical interactions in the brain; they could see them light up on the scans. But, psychiatry needed something more tangible than an electronic game-show to confirm it. It would go in search of the mysterious substance and justify body-psychology once and for all... 

The elusive "God-tissue in the fabric of matter" was a promising theory in the early 21st century -- psychiatry flourished. Later studies, however, attributed its short-lived success to scientific credulity and the stiff resistance to self-examination. Its apparent objectivity, they avowed, only contributed to a global epidemic of pathological symptoms such as humanity had never seen -- except in the general relations which constituted its entire history. The old gene-structure no longer immunized against these new mutations of discontent. Could psychiatry redeem itself?

This fifth incursion into the subjective mind by the APA-backed interest-group, Diagnostics and Social Mediocrity, was heralded by an incredible virtual reality trip through the brain in which the team of explorers "lived" its inner workings first-hand with the aid of computer game programs. Microscopic technology was now able to shrink thought to minute proportions; to experience brain-biology in its most elemental form. 

"Shrinks Shrink Thought!" the Washington Compost headlined. The virtual program was given the moniker, Starship Innerguise, and Dr. Drowze was the first choice to helm the ambitious project. "Once we identify it, we'll know a lot more." he assured at the press conference amid great fan-fare.

The "Dream Team" sailed comfortably through the cortex and frontal lobe but experienced turbulence in the parietal lobe. The ship was tossed rhythmically, frightening the crew. Once into the cerebellum, they came under direct attack by "androgynes". Capt. Drowze ordered deployment of the ship's deflective shield. "The eerie figures changed shape at will and flew at us without let." he relayed once they'd re-established communications with the cortex. "It was crazy!"

The deflective shield bounced the team back into the frontal lobe just in time to dodge the disintegrating effects of the intense emotional images. Hostile neurons fired into the craft like missiles. The control room had meantime piled up with print-out data-sheets, and the crew had difficulty maneuvering around the great heaps of information. "Rational assessment became a liability." Capt. Drowze later adjudged. The world waited expectorantly as the team dared the limits of human experience.

Tech-Dr. Norm L. Persons was manning the deflective shield when the team lost its way. "I couldn't describe it. The data-sheets showed equilibrium, but the ship was in complete chaos." Some suffered schizophrenic reactions before the shield was activated. Even a few minutes under such pressurized conditions can shatter the ego, leaving it porous and vulnerable to psychotic influences.

The official investigation concluded that the team was not sufficiently prepared emotionally, and the dangerous images quickly subverted their aims when they strayed into the cerebellum. "It was like it was just waiting for us." said one crew-member. "Even Capt. Drowze's emergency self-medication kits wouldn't make it go away."

When the team was deluged by the unsavory wraiths, it took the decisive reality function of Capt. Drowze to bring it back to focus. "Dammit, man! Activate the shield! We're looking for a real thing!" He later described the tense moment: "Look, all I knew was, we were looking for a real, concrete object and those androgynes were determined to stop us. We needed to get out of there -- and fast! The direct experience of psychotic processes does things to one. If not treated immediately with a stringent regimen of medication therapy buttressed by concrete concepts, it can have mind-bending consequences."

The rest of the team remains quarantined in the laboratory, undergoing the de-sensitization process which has become a practical reality-gauge for science in recent decades. Capt. Drowze remains unshaken by the daunting experience, though he did admit that "it had a somewhat harrowing effect vis-a-vis current psychiatric theory."

Once out of quarantine, the team is expected to resume normal activities, though members will be closely monitored and tested every six months to "make sure whatever that thing was in there doesn't metastasize." Radiation therapy has been proposed should behavioral complications arise.

While a thorough projection of the data is years away, preliminary signals are that much has already been learned. A digital photon enhancer translated electro-chemical reactions in the cerebellum into photographs which were then collated to simulate the images experienced by the crew during their ordeal in that distant netherworld. The team was so traumatized that no one, not even Dr. Drowze, was able to retrieve memories of the event. Was it a dream? They relied on the pictures to reveal what had gone on in there.

"We saw something in those pictures --" Dr. Drowze pondered, "something we'd never seen before. It appeared real to all of us, though we can't be sure at this point." He seemed doubtful that even Eye Rotation Therapy would abet them under such conditions. "This is not comorbid with anything we've seen in the cerebro-spinal system." He looked deeply pensive. "Someone has suggested that perhaps we saw God."

He admitted laughing at the hubris of it at first but has since reconsidered. "Whatever it was in those pictures definitely appeared to be carbon based. Whether or not it was God, only the data can tell us." He admitted he felt safe back in his office as he fondled the pictures beamed back from the cerebellum. "You know..." he mused, gazing at the worn photos, "the brain is a fascinating thing." He chuckled, "It does strange things to a man."

Step outside the science for a real journey into the unconscious.

This excerpt from A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious begins Part One following the Prologue:                                     

The mid-life transition begins with a confusing influx of unconscious...

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