Helping to navigate your journey.
What is Jungian Analysis?
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Analysis is a form of therapy, sometimes called depth therapy or depth psychology. It’s called “depth” because, rather than focusing mostly on relieving symptoms or solving immediate problems, analysis turns toward the longer-term and more ingrained patterns, repetitive conflicts, and possibilities that shape a person’s life.
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The idea of the unconscious may sound intimidating, but all it really means is that there is a lot more going on within us at any one time than we are consciously aware of.
Understanding a situation is key to knowing what to do about it, and so at its heart, analysis is a process of self-understanding. When we understand ourselves better, and have better relationships with ourselves, we often find that the problems that used to trouble us pass away, or no longer come up anymore.
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Many people come to analysis because of mental or emotional pain, confusion, or repeating difficulties. But just as often, people seek analysis when they sense there is more to themselves—a wider range of feeling, creativity, or meaning—that they want to access.
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How does analysis work?
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Analysis unfolds in conversation, led by the patient. Patient and analyst meet regularly, and together they follow the thread of whatever seems to be important to discuss that day—an experience, a memory, a plan, a dream—anything, essentially. Often things that first appear unimportant or disconnected can, over time, reveal patterns and truths that have been shaping our experiences of life.
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The analyst does not stand outside the process as a distant expert. Instead, the relationship itself can become an essential part of the work. We all have patterns of relating to others, and these patterns tend to show up in the analytic relationship as well. This is helpful, because analysis is a setting where these patterns can be worked with, understood and, eventually, lived differently.
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The training of an analyst
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Analysts are trained in a way that sets this work apart from many other therapies. Becoming an analyst requires many years of supervised clinical practice, along with sustained analysis of one’s own inner life. Over the course of training, analysts undertake hundreds of hours of both supervision and personal analysis. This allows the analyst not only to understand theory, but also to recognize and work with unconscious processes as they emerge in the therapeutic process.
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Who is analysis for?
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Analysis can be valuable for anyone who wants to engage deeply with themselves, to understand the sources of their struggles, or to discover what feels blocked, missing, or unexpressed. Some enter analysis when other therapies have felt too short-term or too narrowly focused. Others come because they sense the unconscious has something important to say, and they want help listening.
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What can be expected?
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Analysis tends to be a longer-term commitment than many other therapies. Change is not always quick, but it can be lasting. By creating a space where unconscious material is welcomed—whether it comes through dreams, unexpected feelings, or anything else—analysis opens the possibility of transformation that is not just about managing symptoms, but about living in fuller alignment with oneself.
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Further reading
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If you’re interested in the efficacy and relevancy of this approach, here are some places to start. Evidence shows that changes made through this kind of therapy are often superior and longer lasting than other forms of psychotherapy:
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