What is Jungian therapy, also known as depth psychology?

A complete answer would require a few hundred pages and the best way to understand it is to do it in practice – just like yoga. But I will try to summarize it here in a simplified way.

In Jungian therapy, we seek to understand the mind, body, spirit and human psyche in a holistic way , seeking to facilitate the process of individuation of the person being analyzed, that is, the integration of the various aspects of the personality. We seek the causes of suffering and mental agitation, we go to the roots of emotional problems, working with complexes, projections, shadows, archetypes through the analysis of the symbolism of dreams, drawings, myths, stories, art, etc.

In short, complexes are groups of memories, emotions, and perceptions (traumas come into play here); projection is when we see something in someone else that is actually ours (for example, when we get angry with someone and that anger won't go away); shadows are aspects of our personality that are hidden or repressed; archetypes are universal patterns of human behavior and experiences (for example, the archetype of the Mother who nurtures, protects, and loves unconditionally). All of this is stored in our personal unconscious, that is, they are aspects of ourselves that we are unaware of but that are part of our personality.

Our dreams, in the view of analytical psychology, are messages from the unconscious to help us process the emotions of the day and to facilitate our process of individuation. Through dream analysis, we know the path to follow, as they guide us towards our meaning in life, towards our mission.

“We can say that dreams are letters that the Self writes to us each night, telling us to do a little more of this, a little more of that, to go this way or that. Looking at life as a whole, we see that there is a pattern, as if the Self had a plan for us, a kind of destiny.”

Marie-Louise von Franz

In: “The Path of Dreams”, Cultrix Publishing, 1988.