Happy to be a Jungian

The proposed definition of a mental disorder being considered for the DSM-V (see below) provides a contrast between Jungian theory and a reductive approach to psychology. Jung viewed psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression to be the psyche's attempt toward re-balancing a one-sided stance toward life. He further taught that many psychiatric problems evolve from a person's unconscious attempt to avoid or sabotage the process of individuation.

The proposed DSM definition offers nothing which would help a clinician understand or treat a patient suffering psychological symptoms.

Makes me happy to be a Jungian.

A proposed revision for the definition of a mental disorder is being addressed by select members of the Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, Posttraumatic, and Dissociative Disorders Work Group, a member of the Mood Disorders Work Group, and additional individuals (see Stein DJ et al: What is a Mental/Psychiatric Disorders? From DSM-IV to DSM-V; Psychological Medicine, 2010; in press)
Features
A. A behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual

B. The consequences of which are clinically significant distress (e.g., a painful symptom) or disability (i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning)

C. Must not be merely an expectable response to common stressors and losses (for example, the loss of a loved one) or a culturally sanctioned response to a particular event (for example, trance states in religious rituals)

D. That reflects an underlying psychobiological dysfunction

E. That is not primarily a result of social deviance or conflicts with society

Happy to be a Jungian

Writing Fiction

On April 22, 2010, I will present a paper at the spring conference of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. Its title is "How Reading and Writing Fiction Helps Us Understand Ourselves and Our Patients." The ideas for this paper came from writing my novel Main Street Stories.

I will use some quotations from Robertson Davies and James Joyce. I plan to post the full paper after the conference.

Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart:

It is [through writing] that you are most in touch with what is of greatest value in yourself. The special quality is the product of the writer's access to those deeper layers of his mind that the depth psychologists call the Unconscious. The ability to invite the Unconscious, to solicit its assistance, to hear what it has to say and impart it in the language that is peculiarly his own, is decidedly his gift and what defines him as an artist. He is not fishing up things from the Unconscious to astonish readers but to tell them things that they recognize as soon as they hear them, but which they have not been able to seize and hold and put into language for themselves. It is a direct revelation of reality which leaves us enlarged and in possession of some new ground in the exploration of ourselves.

James Joyce, Ulysses:

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.

Writing Fiction