The relationship between Freud, Jung and Sabina Spielrein portrayed in the film “A Dangerous Method” provides great insights into effective individual therapy and the psychological impact of major life transitions.  But, both in the media and in the film, these insights are often eclipsed behind the drama of the relationship between Spielrein and Jung.

The film faces a big challenge to convey the nature of the break between Jung and his older mentor/colleague Freud, together with the relationship with Spielrein, a brilliant, forceful and complex personality in her own right.  The film also seeks to convey the immense struggles and conflicts undergone by Jung at this time.

In my next two blog posts, I want to look briefly at 4 major insights into individual therapy and major life transitions portrayed by “A Dangerous Method”.

1.  The Power of Acceptance and Listening

Spielrein came to the Burgholzli, where Jung was a psychiatrist, in grave crisis.   As the film portrays, she may not have been psychotic, but she wasn’t far off.  In using Freud’s novel “talking cure”, Jung took Spielrein seriously as an individual person and engaged with her in a very accepting and affirming way, even affirming her desire to be a medical doctor.  Whatever the weaknesses of Freud’s method, one key aspect of “the talking cure”, embodied in Jung’s deep acceptance of Spielrein – listening, engaging her and entering into her experience — had a profoundly positive effect on her life.  This is essential in good individual therapy to this day.

2.  Even Brilliant People Hit Impasses During Major Life Transitions

This movie is set prior to the beginning of the single greatest crisis in Jung’s life.  This took place in 1913 – 1918.  Looking forward, we know that he will emerge from this time transformed, and with his own developed psychology.  However, just at the time of this movie, Jung is really struggling.  It is characteristic of major life transitions, and especially those that come near midlife, that they can make incredible demands on people, and can often only be resolved by a fundamental change in outlook, and encounter with the hitherto undiscovered parts of the self.

This is not pathology. People with real difficulties at these points in life are not mentally ill.  These are the kinds of challenges that people — even brilliant, very successful people — often experience at times of major life transition.

In Part 2 of this post, I’ll look at insights from the film pertaining to growth, depression and individuality.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst | Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario 1-905-337-3946

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PHOTOS: ©  All rights reserved Sony Pictures Classics 2011

© 2011 Brian Collinson 2238 Constance Drive, Oakville, ON (near Mississauga)

...but... am I doing enough?...

It’s actually painful to be an overly driven person, as both Jungian therapy and therapy for anxiety in general recognize.  When we allow ourselves to get caught in this way, we run a great risk of chronically devaluing our inner life, and our true worth.

The overly driven person :

1. Never Relaxes or Feels Secure

The overly driven person can’t afford to lower his or her level of alertness, or level of effort, for fear of being overtaken or overcome.  She lives by the old sports maxim: ”You’re Only as Good as Your Last Game”.

For the overly driven person links self-worth and specific achievements.  Now, Jungian therapy would acknowledge that we should have particular achievements of which we are proud.  But if our sense of identity is built around socially recognized achievements, then we are on very shaky ground.

2.  Fears Chaos; Continually Struggles to Maintain Control

Often the driven person strives to fend off their greatest fear: the collapse of a situation into chaos.  Often that fear is rooted in experiences of chaos in their past at some point, or in a fear of chaos inherited from the family of origin.  Therapy for anxiety knows that the response to this threat is to strive for greater control — of others, of ourselves, of the environment.

3.  Thinks in Absolutes

In Steve Jobs’ biography, I was struck by the fact that he had only two attitudes to the work of others.  He would either say “This is excellent! Amazing!”, or else he would say, “This is s–t!”.  Excrement or excellence: no in-between.  Overly driven people are often locked into perfectionism in their demands and expectations of themselves and others.  So if a thing isn’t perfect, then it’s a complete miss and worthless.

4.  Pushed by Unconscious Factors

Jungian therapy would emphasize the unconscious forces at work in the overly driven person.  They may be rooted in past traumatic experience, past emotional dynamics in the family of origin, or overidentification with an archetype.  Often, if a person is to gain freedom from  driven-ness, she must become more conscious of what’s doing the driving.  Therapy for anxiety includes healing around basic issues of self acceptance, satisfaction in what has been accomplished, and security.

 ”Is It Ever Gonna Be Enough?“…  Metric – Gold Guns Girls

Often depth psychotherapy can assist greatly in untangling the knot of drivenness.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst | Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario 1-905-337-3946

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PHOTOS: ©  All rights reserved by ray_wilson_jr

VIDEO: © “Gold Guns Girls”  ©  2009 Metric

© 2011 Brian Collinson 2238 Constance Drive, Oakville, ON (near Mississauga)

For Jungian therapy a key focus in divorce counselling is to look at what is trying to emerge in the life of the individual as relationship ends.  But before that aspect of Jungian therapy can begin, there is often important, although difficult, work to be done in the ashes and shards of the dying relationship.

Anger

Of all the emotions experienced at the end of a relationship, variants of anger and rage are among the most potent.  Whether directed at the spouse, a third party or some circumstance involved in the demise of the marriage, these emotions powerfully impact the individual as he or she is trying to find a way through and beyond the end of the relationship.  Unless acknowledged and experienced, they can continue to control the individual and cloud judgment indefinitely.

Grief & Sorrow

Grief and sorrow are almost always associated with divorce counselling, at least as practiced in a Jungian therapy context.   For men in particular, it may be much more difficult to get in touch with these feelings than with feelings of anger and rage.  Also, one of the paradoxes of this emotional passage is that one may even feel a sense of gladness or relief at the end of a relationship — and simultaneously feel a sense of grief at the loss of this part of one’s feeling life, and of the hopes that go with it.

Guilt & Shadow

We also find ourselves in the grip of feelings of guilt and regret over our actions at the time of divorce.  As I look at my own role in the decay and eventual death of the relationship, I inevitably come up against shadow – those parts of myself that I cannot or will not acknowledge.  To confront our own role in the failure of a relationship can be a very difficult thing, but it may contribute immensely to self knowledge and personal growth.

Fixation

There is a danger of being caught or fixated by divorce, never getting over it, or through it.  We’ve probably all met people who are stuck here.  Often this occurs when there are feelings of betrayal, or in situations where the relationship to children is lost.  It can also be associated with an undying need to be right, and my inability to acknowledge the difficult-to-acknowledge shadow parts of myself.

Susanna – Don’t Come Around Here No More

Please watch for part 2 of this series on divorce, “Renewal” — coming soon.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst | Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario 1-905-337-3946

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