Behind Closed Doors

Patrick Burnett, Australian New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts (ANZSJA)

Patrick Burnett has been practising as an Analytical Psychologist in Bangalow, Northern Rivers, since 2003. He graduated from the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich in 1997. Patrick has been actively engaged in the ANZSJA training programme as a training analyst for 23 years. He has a particular interest in Eastern meditation practice and its intersection with psychotherapy and mental well-being. Patrick chaired the establishment committee for the ACPP and is a past secretary

To answer our focus questions, I want to begin with some historical material to contextualise some of the origins of my therapeutic outlook. I am conscious that some of you may know little about the Jungian and post-Jungian conceptual framework, so I hope this is useful.

Jung and Freud came together in 1906. At this point in Jung’s career, he was a new psychiatrist and researcher using a word association experiment. It was cutting-edge science for its day, and Jung put together a substantial body of research work, which he published internationally in 1904 (he also sent a paper to Sydney to be read at a conference). This work centred around Jung’s discovery of what he called unconscious feeling-toned complexes (or complexes, for short). A complex is an unconscious, affect-laden cluster of unconscious ideas, memories, desires, images, etc. These complexes have a degree of autonomy, influencing our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, often without conscious control. They are the root of all emotional dysregulation. Of course, this was very interesting for Freud because it demonstrated objective evidence for his view of the unconscious. 

 By 1906, Jung and Freud had begun a correspondence that lasted over the next seven years, during which Jung began a public advocacy of Freud and psychoanalysis. However, by 1909, their letters show that Jung was not totally convinced by Freud's theories. He writes to Freud arguing that, "if there is a 'psychoanalysis', there must be a 'psychosynthesis' which creates future events according to the same laws.”

I mention this bit of history because, in my view, complexes are a core element of the structure of the mind. Jung went on to describe the ego itself as a complex, with our bodily experiences of affect and the sensory input of our senses, leading to our sense of self and our conscious identity. I would add here that this then leads us to identify consciousness itself, with the “I” of our ego construct.

I regard the ego construction as emerging out of the intersection of physical, emotional, cultural, and social development from conception and on into adulthood and old age. It also includes its intersection with our genetic makeup.

So, with any client, I am immediately curious about their emotional experience of themselves and the shape of their emotional responses to the world and to the people with whom they are connected (both in their life and their life history). I think curiosity is an essential ingredient for successful psychotherapy, both for the therapist and the client.

I mentioned earlier that complexes have a degree of autonomy and are outside our ego control. It is this autonomy that makes them difficult for us. Their internal, unconscious narratives and their affective core can and do intrude on our lives in significant ways. For example, a minor criticism or a clash with a friend or partner can plunge one into states of anxiety or depression with an accompanying narrative of shame, worthlessness and self-hatred.

My goal in working with complexes is not to eliminate them (or cure my clients) because complexes are ultimately, probably neural networks and are not able to be eliminated. Some research conducted by an ANZSJA colleague, with whom I was peripherally connected, conducted word association experiments in an FMRI machine. The results suggested that the part of the brain that was activated represented some form of an internal otherness; we could conceptualize this as a sub-personality. 

So, my goal is for my clients to become aware of their complexes and to integrate them into consciousness so that their dysregulation is limited in its impact or short-lived. Of course, this takes time and patience, but eventually leads to greater self-understanding and emotional regulation. 

So, how do I do this work? Let me briefly return to Freud and Jung the two titans of Depth Psychology. They eventually separated in 1914, ultimately over how they defined libido. Freud was unhappy with Jung's rejection of the primacy of infantile sexuality. Jung had vigorously defended psychoanalysis for almost a decade but never agreed with the primacy of the Oedipus Complex. Jung believed that there was a plethora of other potential complexes that made up the unconscious. Interestingly, after the break, Jung nearly named his psychology, Complex Psychology; instead, opting for Analytical Psychology.

For me, this bit of history is important for how I work. By 1917, Jung had written his first works on his newly named Analytical Psychology. He stated that he thought that psychotherapy was more art than science and that he regards libido as a neutral form of psychic energy. This built the foundation of Jung’s metapsychology on the notion that the unconscious is not only repressed wishes but that it also holds the potential for future aspects of the personality. I would also suggest that this includes the development of consciousness itself; that the ego can grow with the integration of unconscious contents. This is what Jungians call the Prospective Function of the Unconscious.

So, for me (and most Jungians, I suspect) the Ego complex and our sense of “I” ness is a lifelong emergent, developmental process, called the Individuation Process. This process is a constant creative dynamic between our ego consciousness and the emerging derivatives of the unconscious. From this nexus, meaning and consciousness itself emerge. The goal of the process of individuation is a lifelong pathway to self-knowledge and wholeness of the personality. It includes even the darker elements of the unconscious via the integration of the complexes. 

Thus, for me, psychotherapy is the facilitation of the individuation process. This is an inherently creative process. However, it also can mean confronting painful and potentially destructive forces within the unconscious. The unconscious produces derivatives of varying degrees of accessibility. These could include: thoughts, dreams, fantasies, projections, emotions, creative expression and ideas, symptoms, play, associations, preferences, relational styles, etc. Importantly, for my work, I would also mention my countertransferences, as I regard these as the building blocks of psychotherapeutic work in the production of meaning and understanding. More on this a little later.

The tensions between the ego and emerging unconscious elements, coupled with other autonomous feeling-toned complexes, are what bring people into psychotherapy. Their individuation process has stalled or stagnated due to unintegrated unconscious material. So, I am always curious about “why is this person seeking psychotherapy right now”? “How might this be relevant to their whole lifespan development?” Most importantly, “What childhood developmental gaps or trauma might have brought this person to me today?” 

I mentioned earlier, the Prospective Function of the Unconscious as being an inherently creative process. For me, the nature of this creative process centres around Jung's notion of the symbolic nature of the derivatives of the unconscious. At any given moment, we are that which emerges out of our mind. 

Jungians regard a symbol as the mind's representation of something essentially unknown. It is the best possible expression for something that cannot be articulated in any other clearer or more adequate way, at the time of its emergence. Rationally, it may seem vague or unknown, but the meaning transcends rational conscious understanding. It emerges spontaneously and is unique to the individual. A dream might be useful to explain this. Working with dreams is an important part of my work. 

A man in his early 50s dreamt: I am at work in another office area. Someone else has my Freshfields pen. He is saying it is his, but I think it is mine.

Associations to dream images are necessary to understand the symbols that arise in dreams. My client associated “Freshfields” with a workshop he had organised, in a building named “Freshfields” (he actually had a Freshfields pen in his hand as he told me the dream). In conversation before the workshop, the American owner of the building explained that at the end of slavery in the USA, landowners were paid compensation for the loss of their slaves. My client thought that this should have been the other way around. He was disturbed by what he heard and thought it was unjust.

Much of the work with my client centred around him being trapped in a childhood family complex. This took the form of him taking up the role of striving to be recognised and was accompanied with his feeling of not being good enough. The dream had emerged directly out of our discussion of his work struggles, where he feels he must do more and more, and his feelings of guilt that arise if he is not constantly striving for perfection. He is enslaved to his family history and his complex. We discussed that if he were able to pull back from his perfectionist attitude, there may be positive compensations. He might have less anxiety and guilt and not feel exhausted and depressed at the end of the work week. We discussed how the dispute with the dream colleague was symbolic of his internal struggle with his perfectionism and constant stress at work. To take ownership of the Freshfields pen represented the psychological compensations available to him if he gave up being a slave to his perfectionism. It was still a notion that disturbed him, hence, his struggle to take back the pen.

The structural development of the ego complex that I mentioned earlier, takes place in a social and cultural milieu. The most important of these is the family emotional matrix, in particular, infant development. It is through Psychoanalysis and post-Jungian work that I have developed my outlook in this area. I particularly like the work of Allan Schore. I regard the infant brain development and its symbolic ramifications as a stylistic template for all future relationships. It represents the building blocks of relationship capacity, emotional stability, relationship style, creativity, and the ability to be spontaneous and playful, and so much more. 

Accordingly, I am curious about the early history of my clients. What do they know about their birth process, their infancy, their mother and father at the time of the birth, and their early years as a couple? What do they remember about their early childhood and school years, teenage years, etc? During these explorations, I am curious about the emotions that arise or that are absent from the narrative. Of course, managing one’s complexes is part of the daily life for people who are in therapy. Accordingly, much discussion takes place about what events trigger afflictive, dysregulating emotions and how these might relate to earlier discussions we might have had around infancy and childhood. And vice versa: Are there childhood feelings that might point to adult emotional struggles, particularly around relationships? In these discussions, we build up a symbolic story that starts to fill in the gaps of their individuation narrative.  

I mentioned earlier that I regarded countertransference as a derivative of my client's unconscious. But, in the case of countertransference, the derivative arises from my unconscious, out of what I regard as a co-created process.  I have to decide whether the experience I am having is a communication from my client or a symbolic emergence from my unconscious processes. Then, I have to decide what I will do with it. Allan Schore discusses the fMRI evidence around right brain to right brain synchronization in his book, Right Brain Psychotherapy.

Let me give an example: a woman in her late forties had been working with me for several years. Our work revolved around difficulties in relationships, both within her family and outside it. In our discussions about her early childhood and adult relationships, we had many emotional moments emerging from the narratives. In one particularly intense discussion, I had an image spontaneously emerge in my mind of an infant locked away in one side of her family home. On the other side of the house, in a living area, was a young girl with others, behaving very animatedly and gregariously, as if trying to gain the attention of those present. I shared the image and explained that I thought the image might be symbolically expressing the anxious and depressive elements of her personality. The image became an important part of our therapy language. We went on to use this image, again and again, over the years of our work together. We discussed the image as two sides of her personality. One side was anxious with people but covered this up with animated and gregarious behaviour. The other side was depressive, and at times wanted to withdraw from the world and symbolically take to her bed and pull the doona over her head. 

Interestingly, a year after the image emerged, her mother confirmed that she had been clock-fed as an infant and that she had, indeed, often been left in her room to cry herself to sleep.  

My client recently underwent two MDMA immersion sessions that I had nothing to do with. During these experiences, she had a vision of a baby. In her first immersion, she was unsure whether the baby was alive or dead and turned away from it. In the second immersion, she was able to enter a house where she knew the baby was present. It was in a lifeless, grey room. My client was able to not turn away from the infant but instead picked up the baby and took it out into the sunshine where she held it intimately for a considerable time.

To finish, I want to talk briefly about dream work. It is a fundamental part of my work. I have been fascinated by dreams for over fifty years. I don’t like the notion of “dream interpretation”, as it implies a linear, cognitive conception. Dreams are anything but linear. At night, when we sleep, REM dreams occur every 90 minutes. They emerge in the right hemisphere and are replete with symbolism.

I regard dream work as facilitating the individuation process. They do this by symbolically compensating for what we are unable to acknowledge about ourselves and our behaviour. Ian McGilchrist, in his book, “The Master and His Emissary: the divided brain and the making of the western world”, discusses how contemporary western civilization has led to the left hemisphere colonizing the right. Dreams compensate for this imbalance. This compensation can be reductive or constructive. 

A dream might help to explain this compensation. The dreamer was a senior army officer of several decades' experience. He dreamt:

I am on the parade ground with others. We are being inspected by a visiting general. He stops and asks, “What is the definition of the beautiful?” I am blank-minded. Then a young officer pipes up and gives a wonderful definition. Just the one that I would have liked to have given.

When asked what he associated to the dream, he said that as a young man, he had been involved in art and that he had painted. He explained that when he joined the army, he became ambitious to get ahead. He lamented that he had left his art interests behind.

The reductive element of the dream shows that his ambition was at the cost of an important part of his personality; that is, his art interests. These interests withered away, leaving him “blank-minded”. The constructive elements of the dream show that another sub-part of his personality is still able to construct the very answer that he would like to have given. This side is young yet informed. It is his potential to still develop this part of his personality.

When I work with a dream or other derivative elements of the unconscious, I try to include the body. We don't feel with our heads but with our nervous system and our bodies. Accordingly, I will ask about the bodily emotions that arise around an image or piece of narrative we are discussing. As far as possible, I want to understand and feel, firsthand, what my clients are telling me. So, I will do this with close questioning which allows me to attune my bodily responses and awareness to what I am hearing, i.e. my countertransference. 

In the dream example, (which was not a person that I worked with), I could explore what was the bodily experience of being “blank-minded” like; what part of the body felt this? Are these feelings familiar? Can he imagine what the young officer was like? What did it feel like when he was the age of the young officer? 

We are coming up to time. There are some deeper aspects of the psyche that I believe are important in my practice of Jungian Psychotherapy. However, these are more intangible and less obvious in everyday work. These concepts relate to Jung's ideas about the Collective Unconscious and the concept of a higher Self. But we are out of time, so I will leave it at that. Thank you for listening.

(For those interested in the interface between Jung’s theoretical model and contemporary Psychoanalysis, the recent Psychoanalytic Dialogues paper might be of interest - see below)

PSYCHOANALYTIC DIALOGUES 2025, VOL. 35, NO. 1, 35–45 https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2024.2444852

 “Lewis Aron’s Last Lectures: Jung and Contemporary Psychoanalysis 

Lewis Aron, Ph.D., ABPP a, Zane Dodd, Ph.D. b, and Galit Atlas, Ph.D. a NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, New York, New York, USA; Center, Southlake, Texas, 

 ABSTRACT 
“This paper presents selected excerpts from Lewis Aron’s lectures on Jung’s impact on psychoanalysis broadly and on relational psychoanalysis in particular. It explores the ways contemporary analysts, often without even knowing it, are building on Jung’s work…..”