Meditation and Analytical Psychology

Analytical psychology is a type of depth psychology founded by Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. Depth psychology refers to a psychology that acknowledges that the human mind has an unconscious. In that sense, meditation as discussed in psychoanalysis refers to the confrontation between the conscious and unconscious. The concept of the unconscious in analytical psychology differs from that in other forms of depth psychology, and consists of a personal unconscious that originates at an individual level and a collective unconscious that is shared at a universal level across humankind. In other words, with such a concept, meditation in analytical psychology can ultimately be seen as the confrontation within the unconscious between the collective unconscious and the individual conscious. Although analytical psychological psychotherapy mainly targets dreams and pictures, and provides treatment through dialectical dialogue based on the process of amplification, once the therapy sufficiently progresses to the extent of experiential recognition of the unconscious, it begins to emphasize treatment through active meditation. Active meditation is a form of meditation in which, after dream analysis or picture analysis has progressed considerably, one actively calls upon the archetype image that arises from one’s inner, collective unconscious and has a conversation with one’s unconscious. Through this process, it can be said that active meditation, just as in dream analysis or picture analysis, attempts to achieve the integration of the conscious and the unconscious, or in other words, individuation that realizes totality by integrating Self and Ego or self-actualization that is the ultimate goal of analytical psychology.