About Jungian Analysis

 
About me: Morgan Stebbins, M.Div, LMSW, LPsy, Certified Jungian Analyst Jungian analyst in private practice in New York. Faculty member, Director of Training, and supervising analyst at the JPA (Jungian Psychoanalytic Association). Also a faculty member of the C. G. Jung Foundation of New York, and the Assisi Institute. Academic career: after studying comparative religion and philosophy at UC Berkeley, I attended Union Theological Seminary, doing the program in Psychiatry and Religion and writing my thesis on Jaques Lacan and Carl Jung. After this came a clinical social work degree from Columbia University and then Jungian analytic training in New York, where I wrote my thesis on the psychological meaning of the Decalogue. 7 West 96th St, Suite 1F New York, N.Y, 10025 212-348-9494 or 845-558-0608 mstebbins@jungstudies.orgmailto:morgansteb@msn.com?subject=email%20subjectshapeimage_1_link_0

About Jungian Analysis:

How to find a Jungian analyst:

There are many kinds of therapy and many paths to self knowledge.  Unfortunately, they are not equal and it can be truly a nightmare to find a talented analyst who is also a good match.  Many people shop around as they would for a new car in a kind of a speed-dating manner.  The very bad news is that this is a perfect way to find the person who will seem like a good fit but actually be precisely the wrong person.  Why?  Because almost no one wants to hear about their hidden aspects and almost everyone will choose to work with the person who gives them only the good news.  After all, the complex which pushes a person into therapy will usually also be the one choosing the therapist!


A better solution is to either canvas your friends - who has had great results in their own analysis?  Who has been truly changed? And ask to get a referral by that analyst, or if you do not know anyone who has had this experience, find the most able and experienced analyst you can and ask for a referral from him or her.  Why ask for a referral?  Because two things need to happen.  First, you need to have the experience that the analyst has been chosen specifically for you.  Second, it is much less likely that you will start second-guessing your choice if you haven’t done the choosing, and more likely that you will throw yourself in and begin.  Obviously if, after a time, the fit is terrible, if you just don’t feel understood, then you must try again - although the best course of action in this situation is to go back to the original referrer and discuss your difficulties - in that way you can determine if you are leaving because you don’t like the bad news or if it’s really just not a good fit.

Jungian analysis has been described in many ways, and in fact it is a very broad and deep enterprise.  In my mind the essence of it is a reliance on the unconscious images of the patient to direct the form of the therapy.  This may lead toward the solution of very pragmatic life issues, toward a more creative life, toward better relationships, or in the direction of some kind of unpredictable and dramatic transformation of personality.  It is not the analyst who determines this - rather it is the personal fate of the patient.  Because of this, people enter analysis for all sorts of reasons.  They are all good ways to enter, and all have their own symbolic meanings.  Everyone will have a different experience of a good Jungian analysis because everyone has a different path to what they ultimately need.  This is not to say that Jungian analysis is directed by the conscious wishes of the patient - far from it.  However, in collaboration with an exquisitely attuned analyst, each analysand, if motivated, will find out who they are at the very deepest levels.