Within this accessible volume, Nelson and Delmedico apply a Jungian approach to provide fresh ways of thinking about couples therapy, and the profound unconscious forces at play when couples create a life together.
The Art of Jungian Couples Therapy offers new perspectives into thinking about what is happening in the consulting room, which the authors re-imagine as a sacred space or ‘temenos’ guiding partners toward psychological wholeness, or what Jung termed the Self. The book offers welcome insights into how therapists can work with the complex and often intense energies that arise when two people cross the threshold of the clinical space. As “art” in the title suggests, it draws the therapist’s attention to the souls of the partners and the soul of the relationship itself.
Firmly grounded in Jungian thought yet intimate, approachable, and up to date, the book will be an indispensable guide for professional marriage and family therapists, psychoanalysts from both Jungian and Freudian schools, counseling psychologists, and licensed social workers who already practice couples therapy or have considered working with couples.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. The Self, Individuation, and Jungian Couples Therapy 2. Couples and Complexes 3. The Archetypal Basis of Coupled Life 4. Typology in Couples Therapy 5. The Shadow and the Couple 6. The Alchemy of Relationship 7. Diversity and Contemporary Coupling 8. Jung and the Soul of the Therapist