peutic relationship is core to any process of healing and transformation. An attitude of compassion, curiosity, honesty and lack of judgment is essential to a good working relationship.

As a result of a successful analysis, one is able to live in closer harmony with the Self, the higher center of the psyche. He/she is less prone to destructive feelings and behaviors, and is more receptive to the symbolic meaning of dreams, synchronicities and to the unconscious itself. Negative thoughts and emotions are replaced with curiosity, compassion and an appreciation for one's humanity and the humanity of others.

CORE CONCEPTS OF JUNGIAN THERAPY

COMPLEXES: Complexes act like unconscious sub-personalities. When triggered, we feel strong emotions that we have little control over, such as anger, jealousy, fear or despair. Complexes usually get constellated early in life through our experiences with parents, siblings, schools etc. When activated, the complex interferes with our relationship to both ourselves and other people.

SHADOW: Includes parts of us that we have unconsciously rejected and instead project onto others. They keep us locked in a one-sided attitude that obscures wholeness. We have both negative and positive shadows that need to be integrated into our personality.

PERSONA: The persona is how we see ourselves, our self image. It is how we present ourselves to the world. While everyone has a persona and in fact needs one in order to adapt to the world, we can get so identified with it that we think it is the sum total of who we are. This impedes our ability to live out our full potential.

TYPOLOGY: Jung believed that to become whole we need to develop all aspects of our personality. However, most of us only develop part of it or what he called our dominant function. The personality is composed of four functions: thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. There are also two attitudes, extraverted and introverted. Problems often arise from our least developed function, or in cases where our partner, children or friends differ too much from our own personality style. Understanding these differences is necessary to good relationship building.

ANIMA/ANIMUS: We all carry within us both masculine and feminine energies, but we are more identified with one; the other remains unconscious. The anima in a man can erupt as moodiness or can be the source of inspiration; the animus in women can be overly opinionated or it can enable her to bring her creativity into the world. To become whole, we need a conscious relationship with both our masculine (solar) and feminine (lunar) selves.

THE SELF: Perhaps the most elusive but important of all Jungian concepts. Without the Self, all other constructs are meaningless. The Self represents the chief organizing principal of the psyche. It is the divine force or god within. It is the unifying whole of the personality and thus serves as a guide and source of spirituality.

INDIVIDUATION: The process of developing wholeness. It is the result of working on the above parts of ourselves so that we may become the unique person we were meant to be. Individuation, however, is more of a process than a final product, as it is never fully achieved but continues over one's lifetime.