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Synchronicity and analysis: Jung and after

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 9; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13642530701725924

1469-5901

Roderick Main,

Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications

Abstract Although he was a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, C.G. Jung (1875–1961) did not extensively present his novel concept of synchronicity (meaningful acausal connection) in terms of clinical observations and reflections. It remained for subsequent analysts to follow Jung's pioneering work with more clinically focused discussions. In order to take stock of some of the main trends within this work, this paper reviews, first, the examples of synchronicity and related comments that Jung does give in association with clinical contexts; and, second, a selection of mostly clinical papers that discuss the relationship between synchronicity and analysis, written throughout the period between the 1950s, when Jung's essays on synchronicity appeared, and the present. The review of the later clinical discussions focuses on questions of how frequently synchronicities occur in analysis, what dynamics of the psyche are principally involved in synchronicity, what are the clinical value and uses of synchronicity, and what is the relationship between clinical and theoretical reflections on synchronicity. Keywords: SynchronicityJunganalysisclinical discussiontheory Acknowledgements Some of the material in this article appeared earlier in Roderick Main, The rupture of time: Synchronicity and Jung's critique of western culture (Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge, 2004).