Jung’s and Groddeck’s Analytic Practice

Marco Balenci

doi:10.1163/19409060-bja10010

Abstract

Abstract This paper shows that Georg Groddeck and Carl Gustav Jung shared a common cultural background, in which Carl Gustav Carus’s theory of the psyche was preeminent. Accordingly, they emphasized symbolization and unconscious creativity. These aspects affected their clinical work, aimed at pioneering therapies: Jung with schizophrenics, Groddeck treating physical diseases. They overcame the limits of the psychoanalysis of their time and, going beyond neurosis, discovered the pre-Oedipal period and the fundamental role of mother-child relationship. While Freud’s technique was based on a one-person paradigm, both Jung and Groddeck considered analytic therapy as a dialectical process, ushering in a two-person paradigm. Therefore, they did not use the couch; a setting that is assessed in the light of recent research on mirror neurons. It is also highlighted that the analytic groups influenced by Groddeck and Jung have developed similar ideas in both theory and technique; a fact that may induce further studies on the history of depth psychology.

Highlights

Georg Groddeck, a German physician, founded modern psychosomatic medicine and was associated with the Psychoanalytic Society of Berlin
He began to be interested in psychoanalysis in 1913—when Jung left the psychoanalytic movement—and started contacting Sigmund Freud in 1917
When Hillman writes that Jung ‘never forgot the importance of usual consciousness’—thereby in contrast with Carus’s position—we find a divergence with Groddeck, who instead remained completely aligned with the theory of Carus

Summary

Introduction

Georg Groddeck, a German physician, founded modern psychosomatic medicine and was associated with the Psychoanalytic Society of Berlin. Groddeck and Jung shared a similar cultural background: the strong influence of the theories of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Carl Gustav Carus, Eduard von Hartmann and Friedrich Nietzsche. The latter is related to the origins of It and Self (Balenci 2018). 33) had written: ‘Comparing Freud’s, Jung’s, and Carus’s teachings concerning the unconscious, one soon remarks that Jung is nearer to Carus than is Freud.’. Groddeck’s and Jung’s main concepts It and Self were theoretical and clinical at the same time: they represented reference points for a holistic approach in therapy In this regard, it is worth showing the closeness of their position about the mind–body problem. He refused the separation between psychological and physical diseases and believed that any illness could be cured by psychoanalysis, which he combined with all medical treatment

Groddeck’s Influence on Ferenczi

Jung’s Analytic Style

The Independence of Groddeck’s and Jung’s Ideas from Freud

Conclusion