“The unconscious is a shy beast: don’t pounce!”

Abstract

Psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and Jungian analytical psychology, it could be argued, have as their centrepiece the encounter with the other, both within and without, and the attempt to bring an understanding mind to these others. In this we grapple, encounter, and receive the often-disturbing forces of the unconscious mind, including the implicit early relational experiences which in combination with our biological, and arguably spiritual, template, form the mind into the subjectivity that we experience as the self. But what if the very systems of thought which we utilise to inform our understanding of, and attempt to guide our encounter with, the unconscious, are themselves manifestations of a cultural unconscious, discourses which actually fabricate our very subjectivity as therapist and patient, thus constituting the very subjectivity which, by contrast, psychoanalysis and Jungian psychology, suggest is innate and a priori of discourse? This paper explores these complex tensions and how they may inform the construction of psychotherapy in Aotearoa New Zealand. The paper concludes with an exploration of the possible clinical implications of these ideas, including consideration of some clinical vignettes.