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This highly original book examines the relationship between analytical psychology and meaning, interpreting human suffering as arising from meaning disorders. Using clinical examples - whether people trapped in patterns of dependence, suffering from psychosomatic diseases, or with personality problems - it shows how, by treating clients' issues as failures of the meaning-making process, one can help them change their own own personal meaning. An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology will make provocative reading for all those in helping professions, including counsellors, psychotherapists, and psychiatrists.
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AN INTRODUCTION TO MEANING AND PURPOSE IN ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY The question of meaning is a central one in Analytical Psychology. Human suffering can result from meaning disorders both at an individual and a cultural level, and people often fail to find meaning through religion or philosophy. How can analytical psychology help us to find individual meaning and social purpose? An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology is a highly original take on the fundamentalist theories of psycho analysis, and encompasses other disciplines such as cognitive psychology, developmental theory, ecology, linguistics, literature, politics and religion. Dale Mathers presents the basic insights of analytical psychology as a set of useful tools to examine answers to fundamental questions of meaning, using a wide range of clinical examples. By achieving a sense of individual meaning, it can become possible for people to find their own creative purposes. An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology will be useful for those in professions such as therapy, counselling, psychiatry or those involved with religious explorations or society and social change. Dale Mathers is a psychiatrist, humanistic psychotherapist and analytical psychologist in private practice in London. He teaches at sev-eral analytic schools in the UK and Europe. He directed the Student Counselling Service, London School of Economics, and did research on addiction. AN INTRODUCTION TO MEANING AND PURPOSE IN ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY Dale Mathers First published 2001 by Brunner-Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove, East Sussex BN3 2FA Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Taylor & Francis Inc 325 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19106 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. Brunner-Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2001 Dale Mathers The right of Dale Mathers to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mathers, Dale, 1955– An introduction to meaning and purpose in analytical psychology/ Dale Mathers. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-20768-1—ISBN 0-415-20769-X (pbk.) 1. Psychoanalysis. 2. Meaning (Psychology) I. Title. BF173.M35686 2001 1510.19´5–dc21 00–069664 ISBN 0-203-36097-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-37353-7 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-20768-1 (hbk) ISBN 0-415-20769-X (pbk) TO CAROLA CONTENTS Foreword Preface Acknowledgements ix xiii xv 1 Between 1 2 Individuation 21 3 The child’s development of meani