Jungian Psychology

Ms. Rooney has had many years of study, including personal analysis and
supervision, in the approach of C.G. Jung. Jung was the Swiss
psychiatrist whose work produced the well-known concepts of
introvert/extrovert, archetype, and complex. As a Jungian therapist,
she believes that we are born with the potential for psychological
health and wholeness that is realized in early life through
interactions with people and situations in our environment, and
continues on to the end of life. This process Jung called
individuation. When conditions are favorable, and our early journey is
a fairly smooth one, we can meet life's inevitable difficulties with
inner strength and confidence. If we are exposed to too much pain
and suffering, either physical or psychological, in early life we
develop defenses to shield ourselves from hurt. When these defenses
become too rigid they may prevent us later on in life from being open
to new experiences that might heal the old wounds.

Jung believed that the unconscious mind contains the painful things we
have repressed about ourselves, as did Freud, but that it also contains
our individual template for healing and growth. He believed the proper
relationship between the ego (our known selves) and the unconscious
(that which is unknown) is of open communication and mutual enrichment.
The unconscious reveals itself in symbolic language that we see in
dreams, art, and mythological stories containing the archetypes, such
as hero, witch, wise old man, and the descent to the underworld. One
of the "eternal stories" of feminine development and individuation,
known to us as Beauty and the Beast, was first recorded four thousand
years ago and recurs in modern films like "Dirty Dancing". For the
wounded ego, expressions of the unconscious attempt to restore balance
may seem frightening and threatening. The goal of psychotherapy is to
carefully dismantle overly rigid defenses and restore the proper
balance between ego and unconscious. In mythological language this is
expressed as the hero finding the princess, the seeker finding
the grail, the difficult journey coming to an end with the sight of
home.