International Journal of Jungian Studies (2021) 1–27 brill.com/ijjs Jung’s and Groddeck’s Analytic Practice Alternative Methods That Have Prevailed over Freud’s Psychoanalysis Marco Balenci | orcid: 0000-0001-6677-9393 aipa, iaap, iajs, Florence, Italy
[email protected] Abstract This paper shows that Georg Groddeck and Carl Gustav Jung shared a common cul- tural 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 fun- damental 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 dialec- tical 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. Keywords Carl Gustav Carus – Ferenczi – Freud – Groddeck – Jung – analytic technique – couch – mirror neurons 1 Introduction Georg Groddeck, a German physician, founded modern psychosomatic medi- cine and was associated with the Psychoanalytic Society of Berlin. In previ- ous papers (Balenci 1993, 2018), the closeness of Groddeck and Jung’s main © marco balenci, 2021 | doi:10.1163/19409060-bja10010 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the cc by 4.0Downloaded license.