What Is Jungian Analysis, and Is It Right for Me?
A plain-language guide for people considering it: what it is, who it helps, how it works, what the research says, and why it can speak especially to Asian and Chinese-speaking clients.
ARTICLE · WEN-YU CHENG, PSYD · OCTOBER 2026
Psychologist · Jungian Analyst · Neuropsychologist · Certified Hakomi Therapist
Your life may look successful from the outside, yet something inside feels unsettled. Perhaps you keep repeating the same patterns, or you understand them well and still feel stuck. Perhaps you are facing a transition, or wondering what gives life meaning beyond achievement and responsibility.
This article answers the questions people most often ask me before they begin: what Jungian analysis is, who it helps, what the research shows, and what actually happens in sessions.
In this article
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What is Jungian analysis?
Jungian analysis is an in-depth form of psychotherapy based on the work of the Swiss psychiatrist C.G. Jung (1875–1961). It helps with what hurts now, such as anxiety, low mood, or a painful relationship pattern, and it also asks a further question: what is this difficulty asking of my life?
Jungian analysis is not only about understanding what troubles us. It is also about discovering the parts of ourselves that have not yet had room to be lived.
A Jungian analyst in the United States is usually a licensed clinician (a psychologist, psychiatrist, or counselor) who has completed several more years of training at an institute recognized by the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), including a long personal analysis of their own.
Why does the analyst go through analysis too? Everyone has wounds, complexes, and blind spots, and analysts are no exception. By facing and working through their own issues first, analysts are less likely to bring them unknowingly into your sessions, and better able to tell which feelings belong to you and which belong to them. This allows the analyst to become a steady, reliable "container" in which deep psychological change can safely take place. Jung wrote, "Only the wounded physician heals" (Memories, Dreams, Reflections). This echoes the Greek myth of Chiron, who carried a wound that would not heal yet became a healer and teacher. An analyst's own wounds, once tended, are no longer only blind spots; they can become a source of understanding and empathy for you. Jung held that an analyst can accompany a patient only as far as they themselves have gone; in fact, Jung and his Zurich colleagues were among the first to insist that analysts be analyzed themselves. It is both a standard of depth and a protection for you.
The Jungian analyst Murray Stein describes the work as resting on four pillars (Stein, 2022, The Four Pillars of Jungian Psychoanalysis, Chiron Publications):
Individuation. Jung's word for the lifelong process of becoming more whole: recognizing parts of ourselves that have been neglected, seeing the roles and expectations that shape us, and building a more conscious relationship with our inner life. It is not about doing whatever we want, but about living with more awareness, responsibility, and authenticity. It is the aim of the work.
The analytic relationship. Two people meeting face to face, in the same room or on screen. Jung insisted that the analyst take part as a person, not hide behind authority or theory, and that the analyst first go through analysis themselves.
Dreams. Dreams are treated as messages from the parts of the mind we are not aware of, often showing a situation from an angle the waking mind has missed.
Active imagination. A way of turning toward an inner image or feeling while awake, letting it unfold, and responding to it. (My article Mindful Imagination explores this.)
A few other terms come up often:
The unconscious. What lies outside our awareness: feelings pushed away, memories, and also abilities not yet discovered. Jung saw it as a source of renewal, not only a storage room for problems.
Complexes. Emotional "hot spots" formed by experience. When one is touched, an old script takes over and we react more strongly than the moment calls for. Having complexes is not a disorder; everyone has them, and they can shape how we see and react before we know what is happening.
Persona and shadow. The persona is the social face we need to function, such as the professional, the good son, the capable mother. The shadow holds what that face leaves out: anger, need, or envy, but also good qualities we were taught to hide, such as creativity, assertiveness, spontaneity, or the freedom to rest.
Archetypes. Patterns of human experience, such as the mother, the hero, the trickster, or the wise elder, that appear in myths, fairy tales, and dreams across cultures.
Psychological types. Jung described two attitudes, introversion and extraversion, and four functions: two ways of taking in experience, sensation (what is there) and intuition (where it might lead), and two ways of judging it, thinking (what it is) and feeling (what it is worth). Each of us relies on some more than others. Understanding type (which later inspired the MBTI, though the two are not the same) helps people see why a partner, parent, or colleague experiences the same situation so differently. The analyst John Beebe later extended this into an eight-function model, which I teach.
How is it different from other therapy?
Many kinds of therapy help people understand their difficulties, build coping skills, and make meaningful changes. Jungian analysis shares these goals, but pays particular attention to unconscious patterns, dreams, symbols, and the slow growth of a more whole sense of self.
Take someone who becomes intensely anxious before every performance review. Learning to calm anxious thoughts and physical tension can help, and sometimes that is exactly what is needed first. Jungian analysis also asks why evaluation carries so much weight. Perhaps, early on, being loved or accepted seemed to depend on achievement. The question becomes not only "How can I feel less anxious before my next review?" but also "Why has my sense of worth become so tied to how others judge me?"
These approaches are not rivals. Depending on what you need, practical tools and deeper exploration can work well together.
How it can help the people I work with
Jung observed that about a third of the people who came to him had no clearly diagnosable illness, but suffered from the "senselessness and aimlessness" of their lives. They were capable adults whose lives worked on the surface, yet who had lost a sense of meaning. That remains true of many people I see today.
Tech professionals. Engineering and product work rewards analysis, speed, and problem-solving, often thinking in Jung's language, paired with either sensation (precision and detail) or intuition (systems and possibilities). Feeling and the body can fall silent until they return as burnout, insomnia, or a vague flatness. Analysis gives attention to the neglected side: a dream about a stalled train, a tight chest during a performance review. It also helps people see the complexes that layoffs, reviews, or imposter feelings touch. These reactions are often older than the job itself. A few common examples, described in general terms rather than from any one person:
A layoff round. The fear goes beyond money: a sense of being disposable or invisible that echoes an earlier time, such as a family move that uprooted everything, or being the child whose needs came last.
A performance review. "Meets expectations" lands as failure, because approval once depended on top grades. The "good student" in us is still keeping score long after school ended.
Imposter feelings. Sitting among brilliant colleagues and waiting to be found out may trace back to being the first in the family to go to college, or the immigrant child who had to prove they belonged. It can also follow a path through top schools, always rising, while privately feeling not smart enough or hard-working enough, and needing to look fully prepared so no one finds out.
Difficulty saying no. Accepting every on-call shift or deadline, or being unable to disagree with a manager, can rest on an early lesson that keeping the peace or obeying authority is what keeps you safe.
Code review or feedback that stings. Ordinary comments feel like a verdict on your worth when a harsh inner critic, often an echo of a demanding parent or teacher, adds its voice.
In analysis, the aim is not only to manage these reactions but to recognize the old pattern underneath, notice how it shows up in dreams and in the body, and gradually loosen its hold.
High achievers and executives. Success is usually built on a strong persona, the capable, reliable, in-control self the world rewards. Several pressures can shake it:
A world that keeps changing. Industries reorganize, roles disappear, and AI reshapes work faster than anyone can master it. Many accomplished people quietly live with a fear of falling behind and a need to prove, again and again, that they are still worth their place. Analysis helps separate the real demands of the moment from an older, inner verdict that one is only as good as one's latest performance.
The inferior function and the inner critic. In Jung's model of types, each of us has a least-developed function, the side we rarely use. Under stress or failure it can take over in crude, unfamiliar ways: a decisive leader suddenly floods with feeling, a warm, people-focused one turns harshly critical, a big-picture thinker fixates on small details. Critical inner voices grow loud. Understood in analysis, these moments become information about what has been neglected, rather than proof that something is wrong with you.
Meeting limits. At some point energy, health, or speed is not what it was, a role ends, or the influence and privileges that came with a position fall away. Murray Stein describes such passages, often at midlife but not only then, as a potential "second birth" of identity. In between lies a long period he calls liminality, when the old identity no longer fits and the new one has not yet formed (Stein; In Midlife, 1983). Rushing to the next title or project can cut this short. Analysis offers a place to stay with the uncertainty long enough for a more genuine sense of worth to emerge, one that does not depend on status alone.
It might look like the founder who has sold the company and wakes up without a reason to get going; the senior engineer passed over for a younger colleague who seems more at home with AI; or the leader who can steer an organization through a crisis but feels helpless before a teenager's silence at home.
For leaders, I also offer confidential consultation.
Immigrants and people living between cultures. Moving countries is a kind of liminality too: one is no longer fully at home in the old culture and not yet at home in the new. Jungian analysts also speak of cultural complexes, emotionally charged memories shared by a group, such as war, migration, or political upheaval, that live on in families (Singer, in Cambray & Sawin, 2018). In a Lithuanian study of long-term analysis, clients gradually moved from a fear of authority shaped by Soviet-era history toward a sense of inner authority (Gudaitė, in the same volume). Analysis can help separate what is yours from what you carry for your family or culture, without having to reject either.
In daily life, a cultural complex might look like this: grandparents who lived through war, flight, or scarcity, and a family that still cannot waste food or feel secure, even when life has long been stable; parents who learned in turbulent times not to stand out or make trouble, and a child who, years later, freezes when an American workplace asks everyone to speak up; or a chapter of family history no one mentions, whose weight the next generation feels in the silence. These are not only matters of personality; they may be complexes a family and a culture carry together.
Common experiences include feeling like a slightly different person in each language; guilt about being far from aging parents; watching your children grow up more American than you are; and returning "home" only to feel like a visitor there. These are not signs that something is wrong with you. They are part of a real psychological passage that deserves attention.
People who move back and forth between East and West often know other versions of this: praised for being assertive in the West but called "too Westernized" at home; feeling "too Asian" in the US and like an outsider back in Taiwan or mainland China; returning after years abroad and meeting a reverse culture shock no one warned them about; or, for children raised across countries, sometimes called "third culture kids," feeling most at home in airports.
Asian and Chinese-speaking clients. See the section below on why this work can feel especially familiar.
People in later life. Freud doubted that people around fifty could still change; Jung saw the second half of life as the period of greatest potential for growth. Analysts Bruce Baker and Jane Wheelwright describe its tasks: facing mortality, reviewing one's life, accepting limits, loosening the need for control, and living out abilities that never had room before (in Stein, ed., Jungian Analysis, 1982). Older adults often bring advantages to analysis: a long life to learn from, less concern about others' opinions, and a sense of having little to lose. Ann Ulanov speaks of the "blackening" (nigredo) of aging, a disorienting dark time that often signals change is under way. Retirement, illness, and the loss of a work identity can open these questions. My brain health and aging work keeps memory and health changes in view as well.
This can look like a calendar that empties after retirement and the question "who am I without my title?"; caring for a partner whose memory is changing; or dreams of childhood homes and people long gone that arrive just as life is asking for a review.
People carrying old hurts. Donald Kalsched describes how the mind protects us after overwhelming experiences, by numbing, splitting off feelings, or staying on guard. These defenses once helped a person survive, but later keep closeness and new life at a distance; in his words, "the person survives but cannot live creatively" (The Inner World of Trauma, 1996, p. 4). In daily life this may look like going numb, or suddenly very busy, whenever someone gets close, or feeling safest when no one needs anything from you. Dreams often show these protectors as figures, so they can be understood rather than fought.
When we go slowly. Because those protections exist for good reasons, depth work with trauma is paced carefully: safety and steadiness first, then gradually more. If you are in acute crisis or need focused help with a specific symptom, a shorter, more structured approach may come first, and the deeper work can follow. If you are in immediate danger, call or text 988 (US) or your local emergency number.
What does the research show?
Jungian analysis has been studied less than short, structured therapies such as CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). The studies we have come mostly from Switzerland and from Germany, where public health insurance has covered Jungian therapy since 1967. They are summarized in Research in Analytical Psychology: Empirical Research (Roesler, ed., 2018). In plain terms:
Most people improve, often into a healthy range. In a Berlin follow-up of 111 people, about six years after treatment, 88% had symptom levels in the normal range, and 70–94% reported clear improvement in distress, life satisfaction, work, and relationships (Keller et al.).
The change goes beyond symptoms. In a Swiss study of long-term Jungian therapy (average about 90 sessions over three years), improvements were large: effect sizes (a standard measure of how much people change; 0.8 or more counts as large) of 0.94 for personality change, 1.31 for symptoms, and 1.48 for everyday functioning. Gains held, and sometimes kept growing, one and three years later (Mattanza et al.).
Deeper change predicts lasting change. In German studies of longer analytic therapies (Freudian and Jungian together), change in personality structure, not symptom relief alone, predicted how people were doing one and three years later.
Less need for other care. In the Berlin study, comparing the five years before and after therapy, sick days were roughly halved (from 16 to 8) and hospital days fell from about 8 to 1 a year. Doctor visits and use of psychiatric medication also dropped.
These findings fit a wider pattern. A review in American Psychologist of therapies that explore emotions and unconscious patterns found an average effect size of 0.97, rising to 1.51 when people were re-checked nine months or more after finishing (Shedler, 2010). This review covers psychodynamic therapies broadly, not Jungian analysis specifically.
An honest caveat. These are real-world studies of people in ordinary practice, not randomized controlled trials, the standard for proving cause. Many are small and rely partly on people's own reports, so they cannot show that Jungian analysis itself caused the improvement, or that it works better than other established therapies. About 10–20% of people do not benefit, and in the Berlin study, people who later sought more therapy were more likely to say they had felt misunderstood by their analyst (21% compared with 6%). The fit between you and your analyst matters, which is one reason a first conversation is important.
What people often describe. Beyond the numbers, people commonly say they react less automatically, understand their families with more compassion, and make decisions more clearly because they know what matters to them. In a Lithuanian study of group dream work, the turning points participants named most were hope, surprise, relief, and feeling safe (Gudaitė, in Cambray & Sawin, 2018).
How does it work in practice?
Most sessions look like a thoughtful conversation. You bring what is alive for you: a conflict at work, a memory, a worry about a parent, a dream from last night. Jung believed healing starts from the person's own story, not from a diagnosis, so there is no fixed script.
Over time, the work usually weaves together:
Your current life and history. What keeps repeating, and where it may have begun.
Dreams. You do not need to remember dreams to begin. When you do, we explore what the images mean to you rather than looking them up in a dream dictionary. Followed over months, a series of dreams often shows how something inside is changing. Early findings from dream research suggest, for example, that in successful therapies a dreamer who once fled or froze before a threatening figure later begins to face it.
The body and the present moment. With Hakomi, a mindfulness-based somatic psychotherapy, we may slow down and notice what happens in the body as a feeling arises. Many important memories and beliefs are held there before they can be put into words.
Images and active imagination. Drawing, writing, or simply staying with an inner image can give form to what is hard to say directly.
Type and relationships. Understanding your psychological type, and that of a partner or colleague, can turn repeated conflict into understandable difference.
The relationship with the analyst. What happens between us, including misunderstandings, is treated as useful information and a safe place to try something new.
What might a dream show? Imagine someone who keeps dreaming that he misses a train. In waking life he feels constantly behind: at work, financially, compared with his peers. One could simply say the dream reflects stress. In analysis, we would begin with his own associations, and with what the dream feels like from the inside. What is it like to watch the doors close? Where is this train going, and who is on it? Who decided he had to be on it? What does he fear would happen if he missed it? When has he felt this way before? Slowly, the anxiety may reveal something deeper than a busy schedule: perhaps a fear of being left behind by the people who matter, or a belief that his worth depends on keeping pace. He may notice that much of his life has run on a timetable set by others: parents, teachers, employers, or society.
We might also explore the dream through the body, in the mindful way of Hakomi. Rather than interpreting right away, we slow down and let curiosity lead. He returns to one moment in the dream that still carries energy now, perhaps the platform as the doors begin to close, and stays there for a while. Together we notice what emerges: a tightening in the chest, an urge in the legs to run, a flash of fear or grief, a thought such as "I'm always too late," a memory of a parent's voice saying "hurry," or a change in the image itself. Sometimes, if we follow the organic wisdom of the psyche (organicity is one of Hakomi's core principles) and give the unconscious and this energy room to unfold, the scene shifts on its own: he finds himself sitting down on a bench as the train pulls away, and feels, to his surprise, relief. A moment like this can offer what Hakomi calls a "missing experience," something he needed but never received. It can also help him find a new balance between "I have to catch up and stay productive" and "It's okay to miss this train." He may realize, "It's okay to rest," and even feel, perhaps for the first time, "I don't have to be productive to be loved."
The dream may open a question he has rarely asked: "Is this actually the train I want to catch?" That is only one possible reading. Dreams have no fixed meanings; their meaning emerges as we explore them together, in words and in the body.
Frequency and length. Usually once or twice a week, 50 minutes per session. In the Swiss study mentioned above, therapies averaged about 90 sessions over three years; in the Berlin study, about 160. Some people come for a focused period of months, and others continue for years. You decide together and can revisit the plan at any time.
Where. Analysis today often happens online by secure video, which makes it possible to work in your preferred language within licensing rules. I offer psychotherapy and analysis to people living in Washington and PSYPACT states, and consultation to people living elsewhere, including Taiwan and mainland China.
Why it can feel familiar to Asian and Chinese-speaking clients
For people who live between countries, languages, and cultural expectations, questions of identity and belonging can become complex. You may feel at ease in more than one culture, yet not fully at home in any. Some feelings may be easier to express in Mandarin or Taiwanese, others in English. Expectations about achievement, marriage, aging parents, and filial devotion may stay deeply important even as your own values change. Jungian analysis offers room for these tensions without assuming that independence must replace family connection, or that growth means rejecting your roots.
Many Asian and Chinese-speaking people carry a great deal quietly. In the US, only about 25% of Asian adults with a mental health condition received care in 2021, compared with 52% of White adults (KFF analysis of national survey data). Stigma, the pressure of the "model minority" image, and few clinicians who share one's language all play a part. Several features of Jungian work can make it feel less foreign than people expect.
Jung's psychology was deeply shaped by Chinese and Buddhist sources. In his memoir, Jung recalls that the Daoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower (太乙金華宗旨), sent to him by the sinologist Richard Wilhelm in 1928, was the first thing to break his isolation after years of inner searching. Wilhelm, who had translated the I Ching with the Chinese scholar Lao Naixuan (勞乃宣), was himself so changed by China that Jung later wrote Chinese thought had "overwhelmed him and assimilated him" (Memories, Dreams, Reflections). Ideas such as the Dao, balance of opposites, and wu wei (無為, letting things happen) sit close to the heart of his thinking. Jung also took Eastern religion seriously as an expression of the psyche, not as superstition. In his 1938–1940 lectures in Zurich, he studied the Pure Land text Amitāyur-dhyāna Sūtra (《觀無量壽經》), in which the meditator patiently builds and holds a series of inner images, the setting sun, water, ice, a ground of lapis lazuli, until Amitābha Buddha (阿彌陀佛) and his Pure Land appear before the inner eye (Psychology of Yoga and Meditation, 2021). He saw parallels between such practices and what he called active imagination, though their aims differ, and he cautioned Westerners against simply imitating them rather than working from their own psychological and cultural roots. For many Chinese clients who grew up hearing a grandparent recite 阿彌陀佛, this is a reminder that turning inward through images has deep roots in their own traditions.
It values wholeness over fixing. Jung contrasted Western cause-and-effect thinking with the Chinese attention to what happens together in a moment, and called this principle synchronicity: an inner state and an outer event that coincide in a meaningful way, without one causing the other (Jung's foreword to the I Ching). The Japanese Jungian Toshio Kawai links Jung's Red Book to Hua-Yen (華嚴) Buddhism and its teaching that all things are interconnected (in Cambray & Sawin, 2018). Marie-Louise von Franz used Zhuangzi's "useless tree," which survives because no one cuts it down for timber, to show that a life does not need to be useful to be meaningful (in Man and His Symbols).
It shares values many families already hold. John Beebe and Chenghou Cai point to sincerity (誠, cheng), the highest value in Confucian thought, and note that true integrity has to include one's shadow, not only good intentions. They also highlight the value of seeing things through to completion (Beebe & Cai, 2026). Analysis does not ask you to reject your family or culture; it looks for how you can honor where you come from and become yourself.
It makes room for the tension between duty and self. Many clients describe living between filial duty (孝) and their own path: a career chosen to make parents proud, decisions about marriage or children weighed against family expectations, or the role of the "good child" who never caused worry. Analysis does not take sides. It helps you hear both voices, the one that honors your parents' sacrifices and the one that asks what your own life is for.
It does not require putting everything into direct words. In many Asian families, love and worry are shown through care, duty, food, or silence. Dreams, images, and symbols offer another way in (some therapists also use sandplay, in which small figures arranged in a tray of sand give the inner world a shape), one that can feel more natural and less exposing than "tell me how you feel."
It takes the body seriously. Distress is often felt first as headaches, poor sleep, stomach trouble, or exhaustion. In a classic study in Hunan, psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman found that most of 100 patients treated for "neurasthenia" (神經衰弱) were also experiencing depression (as reported by Undark); later researchers debated how to read this, but it is a reminder that the body often speaks first. In his late work Mysterium Coniunctionis, Jung drew on the alchemist Gerhard Dorn's three stages of union: first spirit and soul are joined, then they must be reunited with the body, and finally with the whole world (the unus mundus). For Jung, wholeness was never only a matter of the head.
Language matters. Early memories and family feelings often live in the language we grew up with. Moving between Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English in the same session can open doors that one language alone may not.
It might look like this: a woman who moved to the US years ago has built a full life and career, while her aging parents remain back home. Every phone call brings both warmth and guilt. She loves them deeply, yet sometimes resents the expectations placed on her, and then feels guilty for the resentment. She wonders whether wanting a life of her own makes her selfish. Analysis would not push her to choose independence over family. It would help her hear the different voices within her, the loving daughter, the responsible professional, and the part that longs for more freedom, so she can find ways to honor her family without abandoning herself.
None of this assumes that every Chinese-speaking person shares the same experience, or will find Buddhist or Daoist images personally meaningful. Your heritage is part of your story, not a script for it.
Where neuroscience and mindfulness come in
Jung worked long before brain scans, yet several of his core ideas fit well with brain science today. In my practice, three fields inform one another: Jungian analysis (the mind), Hakomi, a mindfulness-based somatic psychotherapy (the body), and neuropsychology (the brain).
"I understand why I do this, so why can't I change it?" Many thoughtful people ask this. Imagine someone who knows a colleague's criticism is not a personal rejection. Yet when it arrives, their chest tightens, their thoughts race, and they feel an urge to defend themselves or withdraw. In Jungian analysis, we might explore the emotional pattern beneath this reaction and where it began. Through Hakomi, we might slow down and gently notice what happens in the body as it unfolds, without rushing to change it. My background in neuropsychology informs how I understand the links among emotion, attention, memory, stress, and thinking. Together, these perspectives work not only with what you understand about yourself, but with how old patterns are felt in body and mind, so that new ways of responding can gradually take shape.
What brain science adds
Emotional patterns leave traces we can measure. Jung first found complexes in his word-association experiment, by noticing slowed or disrupted responses to emotionally charged words. Recent brain-imaging studies suggest that personally conflicted material triggers stress responses and a recognizable pattern of brain activity (Roesler & van Uffelen, in Roesler, 2018). In one small study of 18 clients, the association test picked up shame, guilt, and low self-esteem that standard questionnaires missed.
Emotion comes first. Affective neuroscience shows that the brain's emotional systems are older and more basic than thinking, much as Jung treated emotion as the driving force of psychological life (Zabriskie, in Cambray & Sawin, 2018). Insight alone rarely changes a reaction that begins below thought.
Old emotional memories can be updated. When a painful memory is stirred up and, at the same time, met with a new experience, such as being understood or responding differently, research suggests the memory may become open to being updated. Researchers call this memory reconsolidation (Lane et al., 2015). How this works in therapy is still being studied, but it is close to what Jungian analysts observe: a complex loosens when it is felt and met, not only explained.
Dreams help process emotion. Dreaming (REM) sleep appears to keep the memory of an emotional event while softening its sting (Walker & van der Helm, 2009), and mainstream dream research increasingly supports a view of dreaming as emotion regulation close to Jung's (Roesler, 2018). The exact functions of dreaming are still debated, and in analysis we approach dreams first as meaningful experiences, not as something neuroscience has fully explained.
Brain health and emotional life are linked. Sleep, stress, illness, injury, and aging all affect mood and thinking. Neuropsychology helps me notice when a change may have a physical cause and when to coordinate with your doctor.
What mindfulness adds
Mindfulness means paying attention to what is happening right now, with curiosity rather than judgment. Over the past two decades it has become one of the most studied approaches in psychology. A review of 47 clinical trials found that mindfulness meditation programs brought small but meaningful improvements in anxiety, depression, and pain (Goyal et al., 2014). For people with recurring depression, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) lowered the risk of relapse by about 31% (Kuyken et al., 2016). Brain research links mindfulness to clearer awareness of signals from inside the body, known as interoception (Farb et al., 2015). And simply putting a feeling into words quiets the brain's alarm center, the amygdala, and more mindful people tend to show this calming effect more strongly (Creswell et al., 2007).
Hakomi, a mindfulness-based somatic psychotherapy developed by Ron Kurtz in the 1970s and 1980s, was one of the first approaches to bring mindfulness into the therapy session itself (Weiss, Johanson, & Monda, 2015). Mindfulness-based approaches have a large research base; Hakomi's own methods have been studied much less directly, so I use it alongside clinical experience, theory, and research, attentive to what each person needs. Here mindfulness is not practiced alone on a cushion but together, in a warm and accepting presence. You slow down and notice a tightening in the chest, a lump in the throat, or an image that comes with a feeling. Sometimes we try small "experiments in mindfulness": while you are quietly aware, I might gently say, "You are welcome here," and we notice together what happens in your body and mind. It might be relief, or a flicker of doubt or tension. Such reactions often reveal core beliefs formed long ago and usually outside awareness, such as "I have to manage on my own" or "My needs don't matter." When these beliefs surface while they are being felt and held, they have a chance to be updated, echoing the memory reconsolidation described above.
Mindfulness also gives steadiness, so that strong feelings or dream images can be explored without being overwhelmed. I describe how meditation and active imagination work together in Mindful Imagination.
Meditation is not one thing, and it is not right for everyone at every moment. Research has documented that some people meet fear, panic, or the return of old painful memories during meditation (Lindahl et al., 2017), so for anyone carrying old wounds, practice needs to be gentler and more flexible. Some people need practices that build steadiness, others practices that help them let go (Stebbins, in Cambray & Sawin, 2018). A Jungian approach asks what a practice is doing for you, and treats your own inner experience, not a teacher's authority, as the guide.
Together, these make the work both deep and grounded: the Jungian view gives meaning; mindfulness gives steadiness, helping us turn inward, observe, and connect with what is happening in body and mind; and neuroscience helps us understand the mechanisms behind it all.
Is Jungian analysis right for me?
It may be a good fit if you:
notice emotional or relationship patterns that keep repeating, even when you understand them;
feel capable or successful in some areas of life, yet empty, anxious, or restless inside;
are facing questions of identity, belonging, purpose, or a major life transition;
are curious about dreams, imagination, or parts of yourself that are hard to put into words;
want to understand yourself more deeply and are open to a process that unfolds over time.
Another approach may be a better first step if you need immediate crisis support, urgent psychiatric care, or a highly structured treatment for a specific problem. For example, obsessive-compulsive symptoms often respond best to a targeted method called exposure and response prevention, and someone at serious risk of harming themselves may need more support than weekly sessions can offer. If you want focused symptom relief within a set timeframe, a structured approach may suit you better.
Choosing the right kind of help matters more than choosing a particular school of therapy. A first conversation can help us sort that out together.
Common questions
Is Jungian analysis different from regular therapy? It is a kind of psychotherapy, so it includes the support and practical help of good therapy. What it adds is attention to dreams, symbols, and meaning, and a longer view of who you are becoming.
Do I need to know about Jung or remember my dreams? No. Many people start with neither. We begin with what matters to you now.
Am I too young, or too old? Neither. Jung's own patients were mostly in the second half of life, but analysts such as Jolande Jacobi described young adults benefiting as well (in Man and His Symbols), and Baker and Wheelwright wrote about analysis well into old age. In the German studies, the average person began in their mid-thirties.
Is it spiritual or religious? It respects spiritual experience without requiring any belief. People of every faith, and of none, do this work.
How long does it take? Some people feel a shift within weeks; deeper change usually unfolds over months or years. You are free to set the pace and to stop.
Can I do it in Chinese? Yes. Sessions can be in Mandarin, Taiwanese, English, or a mix.
Is it confidential? Yes. What you share stays between us, with a few legal exceptions, such as when someone's safety is at serious risk, which I explain at the start. I do not contact your family or employer, and I speak with your doctor or anyone else only when needed and with your permission.
What about medication or other treatment? Jungian analysis can work alongside medication, medical care, or other therapies. When needed, and with your permission, I coordinate with your doctor.
A next step. You do not need to know about Jung, remember your dreams, or know exactly what you want to explore before beginning. Perhaps you are struggling with something specific. Or perhaps your life works reasonably well, yet you sense that something important is asking for attention. Either is a meaningful place to start. You are welcome to request a free 15-minute consultation: a short conversation about what brings you here, your questions, and whether working together might be a good fit. My practice sometimes has a waitlist, so this conversation does not guarantee an immediate opening, but I will let you know what is available.
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References
Baker, B., & Wheelwright, J. (1982). Analysis with the aged. In M. Stein (Ed.), Jungian Analysis (pp. 256–273). Open Court.
Beebe, J., & Cai, C. (2026). Divination and consciousness. Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, 20(3), 31–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/19342039.2026.2666018
Cambray, J., & Sawin, L. (Eds.). (2018). Research in Analytical Psychology: Applications from Scientific, Historical, and Cross-Cultural Research. Routledge. Chapters cited: Gudaitė; Kawai; Singer; Stebbins; Zabriskie.
Creswell, J. D., Way, B. M., Eisenberger, N. I., & Lieberman, M. D. (2007). Neural correlates of dispositional mindfulness during affect labeling. Psychosomatic Medicine, 69(6), 560–565.
Farb, N., Daubenmier, J., Price, C. J., et al. (2015). Interoception, contemplative practice, and health. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 763.
Goyal, M., Singh, S., Sibinga, E. M. S., et al. (2014). Meditation programs for psychological stress and well-being: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Internal Medicine, 174(3), 357–368.
Jung, C. G. (1963). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. (Chinese ed. 《回忆·梦·思考》, trans. 朱更生.)
Jung, C. G. (1950; written 1949). Foreword to the I Ching, trans. R. Wilhelm.
Jung, C. G., von Franz, M.-L., Henderson, J., Jacobi, J., & Jaffé, A. (1964). Man and His Symbols. (Chinese ed. 《潜意识与心灵成长》, 上海三联, 2009.)
Jung, C. G. (1970). Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Inquiry into the Separation and Synthesis of Psychic Opposites in Alchemy (2nd ed.; Collected Works, Vol. 14; R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
Jung, C. G. (2021). Psychology of Yoga and Meditation: Lectures Delivered at ETH Zurich, Volume 6: 1938–1940 (M. Liebscher, Ed.; J. Peck & H. McCartney, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
Kaiser Family Foundation. Gaps in mental health care for Asian and Pacific Islander people and other people of color (NSDUH 2021 data).
Kalsched, D. (1996). The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. Routledge.
Kleinman, A. (1982). Neurasthenia and depression: A study of somatization and culture in China. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 6(2), 117–190. Summary in Undark.
Kuyken, W., Warren, F. C., Taylor, R. S., et al. (2016). Efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy in prevention of depressive relapse: An individual patient data meta-analysis from randomized trials. JAMA Psychiatry, 73(6), 565–574.
Lane, R. D., Ryan, L., Nadel, L., & Greenberg, L. (2015). Memory reconsolidation, emotional arousal, and the process of change in psychotherapy. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 38, e1.
Lindahl, J. R., Fisher, N. E., Cooper, D. J., Rosen, R. K., & Britton, W. B. (2017). The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE, 12(5), e0176239.
Roesler, C. (Ed.). (2018). Research in Analytical Psychology: Empirical Research. Routledge. Chapters cited: Roesler (effectiveness; dreams); Roesler & van Uffelen (complexes); Keller (German studies).
Shedler, J. (2010). The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98–109. APA press summary.
Stein, M. (1983). In Midlife: A Jungian Perspective. Spring Publications. See also Midway on our life's journey.
Stein, M. (1998). Jung's Map of the Soul. Open Court. (Chinese ed. 《榮格心靈地圖》, 立緒, 2018.)
Stein, M. (2022). The Four Pillars of Jungian Psychoanalysis. Chiron.
Ulanov, A. B. (2025). Nigredo and growing old [Listed in the congress program as "Old Age and The Nigredo"; paper presented at the XXIII International Congress for Analytical Psychology, Zurich, August 2025].
Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological Bulletin, 135(5), 731–748.
Weiss, H., Johanson, G., & Monda, L. (Eds.). (2015). Hakomi Mindfulness-Centered Somatic Psychotherapy: A Comprehensive Guide to Theory and Practice. W. W. Norton.
Related reading on this site. Psychotherapy & Jungian Analysis describes how I work with individuals and couples. Mindful Imagination explores active imagination, meditation, the body, and the brain. Brain Health & Aging and Executives & Founders describe work in specific situations, and the FAQ answers practical questions about getting started. About Dr. Cheng tells more about my training in Jungian analysis, Hakomi, and neuropsychology.