Psychothérapie de la personne âgée : l'apport jungien

With Freud, psychoanalysis focused almost exclusively on the infantile period of human development. Freud particularly contributed to the development of the idea that “everything is decided” during childhood, in the context of the oedipal relationship with mother and father. He developed an essentially causal approach to the symptom, with enormous weight given to the patient's childhood. Carl Gustav Jung proposed to widen this perspective by also including the patient's present and future as elements facilitating an understanding of the meaning of the symptom. Regarding the specific question of ageing, Jung considered the second part of life as a path to personal fulfillment, and his work has largely contributed to the understanding and better care of the elderly subject. Accordingly, this author considers that it is absolutely essential to understand why a trauma resurfaces in the present of the elderly person. As the unconscious is considered to be the organ that regulates the psyche, the quest for the meaning of a symptom or a complex is at the centre of the psychotherapeutic approach. With its concepts of individuation, persona, shadow, anima, animus, and its therapeutic goal of apprehending the subject as a whole, the Jungian approach focuses on the person as a whole, body and mind. Jung refused to reduce everything to childhood trauma, and pointed to other elements such as spirituality, philosophy and mythology. Beyond the understanding of the symptom, he also gave fundamental importance to the meaning of life, which is often lacking in the elderly. For Jung, we live to achieve the highest possible spiritual development and to fully widen the possibilities of our consciousness. According to him, as long as it is possible to remain alive, even at minimum level, we should put all our energy into achieving the ultimate objective, awareness.