The Art of Jungian Couples Therapy: An Introduction
Book Details
- Publisher : Routledge
- Published : July 2025
- Cover : Paperback
- Pages : 174
- Category :
Jung and Analytical Psychology - Category 2 :
Forthcoming - Catalogue No : 98148
- ISBN 13 : 9781032687988
- ISBN 10 : 1032687983
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Within this accessible volume, Nelson and Delmedico apply a Jungian approach to provide fresh ways of thinking about couples therapy, and the profound unconscious forces at play when couples create a life together.
The Art of Jungian Couples Therapy offers new perspectives into thinking about what is happening in the consulting room, which the authors re-imagine as a sacred space or “temenos” guiding partners toward psychological wholeness, or what Jung termed the Self. The book offers welcome insights into how therapists can work with the complex and often intense energies that arise when two people cross the threshold of the clinical space. As “art” in the title suggests, it draws the therapist’s attention to the souls of the partners and the soul of the relationship itself.
Firmly grounded in Jungian thought yet intimate, approachable, and up to date, the book will be an indispensable guide for professional marriage and family therapists, psychoanalysts from both Jungian and Freudian schools, counseling psychologists, and licensed social workers who already practice couples therapy or have considered working with couples.
Reviews and Endorsements
An excellent introduction by two authors with deep knowledge of Jungian psychology who work in the fires of relationship. It suggests many useful approaches to therapists and couples who are struggling with understanding the complexity and challenges of “living the couple.”
Murray Stein, Ph.D., author of Jung’s Map of the Soul
This engaging book moves couples therapy into the depths of the soul. It links couples work into a more profound and resonant engagement with the depths of psyche and relationships.
Stanton Marlan, Past President of the American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis, Training and Supervising Analyst for the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts
A compassionate exploration of the unique challenges Jungian-oriented therapists face in working with the rich diversity of contemporary couples, in finding ways to support not only the individuation of each member of the couple but also to nurture the soul of the couple itself. The book’s thoughtful review of core aspects of Jungian theory--typology, alchemy, the shadow—leads into its celebration of the archetypal basis of coupled life.
Christine Downing, author of Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love
As Jungian Psychology seeks to become a psychotherapy it reaches for some kind of authority in order to diagnose, interpret, and to treat. This move inevitably leads to various kinds of reduction, dissecting rather than observing, the psyche. In The Practice of Psychotherapy (CW 16), Jung confesses, “If I wish to treat another individual psychologically at all, I must for better or worse give up all pretensions to superior knowledge, all authority and desire to influence” Jung embraces an approach to the psyche that honors its imaginal nature as a living participant in the work. In this book, Nelson and Delmedico work continually to remind us of the risk of this clinical reduction and insist that “A Jungian approach to couple therapy rests upon this archetypal foundation, the deepest strata of the unconscious. It welcomes images as alive and full of meaning.
Joseph Coppin, PhD, Core Faculty Emeritus, Pacifica Graduate Institute, co-author The Art of Inquiry: A Depth Psychological Perspective
From the very beginning of this interesting and worthwhile book, readers are assured they are about to embark on something really meaty and something which is entirely lacking in the field. As Nelson and Delmedico make plain, trust in the slow, patient process of soulful couple therapy may seem as though the therapist is doing little during the hour, but nothing could be further from the truth. In a culture that prizes short-term therapy and measurable outcomes, listening for the murmurs of the soul asks more of us, not less.
Ruth Williams, IAAP Training and Supervising Analyst, author of Jung: The Basics and Exploring Spirituality from a Post-Jungian Perspective
This book is an excellent resource for both therapists and lay people. It is solidly grounded in Jung’s work and is written in a way that is creatively accessible and full of practical applications.
Allen Koehn, D. Min., Former Director of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, Professor Emeritus, Pacifica Graduate Institute
Elizabeth Nelson and Anthony Delmedico have provided a much-needed compendium of resources for therapists and teachers of couple therapy from a Jungian perspective. They have gathered the information, ideas, and perspectives informed by the depth psychology of Carl Jung and those who practice Jungian psychology so that readers don’t have to search for diverse information about complexes, archetypes, typology, and unconscious dynamics in couple relating. If you practice, teach or supervise Jungian psychotherapy for couples, this book should be at your side because it is precise and comprehensive.
Polly Young-Eisendrath, PhD, Jungian Analyst, author of Love Between Equals: Relationship as a Spiritual Path and Hags & Heroes: A Feminist Approach to Jungian Psychotherapy with Couples
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Self, Individuation, and Jungian Couples Therapy
2. Couples and Complexes
3. The Archetypal Basis of Coupled Life
4. Typology in Couples Therapy
5. The Shadow and the Couple
6. The Alchemy of Relationship
7. Diversity and Contemporary Coupling
8. Jung and the Soul of the Therapist
About the Author(s)
Elizabeth Éowyn Nelson, PhD, Jungian scholar and international speaker, has taught at Pacifica Graduate Institute since 2003. She has published two books as well as several academic papers and individual chapters on diverse subjects including dream, feminism, film, mythology, technology, and research. She is on the board of the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies and served as General Editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Jungian Scholarly Studies for five years.
Anthony Delmedico, PhD, LMFT is a depth psychotherapist and AAMFT-Approved Supervisor in private practice in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has written about the depths of relationship, fatherhood, divorce, and sexual abuse.
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