Jung could be viewed as a “heretic” in the general tide from the late 19th to early 20th centuries, since he strongly identified with the Renaissance, or the age before that (the medieval period), in terms of the times. He attempted to be one with his “object” or to go deep into it, not to reflect his “object” externally. This is also well shown in his way of inclination and immersion to Gnosticism or alchemy. In addition, Jung never thought that the “psyche” is owned by a subject, as Freud thought.
After the death of Jung as such, Karl Kerényi commented, “Jung wrote me … citing an alchemist, ‘maior autem animae pars extra corpus est,’ and he really meant it. He stands out as the only one …, who among his colleagues firmly believed in the existence of the soul.” What is meant by this Latin phrase is that the soul is not inside a subject, nor the property of a subject; moreover, it is not a substance that a subject can control. It is always outside the pale. However, we should not literally see the “outside” mentioned here. “The psyche” is the “inside” experienced as coming from “outside,” simultaneously it is the “outside” coming from “inside.” In addition to these spatial implications, this “outside” also has temporal implications. As Giegerich (2012) pointed out, the psychê comes into play only after a person’s death; what originally gave birth to the notion of the soul and the notion of the living dead in the underworld, to the idea of the ancestors, was the very real sight of a corpse.
Giegerich's concept of "psychological difference" is important in seeing the nature of the soul as mentioned above. It is a concept that indicates the difference or distinction between the soul and the human being. And when we consider the therapeutic significance of this concept, the following two points may be mentioned.
One is the aspect related to psychological diagnosis, in which making the distinction between the soul and the human makes it possible to understand the phenomena, symptoms, and problems in front of us more psychologically. The other aspect is related to the process of psychotherapy, that is, how the client, who was troubled by the lack of distinction between the soul and the human, comes to realize this distinction in psychotherapy, that is, how the "psychological difference" is realized.
In this presentation, I will clinically discuss Jungian psychotherapy based on such "psychological differentiation" by taking up dreams and drawings of several cases of mine.