The Hidden Story Behind Every Mental Illness - Carl Jung

In many cases in psychiatry, the patient who comes to us has a story that is not told, and which as a rule no one knows of. To my mind, therapy only really begins after the investigation of that wholly personal story. It is the patient’s secret, the rock against which he is shattered. If I know his secret story, I have a key to the treatment. The doctor’s task is to find out how to gain that knowledge… In therapy the problem is always the whole person, never the symptom alone. We must ask questions which challenge the whole personality. Through my work with the patients I realised that paranoid ideas and hallucinations contain a germ of meaning. A personality, a life history, a pattern of hopes and desires lie behind the psychosis. The fault is ours if we do not understand them. #carljung #psychology #mentalhealth