Jung and Working with Acute Psychosis

Abstract

Carl Jung is one of the founders of depth psychology. What is less known is his career as a psychiatrist before the creation of his analytical psychology. Jung made significant contributions to the understanding of psychotic illness. However, Jung's contributions go largely unrecognized. This is a loss for the psychiatrist who wants to incorporate psychodynamic ways of working into their daily practice. In this short essay, I describe an overview of Jung's suggestions on treating acute psychosis. A comment follows on use in contemporary practice based on personal accounts and relevant literature.

Keywords: acute psychiatry; analytical psychology; in-patient psychiatry; schizophrenia.