ABSTRACT
The American Jungian analyst Nancy Furlotti describes the Red Book as “medicine for our times.” 1 If this is true, then my question is: How can I use the insights from the Red Book therapeutically in working through trauma without assuming that Jung’s path—his abysmal “solitary way”—is the only template for patients making their way through traumatic affliction? What follows is my attempt to translate into clinical practice Jung’s symbolic, philosophical, and spiritual approach to psychic suffering as described in the Red Book. I think Jung, with his extraordinary visionary capacity, anticipated, as early as 1912–1913, the major trends in contemporary trauma therapy. Current theories and techniques in clinical trauma practice echo themes found in the Red Book: soul retrieval, working the shamanistic way, undoing dissociation, ego-state therapy, focus on resources, journaling, inducing and working with fantasies, the use of metaphor and imagination, art therapy, mandala work, body-oriented approaches, and yoga.
