This paper describes some similarities and differences between contemporary approaches to analysis as practised by ‘Freudians’ and ‘Jungians’ in London today. It aims to contribute to mutual understanding between different schools of analysis by showing how the analyst's interventions can only be understood in terms of the theoretical context from which they arise (cf. ‘the analyst's preconscious’ as discussed by Hamilton [1996]). A discussion of five key themes of Jungian theory is followed by an account of clinical work with a patient who enacted her inner world through the use of material objects brought to the consulting room, presenting difficult technical dilemmas concerning boundaries and enactment. The paper aims to shows how these Jungian themes influenced the analyst's response, particularly in relation to ideas of symbolic transformation, the unknowable nature of unconscious processes and the purposive orientation of the self towards wholeness and integration.

(Final version accepted 18 August 2009)