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Apart from containing one of the clearest summaries of a modern Jungian model of the psyche and psychotherapy, this short piece on work with students offers a number of ideas which could be of use in more general psychotherapeutic practice.
The first of these is that, when dealing with students, the therapist has to accept, more than is usually the case, the patient's probably volatile attitude towards treatment. This is because, for many students, their time at college is particularly precious through seeming to be the first ‘freedom’ they have known. So the therapy has to be relatively flexible and informal, and the long academic vacations are reminiscent of the ‘holidays’ Jung exhorted his patients to take from analysis, when the psyche could continue to work and the homeostatic tendency referred to by Bosanquet could come into play.
It is striking how the features of the student position—on the interface between child and adult—overlap with the mental phenomena presented by so many contemporary patients. This might mean that the patient's problems could with advantage have been picked up earlier or, more likely, that the student's fear of freedom has relevance for larger numbers of people.
One example of this has to do with what is meant by ‘being oneself’. So often this means becoming nothing but the latest part of one's potential or psyche to be realised. All that has