Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 1

Applying Jungian Theory to Students with Asperger’s Syndrome

Alexandros “Alex” Colombos, MA, MPS

Professional Paper (Clinical Thesis) submitted to the School of Education, Department of

Counseling, Vocational Rehabilitation Concentration and reviewed by Dr. Douglas Main

(Academic Advisor) and Dr. George Leone (Chair)

New Mexico Highlands University

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 2

Abstract

In this paper evidence is explored that supports the use of Jungian creative and expressive

interventions for alleviating emotional disturbances. Emotional Disturbance is a non-clinical,

umbrella term used in special education that refers to a cluster of clinical disorders that share in

common emotional problems that may interfere with learning and classroom management (e.g.,

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Creativity as an

intervention appears to be most effective with persons at higher cognitive functioning levels.

Therefore, Asperger’s Syndrome will be a primary focus of attention. Using creative arts and

new means of expression, persons with Asperger’s Syndrome have partially or even fully

recovered from a variety of symptoms (e.g., inattention, fidgeting, aggression, tantrums,

echolalia, echopraxia, circling, repeating and ritualistic behaviors). These individuals are capable

of understanding their deeper underlying mechanisms that cause unwanted behaviors. Thus,

interventions such as dream interpretation and active imagination expressed through creative arts

can be customized to individual needs. The result is greater individuation, allowing these

students to be themselves and speak for themselves. Case conceptualizations are included in the

application sections of this monograph.

Keywords: Jung, individuation, Emotional Disturbance, Asperger’s

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 3

Applying Jungian Theory to Students with Asperger’s Syndrome

Autism has been usually explored and treated by using a cognitive-behavioral perspective

and least likely by using depth-psychology traditions, such as Jungian or Analytical Psychology.

That is because most of emotional disturbance-related disorders, such as Attention Deficit and

Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), learning disabilities (LD), and Autistic Spectrum Disorders

(ASD), such as Asperger’s, ,have been seen as purely behavioral disorders in the beginning.

Only in the last few decades has Asperger’s Disrorder been seen as neurological. Cognitive-

behaviorists claim to employee more scientific and thus solid tools of diagnosis and treatment.

However, in experiences with people with Asperger’s Syndrome, Jungian therapists emphasize

the constructs of Carl G. Jung, such as the importance of archetypes and symbols in our everyday

life, and the existence of an inner psychological world (e.g., the personal unconscious, the

collective unconscious, dreams, cosmic processes, and spirituality). These are parallel to our

conscious world.

Persons with emotional disturbance associated with Asperger’s Syndrome can channel

their energy into creative and positive activities that will help them balance and control their

behavior and discover their authentic selves (De Laszlo, 1959; Slattery & Corbett, 2004), less

hindered by inattentiveness and various learning, impulsiveness or even cognitive and

intellectual deficits. This is something like being trapped in a parallel , inner psychological world

without being able to adapt to the external real world. It is a world that is timeless, as there is no

sense of time, where meanings and messages from the outer world of “normal” or “real” life and

everyday humanity are fragmented and cannot be integrated.

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 4

In this paper the basic concepts of Jungian theory are described and applied to Asperger’s

Syndrome through published case examples. These examples demonstrate how to use Jungian

theory to help persons with Asperger’s learn and improve their emotional control, impulsivity,

behavior, quality of life, and independent living.

Theory: Jung’s Analytical Psychology

The term “Analytical Psychology” is coined by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, born

in 1875 and graduate of the Medical School of the University of Basle (1902). Jung was Freud’s

student who gradually detached from Freudian psychoanalysis and created his own theory and

school in 1911, thus becoming alienated from Freud and his circle (De Laszlo, 1959). Although

Analytical Psychology started as a school of psychoanalysis, it has become part of what is called

depth psychology and transpersonal (originally a Jungian term). Depth psychology is an area of

psychology that stands between the psychodynamic and the humanistic theories, while

transpersonal is even more humanistic, esoteric, and metaphysical (Slattery & Corbett, 2004).

Today, we can talk about the classic Jungian tradition and a number of Post-Jungian theories; the

last may not be discussed in this paper. The purpose of this paper is to offer a brief overview of

the basic tenets of Jung’s Analytical Psychology. This discussion will be divided into four

sections: the view of human nature, the theory of healthy personality, the theory of conflict

(dysfunction) and the theory of counseling (central constructs of the Counseling Process). It

should be noted that the emphasis is not in a discussion of psychotherapeutic techniques, but

Jung’s life philosophy and theoretical orientation and how it could be implemented in modern

counseling.
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 5

View of Human Nature

Jung believed that the sole purpose of human nature is to kindle a light in the darkness of

our mere existence (Campbell, 1971). In Jung’s own words, “analytical psychology is daily

concerned in the normal and sick alike, with disturbances of conscious apprehension caused by

an admixture of archetypal images” (Campbell, 1971, p.57). Archetypal images are images of

symbolic content whose meaning is unconscious and they are manifested throughout different

cultures and religions, as they all have human nature in common. As the human kind physically

evolved so did the human psyche (soul), a term coined by Jung, and some of the contents of the

unconscious of modern people resemble the products of ancient people. Those products are the

archetypal images (Jung, 1964).

In childhood, the person has not formed its personhood and has not claimed yet its

individuality, but it depends on its parents (Campbell, 1971). In adolescence, there is an eruption

of feelings and instincts and that causes the person to claim his or her personhood and

individuality (Campbell, 1971). Unlike Freud, Jung placed more emphasis on middle adulthood,

because this struggle is the one between the consciousness and the unconscious, an attempt of the

person to get more conscious, and the nearer we approach this stage the greater the achievement

and maturity in life (Campbell, 1971). In aging, life is not expanding or mounting, but there is

an inner process that leads the constriction of life, which is natural and it requires our

adaptability in dealing effectively with that (Campbell, 1971).

Thus, human nature is rather essentially positive or good, but there is always a dark side

hidden that needs to become conscious and that necessitates a “Promethean struggle”, as Jung

said, to enlighten or make conscious the unconscious operations of one’s psyche throughout the
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 6

life span of development, as in Greek mythology, Prometheus enlightened the human kind with

the gift of fire (Campbell, 1971). Consciousness streams from the senses and our perception and

it is our knowing and realization of our positive traits and problems alike (Campbell, 1971).

Emotion, for Jung, is the chief source of consciousness. Emotions, values, and feelings link

psychological events and life (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). Will is the energy that is the disposal

of consciousness or the ego. Will relates to learning cultural habits and attitudes, customs,

values, morals, feelings, and emotions and it has power only on conscious processes. Jung

believed that will is of recent development and that it does not exist in indigenous and ancient

tribes and cultures and instead, it was substituted for ceremonial actions. Energy of nature is

borrowed from the original unconsciousness and from the original flow of events through rituals,

dances, and ceremonies that have been used in order to control this energy (Fadiman & Frager,

2002). This struggle is the one between consciousness and the unconscious, which can be

personal unconscious and collective unconscious, also called transpersonal unconscious, and

world unconscious (Campbell, 1971).

Our ego is that part of our conscious personality which stands in the middle of the

person’s external and internal reality (Campbell, 1971). Our ego directly relates to

consciousness and the unconscious. Other part of our conscious personality is our persona.

Persona is a mask of our personality or the public image that we want to show to others acting as

a defense mechanism to protect oneself. Our personal unconscious consists of contents that lack

consciousness, which is our awareness and knowing of the psychical contents. Feelings and

memories that are anxiety-provoking or uneasy to emerge to consciousness, all those are the

contents of the personal unconscious (Campbell, 1971). The personal unconscious is a collection

of personal experiences while the collective unconscious is not; we do not possess it, in other
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 7

words (Campbell, 1971). Jung agreed with Freud that the unconscious (Freud) or personal

unconscious (Jung) can only wish. The personal unconscious contains wishes, feelings, affects,

needs, and ideas that we do not realize. As we do not realize them, they remain just wishes,

feelings, thought, affects, and ideas that cannot be materialized. Jung agreed with Freud that our

personal unconscious is very egocentric and infantile. Two parts of our personal unconscious are

the self and the shadow (De Laszlo, 1959).

Our self is the central archetype and therefore it is the archetype of centeredness. It is the

union of conscious and unconscious and a deep, inner, and guiding factor that is unconscious and

seems to be different or alien even from the ego (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). A strong alchemic

symbol or archetype for the self is the Sun (De Laszlo, 1959). Likewise, the position of the sun

in the person’s birth chart determines the main star sign of a person, which puts him or her in a

specific astrological type of personality (Campbell, 1971). Jung often found interesting

metaphors and archetypes in alchemy and astrology, where concrete ideas, such as concepts of

nature were used to attribute symbolism and abstract philosophical meaning. It was more about

self-discovery, transformation of personality traits and maturation that as a metaphor, it follows a

parallel development to that of the process of the transmutation of metals. This alchemical

metaphor of self-discovery and personal growth was for Jung the great opus (work) of the

alchemists than actually making gold, but rather finding the philosophical “stone”, a metaphor

for the archetype of “self” and the process of self-actualization (Jung, 1964).

The shadow, however, another archetype of the personality is all those feelings, thoughts,

affects, desires, and ideas that we consider unacceptable and therefore we deny their relation to

us and we project them to the environment as external entities that do not relate and are not

identified with our own identity (Campbell, 1971). The word “shadow” itself refers to the dark
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 8

aspects of our personality that we keep unconscious and dissociate and detached from our self-

identity concept as a defense mechanism that protects the consciousness and the ego.

The Collective Unconscious, however, is formed by the instincts and the archetypes

together (De Laszlo, 1959). Instincts and archetypes cannot be regulated by the person itself.

They are biologically rooted and permeate all functions of a person’s life. They control the

person, but the person can hardly control them. Instincts are modes of action and they can be

separate or united in modes of action and actions whether they are conscious or unconscious.

The number and functions of instincts cannot scientifically be calculated and classified, Jung

said, though modern physiology has made possible to understand to a certain level the effects of

hormones and glands. Libido is a sexual type of psychical energy that governs instincts,

especially the sexual instinct. The archetypes are uniform and regularly recurring modes of

apprehension whether we understand their mythological content or not. Each mode of

apprehension is determined by a factor. Those factors are primordial images or archetypes and

they are the self-portraits or mirror images of the instincts. If an instinct is “refined”, the

“intuition” that it can provide us with can be incredibly precise (Campbell, 1971).

Archetypal images use symbols. Symbols, Jung noticed, are different by far from mere

signs. Symbol, he believed, is a living thing, it is the expression to be characterized with one

thing or another and what’s why it is alive and pregnant with meaning (De Laszlo, 1959). Every

psychological phenomenon uses symbolism. There are two levels of approaching a symbol: the

symbolic and the semiotic. Semiotic is every view which interprets the symbolic expression as

analogous or abbreviated expression of a known thing. The semiotic way, is for instance, to

recognize that the cross is expression of the Divine Love (De Laszlo, 1959). By the way, Jung’s

work on Christianity and its symbols and archetypes, especially the early Church and the
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 9

Gnostics and the archetypal images of the Holy Communion and the fish symbol (ichthyes in

Biblical Greek), was very influential and seminal (Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

Image for Jung, is not the psychic reflection of an object, but the fantasy image, an

unconscious fantasy activity that is only indirectly related to perception of the external object.

Thus, the concept of image can be seen from a poetic point of view (De Laszlo, 1959). In a few

words, the operating forces of the archetypes are the symbols and fantasy images that go beyond

mere signs and psychic reflections of external objects and they are sophisticated and dynamic

components of a deep psychological mechanism of the Collective Unconscious (De Laszlo,

1959). The Collective Unconscious contains the whole spiritual heritage of human evolution that

as its archetypal images, as it is mentioned above, in its entirety, the collective unconscious is the

same for all races, genders, cultures, ethnicities, and religions and as Jung said (Campbell, 1971).

Sex and gender archetypes that manifest the psychological aspects of masculinity and

femininity are those of the syzygy (pair) of animus (masculine soul) in women and anima

(feminine soul) in men. Jung wrote that a world that excessively embraces masculine models of

behavior may oppress a man’s anima and in order for his soul to reach equilibrium, he may react

to the point of becoming effeminate (Campbell, 1971). The older the man the younger his anima

that is usually the archetypal image of a little girl in old men. The older the woman the younger

her animus that is usually a little boy in old women (Campbell, 1971. Snakes and phalluses are

also sexual symbols and, in particular, symbols of male fertility, virility, and masculinity. In

Greek Dionysian Festivals, men were dressed as satyrs dancing the Dance of Phalloforoi or

Phallus bearers, dressed with huge wooden phaloi fastened in a belt they wore on their waist and

similar rituals are also performed in Africa and Oceania (Jung, 1964). Also, for Jung, the Anima

was the soul in general, as it literally means in Latin and as it represented the symbol of feminine
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 10

fertility and procreation, also found in many ancient cults and religions, such as the worship of

Mother Earth and the Great Goddess (e.g. the Minoan Snake Goddess and Gaia/Earth or

Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture) (Campbell, 1971). Anima mundi is the Soul of the

World as it literally means in Latin and in this animistic sense the entire world is an ensouled and

a living system. Myths and symbols, Jung believed, were used as a metaphor to project thoughts,

beliefs and explanations about people of the past, nature, and the divine and they reflected all

those strong archetypes (Jung, 1964).

Some powerful archetypes that we all share are the healer and the wise one. Also,

powerful archetypes are the mother archetype and the father archetype, which are the primordial

images of parenthood. As our parents are the first and most psychologically important for us,

those two archetypes frequently active in our lives (Jung, 1964). The mother archetype appears

in an infinite variety of aspects. It could be the bond with our biological mother, a step-mother, a

nanny, a relative, an older female friend, a mother-in-law, or even a remote ancestress. This

concept is also behind the myths of the Great Mother and the Great Goddess cult and symbolism,

as a fertility symbol and as a representation of motherhood, which can also have both positive

and evil meaning (e.g. Virgin, Sophia/Wisdom Goddess, Cybele-Attis, the nightmarish

goddesses/bogies, such as the Greek Empousa and Near Eastern Lilith, the Greek fate goddesses

Moira, Graeae and Norns) (De Laszlo, 1959).

Other archetypes are related to or symbolize stages of development, such as the divine

child and the healer, the hero, and the wise one (Jung, 1964). In most cultures and especially

today in the modern western world, youth is always overemphasized and overindulged, as it is

identified with the future and the ideal age hence the divine child archetype. The healer

archetype is the healing potential we have and the healing image of ourselves that can be used to
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 11

heal ourselves, look for healing in others or provide healing to others (Jung, 1964). The hero

archetype is the potential to overcome our limitations and do something beyond our capacities or

our perceived capacities. The hero cult in Greece (e.g. Hercules, Odysseus, Theseus, Perseus,

Alexander the Great, etc.) as well as in other cultures from West (e.g. Percival, King Arthur, etc.)

to East (e.g. Ramayana, Varuna, etc.) is evident of the impact of the hero archetype (1964). The

wise one archetype resembles the archetypal image of the mentor and the voice of experience

and maturity. There is also the Power archetype that symbolizes the need for and the archetypal

image of power.

Jung was influenced substantially by Nietzsche in developing his theory of the power

archetype (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). Archetypes appear in all civilizations, mythologies and

cultures (Jung, 1964). Powerful archetypal or primordial images are also those of the egg, which

gives life, and the tale-eating snake, which symbolizes eternity, time, and the recycling process

of life and cosmos. The egg occurs in many different cultures, from the Neolithic to the Greek

mystery cult of Orpheus (Jung, 1964). Another common archetype is the quaternity, the sacred

number “four” (e.g., four corners of a house or street, four walls of a room, four quarters of the

horizon, four seasons, four colors, four elements, four castes, etc.) (Jung, 1961).

Jung noticed that people’s unconscious archetypal images are as instinctively as the

ability of geese to migration in formation, as the ants’ ability form colonies, as the bees’ ability

to perform their tail-wagging dance that communicates to the hive the exact food location (Jung,

1964). Jung compared different visions, daydreams and dreams of very different people, both

mentally stable and mentally unstable, from different cultures, people who had never met each

other and he spotted out the same patterns of symbolism and archetypal images (Jung, 1964).

For instance, a modern professor who had never read a very old alchemical book had a “vision”
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 12

of the same picture of the woodcut of the book’s cover that depicted an androgynous, a human

figure where both masculine and feminine qualities were united. Jung interpreted that as the

person’s need to reach his anima which he was alienated from. People from different cultures

that were never met used in their art the same symbols, such as the Ixion’s wheel (man crucified

on a wheel), from Greek mythology, that was depicted in sub-Saharan rock art and the Greek

meander that is commonly used in Pre-Columbian art (Jung, 1964).

Jung did not present archetypes just as primordial images and visualized manifestations

of symbols. He went one step further: he identified them as structures and building blocks of the

collective unconscious that is also called world unconscious or transpersonal. And that is

because they exist a priori, go beyond the confinements and limits of personhood and

individuality, and connect human nature with the cosmos and its maker, the numinous and the

presence and essence of the “numinosity” (Campbell, 1971). Numinous is also the content of the

God archetype and God image (imago dei in Latin). Jung was profoundly influenced from

Goethe and especially his Faust on developing his theory on the God archetype (Fadiman &

Frager, 2002). Jung’s ideas on God, the divine, numinous and religion strongly influenced Bill

Wilson and others in the foundation of AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) (Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

Numinous communicates with people through synchronicity, or meeting/collision of two

unrelated events or incidents. This phenomenon, Jung said, has nothing to do with human

nature, weather it is physical or psychological, but it is rather a mysterious and still

unexplainable concept of physics (Campbell, 1971). It is important to note that the two events

collide without any causal relationship. There are two types of synchronicity according to Jung.

First, it when an inwardly event, such as a dream, a premonition, a daydream, a vision, or a

fantasy are unexpectedly seen in the external world. Second, it is when identical thoughts,
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 13

dreams, etc., occur at the same time in two different places (Jung, 1961). For instance, it has

already been mentioned that Jung had many cases of clients who had seen the same dream

without ever being met.

An example of synchronicity is when Jung had a client telling him about a dream of an

Egyptian scarab, when all the sudden a flying scarab entered the window of Jung’s office

(Fadiman & Frager, 2002). It is like an archetype communicates directly to the individual via the

intervention of numinous or a cosmic force that is beyond human physiology or human

psychology, thus it does not relate to the body or psyche (Campbell, 1971). But even for the

body, Jung had said that it is almost metaphysical. The body and the external world can only be

known as psychological experiences. Our perceptions are limited due to our human nature and

all we know is what our psyche allows us to know and discover. However, Jung always stated

that he was solely interested in the psyche and not in the body or the spirit.

Theory of the Healthy Personality

Jung believed that what makes a person healthy is individuation that is one of the most

important concepts of Jungian/analytical psychology. It is the process of forming and

specializing the individual nature or the formation of the person’s own individual personality.

Therefore, it is a process of differentiation. This takes place, usually, in middle adulthood.

Keeping one’s soul and mind healthy is to achieve individuation (De Laszlo, 1959).

Individuation is a process of natural necessity, but also hindrance, because it is part of nature to

develop our own personality, but it can also be painful and “injurious” or traumatic, as trying to

stay sociable and acting as members of society, we need at the same time to follow collective

standards and thus, put ourselves into boxes and categories (De Laszlo, 1959). Also, individuals
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 14

with “deformed” personalities make up an unhealthy and abnormal social group. Therefore,

individuation should outbalance all negative forces that make the person vacillate between the

two extremes of isolation and artificial mutilation of individuality and often gravitate towards

one of them (De Laszlo, 1959).

The process of individuation is to embrace our uniqueness and achieve self-realization,

that is reaching full understanding of one’s situation and nature, and move on to self-regulation,

which is the ability to maintain a control over one’s psyche and life and finally, self-

actualization, that is the use of individual’s full potential, by harmonically integrate the person’s

unconscious and aspects of its personality (De Laszlo, 1959). Moreover, the process involves

the person’s struggle to develop its ego, protect it and make it strong enough to endure the

pressures of the process until individuation is achieved. Also, it is essential to make the contents,

nature, and dynamics of one’s shadow conscious from unconscious, realize the difference of its

persona with the ego, unveil the persona (take off the mask), and discover the unconscious self

and put it in the center of both conscious and unconscious personality. Also, the person should

stay in touch with his anima or her animus and discover the rest of the archetypes that are

primary in his or her life (e.g. hero, healer, God, power, divine child, etc.) (De Laszlo, 1959).

That means, we have to be true and real with ourselves, realize how we act and how we are

perceived by other people, remain congruent with ourselves, match beliefs with acting and

realize our weaknesses as well as avoid gender stereotyping behavior and prevent ourselves from

being alienated to the other sex and gender (De Laszlo, 1959).

The way to perform with process of individuation is called Transcendent Function. Jung

explained that although it may sound like that, this term has nothing metaphysical or mysterious

(De Laszlo, 1959). This function arises from the union of unconscious and conscious contents.
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 15

The parallelism of consciousness and unconscious or Dissociability of the Psyche, is due to the

purpose of both acting in a compensatory and complementary way to prevent anxiety. It is like a

filter or an immune, homeostatic or self-regulatory system of the psyche to prevent

consciousness streaming from being flooded with unconscious material that would overload the

psyche with enormous amounts of energy. By dissociating the unconscious from conscious and

bringing excess material to unconscious, psychical energy gets low and consciousness can

function under less pressure and in better logical coherence (De Laszlo, 1959).

Carl G. Jung’s concept of the transcendent function, though different, might be

compatible with the Socratic Questioning of Cognitive Therapy (Miller, 2004). The transcendent

function is the mediatory and transitional force that works between consciousness and

unconscious. Working on the transcendent function, the Jungian analyst works emotional and

maladaptive behaviors, erroneous thinking and emotional blocks of the client that in Socratic and

Cognitive theoretical orientation may be called “core believes”, “schemata”, or “automatic

thoughts” and for the Jungian Analyst are unconscious and conscious images and emotional

traumas. Images, symbols, and archetypes, however, maybe treated by the Socratic/Cognitive

therapist as the thinking, emotional, and behavioral material to work with actively and directly

rather than through the elaborate and laborious slow-pacing indirect and less active method of

further and deep analysis of symbols, images, and archetypes that the Jungian Analyst would be

supposed to do (Miller, 2004).

The reasons for this relationship of unconscious and consciousness (De Laszlo, 1959)

are: a) consciousness possesses a threshold intensity which its contents must have attained, so

that all the weak elements remain in the unconscious; b) because of its directed functions,

consciousness exercises an inhibition, which Freud called “censorship”, but Jung preferred the
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 16

term “inhibition” that is applied to all incompatible material and as a result they sink into the

unconscious; c) consciousness involves the momentary process of adaptation, where the

unconscious contains not only the forgotten material of the person’s past, but also all the

inherited behavior traces constituting the mind structure; d) the unconscious contains all different

combinations of fantasies which have not yet attained threshold intensity, but eventually may

come to the light of consciousness. It is a healthy function to produce fantasies freely that may

be manifested in dreams, symbolism, creativity, and daydreams (De Laszlo, 1959). Also,

introspection, the process of examining our inner world, is crucial for maintaining a healthy self-

regulation (De Laszlo, 1959).

Jung’s greatest and most popular theory of the healthy personality is that of the

Psychological types (De Laszlo, 1959) whose influence has also led to the creation of the Myers-

Briggs Type Indicator test and a long series of other career and personality tests for matching

people’s career personality and mentality and lifestyle with nature, type, and setting of work or

just classifying their personality traits based on the four psychological types of Jung:

extroversion and introversion, sensation and intuition, thinking and feeling. Later on, besides

Jung’s four psychological types, also perception and judgment were added, though Jung did not

really have them as distinctive types and did not pay attention to their definitions. Psychological

types are manifestations of the person’s idiosyncratic ego formation (De Laszlo, 1959). Jung

noticed two distinctions among people: extroversion and introversion. The extroverts are more

interested in the objects of their environment while the introverts are more interested in their

inner self, their subject. All people possess both extroversion and introversion and only the

predominance of one or the other determines the type (De Laszlo, 1959).
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 17

Jung’s second distinction is sensation and intuition (De Laszlo, 1959). Jung believed that

sensation must strictly distinguished from feeling, as it is the psychological function of

transmitting a physical stimulus to perception while feeling a person’s subjective interpretation

of that given sensation or any stimuli, which can be not only external but also internal or rather

inner stimuli. Sensation is divided into concrete and abstract sensation. Concrete sensation may

be in the form of a mix of feelings and thoughts about something that was sensed through our

senses, such as come from smelling a flower or gazing the sky that is a positive sense. However,

in abstract sensation, aesthetic representation of the sensed is more complex and higher and it

resembles the function of the artist who will take the sensation of smelling the flower or gazing

the sky into painting a flower or the sky, thus adding his creativity into that process. Thus,

concrete sensation is a reactive phenomenon while abstract sensation, as any type of abstraction,

is an act of will (De Laszlo, 1959).

Jung considered sensation and intuition as two opposite concepts. That is because

sensation is conscious while intuition is by Jung’s definition the psychological function of

transmitting perceptions in an unconscious way. The source of those unconscious perceptions

are either outer or inner or associations of any one of those (De Laszlo, 1959). Intuition,

although it may superficially appear as feeling, thought, sensation or perception, is neither of

those and what makes it different is its definition as an instinctive apprehension, irrespective of

the nature of its contents. It is an irrational perceptive function and the highest form of

cognition, thus Jung agrees on this with Spinoza (De Laszlo, 1959). Intuition is subjective (i.e.

unconscious facts of subjective origin) and objective (i.e. subliminal perceptions of an object) as

well as concrete (i.e. reactive process following directly from given circumstances) and abstract

(i.e. willful or directed process of transmitting perception to unconscious) (De Laszlo, 1959).
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 18

The third distinction is the feeling and thinking types. Feeling as a process of the

relationship between the ego and a given content and therefore it is a subjective process, which

may be in every respect independent stimuli, though chiming in with every sensation. Feelers

rely on their own subjective feelings (De Laszlo, 1959). Thinking has its own laws and brings

given presentations into conceptual connection. Thinking is an apprehensive activity divided

into active and passive thinking. Active Thinking is an act of will passive thinking is rather an

occurrence and it can be manifested in Jung’s early term fantasying, which he later called

Intuitive Thinking. Also, Jung called directed thinking Intellect as a rational function or rational

thinking while he called intellectual intuition the passive intuitive thinking or irrational thinking,

since it is undirected. Thinking directed by feeling is just thinking dependent upon feeling and

not intuitive. Jung disagreed with some psychologists who called associated thinking what he

just called mere presentation of associations and that is because real thinking is limited in linking

up representations by means of a concept or an act of judgment whether it was intended or not

(De Laszlo, 1959). Thinkers, unlike feelers, rely on their objective logic and look for facts while

feelers rely on their subjective feelings and look for affect, which is increased feeling.

The basic functions of the psyche are the four we just examined: thinking, feeling,

sensation, intuition. Jung called the least developed of the four inferior function (Fadiman &

Frager, 2002). Any individual has different strengths and weakness. Whatever of the four basic

functions of the psyche is the inferior one, it always has a resemblance of the primitive and

mysterious. Jung said that our inferior function brings us closer to God, because it makes us feel

so disempowered that we desperately seek for His help. Even those who do not believe in God

or in one God, but in many or in nothing at all, still they feel a kind of awe and mystery due to

their inferior function (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). As already mentioned, a fourth distinction was
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 19

added by post-Jungians such as the creators of the Myers-Briggs and that is the pair of perception

and judgment. Perception is a function of receiving and registering sensation. Judgment is a

willful act of classifying, manipulating, and controlling information. People who use more their

perception go with the flow and stick less to schedule, are more flexible, spontaneous, and less

predictable. Those who trust their judgment more, are more critical to others and self-critical,

strict, rigid, organized, schedule and goal-oriented, the leave nothing to chance, and they take

step-by-step actions (De Laszlo, 1959).

Fantasy and intuition are basic in Jungian theory. Those are functions of the unconscious

strongly related with dreams. Dreams are part of an important function of the psyche that keeps

us healthy. We need to sleep enough hours and have dreams, though dreams do not concern

themselves with health or sickness (De Laszlo, 1959). The dream is a fragment of involuntary

psychic activity, just conscious enough to be reproducible in the waking state (De Laszlo, 1959).

This activity takes place in the unconscious and its fragmentary release in the form of a dream

manage to pass subliminal perceptions can enter consciousness. The dream presents the most

“irrational” factors of all psychic phenomena. Logical coherence and morality may be minimal

or of “bad” quality (De Laszlo, 1959). Meaning of the dream has two levels: manifest content,

which the way it appears to the dreamer, and compensatory content, which Freud actually called

latent content and it is the hidden symbolic message of the dream, the one that awaits

interpretation (De Laszlo, 1959). This symbolic substrate of dreams is a composite of symbols

and archetypes and it reflects their dynamics and constant interaction (De Laszlo, 1959).

It is common among Jung and his followers, including Jeremy Taylor, well-known in

Jungian dream work, that a few principles of the nature of dreams were observed in their clinical

experience (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). All dreams come in service of health and wholeness and
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 20

no dream comes to inform the dreamer about what the dreamer already knows. Also, the

dreamer is the one knows or who can find a way to know what the dream really means, because

the dreamer is the one who has the dream. Dreams do not necessarily have only one meaning.

There are often many latent meanings that await interpretation depending on the nature and type

of dream. Dreams, as products of the collective unconscious, speak its universal language,

which is the language of metaphor and symbol that is embedded in archetypes (Fadiman &

Frager, 2002).

Theory of Conflict (Dysfunction)

When individuation cannot take place harmoniously and smoothly, but there are energy

discrepancies and outbalanced forces in the dynamics of the persona, the ego, the self, the

shadow, and the anima or animus, as well in other archetypes, such as the mother archetype or

the father archetype and instead there are mother complex constellations or father complex

constellations, then disease and dysfunction take place and begin to form (De Laszlo, 1959).

Complexes are psychic fragments which have spit off due to traumatic influences or

incompatible tendencies (Jung, 1961). Jung used association experiments or tests for his clients

where client would be stimulated by a word and come up with word associations. Then, word

associations were graphed, so that statistical data could be processed for comparisons. Those

experiments were used as complex indicators and proved that complexes interfere with the

intentions of the will and disturb the conscious performance by producing memory distortion and

blockages in the flow of associations (Jung, 1961). Obsessions may take place in a conscious

state or influences in speech and action may occur unconsciously (Jung, 1961). In cases of

psychosis, such as when there are auditory hallucinations or voices are manifestations of the
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 21

complexes that in client’s mind take life of their own in the form of an ego-character reminding

us of the “spirits” in ghost stories and “automatic writing” (Jung, 1961). Neuroses or everyday

psychological problems without the quality of insanity or loss of reality testing were thought to

be caused by organic factors. A neurosis is characterized by its relative autonomy of its

complexes, while in psychoses, such as schizophrenia the complexes have become autonomous

and disjoint (De Laszlo, 1959). Difficulties characteristic of autism are most associated with

neuroses (Grimes, 2010).

Ego inflation may take place when instead of putting the self in the center, the ego is

placed instead. Then, person’s individuation is abnormal and maladapted and it may lead to

developing a narcissistic personality. When the individual deals with the anima or the animus,

then tremendous energy is unleashed and the ego develops instead of the self (Fadiman & Frager,

2002). In myth, culture, and religion, there are examples where the ego gets inflated. Such is

Melanesian myth of mana or energy and power found in people, objects or supernatural beings.

The ego identifies with the wise man or wise woman (also called “wise one”) and then the

person is obsessed with the idea that he or she is a sage who knows everything and often even

reaches the point of believing that he or she has any liberty to power abuse. Such people with a

“mana personality” can be quite dangerous to society and nature and, of course, to themselves

(Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

Jung was among the psychologist who found support for the psychological etiology and

pathogenesis of neuroses as well as of psychoses, though some of both, especially the second,

may related to organic causes (De Laszlo, 1959). When the personality is injured by

uncontrolled forces of the unconscious, either personal and/or collective, and the ego is affected

by that, then the result is neuroses that may relate to anxiety, stress, conversion and somatoform
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 22

disorders or mild neurotic forms of personality disorders. However, when whole regions of the

normally controlled contents of the psyche are lost, the ego’s reaction is inadequate, and

consciousness is conquered by the uncontrolled and overwhelming of the unconscious, then it is

a psychosis. In severe psychoses, such as schizophrenia, the ego so inflated that it breaks in to

pieces, so ego fragmentation takes place (De Laszlo, 1959).

Excessive releases and interventions of the unconscious can causes problems in everyday

relationships to the point of family and individual dysfunction in the form or archetype complex

constellations (De Laszlo, 1959). Jung said that even if archetypes were proved nonexistent, still

we should reinvent them in order to protect our values before they disappear into unconscious.

Thus, archetypes are basic structures of the unconscious that interact with consciousness in such

a way that is a matter of urgent psychical hygiene to attend them and develop a healthy

relationship with them. When a whole elemental force of an original experience falls into the

unconscious, then a fixation acts compensatory and psychical energy is fixated on the subject

image of whose elemental force of an original experience was lost into the unconscious and such

can be the mother image. Thus, when the mother archetype functions in a way that it creates a

complex to the individual, then there is a mother complex constellation with other people who

may activate this complex by doing something that unconsciously remind the person of the

mother figure. For instance, the unpleasant, complaining, erratic, and neurotic wife that finds

everything wrong is of this kind. She becomes “nothing but femininity” and her unconscious

fixation on her womb image becomes a burden in every relationship, as she often acts in a way

that people may mislabel as “hormonal” or “cyclothymic” (De Laszlo, 1959).

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 23

Theory of Counseling (Central Constructs of the Counseling Process)

The concepts of self-realization, self-regulation, and self-actualization, described above,

are essential parts of the therapeutic goal in the counseling process of Analytical Psychology,

that is to enable the individual become fully functioning and use full potential (Fadiman &

Frager, 2002). Interpretation of symbolism and archetypes is applied in fantasy, dream, and

patterns of feelings, thoughts, and behavior for exploring individual’s self and attaining balanced

and healthy relationships. The patterns of the impact of client’s persona, ego, self, shadow,

anima or animus, and other archetypes affect them in their everyday social relationships.

The therapeutic stages are the analytic and the synthetic (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). The

analytic stage begins with confession, in which the individual begins to recover unconscious

material. Then, elucidation of the unconscious material takes place, where the person starts to

gain some understanding of the nature and content of the unconscious material, but still remains

dependent on therapist’s guidance. In the synthetic stage, education helps the client move from

mere psychological insight to new experiences and the learning of new habits for individual

growth. In the final part of transformation, the client-therapist relationship becomes integrated

and the client gets more independent and the relationship is now transformed. The individual

experiences a highly concentrated individuation, though archetypal material is not necessarily

confronted. The individual practices self-education, where the client takes more and more

responsibility for their own development.

The counseling/therapy process is based on the Relational Model where Relational

Analysis is implemented on counselor/therapist-client rapport is essential to the course of the

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 24

counseling/therapy process and outcomes. In this process, countertransference is explored. Jung

said that his therapy model is an analysis of irrational material, such as those of the unconscious,

including material from dreams and fantasies and their archetypal and symbolic qualities, which

have their own language and their own logic, and therefore, as he said, he worked with cases and

disorders that rational therapies cannot treat, because they do not understand, do not respect, and

therefore they do not treat those (De Laszlo, 1959). Jung said that the therapist (or analyst as he

prefer to say), is has to maintain the analytic frame by keeping track of the unconscious material

emerging and trying to make it conscious, thus cooperating with the unconscious instead of

opposing to it. Thus, the therapist needs to take a distance from the client and, curb his or her

tendency to be an authority figure or disclose too much information and should consistently in

every meeting keep the same neutral and anonymous attitude, the one of the listener, observer,

and interpreter of the material released during the therapeutic process (Jung, 1933).

Countertransference is the therapist’s answer to the client’s transference when it projects

a content of which the client is unconscious but which nevertheless exists in the client (Jung,

1933). Client’s transference can be positive, as the client unconsciously may see the therapist as,

let’s say, a paternal or maternal figure and may transfer those feelings to the therapist, thus

enabling a trust relationship and a close and warm rapport. However, transference can be

negative, as the client may displace negative feelings he or she had from let’s say interacting

with previous therapists or from someone else and transfer those negative feelings to the

therapist, thus affecting rapport. Resistance and conflict may result so the therapist needs work

through those and exploring client’s resistance and make enough and repeated interpretations

right away when the particular client’s resistance or conflict arises, so that the client can be

enlightened by realizing what is going on in therapy. Whether positive or negative the

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 25

transference, the countertransference can be just useful and meaningful, or as much of a

hindrance, according to whether or not it seeks to establish that better rapport which is essential

for the realization of certain unconscious contents. Like the transference, the countertransference

may have some elements of hindrance sometimes, as it can be compulsive and a forcible tie,

because of its powerful impact to the client as the therapist’s own words attempt to intervene to

the unconscious and thus, countertransference creates a "mystical" or unconscious identity with

the object of the countertransference (De Laszlo, 1959).

In the framework of analytical psychology as a therapeutic/counseling model, it is

important to remember what Jung used to say about who is doing the therapy and of course it is

the clients who may know things about themselves that the therapists would never have thought

of. Those hidden bits of knowledge and information are released in dreams and words and the

client, if is conscious and honest with himself or herself and with the therapist, then may

recognize them and disclose. Jung gave an example of a “normal” client, as he called him who,

although he didn’t have any obvious pathology, he had a repeated dream that bothered him. He

first resorted to occultism, before the dream occurred and then to psychology. He felt bad that he

used his dead boy’s memory in the dark business of occultism and he had this guilt that caused

the repeated dream of his diseased son. If the client had not disclose that, Jung would never be

able to know what was really happening With this client’s personal information, interpretation of

the guilt was therapeutic and the dream did not appear again (Jung, 1933). Interpretation works,

Jung said, as the dream was a criticism of his unconscious that emerged into consciousness and

as that happened, self- realization took place, and the goal of the dream was attained, so there

was no point for the dream to repeat itself, as there is no reason for a criticism or remark to

repeat itself when its goal of being attended is fulfilled (Jung, 1933).
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 26

Dream Analysis as interpretation of dreams is the therapist’s task to enable the client to

understand the latent or compensatory meaning of the dream (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). When

the dream seems to be threatening, then there is an entire procedure of working with the dream

that is dream work (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). In this process, the meaning is broken down to its

constituents and less threatening meanings emerge as the dream transforms itself (Fadiman &

Frager, 2002). Thus, what at a first glance, appears to be a formidable archetypal image of weird

and strange symbolism, it may actually hide a positive message what if followed, dreamer’s

wellbeing may be protected, as in the case of a young man who went to Jung having the dream of

his father driving drunk and damaging the car that son used too. The client was frightened that

something bad will happened to his father or to the car or both of them or otherwise his father

had something to hide, but that was weird, because his father was not an alcoholic and the son

had nothing against him and his father had nothing against his son either. Their relationship was

excellent and their lives were “normal” and there was no pathology in the client. Then, what did

the dream want to say to the dreamer? Jung concluded (after working long enough with the

client in order to do his inquiry and get enough information about the client) that the client was a

typical “daddy’s boy”, he had an overprotective father who provided everything for him and the

young man was afraid that all his being was dependent on his father’s wellbeing and sense of

control. Thus, this dream was a call for him to “wake up”, become aware of himself and start

claiming his individuality and develop his own life and become independent (Jung, 1933). These

types of dreams that contain important meaning that can transform one’s life, if one pays

attention to it, Jung called the “Big Dream” (Jung, 1933).

Dream interpretation, Jung advised, requires exact knowledge of the conscious status quo

and should be applied with respect to client’s moral, ideological, and religious convictions (Jung,
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 27

1933). Fixed symbols, Jung believed, should not be taken for granted (Jung, 1933). Even fixed

symbols may contain indefinite meanings and their interpretation depends on the individual

whose unconscious may have indefinite depths and contents and therefore a therapist cannot rely

on remedies or use other cases as templates for dream interpretation. That is because each client

is unique and has a different and unique life story.

Art of the client’s self-education is Active Imagination, though it is not really limited in

stages of therapy and can be done any time. The client is encouraged to explore his or her

imagination by employing any type of art (e.g. writing, drawing, painting, sculpture,

photography, etc.) in order to explore their inner depths of their psyche (Fadiman & Frager,

2002). Also, very helpful is the conscious imaging or guided imagery, which is step-by-step

fantasizing a stress-reducing scenario, such as going to the beach or going hiking. Instead of a

passive fantasy, active imagination is the active attempt to engage the unconscious in a dialogue

with the ego through symbols. What expressive media may be used depends on the individual’s

needs, interests, values, and skills (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). Jung built a medieval revival

tower in Bollingen, added wings to the tower, as his inner needs multiplied, and produced many

sculptures in his yard while he painted and drew murals and illuminated manuscripts in Latin and

high German script, including his famous Red Book and mandalas or Buddhist archetypal

paintings that have a concentric pattern of colors and motifs. Mandalas stand for the archetype

of self and centeredness (Jung, 1961). Jung thought that his Red Book was a product of

automatic writing. In his Red Book, Jung wrote about his active imagination of engaging in a

dialogue with his anima that he identified with the biblical figure of Salome and with Prophet

Elias as his self, which he later on identified with Philemon, a Greek pagan of anti-monotheistic
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 28

sentiments who talked to him about a new era of spiritual development that is coming soon

(Fadiman & Frager, 2002).

Population: Emotional Disturbance and Asperger’s Syndrome

Jungian Theory may apply to all types of mental and developmental disorders, including

those of emotional disturbance, such as ADHD, LD, and ASD (Intellectual Disability and

Asperger’s Syndrome) (Fadiman & Frager, 2002). That is because it offers tools for the

interpretation of universal human inner behavior. We will focus here on Asperger’s Disorder and

ASD in general. It is easier for people with Asperger’s to engage in imaginative, intellectual and

spiritual processes than the moderate or low functioning people with autism. However, it is

believed that the psyche functions (e.g. archetypes, dreams, symbols, etc.) exist in all humanity

despite disabilities and limitations.

The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM) IV-TR defines features and symptoms for

code 299.80, Asperger’s Syndrome as individuals who must manifest at least two of the

following qualitative impairments in social interaction. One symptom category includes

Nonverbal behavior impairments such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and

social gestures related to social interaction. A second symptom that may take place is failure to

develop peer relationships at a particular developmental stage. Lack of seeking enjoyment and

achievement with others and lack of social or emotional reciprocity are also significant

symptoms required for the Asperger’s diagnosis (APA, 2000).

DSM IV-TR requires the presence of at least one of the following restricted, repetitive,

stereotyped behaviors, interests or activities (APA, 2000): (1) Preoccupation with one or more

interests of abnormal intensity or focus; (2) Nonfuctional routines or rituals; (3) Motor
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 29

mannerisms (e.g. hand or finger flapping or twisting or complex whole body movements); (4)

Persistent preoccupation with parts of objects ;(5) Impairment in social and occupation

functioning. Some people with Asperger’s may also appear symptoms of general delay in

language (e.g. single words used by age 2 years or communicative phrases used by age of 3

years) (APA, 2000). Unlike other types of autism, Asperger’s does not cause delay in cognitive

development or age-appropriate self-help skills and adaptive behavior (other than social

interaction), and curiosity with environment in childhood. A differential diagnosis for

Asperger’s may rule out any criteria for other Pervasive Developmental disorders or

Schzophrenia.

There are psychometric studies of personality tests, such as NEO-PI-r based on the Big

Five Theory of Personality (i.e., Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and

Neuroticism) and the ASQ (Autism Spectrum Quotient) that associate autism (ASD in general)

with a strong indication of introversion, and negative correlation with extraversion (r = -.434,

p<.01) meaning that the more severe the autism, the lower the extraversion rate, the less severe

the autism the higher the extraversion rate (Costa and McCrae, 1992). Also, there was positive

correlation of autism with neuroticism (r = .289, p<.01) (Grimes, 2010). That means the more

severe the autism the higher the likelihood of neuroticism and vice versa. Introversion,

according to Jung, is the channeling of energy inward the person, which Extroversion is

channeling energy outward. In NEO-PI-R Neuroticism (N) is measured by averaging the scores

of its areas which are: N1-Anxiety; N2 -Angry-Hostility; N3-Depression; N4-Self-

Consciousness; N5-Impulsiveness; and N6-Vulnerability.

Also, Asperger’s, autism and ADHD share with social phobia a “repetitive

relentlessness” (Grimes, 2010). Social introversion, thinking introversion characterized by self-

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 30

directed thinking and introverted thinking, attention switching and attention to detail as well as

negative trends of reflection/rumination, depression, and neuroticism are likely to often receive

be indicated by high scores in psychometric (personality and clinical) tests. Imagination is also a

key factor, as people with autism may get reversed scores in statements, such as “If I try to

imagine something, I find it very easy to create a picture in my mind” (Grimes, 2010, p.14).

Statements such as “I am good with chit chats” or “I like to share activities with others” usually

receive low scores. High scores receive statements such as I tend to notice details that others do

not “, or “New situations make anxious” or hypersensitivity statements, such as “I notice small

sounds other people do not notice”(Grimes, 2010, pp.14-15).

Baron-Cohen (2002) suggests a new theory of the autistic brain. She claims that it is an

extremely male brain. People with autism are preoccupied with parts of objects, geometric

shapes, and numbers (e.g. traffic systems, time-tables, electrical switches, etc.) that

demonstrating a scientific-mechanical inclination. That is because some right-hemisphere

circuitries are overactive causing low activity to language and communication circuitry of the

left hemisphere. It is not an accident that many high-functioning students with Asperger’s have

related vocational interests, behaviors, values and skills and some of them are even successful in

mathematical, scientific, and technological venues of academic and career development (Baron-

Cohen, 2002).

Asperger’s entails a number of functional limitations, including social and

communication skills that may cause everyday problems, such as coping, social interactions,

employment and so on (APA, 2000). Accommodations may be required for the above

limitations. Although many people with Asperger’s do not have any language problems, some

may do. Also, from an early age, people with Asperger’s may manifest restricted, repetitive,
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 31

and/or stereotyped behavior/activity. They may also show sensory functioning and sensitivity to

environmental conditions, such as low tolerance for abrupt loud sounds. Motor Planning may

also be affected, with some obvious deviate or unusual way of walking, posture or body

movements.

Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autistic Disorder may include qualitative impairment in

social interaction with at least two of the four symptoms: obvious impairment in the use of

multiple nonverbal behaviors (e.g. body postures, eye-to-eye gaze, etc.), inability to form age-

appropriate peer relationships, lack of spontaneous socialization, or social or emotional

reciprocity (CDC, August 17, 2009). . Also, there one of the following two diagnostic criteria

have to meet: either lack of communication (one of each: delay/total lack in spoken language,

inability to sustain a conversation, stereotyped, repetitive or idiosyncratic language or lack of

age-appropriate of fantasy play, such as make-believe play or social imitative play) or repetitive

and stereotyped patterns of behavior (one or more stereotyped and restricted interest with

abnormal intensity or focus, inflexible routines and rituals, stereotyped and repetitive motor

manners with hands or more parts of the body, or persistent preoccupation with geometric shapes

or parts of an object) (CDC, August 17, 2009). Diagnosticians need to make sure that the

repertoire of symptoms includes delay or abnormal functioning in any one of following: social

interaction, language in a social/communicative context or age-appropriate social imitative play

(CDC, 2013).

Applications of Jungian Theory to Emotional Disturbance

An interesting published case from an adult with Asperger’s who claims to have been

cured, if not fully, at least partially from Asperger’s, is the case of Steve Brier (2003), who has
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 32

created a website (www.conniptions.com) where he has posted a great number of his own

writing pieces that document and reflect on his journey through Asperger’s. Brier (2003), in a

moving all-talk testimony, confessed how he came from difficult childhood and family history of

Asperger’s from his father’s side who didn’t do that well, and after spending money and time in

no avail with top doctors and therapists, he decided to become his own doctor and do research in

his problem using his mathematical and scientific genius, a characteristic of many people with

Asperger’s. After a long and difficult journey struggling his own self and fate, mind and body,

he was finally able to overcome his language and communication deficits and see color after

being born colorblind due to his autism, made a good use of his genius in numbers, built a career

in finance and become financially successful, despite the challenges and ups and downs in all

aspects of his life due to his condition.

Brier (2003) claims that the key to this improvement was being able to gain self-

awareness through introspection. Once he realized his target problem (e.g. lack of color vision

or not able to understand the meaning of the words), he could automatically fully and

permanently overcome the problem and restore his target functions to normal. He says that he

was greatly benefited from Jung, meditation, prayer, and keeping a journal observing himself in

an almost scientific way, like experimenters do, following the following observation steps:

observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena; formulation of hypotheses

to explain the phenomena; use of the hypothesis to predict or solve behaviors of similar

phenomena; and finally tests by others properly performing the same experiments (Brier, 2003).

Although, this may sound Cognitive-Behavioral, and it is, he also used a lot of Jungian concepts,

such as that of the wounded healer archetype. As he said himself, he became his own doctor. In

a Cognitive-Behavioral language, Brier practiced his metacognitive skills to achieve self-

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 33

awareness by monitoring his self and using a journal in a form of self-help cognitive-behavioral

modification (Corey, 2001). However, it was more than that, as it was a deeply emotional

process. So far he thought that besides his genetic predisposition, a key factor to his symptoms

and conditions was also his family pathology (e.g. resentment toward a distant unemotional

father with Asperger’s, a self-proclaimed genius, that Brier (2003) portrayed as a con artist who

cared only about his career as a cartoonist and who ironically did not care about his own child).

Brier (2003) focused on the concepts of circling, mindlessness, Jungian slips, and “rote

speech” (talking aphasia). Circling is the repeating patterns of speaking, thinking, feeling, body

language, and lifestyle. For instance, there were times while driving he felt it was unreal, like

doing automatically and feeling trapped running in circles around the Central Park reservoir for

hours around and around like his mind was stuck on this route. He was repeatedly doing the

same mistakes and clumsy handling of machinery, including computers to the point of destroying

many of them and having to buy computers every now and then and return them to OfficeMax

where they could replace it. “Rote Speech” or talking aphasia is when he could not understand

the real meaning of the worlds, not in terms of cognitive processes, but in terms of feeling. He

could define them, he could give examples, he could use them correctly in sentences, but he

could not feel them, he could not place them in a social/affective context and he could not

empathized other people’s reaction to those words. Thus, he could amass a huge vocabulary that

he knew well, but could not integrate it to his own experiences and to other people’s feelings and

everyday circumstances, thus it was socially a rote speech. That is typical for all people with

autism. They can gather a lot of information, but in the end it’s useless, because they cannot

integrate it and use in a social context (Brier, 2003).

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 34

Mindlessness is not just what experts and non-experts usually describe a time out of

personhood, identity, consciousness, thinking and emotional functions, but it’s all that and even

more: a cosmic splitting (Brier, 2003). People with autism live in their own parallel world, a

world often overwhelmed by the contents of the personal unconscious and the collective

unconscious. Their consciousness is blurred and diverted between here and there, now and then,

esoteric/inner world and the outside world, real and unreal, fantasy and reality, memories and

personhood, other people’s feelings and their own feelings, other people’s voices or even non-

human sounds and their own voices. Brier (2003) called his own a “savant-memorized voice”

(p.15). Autistic savants or people with Asperger’s have the tendency to possess a photographic

memory, but they are not able to have authentic experiences with objects, words, and ideas.

They just memorize them, but they cannot feel them. They memorize a picture, but they cannot

feel its colors or have depth perception, as in Brier’s case. Concepts, objects, activities, and

people were all memorized, but not emotionally experienced. Brier (2003) confessed that taste,

money, reading, men and women did not feel the way a “normal” person may feel them. How to

act in relationships, how to do things, how to talk, and so on, all were memorized, or were based

on scripts and templates that he did not own. They are all memorized Like many “autistic

savants”, a word he like to use, or people with Asperger’s, he was good at hard things, but he

could not handle what others considered easy. He did not have what every else is supposed to

have: common sense He could run easily, but he had difficulty walking up the stairs. He had no

problem making speech, but small talk was hard. He had no problem lifting a lot of weight in

the gym, but lifting small light objects was uneasy (Brier, 2003).

Brier (2003) assured that it’s all about mindlessness as a defense mechanism, an attempt

to depart from reality and stop thinking or feeling. Thus, echolalia and echopraxia may occur.
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 35

It’s what I call a “screen-saver”, to use a computer paradigm. In other words, it’s a break from

reality while waiting without being able to understand or simply stand it. It’s a defense

mechanism, a fight or flight spontaneous and automatic response to restore self-regulation that

protects the person from getting frustrated if he/she eventually realizes what is happening to

him/her. Thus, there is isolation or self-mutilation of individuality, a kind of ego fragmentation

which is very different than the one in schizophrenia as people with autism do not have

delusions, hallucinations or paranoid ideation and their etiology is very different. Also, unlike

the students with ADHD, they have different cognitive and neurological barriers where the

problem is not excessive energy or mana in the form of hyperactivity or inattention in the form

of daydreaming or distraction, but they are just “abducted” so to speak by their own brain and

live in a “twilight zone” kind of limbo, a nether-land of consciousness whose captivity is more

intense and its breaks or lapses of reality, communication and socialization shorter when autism

is more severe. So it all depends on the severity of the disorder (Brier, 2003).

Jungian Slips is what Brier (2003) uses to describe acasual events or a type of

synchronicity that aims to warn and prove that things are not the way they are and that if there

was a good event that took place, one should not be deceived, because a bad event may follow.

Brier (2003) reports that after every financial or career success there was a sudden accident or

illness. However, he could not understand how come all these events took place. Brier (2003)

strongly believes that people with ASD, including Asperger’s, at least those high-functioning

who are able to, need to pick their pieces together and be able to realize their condition and cope

with it by releasing suppressed and latent skills or uncultivated skills, traits, temperaments, and

talents that they may be aware of. They need to discover their own self, the self-archetype, that

of the Sun or “centerdness” that has to be released from the depths of the collective unconscious
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 36

so that individuation may be achieved to the degree permitted by individual’s neurological,

biological, and genetic make-up, which however, can be positively affected and altered as well,

in what is called “neurogenesis” or creating new neuropaths and increasing neurons firings and

multiplying the number of neurons and restoring those malfunctioned, but to a certain point, after

a lot of new learning, self-discovery, and emotional and spiritual development. In this emotional

and spiritual development, “aha moments” or “peak experiences”, meeting with the numinous,

may cause synchronicities that may change the person’s reality as changes will be facilitated and

new roads will open overnight with a unusual fitting of the right people at the right time and

place in an array of meaningful coincidences and superficially unrelated, but subtly related

events (Brier, 2003).

Brier’s pick (2003) experiences took place first in the form of what Jung called “big

dream”. He recorded over 10,000 dreams, some of them induced by Ecstasy, but many of them

occurred naturally. He even hired a part-time processor to type them. In those dreams, the same

figure, an old wise man with white beard came and gave him insights and guide him a his

mentor. He would see letters in his dreams trying to put them together and decoded them and

often he came up with the word “autism” while back then he had not discovered yet that he had

autism. All these series of dreams, weird freak accidents, mysterious illnesses, and misfortunes

started giving him the impression that they all make up a big picture of meaning, a message that

he needs to find out. Once he was cutting a fruit, his arm was all the sudden out of control and

cutting himself, all this blood gave him a flashback where he could reenact in his imagination all

the scene that his godmother had told him about his birth trauma. He could see the surgeon

holding him with the forceps and he could feel the moment as he was living it that instant. Then,

after a lot of reading psychology books and looking up at thousands of cases, things started
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 37

making sense and he could put the pieces of his own jigsaw puzzle together. He began

synthesizing his own life story and family history and making connections and discovering

things that did not even crossed his mind before. It was not an accident he could not taste food.

No one in his family was a good cook. None of his parents and relatives had taste of food, art,

reading or anything else. None of them talked with each other, there was no dialogue, no warm

feelings exchanged, no hearth to be shared. It was not an accident his father and his father’s

brother were autistic. He was fascinated with how all these people got together to form an

autistic family.

It was not an accident that art and reading caused Brier (2003) anxiety as he tried to find

meanings, but he couldn’t. However, Jung’s books on Archetypes and Psychological Types,

although hard to read as he felt, they did rang him a bell and they did stimulated him. Images

and pictures in Jung’s books about archetypal imagery lighten up some dark corners of his mind.

So far art was just messages from a different plane of existence, codes he had to decoded and

that gave him great anxiety as well as same thing with reading and words. What really cured this

“rote” language and communication problem was spending over 60 hours using computers and

trying to understand the difference of virtual reality and the real world and making metaphors

and drawing parallels between his autistic world and the world around him and he was also

putting all these feelings into words by writing on the computer, as well as putting all these

feelings into images, by designing pictures on the computer combined with words and messages

about his feelings and the meanings of the pictures. By reading Jung’s “Psychological Types”,

he felt that intuition was his elixir and his philosophical stone that he had to discover so he could

discover himself and overcome his problems caused by his Asperger’s. He felt a powerful

connection with and meaning coming from those types and they really made sense to him. He
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 38

was able to go beyond mere grammar rules, semantics, and memorized use of reading. He was

moved from what he read. They made a click for him in the back of his mind despite the Jung’s

writing style, that of an erudite and polymath, a complex and charismatic personality. Brier

(2003) eventually cultivated this intuition through meditating on dreams, computer functions,

and computer art, and daydreams, and by observing his own self in relationships and alone,

taking a distance form subjective judgment and by objectifying this process on his own pace and

with less anxiety.

Then, taste, reading, art, men and women all were now making sense in a social and real-

world context (Brier, 2003). Men and women were not just scripts or definitions of an

encyclopedia. Women’s psychology started making sense to him. It began dawning on him

what went wrong with dates, why this or that word he told them was wrong or what manners

were perceived in a different way from what he thought was right. Intuition led to empathy and

sympathy. Then, in a long journey to Oklahoma and while passing through the countryside,

while driving, he looked up the sky and all the sudden the sky was blue, not what he thought was

blue and the clouds were white, not what he thought was white. And then he realized that he had

gained his depth perception. He was astonished to the idea of the proportions, sizes, texture, and

dimensions of his surrounding landscape and the sky above (Brier, 2003). Last came more

complex feelings after a lot of practice on meditation. He could even hear himself talking in his

natural real voice, in a normal rhythm and pattern, not a “savant-memorized speech” (Brier,

2003, p.15).

Personal Reflections
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 39

To me it seems that Brier (2003) found an approach similar to the Socratic Elenchus, but

not in Socrates’ cognitive context of conscious reasoning, but in Jung’s analytical context of

transcendent function that released unconscious material and worked on them. In this self-

analysis, he started his self-help journey with discovering unconscious material and started

recording them which is the confession stage. Then, he found some patterns in that material that

made sense to him which is the elucidation process. Then, he studied and researched on them

and developed some strategies to work with them such as dream analysis and dream

interpretation, working through the material which is the education stage. Finally, “peak

experiences” and “aha moments” emerged and after their occurrence, symptoms did not appear

again, which is the transformation stage. Some of these peak experiences appear to connect

indivuduals to emotions and creativity (Cramond, 1995) as evidenced most in ADHD research.

A Jungian approach would take those attitudes in to a more holistic, philosophical,

pervasive, and dynamic plane of interpretation (Cramond, 1995). It would go beyond exploring

mere overt behaviors or cognitions/thought patterns, unlike the cognitive-behavioral paradigm,

and would delve into the emotional parameters that lead to those behaviors and attitudes.

Without these lenses, it’s behaviors and thoughts that may occur automatically because of the

onset of disorder and thus they are separate from emotion. This gives people the chance to

explore extraversion and imagination in a positive and spontaneous way.

My own internship experiences with persons with Asperger’s Syndrome and ASD

occurred at a Middle High School (MHS) in Brooklyn, NY. The program is, according to its

mission statement, “a program that provides services to adolescents with Autism Spectrum

Disorders, and those classified with emotional disturbances, multiple disabilities, or other health

impairments.” (AHRC-NYC, 1997-2011). Some of the students may have been diagnosed with
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 40

both autism and ADHD. Here emotional disturbances are separate from ASD and may include

ADHD. A special focus of the organization on ASD as a behavioral/neurological is obvious

here. However, it is usual to include under the umbrella of “emotional disturbances” or

“emotional disturbance” for both ASD and ADHD. The contribution here is to delve into the

unexplored Jungian aspects of emotional disturbance and extract some important information

and insights to be used as tools of interpretation of the data collected from my internship at the

site that took place from February 2013 to the present (July 2013).

The MHS program is provided to students who meet all criteria for being accepted to

non-public schools. Students range from age 13 to 21. The program is funded and supervised by

the NYS Department of Education. It offers specialized programs in Applied Behavior Analysis

(ABA); Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS); Treatment and Education of Autistic

and other related Communication Handicapped Children (TEACCH); Sign Language; AAC

Devices / Communication Devices; Dance / Creative Movement (currently inactive due to

vacancy); Art and Music; Drama & Sensory Gym; Multi-Sensory / Multi-Disciplinary Approach;

Technology (computers in each classroom); Evidence-Based Programming and Curricula;

Reading, Math, Science & Social Studies; Computer Lab; Self-Help, Self-Advocacy and Daily

Living Skills; Social Skills; Person Centered Planning; Transition Planning (AHRC-NYC, 1997-

2013).

Services provided may include: Screenings; Individualized Programs; Small Classes

(with high teacher / student ratios); Parent Training; Parent Workshops; Community Based Work

Program; Speech; OT; Consultant Model Counseling; Individual / Group Counseling (AHRC-

NYC, 1997-2013). Instructional programs include the ABA approach that is a research-based

approach used for autism and embedded in the cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) pesrspective.
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 41

The TEACCH approach also used at the MHS, was developed through The University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill and visual cues in teaching students with autism The ABA approach is a

research-based approach proven to be effective in teaching children with autism. The TEACCH

approach, developed through The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, utilizes visual

cues to effectively teach individuals with autism.

The instructional program combines teaching different skills such as academics, speech

language, self-help, and daily living skills, vocational skills, as well as, social skills. AHRC-

NYC MHS uses the Individualized Goal Selection (IGS) and Syracuse Curriculum. Students are

taught in small groups of a staff (teachers, teaching assistants and one-to-one specialists) and

students ratio of either 8:1:2 or 10:1:2 (AHRC-NYC, 1997-2013). The ABA approach is a

research-based approach proven to be effective in teaching children with autism. The TEACCH

approach, developed through The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, utilizes visual

cues to effectively teach individuals with autism (AHRC-NYC, 1997-2013). Focus is also

placed in pre-vocational training and community-based training/outings, such as going to local

libraries, restaurants, supermarkets, coffee shops, and stores and learn how to shop independently

and vocational internships run in-school varying from office work at the main office and the

school’s copy center, where I have spent most of my time, and the school store and at various

settings outside school, such as COSTCO and a Senior Center (AHRC-NYC, 1997-2013).

From the above, it is obvious that my endeavor to use a Jungian perspective was hard. I

followed most of the above techniques and methods such as TEACCH, PECS, administer

TEACCH’s TTAP test and Brigance Test, in-school travel training, life skills, and teaching

money skills and trade/life skills at the school store located in the basement’s cafeteria. I

escorted classes in community outings and teaching about traffic signs in the street by using
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 42

PECS and utilizing assistive technology, such as Dynavox ipads and augmentative

communication devices. I am also proud to have participated in a pioneering internship project

hosted by Pace University. However, I was able to understand from day one that it was place in

reach of Jungian concepts emerging every single day in abundance.

Of course, one may say that this does not come as a surprise, because archetypes and

symbols exist everyone collective unconscious and all people are born with a personal

unconscious and the same psyche structure, no matter how healthy they are. However, the

intricacies and mystique of autism cannot be seen apart those intricacies and mystique of Jung’s

Analytical Psychology.

My task was to discover such “aha moments” and “peak experiences” and it was self-

fulfilling prophesy, as I found more than I expected. In the self-advocacy classes as well as at

the school store, I used the I was also able to use Socratic Questions to many of my Asperger’s

students and collect enough material that is interesting from a Jungian/Socratic perspective in

terms of both transcendent function as well as self-realization. Instead of using a “cookie-cutter”

mechanistic way of getting the answers I want and have my students just emulate what I wanted

them to do, I tried to make them think for a moment and share their feelings without repeating

my words or other people’s words or the answer I wanted to say as it usually happens with the

PECS and the step-by-step instructions, matching, and fill-in the blanks type of worksheets. In

collaboration with some wonderful and very creative, well-educated and compassionate teachers

and teaching assistants, we used different modalities to enhance creative expression ranging from

playing a video game specially designed by AHRC-NYC staff in order to make students use their

imagination with concepts such as dragons, castles, beautiful princesses and brave princes,

wizards, and other figures that may remind them of the usual cartoons and video games they may
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 43

play, but they also resemble a lot of Jung’s primordial images and archetypes such as the Wise

Old Man (wizard), the Animus (King/Prince)and the Anima (Queen/Princess) and the dragon or

“ourovoros ofis” (Greek for “tail-eating snake”) of the Gnostics, or the philosophical stone of

the alchemists. Such stone can be the what Jung thought the hidden meaning of treasure in

dreams , the hidden gems of our psyche, our repressed and unrealized abilities and potentials.

Thus, games, such as killing the dragon, taking the philosopher’s stone from the wizard,

or saving the beautiful princess help students to take one more step closer to his or her

individuation by coping with everyday challenges, one success at a time, killing the dragon

slowly but effectively, finding support from older and experienced individuals and role models,

such as staff and teachers or mentors, so that they can reach their goals and restore equilibrium

between their animus (girls) or their anima (boys). Adolescents are at the threshold of becoming

adults, thus this transition to adulthood is related to maturity and independence which for people

with autism may be challenged or even compromised.

We used both filling-in the blanks by free participation and individual spontaneous

creative writing with sharing in class and the second was more successful, though it took longer

and it was challenged by some students’ lack of stamina, patience, and self-confidence as well

as academic barriers, such as mistakes in grammar, language mechanics, and sentence structure.

Emotional expression was our goal, however, and therefore mistakes were welcome. A lot of

childhood memories and family relations emerged. Affection and love that was lying in their

back of their head as well as anger and resentment for both family, relatives, friends, classmates,

and teachers/staff were all repressed in the back of their head and trapped in the middle of hat is

wrong and what is right. Poetry in a less formalized, or less pre-planned or structured/guided

seemed to work with the proper motivational music, motivating words and images in pictures
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 44

and verbal prompts or staff storytelling and sharing. However, in structured, pre-plan, ABA-

based poetry activities of some lower-functioning students, nothing but a disjoined, meaningless

and commonplace in almost every student emerged which looked like a shopping list of

numbered phrases that characterized a person, in the form of “I” statements (“I am a good

student, I am smart, I am brave, I am a cop, I am a painter, I am singer, I am here, I am well)

with very few variations, almost dictated by staff, in resemblance of echolalia and echopraxia or

repetitive actions without meaning or understanding. I more severe cases with multiple

disabilities, such Intellectual Disability, but surprisingly even with some Asperger’s high-

functioning students with Asperger’s, cognitive problems caused a great difficulty in allowing

higher associations, emotional, and spiritual processes to take place. It is like the hardware

power supply or hard disk are broken just because they gave us that computer and we try to work

with some sophisticated software

Drama therapy and Drama Education has been proved to be very beneficial to people and

especially adolescents with Asperger’s. Adolescents as transitioning to adulthood need to find

who they are, they go through the stage of Identity Vs. Isolation social development stage of

Erick Erickson (Corey, 2001) and they either make it and get a sense of identity or they may feel

isolated. It is not an accident that I met a few students at AHRC-NYC MHS with interests in

drama and one of them was determined to become an actor and a voice actor, acting but also

giving his voice to cartoons. All students there were constantly mumbling words from the

cartoons their caregivers, parents and teachers/staff had them watch, from the lowest functioning

to the highest functioning students. Seemingly, autistic interest in drama may follow the same

pattern of preoccupation with trains and interests in becoming a train conductor. Repetition and

sense of security from consistency and no change is the reason for the train theme preoccupation.
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 45

For movies and cartons, may be also a reason related to echolalia and echopraxia, as with the

trains.

As evidenced by Brier’s case, getting lost in other people’s voices and words by adopting

them as a process of mindlessness. There, however, may also exist a “homeopathic”, so to

speak, treatment/solution in experimenting with identity, but especially with social relationships.

Authenticity in voice, words, senses, perceptions, traits, and temperaments comes with

objectification and externalization, as Brier (2003) put it, and self-realization that is reversing the

introversion process. Playing different roles, though, may life coach the person in dealing

effectively with everyday situations and relationships. In that AHRC class with High School

students with Asperger’s, some of them very talented, sociable, and verbal, in a monthly unit of

the Self-Advocacy class meeting once a week for 30 minutes, we were able to come up with

conflict resolution scenarios based on negative behaviors and emotions of students often

displayed in the classroom. A SmartBoard was used to project a 3-step diagram of action

designed by classroom teacher and prolific fiction author David Mammina: stating the problem,

action to take, and consequences of the action (Mammina, March 3013, Personal

Communication). Students would brain storm and teacher/staff would write their feedback,

discuss it and then engage in role play. The challenge was to have them act naturally without too

many prompts. They had to reenact what usually happens in real life based on their memories of

how they act and what conflicts they have with other students. After role play, they had to

discuss between them and with stuff about their role play and different ways to act and the

consequences of those actions and came up with informal goals and plans of how to act from

now on. A lot of emotion was released and communicated from one student to another in groups

of two, groups of students in conflict. Their relationship has been changed ever since and
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 46

besides improved classroom management, the emotional benefits for the students were apparent

and they also integrate that in their family dynamics.

Parents have reported to teacher and staff the positive results that occurred after the series

of these lessons implemented. We paired them with those students and every week they were

acting more and more naturally and realistically, but the most important is the teacher and the

staff reported a lot of progress and positive change in the student’s behavior and integrate

positive emotions and attitudes in everyday situations. For instance, instead of screaming when

one takes another person’s belongings or being aggressive after one feels offended by another

student and son on. Wilmer-Barbrook (2004) in her single case study of an adolescent

diagnosed with Asperger’s who had severe social and communication problems, after intensive

drama therapy, there were significant permanent transformative and life-changing results to the

point he emerged to be very effective in her everyday communication and relationships by being

able to achieve empathy and integrate and internalized emotion.

Movies were shown in various classrooms, however, during breaks and for the sole

purpose of entertainment. However, by stopping the DVD player in every scene and having

students discuss in class with staff and between them and write in questionnaires with open-

ended questions and free-writing exercises on how they felt in every scene and give examples,

was both fun and a learning experience at the same time. They learned how to express their

feelings and be cognizant of how they feel and what emotions cause their behaviors which are

not as far as they thought from those of everyday people. Instincts emerged and their normality

and no need to fear them was discussed. In great consort with the afore-mentioned Jungian

concepts, learning by watching the scenes and experiencing joy, fear, embarrassment, sadness,

even anger toward the villain or love toward the “good” people of the story were apparent
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 47

without even the need of documenting anything, just by observing the students, though both

questionnaires and conversation included metacognitive, to use another Cognitive-Behavioral

term, and Socratic Questioning. Transcendent Function also took place, as unconscious feelings

emerged with word association in conversation and reflection on key words, phrases, body

language, and gestures in various scenes.

Poker was used as a cooperative game in a Self-Advocacy class with high-functioning

Asperger’s students. Some of them were very talented in acting, singing, video-game design,

drawing, and painting, but they all lack a sufficient modus operandi or way of acting which is

insulation and keeping to themselves. Thus, their being docile and naïve may be improved

through a strategic game or a cooperative game, such as poker. Peer mentoring as a form of

social/observational learning, has been shown very effective and gives a relief and time out to

both teachers, school staff, and parents (Hausman-Morris, July 14, 2009). Here Albert

Bandura’s Social or Observational Learning, a term of his Social Cognitive Theory, a Cognitive-

Behavioral one (Cherry b, 2013) was used for Self-Efficacy or the person’s belief to be able to

do certain things (Cherry a, 2013) and proved its power and immense importance at its best!

Students not only learned to play poker in less than a month, but they also learned different

versions and tricks of poker and how those, such as the concept of “Poker Face” may apply to

everyday life and relationships. Teacher and staff with my help demonstrated poker playing and

told stories about “poker faces” and tricks that resemble a poker game. Students were then asked

to come up with similar stories and were able to express their feelings about them as well as how

they felt when they won or lost the poker game or when they found out that their partners were

cheating or when they were caught cheating. Poker helped also to put some of their students’

ability with number’s in a functional, social, and integrative context, as for them mindlessness
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 48

was making them not able to understand the practical use of umbers in terms of money, trade,

and gambling. It is not an accident that the most challenging concept in both academics, social

advocacy, and pre-vocational training was money management from understanding its value ad

its use to even coin and currency recognition, as it was very evident at the pre-vocational training

school store.

Music was also interesting and kept student’s interest constant and intense with a lot of

participation even by those with more severe autism and multiple disabilities, including

psychomotor impairment. An attempt to inter-disciplinary skills based on the Multiple

Intelligences model, such as coming up with a utopia, country with its own unique music,

demographics, economy, and location on the map, was very pleasant and creative as in-class

performance, but dull, commonplace and repetitive as written assignment. In the in-class

performance, one student played drums in front of the class and the rest of the students and the

staff followed after he or she was done with demonstrating his or her own music that was

supposed to be the music of that imaginary country. Students were able to improvise by creating

their music on drums, but could not go beyond copying prompts and other student’s examples in

the written assignment. Coming up with an ecosystem, an economy, a government, a population,

and a location on the map may be possible or even easy for people with ADHD as we may show

later on, but very different for people with autism. However, our target here is emotion, not

cognition or behavior. So, in terms of emotional expression, music helps people with autism

express their emotions in an appropriate and sociable way by performance as a leader and having

other following the rhythm just played by the each student at a time.

Father Complex constellations emerged when students of both genders and both high and

low functioning had a positive transference with me saying that I reminded them of their father,
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 49

either because I had a beard like him or I am of the same age like him. They greeted me

everyday in an intense and different way than the conventional they used for the staff they knew

for years. They stopped their repetitive behaviors to talk to me and expressed positive and

appropriate body language and verbal responses with a few excessive ones from the low-

functioning students.

Perhaps, in their eyes, I embodied the wise old man archetype or a parental father-like

figure and to some more highly functioning, a new friend and even a peer, as they treated me as

such, often suing the phrase “my friend”. Some of them had a few friends, others didn’t or they

taught they had by mistaking acquaintances for friends and peers. It was important to

relentlessly follow through with rules, consequences, praise and rewards (Lanir, 2011).

I was able to use a number of related interventions, such as establishing a fixed time each

day for silent-reading, follow-along reading, storyboards, playacting, and essays (The US

Department of Education, 2006). Collaborative learning and creative and artistic activities were

used to address impulsivity (Turketi, 2010). Assistive technology was more prevalent in public

schools, as opposed to my experience in underfunded Greek parochial schools (Zoupaniotis,

January 5, 2012).

My experience in the Greek parochial school validated the use of music, dance with

fidgeting and socialization. Drama, poem recitation, arts and crafts exhibitions, writing/essay

exhibitions, and Byzantine Chanting were helpful, symbolic parts of the curriculum that connect

students with their roots, listening to ancestral voices, so to speak, and getting in touch with the

old world, filling the gaps with their grandparents and/or parents who are from Greece. Culture

is a main theme in Jungian theory and it is not an accident that most of his theory came from
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 50

ethnographic research he conducted and personal travels all over the world where he studied

customs and traditions, but always looking for sharing things in common in all cultures and eras.

His finds that culture can motivate all types of personalities, disorders, races, and genders has

been well-established. It’s obvious that with the population with ADHD, ethnic, cultural, and

religious elements are highly present in their creative forms of self-expression. Family, work,

and spirituality are constantly recurring themes and the person’s connection with the numinous

and the ancestral archetypes and symbols can be very transformative. It can give focus and

direction to inattentive and disruptive students and help them grow, mature and reach

individuation, thus becoming whole. Piecing pieces of personhood is a foundational goal for

students with Autism.

An interesting proposal for creative interdisciplinary Greek curriculum that draws a lot

from community affairs and students’ cultural experiences based on multicultural learning comes

from a kind of old source as written in 1975, but still extremely fresh and creative: ideas for the

classroom, such as lesson plans on the history of Greek-American immigration, Greek

communities, mementos, photographs, and stories from grandparents. Thus, making the student

involved in a family and personal project, you make him or her less bored, the lesson less “book-

smart” styled and more concrete and fun. Thus, the student feels more connected and his or her

energy is channeled in positive and healthy kinesthetic ways while inattention and trouble

remembering or focusing are addressed by making stronger emotionally, spiritually, and

culturally enhanced associations in a concrete multicultural and whole-person perspective.

In my Greek culture lessons on Greek history (ancient to present) and geography, Greek

Orthodox Religion, folklore, philosophy/Socratic debate and ancient Greek mythology, I used

posters, full-color hand-outs from my own expenses and my own all-in-one full-color
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 51

copier/fax/scanner, software with games related to Greek culture, projectors, audio with Greek

songs, Byzantine Chants, poems, and stories, laminated manipulatives and field trips, though

some Principals discouraged them, especially for students with ADHD.

At the Greek parochial schools we often prepare for concerts or just doing a song or

Byzantine hymn as a part of a lesson from Modern Greek language reader, let’s say a poem that

become a song by famous Greek composers or a folk song that is both a poem, thus a part of

literature, and music at the same time. The pictures from the reader may illustrate archetypes,

such as the what Homer called “wine blue sea” or the sky, the moon the sun, symbols of Greek

culture such as the Acropolis and the Parthenon or symbols of Orthodox Christianity such as the

Church of the Holy Wisdom or Hagia Sofia in Constantinople, now called Istanbul and Mt Athos

monasteries. Art and dance in combination with the music help children develop their

imagination and express their feelings and their struggle with cultural or religious identity.

Dance helps them channel their excessive energy constructively and it is not an accident that

some of my best student dancers with great performance in major concerts and Greek school

shows were students with ADHD. Using a sense of humor, but also at the same time,

maintaining a firm tone showing that you mean business and being consistent to the rules

without being too authoritarian or offensive may work. In music, they may make fun of other

people’s mistakes in singing or they may want to be leaders. In this case, it’s wise to have them

taking the lead, giving handouts with the lyrics, using their energy or mana in a productive way.

I discovered Jung in my early twenties, though I knew a few things about his life and his

work from the time I was in Middle School, because of Freud. I was already very familiar with

Freud. I really started reading Jung’s original writings and books about him in my early
Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 52

twenties. Ever since, I have developed a very deep interest in getting specialized in Jungian

Analytical Psychology, though this kind of training may take too long and be very expensive.

Archetypes and symbols are very important in the way I look at things and their

understanding has helped me a lot in my teaching as well as in mental health-related services that

I have provided in the past in various settings as an intern and as a case manager. By using

Baron-Cohen’s (2002) Theory of Male Autistic Brain and looking at it from a Jungian

perspective, relating to one’s anima in boys, who usually are the most frequently diagnosed with

autism than girls, might be an issue to consider. This along with other archetypes, such as the

Self are the keys to achieving transformation, a Jungian term that I think is far more realistic than

cure. I don’t think though that cure is as easy as portrayed by Brier (2003) for persons with

Asperger’s or especially with other forms of ASD, because there may be often comorbidity with

multiple disabilities and more severe biological, environmental, and psychosocial factors.

Synchronicity is a common phenomenon in my own life, as well as a lot of peak

experiences and “aha” moments. It is like when the universe “conspires” so to speak for certain

things to happen. Surprisingly, finding connections with my students’ stories and my own

stories while sharing in classroom or meeting the right people at the right time or finding answers

unexpectedly and I places, time, and by people I may not expect to. Peak experiences and “aha”

moments, as Jung believed, as it is already explained in the theory section, can become stronger

when realizing the interconnection of our individuality with the universe and the others around

us and paradoxically that helps that better achieve individuation. Also, from my on training in

EEG-Neurofeedback and General Biofeedback can be combined with Jungian interventions and

applications with students with ASD and ADHD alike. Actually some of my biofeedback

trainers were Jungian.

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 53

In conclusion, this break from the self-indulging and self-directed behavior expressed as

introversion in autism (or reciprocally as extroversion in ADHD) is the way to treatment and

may be facilitated through active imagination in social and productive context can be highly

therapeutic. I myself am an eclectic, mostly Jungian but in fact eclectic, a combination of

Cognitive-Behavioral, Socratic, and Psychodyamic, primarily Jungian with some Freudian

influences still there. Both CBT and Jungian concepts ad interventions may be paired and used

effectively for both populations. I am impressed by Bandura’s Self-efficacy, Jung’s Social-

Realization, Bandura’s Social/Observational learning, Self-Monitoring and Metacognition and

Jung’s Elucidation, Socratic Elenchus and Transcendental Function.

From my recent AHRC experience, but also from other past experiences, I came to the

conclusion that both populations of ASD and ADHD, though the very different cognitive,

biological, and behavioral characteristics ad dynamics they have, the

spiritual/transpersonal/affective/emotional part is a common ground under the emotional

disturbance umbrella with a polarity of the same energy/mana dynamics, the emotional/affective,

spiritual ad psychical energy, but with different directions, inward/introversion for ASD and

outward/extroversion for ADHD. Creativity was a key factor in population applications and it

was noted that in spiritual, transpersonal and emotional/affective aspects, Jungian methods and

concepts could be utilized in ABA-based classrooms and in harmonically complimenting each

other or acting together in synergy to optimize results.

Jungian Theory and Students with Emotional Disturbances 54

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