Giegerich's psychology as the discipline of interiority

Domain I · Psychodynamic & depth psychology · Wolfgang Giegerich · 1998 · Germany

What it is

Psychology as the discipline of interiority (PDI) is mainly a theory of what psychology is, not a manualised therapy. There is no treatment manual, no phase model, no session protocol and no outcome-defined technique set. Giegerich, a German Jungian analyst and theorist, argues that psychology's…

Format

• No staged framework exists in the primary sources. Giegerich does not specify phases, session counts, formats or criteria for moving on, and he argues against goal-driven, technical models of therapy as "ego programs". What follows is a working frame a practitioner can use, built from the stance he…
• Setting. Ordinary Jungian analytic or psychodynamic format: weekly (or more frequent) 50-minute sessions, open-ended, face to face. Nothing in the sources prescribes frequency or length.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version followed: Wolfgang Giegerich's own writings — The Soul's Logical Life (Peter Lang, 1998; 4th ed. 2007), What Is Soul? (2012), Neurosis: The Logic of a Metaphysical Illness (2013), The Flight into the Unconscious (Collected English Papers V, 2013), and above all Working with Dreams: Initiation into the Soul's Speaking About Itself (Routledge, 2020; a "2013" date is sometimes given for this title but could not…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Rupture (Section 5). Working: the session drops into a more serious register.
• Pushing a recognition the patient isn't at. Working: relief of the "yes, that's already true" kind.
• Empty-handedness becoming passivity or withholding. Working: material arrives you couldn't have planned for.
• Using "the soul" to avoid the patient's pain. Working: the patient feels both met and engaged in the material.
• Reading the ending as a forecast for the patient's life. Working: the dream is felt as one process rather than a heap of symbols.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.