The Connection Between Jungian Psychology and Psychedelics

Reviewing the book ‘Confrontation with the Unconscious‘ by Scott J. Hill

Ever since reading Jung, I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the psychedelic experience. In fact, nothing seems more suitable as a framework. But somehow I never seemed to encounter much material about psychedelics and Jung. When I originally saw this book many years ago, it was the only one of its kind. And many years later, it’s still the only one I can find.

The beginning of book starts with a brief history of psychedelic research and then lays some foundation of Jung’s concepts and principles. Afterwards, he finally dives into more direct comparisons. I liked how he made use of the psychotomimetic model of psychedelics. This is usually told of how psychedelics were first used but quickly dismissed. The psychedelic experience is most certainly not reduceable to a psychotic episode, but nevertheless, some similarities in phenomenology cannot be dismissed, and the author explores this in-depth in a way that I found enlightening.

I said that Jung and psychedelics seem to be a perfect match, and in many ways they are. However, they are also something hard to reconcile, because Jung himself discouraged psychedelic use. He stated that it manifested too much of the unconscious, and most people would not be able to integrate such content successfully.

On one hand, Jung only lived in the very early stages of psychedelics. He didn’t live to see the incredible research that was done in the 50s and 60s, and again more recently in the last couple of decades. Given how therapeutic it is for many people who are otherwise considered hopeless, it seems that Jung overstated the difficulty in integrating the experience. Nevertheless, his caution is undoubtedly wise for anyone that has used them, and given that integration is such a big part of the experience, there is more than a grain of truth in his statement. This conflict is explored throughout the book, and I found that it balances both perspectives well and remains open-minded.

In 1954, C. G. Jung wrote that he was “profoundly mistrustful of the pure ‘gifts of the gods’” such as mescaline

The main connection that the author makes between Jungian psychology and psychedelics is the manifestation of the collective unconscious and more importantly the integration of the shadow, particularly in cases of trauma. Many bad experiences are the manifestation of one’s shadow and the difficulty in accepting that aspect of the personality.

Furthermore, that manifestation tends to be externalized, and he draws parallels of this with the demonic experiences that some people go through. And just like in Jungian psychology the shadow needs to be accepted and integrated for a successful personality transformation; in the psychedelic experience, it is also widely agreed that the user needs to accept the experience, even when negative, in order to be able to transcend it.

It goes into a lot of depth into specific aspects of psychotherapy, which I wasn’t really expecting it. It discusses different schools of thought on how to approach psychedelic therapy, referencing therapists with vast experience in the field before they were banned.

Psychedelic psychotherapy was fairly common before being banned, and before the psychedelic renaissance of the 20th century

Many specific cases of psychedelic therapy were included which I enjoyed, so the Jungian framework can be seen in actual therapy rather than being an abstract and theoretical approach. The author also discusses his own experiences and his own journey, which I also found helpful and interesting to read. This could have easily overwhelmed the book and made it too personal, but he avoids this pitfall, and his experience is just one among many that is used to illustrate the connection to Jung’s psychology. All of this made me think of the book as very well-rounded and not too dogmatic about which aspects of Jung are explored and which interpretation is the correct one.

The only thing I disliked about the book was its heavy emphasis on psychotherapy. To be fair, this is completely understandable given that Jung was a psychotherapist. However, I view Jung as much a philosopher as a psychologist. If anything, even more so. So seeing Jung’s thought reduced to therapy was a bit disappointing to me.

Furthermore, a lot of the book was focused on negative experiences and their therapeutic effect. This is of course incredibly important, but it always felt it was missing the other piece. It rarely explored the more mystical aspects of psychedelics and how they relate to Jung’s thought, which was my main interest.

Nevertheless, I still found it worth reading, and the connection between Jungian psychotherapy and the psychedelic experience was explored from several different angles. Even if you’re just interested in Jung without having experience or interest in psychedelics, I think this will still provide useful insights into successful therapy and personality transformation.

If you’re interested in psychedelics but aren’t familiar with Jung, this might be too much of a jump. While an introduction is provided, I’m not sure if that’s enough, and one might get a little lost. Being familiar with Jung’s thought and depth psychology in general is recommended to get the best out of the book.

“I only know there is no point in wishing to know more of the collective unconscious than one gets through dreams and intuition. The more you know of it, the greater and heavier becomes our moral burden, because the unconscious contents transform themselves into your individual tasks and duties as soon as they begin to become conscious. Do you want to increase loneliness and misunderstanding? Do you want to find more and more complications and increasing re­sponsibilities? You get enough of it. “

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