What is Depth Psychology?

The simplest definition of depth psychology is the study of the unconscious. And it was Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, founder of analytic psychology, who offered this easy-to-understand explanation of the unconscious:

"Everything of which I know, but of which I am not at the moment thinking; everything of which I was once conscious but have now forgotten; everything perceived by my senses, but not noted by my conscious mind; everything which, involuntarily and without paying attention to it, I feel, think, remember, want, and do; all the future things that are taking shape in me and will sometime come to consciousness: all this is the content of the unconscious."

But depth psychology isn’t just about psychology—it integrates ideas from a wide variety of disciplines, including the arts, literature, philosophy, mythology, music, and beyond. The term was actually first coined by Zürich psychiatrist and professor Eugen Bleuler at the Burghölzli Asylum in Zürich, where Jung began his psychiatry career. Both Jung and Sigmund Freud adopted the term, and today, depth psychology continues to evolve beyond their schools of thought.

Unearthing the often mysterious contents of our unconscious can be difficult to do on our own. That’s where depth psychotherapists come in. In my next post, I’ll explore how these therapists help people access what lies beneath the surface of their awareness.