Jungian Psychology and the MBSC

The Mind, Body, and Soul Connection (MBSC) draws inspiration from different frameworks, therapeutic modalities, clinical research, and personal observations that left me wondering why there was so much variation in symptom presentation and treatment response. I noticed this firsthand while working on an exposure-based therapy study treating patients with anxiety disorders. Why were some patients with the same disorder, the same severity, the same therapist, and protocol seeing similar reductions in overall severity but differences in symptom burden, distress, and impairment?

Within the context of the trial, these individual differences were inconsequential. But the responses during our weekly interviews got me thinking: everyone perceives, processes, and engages with their inner and outer world differently, which impacts how they respond to treatment. Although clinicians often personalize treatment to better address the patient's needs, cognitive behavioral therapies, the most widely practiced and researched, tend to prioritize a particular pathway through cognition, emotion, and behavior, inadvertently forcing all patients down a fixed path. For some, that path is exactly what they need, but for others, less so.

How can we make interventions more flexible and dynamic? Turning to psychodynamic theory seemed like a logical next step, which inevitably brought me back to Psych 101 and Carl Jung.

Jung's Psychological Functions

Jungian Psychology focuses on the patient's psyche, the conscious and unconscious mind. Jung proposed that the psyche is a self-regulating system that naturally strives towards balance and wholeness through a lifelong process he called individuation: the process of becoming one's most authentic self.¹ He believed that individuation was different for everyone because we are all unique individuals with a unique destiny.¹ He initially categorized people as introverts or extroverts until he realized that this concept only accounted for a person's natural attitude to the outer world (i.e., experiences). Many years later, he came out with the missing piece of the puzzle, the psychological functions, to better account for how we deal with the outer world.

Jung described four functions split into two complementary pairs: thinking and feeling, sensation and intuition. Sensation and intuition are the perceptive functions and are concerned with how we gather information. Sensation receives data from our five senses, whereas intuition collects data from the unconscious, transmitting images, patterns, and connections that cannot otherwise be acquired through the other functions.² Think of it as that familiar "gut feeling."

Thinking and feeling rationalize the collected information. Thinking identifies and classifies, whereas feeling assigns value and meaning to determine the significance of the information.¹ Although thinking is often thought of as objective and feeling subjective (usually because it's associated with emotions), Jung argued that they are both objective, rational functions.

We possess all four, but a combination of innate predisposition and societal pressures results in one becoming our dominant function–the primary function, making its complementary function the least developed (i.e., the inferior function). The remaining functions vary in influence and development depending on the person, creating their unique pattern of perception and decision-making. This individualized pattern is what the MBSC hopes to identify to help clinicians select therapeutic techniques that align with how patients naturally process experiences.

The Functions and the MBSC Domains

Like Jung, I believe that we have an intrinsic self-regulation system that continually strives for balance. The MBSC proposes four interconnected domains (i.e., the Mind, the Regulatory Body, the Impulsive Body, and the Soul) that together shape how we perceive, process, and respond to experiences as the system continually seeks to maintain that balance. And while there are conceptual overlaps–or what Jung might call synchronicities–between the psychological functions and the domains, they aren't identical.

Figure 1. The MBSC Model

Figure 1. The four MBSC domains are presented here as interconnected components of a dynamic self-regulating system. While each domain serves a distinct function, the framework is equally concerned with the relationships between them, which remain an active area of theoretical development.

Furthermore, rather than focusing only on the development of the domains themselves, the MBSC is equally concerned with the relationships between them. In this way, Jung's notion of complementary pairs expands into a larger network of complementary relationships within the MBSC framework. No domain operates in isolation; some naturally support one another, and some exist in tension. This interplay, coupled with an individual's propensities, lived experiences, and societal pressures, creates the unique, dynamic system they use to move through the world.

The domains themselves and the nature of their relationships, especially when those relationships become imbalanced, remain an active area of development within the framework. I suspect there is still more to be learned from Jung's work. And as I continue to think about his theories in conjunction with contemporary approaches (e.g., somatic therapy and mindfulness) and reflect on clinical observations, I hope to discover more points of convergence that help clarify and refine the MBSC.

Thank you for your support!

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References

¹Robertson, R. (1992). Beginner's guide to jungian psychology. Nicolas-Hays, Inc.

²Jung, C. G. (1971). The collected works of C. G. Jung: Vol. 6. Psychological types (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.) (H. Read et al., Eds.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1921)

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400850860