Job and the somatization process

In Answer to Job, Jung establishes an analogy between the image of Yahweh – as it appears in the Old Testament story of Job –, and our experience of the unconscious. The all-powerful and contradictory nature of the collective unconscious or objective psyche can inflict painful ordeals on the human consciousness, like those to which Yahweh subjects Job in the divine drama. Cécile, a woman patient suffering from somatic disorders, brought the Job paradigm into her analysis with a poem she had written. Cécile’s case illustrates the psychological importance of Jung’s symbolic elaboration of the story of Job. Job’s journey is the metaphor for an initiatory quest that helps us overcome the ordeal of suffering. In this patient, the confrontation with the collective unconscious produces a transformation of the nature of the unconscious and an expansion of her consciousness.