Psychological Care of Persons with Parkinson’s disease: Neuropsychological and Jungian Perspectives

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with progressive physical, cognitive, and emotional impairments. Providing psychological care for these individuals is an important part of their overall medical care and can be guided by experiences obtained from the broad field of neuropsychological rehabilitation. We summarize how the stage of the illness relates to disturbances in functional independence and executive functioning that negatively impacts social integration and produces a fertile ground for depression and loss of hope. It is proposed that integrating knowledge from the neurosciences (especially neuropsychology) with psychodynamic insights (especially those of C.G. Jung) of the person with PD can play an important role in sustaining their resiliency and, in so doing, provides clinically relevant psychological care.