In the biblical story of Jericho, the Israelites encounter a city protected by massive walls that seem impenetrable. They try no direct assault. Instead, they silently march around the city, circling it day after day. The walls collapse—not by force, but by an act of persistent presence and symbolic engagement. This story offers a powerful metaphor for confronting psychological blocks that feel immovable.

Robert A. Johnson, a Jungian analyst known for translating complex psychological ideas into practical tools, saw this story as more than historical or religious myth. In his book Inner Work, he developed a ritual based on Jericho’s walls to address psychological problems that feel impossible to solve. These are not everyday difficulties, but deep, paralyzing issues—fear, trauma, emotional wounds, or internal conflicts—that resist every attempt to fix or overcome them through willpower, logic, or sheer effort.

Johnson’s ritual begins with the recognition that the usual methods of problem-solving fail here. The problem is like a wall: solid, imposing, and unyielding. Trying to force a breakthrough only leads to frustration, exhaustion, or avoidance. Instead, Johnson suggests a different approach: to symbolically “circle” the problem. This means to hold it consciously in awareness without attacking it, denying it, or trying to make it disappear.

Circling involves focusing attention steadily and patiently on the problem. It is not a passive resignation but a deliberate act of presence. The ritual’s duration varies—it can last minutes, hours, or even days—depending on how long the psyche needs to become familiar with the problem’s shape and weight. This close, non-aggressive attention weakens the hold the problem has. The fear and sense of impossibility that surround it start to dissolve.

The significance of this ritual lies in its effect on the internal relationship to the problem. The walls in the psyche do not fall because of external pressure or aggressive attack. They fall because the emotional charge that maintains their solidity diminishes. When the mind and heart stop seeing the problem as an insurmountable obstacle, the problem shifts. The rigidity gives way to movement, insight, or emotional release.

Importantly, Johnson’s ritual does not promise quick fixes or the disappearance of external challenges. It offers a transformation in how the inner world holds the problem. This subtle change often becomes the starting point for genuine healing or creative solutions that were not previously accessible.

Johnson’s insight aligns with Jungian psychology’s emphasis on symbolic processes and the unconscious. He understood that deep psychological resistance often cannot be overcome by reason alone. Instead, it requires symbolic acts—rituals that speak to the unconscious through metaphor and presence. Circling the problem is one such act, a way to enter the wall’s fortress not with a battering ram, but by walking patiently around it until the gates open from within.

In this light, the ritual turns an impossible problem into a space for transformation. Like the Israelites at Jericho, the person performing the ritual does not conquer the problem by force. The ritual helps outwait the problem, outlast the fear, and in doing so, break the wall that once seemed unbreakable.