Search

Using a duoethnological approach, supported by Jung's theory of archetypes and the layered objective psyche, the paper demonstrates how a duoethnological encounter can lead to new formulations of archetypal theory that challenge attitudes to diversity. The paper arises from the authors' desire to explore the shame and pain of colonialism, initially in a diversity workshop and later by way of duoethnological dialogue, using transcripts of recorded conversation between the authors as well as email exchange. Notions of a colonizer archetype and ethnic shadow are presented and elaborated. The six conceptualized themes in relation to the exploration of colonialism in the cultural layer of the objective psyche are as follows: (1) Belonging, (2) The layered psyche and our understanding of difference, (3) Facing the ethnic shadow, (4) The colonizing archetype in the consulting room, (5) The exploration of colonial structures in the psyche and, lastly, (6) Valuing emancipatory encounter. These themes support an argument for the praxis of societal and internal encounters in order to raise the colonizer archetype and split off shadow material to consciousness, in the hope of bringing about a personal and cultural shift away from oppression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a preliminary sketch of what we have termed a Jungian socioanalysis - an emerging theory combining analytical psychology, complexity theories, sociological theories, socio- and psycho-analysis, group analysis and affect theories. Our assumption is that Jungian theory and practice need to attend to and focus more on social contexts, sociality and the influence of societal developments. But also, on the other hand, that analytical psychology, primarily Jung's theory of individuation and the transcendent function as well as the broad complexity perspective of his theory of psyche, can be extended to a 'socio' and not just a 'psycho' perspective. The paper presents five foundational assumptions for a Jungian socioanalysis, with the following headings: 1) A Jungian socioanalysis calls for a complex psychology; 2) (Un)consciousness is social and sociality has a dimension of (un)consciousness; 3) A Jungian socioanalysis explores social fields 'from within' by smaller groups; 4) A Jungian socioanalysis enables and is enabled by emerging metaphors and affect-imagery; 5) Socio-cultural fields have an impulse toward individuation. This is the first of two papers in the present edition of the journal - the second paper gives socio-clinical illustrations of our thesis in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is time to reclaim C.G. Jung's vision of psychology as the foundational science upon which all sciences and institutions would be based, and as the discipline, theory, and practice necessary for fostering humanity's overall psychocultural development. Jung identified eight distinct 'types' of consciousness through which humankind engages its emerging psychological attitude. Jung's view of psychological development as hingeing on the differentiation of function-attitudes provides the means for understanding not only ourselves and each other, but our society as well. This paper offers an example of such an analysis by focusing on the current conflict within American political culture. The goal is as lofty as it is necessary: the operationalization of Jung's vision of psychology as the powerful influencer of human cultural evolution that it has the potential to be. The immediate goal is to instigate the first step toward this vision of Jung's 'complex psychology' by stimulating conversations among Jungians about how they can foster that vision, leading them towards taking up roles as 'citizen therapists', actively involved in their communities in cultivating greater empathy and the withdrawal of projections in the interest of furthering 'collective consciousness'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global living standards have increased considerably as a result of the progress brought about by human civilization. However, ecological crises, global nuclear armament and an increasing sense of psychological discontent are among a list of things that bring into question the nature of modernity. Often these large-scale collective issues seem too overwhelming for the individual to ponder in any great depth and thus the question, 'how are we, as individuals, supposed to address the problems facing broader humanity?' remains. This paper suggests that it is the underlying conceptual dualisms that prevent an answer to this question, and by mapping the interaction between psyche and civilization, the actions necessary to correct the trajectory of Western civilization may become apparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores clinical encounters with experiences of the 'empty ego' which arise from early relational trauma. The ego's emptiness is held in repetitious complexes and arises out of affectively charged experiences between self and other which remain split-off from awareness. This kind of consciousness is viewed as dualistic, separating non-dual subjectivity from its dualistic objects of consciousness. In contrast, what I am calling healing void states of non-dualistic consciousness, when admitted to awareness, allow the individual to dis-identify from the traumatizing representations of self and other through an experience of non-duality. In contrast to an objectified, dualistic emptiness of the ego, healing void states come about in moments of non-dual, unified consciousness. These states occur in the ego-Self relationship by linking the ego's dualistic awareness in chronic subject/object splits to ones of non-dual pure consciousness. The healing void state is always incipiently present and potentially able to bridge the ego-Self connection in bogged-down treatment. The paper explores potential integrations with non-dual models of consciousness such as Vedantic and Kashmir Shaivism, among other mystical traditions. A combined Vedantic-Jungian understanding can provide a transcendent bridge that integrates Eastern concepts of non-duality in treating emptiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using Ignacio Matte Blanco's approach to the unconscious, this paper attempts to explain why the experience of the Self or the unconscious, for example in dreams, is difficult for the ego to understand. Matte Blanco believes that the logic of the unconscious is radically different from the logic of consciousness. The unconscious uses processes that Matte Blanco refers to as symmetry and generalization. Symmetry means that the converse of any relationship is identical to it, so that asymmetrical relationships are treated as if they were symmetrical. Generalization means that the unconscious treats any object as belonging to a larger class of objects that is a subset of an even larger class which is in turn a subset of a wider class ad infinitum. Hence Matte Blanco's idea of the unconscious as infinite sets. These unconscious mechanisms, combined with the possibility that the unconscious has more dimensions than consciousness, contribute to the difficulty of understanding dreams, and help to explain why the Self is experienced as other to the ego. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with the understanding that early trauma leads to powerful dissociative defenses which injure the capacity to feel. It further explores ways to restore this capacity through body-centred attention to affect-in-the-moment in the psychoanalytic situation. Using the author's personal experience while in analysis as well as a case of severe early trauma, he demonstrates the consciousness-killing effect of primitive defenses and shows how body-sensitive techniques hold the promise of restoring the patient's sense of aliveness and hence, opening the unconscious to those affect-images that are the building blocks of the human imagination. A final section focuses on the neglect of feeling in Jungian psychology and suggests that the "creation of consciousness" which Jung described as his personal myth, is quintessentially a process of emotional transformation - of bringing unconscious suffering into consciousness - as feelings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the process of psychological and spiritual development through a series of active imaginations arising from the author's 'psycho-spiritual quest', a process of transformation in which the individual progressively frees themselves from the ego's identifications and may be afforded a vision of the 'self as consciousness', as described by Vedanta. The author describes how this quest was facilitated by the disciplines of Transcendental Meditation, Jungian analysis and Vedanta, and how these three disciplines can work together to foster psycho-spiritual development. The paper aims to de-mystify the actual experiences that can accompany these practices. The records of these active imaginations, tracing some key stages in this process, are then presented, with a commentary by Marcus West, linking them to Jung's concepts of ego and Self and recent understandings of consciousness and ego development. There is a discussion of Jung's conceptualizations of the ego and the Self and his rejection of the Vedantic understanding of the Self as consciousness. These views are then explored and a reconciliation is suggested through the understanding of the process of disidentification where the difference between Jung's view of the Self and that of Vedanta is understood to be due to the extent of disidentification from the contents of consciousness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the light of recently-published correspondence between Jung and Neumann, this paper considers and connects two aspects of their relationship: Jung's theory of an ethno-specific differentiation of the unconscious as formulated in 1934, and the relationship between Jung and Neumann at the beginning of the Holocaust in 1938-with Jung as the wise old man and a father figure on one hand, and Neumann as the apprentice and dependent son on the other. In examining these two issues, a detailed interpretation of four letters, two by Neumann and two by Jung, written in 1938 and 1939, is given. Neumann's reflections on the collective Jewish determination in the face of the November pogroms in 1938 led Jung to modify his view, with relativization and secularization of his former position. This shift precipitated a deep crisis with feelings of disorientation and desertion in Neumann; the paper discusses how a negative father complex was then constellated and imaged in a dream. After years of silence, the two men were able to renew the deep bonds that characterized their lifelong friendship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Jung's idea of myth as a projection of the collective unconscious, suggesting that the term 'projection' separates human beings from nature, withdrawing nature's life into humanity. Jung's discovery of a realm independent of consciousness - in conversations with his soul in The Red Book, and in synchronicity, began a dialogue which finally brought him, through the Alchemical Mercurius, closer to the idea of a world-soul. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jung and Bion both developed theoretical concepts propounding a deeply unknowable area of the psyche in which body and mind are undifferentiated and the individual has no distinct identity, from which a differentiated consciousness arises. In Jung's case, this is enshrined in his psychoid concept and the associated notion of synchronicity and, in Bion's case, in his proto-mental concept and his ideas on group dynamics. It is by means of these two concepts that Jung and Bion approach and locate a combined body-mind, a monism, in which body and mind are seen as different aspects of the same thing. This paper reviews the claim that although the two concepts are associated clinically with very different situations, their commonality may arise from a similar intellectual basis: both men appear to have been influenced by the same source of vitalist ideas in philosophy including Henri Bergson, and Jung's ideas also exerted a direct influence on Bion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical work, as all of consciousness, is steeped in and emerges out of language. Language is the medium of our knowing, and knowing the medium of our relating. Language has us; words dream us. For the mythical Navajo as for John of the New Testament, in the Beginning was the Word. Before any kind of distinction of thought, feeling, sensation or intuition comes language - language, not as 'just words', but as image. Words are images, and images as encompassing worlds present themselves as and through language. As a determinant of identity, language undermines all cues as to individual subjectivity, Yahweh's 'I am here' rendering time and place relative, and subjectivity co-constituted. This paper is a meditation on language for clinicians in the form that language presents itself, as a meandering flow of consciousness with associations and signposts leading onward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a historical, religious-philosophical context for the study of the Daoist text known as The Secret of the Golden Flower. An updated study is conducted into the controversy over the source of the text including the editions translated by Richard Wilhelm and Thomas Cleary. The main teachings of the text and the basics of two major denominations of Daoism are introduced to ground later critiques of Jung's commentary. The psychodynamics of analytical psychology, especially those concerned with integration of unconscious contents and the realization of the self (individuation) are compared with the psycho-spiritual dynamics of integration in Eastern spirituality based on the Golden Flower text. The paper concludes that it was amiss for Jung to have equated the Western ‘unconscious’ with states of higher consciousness in Eastern meditation practices, although his claim that Eastern higher consciousness is characterized by a nebulous state of non-intentionality does raise questions about the appropriateness of calling Eastern meditative states ‘consciousness’. A new concept is required to characterize the special qualities of this psychic state shared generally by Eastern spiritual traditions and a more meaningful comparison may be found in Jung's concept of the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at some of the processes that are at work in finding oneself in analysis. It explores Jung's unique contribution to our thinking about the self and its dynamic of individuation. The author attempts to show how the Self, in its quest for consciousness, requires the surrendering of ego inflation—the narcissistic delusion that the ego is the self. A case is made for seeing analysis as an individuation process which offers the opportunity for experiences of a more authentic sense of oneself. Jung stated that individuation requires the ego to enter into service of the Self. For this to happen, the author argues that both patient and analyst must be prepared to make sacrifices and take risks. Using clinical examples, he illustrates that, although purposive, the Self can be experienced as violent and destructive if the ego is unable to facilitate its expression. This may result in an individuation crisis for both analyst and patient. The paper demonstrates how impasse in analysis can evoke the transcendent function, which also requires sacrifices to be made and risks to be taken for analysis to proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This consciousness, which psychoanalysis had initially imagined that encounters with the unconscious would enlarge, had already been demonstrated by both Freud and Jung to be restricted by the very complexes that emerge when the unconscious is explored. The papers and reviews in this centennial issue draw upon Jung's understanding of the eight function complexes that he identified as the toolkit of consciousness. Naming the functions and attitudes of such awareness was, for Jung, the way to realize the consciousness that hides in complexes. [Extracted from the article]

This paper is focused on the kinds of awareness that are exposed by clinical work conducted in the depth psychological tradition. The paper begins with an examination of Freud's clinical methodology, which is a description of a particular kind of attentiveness that reveals material normally obscured from conscious awareness. This type of awareness is thought to reveal the contents and the specific organizational features of the unconscious. In this paper, the organizational processes of the unconscious are interpreted to actually be the referents of a privileged type of perceptual awareness leading to a unique relationship to the immediate world. This is taken to be an assumption that is implicit in the models of psychotherapy authored by Jung and Reich. Both developmental and clinical researches are used to support this position. The differentiation between this awareness and the more traditional modes of awareness is further highlighted by an examination of the phenomenon of transference. Finally, a clinical example is presented to support the theoretical claims in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we consider states of grace in analysis. These encompass a range of phenomena which share an experience of something being received or revealed rather than produced by the ego. It feels that they are events that happen rather than events that are made to occur. They are marked by a profound sense of transformation of feeling tone. The quality of relatedness in the analytic dyad is also heightened. Some of these phenomena have been referred to as experiences of the self, synchronicities, moments of meeting, the unthought known and Eureka moments. The latter are experiences of sudden realization where a meaningful thought or image emerges which results in a dramatic shift in direction of the analysis and a transcendence of impasse. Although many authors describe these phenomena, we find that a Jungian approach provides a loom on which these threads can be woven together. Jung's concept of the transcendent function and his understanding of the gift of grace are particularly illuminating here. We also consider the conditions which allow grace to be experienced and how these inform our analytic practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an exploration of the relationship between nurturing in all its contexts - among them, the nursing couple and the therapeutic relationship - and the evolution of an individual self. The ideas are illustrated by a case vignette of a Russian patient. An attempt is made to show that when the self as an integral unity of body and soul is addressed in the analytic setting, 'nutritional dreams' emerge as expressions of the self-in-action. Certain psycholinguistic features of the Russian cultural context are described which suggest a link of meaning between development of the self and secure parenting. This linguistic association may facilitate the process of self-centering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author designates as 'traditional' those elements of psychoanalytic presumption and practice that have, in the wake of Fordham's legacy, helped to inform analytical psychology and expand our capacity to integrate the shadow. It is argued that this element of the broad spectrum of Jungian practice is in danger of erosion by the underlying assumptions of the relational approach, which is fast becoming the new establishment. If the maps of the traditional landscape of symbolic reference (primal scene, Oedipus et al.) are disregarded, analysts are left with only their own self-appointed authority with which to orientate themselves. This self-centric epistemological basis of the relationalists leads to a revision of 'analytic attitude' that may be therapeutic but is not essentially analytic. This theme is linked to the perennial challenge of balancing differentiation and merger and traced back, through Chasseguet-Smirgel, to its roots in Genesis. An endeavour is made to illustrate this within the Journal convention of clinically based discussion through a commentary on Colman's (2013) avowedly relational treatment of the case material presented in his recent Journal paper 'Reflections on knowledge and experience' and through an assessment of Jessica Benjamin's (2004) relational critique of Ron Britton's (1989) transference embodied approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the paper 'Whose unconscious is it anyway?,' by Elphis Christopher published in the journal 'Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists.' Christopher's provocative question provides linking rationale for a paper with three distinctive areas of interest. She explores 'Whose unconscious is it anyway?' in clinical context of confidentiality and publication in various competing models of psyche within different analytical groupings and in inter-disciplinary arena of neurosciences where there has been increasing interest in and research into dimensions of consciousness and unconsciousness.

Jung's most obvious time-related concept is synchronicity. Yet, even though 'time' is embedded in it ( chronos) there has been no systematic treatment of the time factor. Jung himself avoided dealing explicitly with the concept of time in synchronicity, in spite of its temporal assumptions and implications. In this paper the role of time in synchronicity is examined afresh, locating it in the context of meaning and relating it to the psychoid archetype. Synchronicity is viewed as an expression of the psychoid; the vital parameter for the elucidation of this link appears to be time. The author argues that the psychoid rests on relative time which Jung deemed transcendent. The existence of two different uses of the word 'time' in Jung's opus are emphasized: fixed time that dominates consciousness and relative time that exists in the psyche at large. Since consciousness cannot grasp the psychoid's temporality it de-relativizes time; examples of this 'behaviour' of time can be observed in instances of synchronicity. It is thus argued that synchronicity demonstrates by analogy the nature of the psychoid archetype. Jung's quaternio, as it developed via his communication with Pauli, is also examined in light of the above presented 'time theory'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In reading the work of Beebe (2002) , Sander ( Amadei & Bianchi 2008 ), Tronick (2007) and Stern and the Boston Change Process Study Group (1998), resonances to the transcendent function can be registered but these researchers seem to be more focused on the interpersonal domain. In particular Tronick's concept of ‘dyadic expansion of consciousness’ and ‘moments of meeting’ from the Boston Change Process Study Group describe external dyadic interactions between mothers and babies and therapists and patients while, in contrast, Jung's early focus was on the intrapsychic process of internal interaction between conscious and unconscious within an individual. From an overall perspective, the interpersonal process of change described by infant researchers, when held in conjunction with Jung's internal process of change, together form a transcendent whole that could also be called a complex adaptive system. Such new theoretical perspectives from other fields confirm and elaborate long held Jungian notions such as the transcendent function which is, in many ways, harmonious with a systems perspective. Throughout this paper, clinical vignettes of interactive moments along with sand play and dreams will be used to illustrate theoretical points regarding the healthy process of the transcendent function along with descriptions of failures of such conjunctive experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper 1 takes the distinction between being conscious (‘core consciousness’) and knowing that one is conscious (self-reflexive consciousness) as a starting point for differentiating between three different aspects of the self: 1) the overall process of psychosomatic being which we share with all living creatures and which expresses itself through action (self as totality), 2) the conscious awareness of knowing the self that is a peculiarly human phenomenon consequent on the development of symbolic imagination (sense of self including numinous experiences of the self) and 3) having a self (or soul) as an essential attribute of being human that can only be achieved through being endowed with a self in the mind of others (self-identity leading to the self as the centre of the personality). Some clinical implications of these distinctions are considered including the role of interpretation as fostering integration through the provision of alternative self-images, the loss of self-reflexive consciousness in states of overwhelming affect and the attack on the spontaneous psychosomatic being of the self in states of self-hatred and self-division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper 1 explores some aspects of the narrowness of Jung's usage of the term ego and the consequences which are understood to follow there from. Jung is understood to see the ego as a surface phenomenon and, essentially, as the focal point of consciousness, not recognizing its potential to function more broadly, deeply, and unconsciously. Furthermore, although he does recognize the ego as ‘the total conscious personality’ his use of the term frequently does not reflect that definition. Whilst Jung's analysis of the narrowly functioning ego is enlightening and groundbreaking, he treats this narrow functioning as if it is characteristic of the ego itself, ascribing any ‘broad functioning’ primarily to the Self. This narrow use of the term ego, and the corresponding use of the term Self, are understood to have significant consequences for clinical practice, including leading the analyst into an over-identification with the patient and a loss of the analyst's sense of self. It is also understood to lead to difficulties dealing with more disturbed individuals, to stuck and broken down analyses, to wear and tear on the analyst and, potentially, splits between the different schools of analytical psychology. These concerns all represent difficulties with working in the transference, and Jung's own experience of this is briefly explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Part I of this paper having postulated the locus of consciousness as residing in a field between primitive mind in participation mystique with the world and a transcendent ground of being, Part II takes up the nature of mind itself in this field in terms of in vivo experiences. Operations and manifestations of consciousness are inexhaustively explored in four venues: 1) Jung's life experiences, 2) Joseph Henderson's theory of psychic development, 3) Eric Voegelin's theory of consciousness and 4) the experiences of analytic patients in far reaches of very long analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a search for the origins and nature of human consciousness. This portion, the first part of two, takes up a signal work of Jung and one of Freud, both published in 1911 and both deriving thinking as the first embodiment of higher mental functions. Thinking and consciousness (and subsequently spirit) are elaborated in terms of the nature and vicissitudes of libido. Jung's less well understood theory regarding a quantitative libido is particularly addressed as are his non-Cartesian ways of reasoning. Also addressed is Jung's turning away in the final analysis from a frankly metaphysical and transcendent position as compared to the pre‐Socratic philosophers with whom focused thinking began in the western world. Differentiation is made between mechanistic and energetic field dynamics in how reality is viewed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the mind–brain relationship, using insights from contemporary neuroscience. It seeks to investigate how our brains become who we are, how subjective experience arises. In order to do this some explanation is given of the basic concepts of how the brain produces our subjective mental life. Current neuropsychological and neurobiological understanding of early brain development, memory, emotion and consciousness are explored. There is also an attempt at mapping the mind–brain-self relationship from a uniquely Jungian perspective. Clinical material is included in order to show the relevance of these insights to our work in the consulting room, arguing the value of the affect-regulating, relational aspects of the analytic dyad that forge new neural pathways through emotional connection. Such experience forms the emotional scaffolding necessary for the emergence of reflective function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, using a pluralistic perspective on the psyche, I consider theoretical formulations concerned with the development of the self in relation to the environment. This includes discussion about how the infant interacts with its maternal environment before birth and how observation of the foetus in the womb and infant research have important implications affecting our understanding of adult psychopathology. I briefly look at the object-related nature of religious experience and the concept of the development of a representation of God. Furthermore, I explore the object-related nature of the Laius myth as the deeper realm and the homo-erotic component in the Oedipal conflict, with emphasis on the link between oracular literalism and literalizing obsessionality. Finally, I show how all of these elements manifested in the course of my work with a very disturbed male patient in whom the transferential relationship uncovered a psychopathic pocket; and how my life was put in danger when his defences took the form of an impulse to kill: he became murderous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]