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This article explores the use of drawings in analyzing complex trauma. It discusses how drawings can reveal hidden emotions and serve as a visual map for patients to explore their traumatic past. The author also shares their own process of using drawings to explore their reactions to trauma. The article emphasizes the importance of staying close to the patient's perspective and allowing them to lead the interpretation of their drawings. It also discusses the potential therapeutic benefits of using drawings as a creative method to support emotional recovery. The text highlights the use of creative methods, specifically drawing, in analyzing trauma and dissociation, and emphasizes the potential for healing and growth through collaborative and creative approaches to therapy. [Extracted from the article]

Jung used creative methods such as picture-making and active imagination to work with complexes and in particular trauma and dissociation. A clinical example of a 60-year-old woman demonstrates the benefits of using creative methods to work with issues linked to early life, such as somatic intrusions of early childhood trauma. Significant inner figures were delineated, including the original figure associated with the infantile dissociative split. The figures illustrated Jung's complex theory by making visible the nonverbal inner states that were initially feared and experienced as Other. Within an analytic relationship that included a working through, an innate creative process unfolded that permitted inner figures to become agents of change within her psyche. This paper highlights the value of Jung's complex theory and the use of creative methods when working with dissociation, regression and unformulated infantile states, even when the analysand is in the later stages of adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First, we said farewell to Marcus West who recently stepped down from his post as the UK Editor. As the former Chair of the Association of Jungian Analysts (AJA), Arthur brings his expertise from several analytic leadership and editorial responsibilities that included creating opportunities for friendly theoretical exchanges between Jungian communities. We now welcome the I Journal's i new Co-Editors, Ann Addison (UK) and Arthur Niesser (Europe). [Extracted from the article]

Art therapy and the image are active approaches to address the analytic third, an idea that was mentioned by C. G. Jung in the Psychology of the Transference, but was first experienced by him as described in The Red Book (2009). Jung's art-making was an impressive lifelong affair that relied upon mixed media, making it reasonable for us to consider Jung as the father of art therapy. Prior to the 1913 publication of Symbols of Transformation, Jung visited America for a second time; on this visit, the Jungian analyst Beatrice Hinkle introduced Jung to the Greenwich crowd. Among the noteworthy artists and activists were Margaret Naumburg and Florence Cane, who later established the field of art therapy in the United States. Despite the tension created from the Freud–Jung split, Naumburg and Cane were deeply influenced by Jung's theoretical ideas, initially via Hinkle, with whom they analyzed for three years. Requiring a safe passage for the birth of art therapy, Naumburg navigated an independent third way, but drew from many of Jung's already established ideas to formulate her research and educational approach. Because the historical details surrounding the development of art therapy in America are being stitched back into an art therapy education, Jung's early clinical insights regarding specific theoretical ideas gain visibility and respect. This overview acknowledges that analytical psychology remains a powerful and integral building block in the field of art therapy and offers relevant resources for theoretical and clinical formulations when working as an art therapist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the article entitled "Going too far: relational heroines and relational excess," by Joyce Slochower, which appeared in the 2017 volume 27, number 3 issue of the "Psychoanalytic Dialogues."

Training future art therapists is a challenging task. It requires a cautious, yet innovative approach to synthesizing both traditional and novel topics relevant to our field. Training programs have a responsibility to engage with paradigms that honor time-tested theories and also embrace the visionary. Transpersonal psychology, at its core, engages traditional psychological models with progressive models that examine matters of spirituality, world wisdom traditions, and consciousness research. This article addresses these themes along with a unique branch of transpersonal psychology referred to here as "contemplative education." Contemplative practices such as meditation, and their relationship to creating art, are discussed in detail. Transpersonal psychology and contemplative education create the foundation for the approach to art therapy training advocated in this paper. A definition of transpersonal art therapy is offered followed by a literature review to familiarize the reader with this recondite subject. Examples of contemplative education are covered throughout the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]