Jungian theory

A needed rapprochement between Jung and the contemporary human sciences may rest less on the much debated relevance of a biologistic collective unconscious than on a re-inscribing of an archetypal imagination, as the phenomenological and empirical core of Jungian psychology. The most promising approaches in this regard in terms of theory and research in psychology come from combining the cognitive psychology of metaphor and synaesthesia, individual differences in imaginative absorption and openness to numinous experience and spirituality as a form of symbolic intelligence. On the socio-cultural side, this cognitive psychology of archetypal imagination is also congruent with Lévi-Strauss on the metaphoric roots of mythological thinking, and Durkheim on a sociology of collective consciousness. This conjoined perspective, while validating the cross cultural commonality of physical metaphor intuited by Jung and Hillman on alchemy, also shows Jung's Red Book, considered as the expressive source for his more formal psychology, to be far closer in spirit to a socio-cultural collective consciousness, based on metaphoric imagination, than to a phylogenetic or evolutionary unconscious. A mutual re-inscribing of Jung into congruent areas of contemporary psychology, anthropology, sociology, and vice versa, can help to further validate Jung's key observations and is fully consistent with Jung's own early efforts at synthesis within the human sciences.

La théorie c'est bon, mais ça n'empêche pas d'exister.» (Charcot) "Psychoanalysis is what is practiced by psychoanalysts." (Sandler) Summary The author considers that the study of convergences and divergences in psychoanalytic clinical practice requires knowledge of what psychoanalysts really do in their practice. He outlines a phenomenology of clinical practice and of processes of validation of the interventions. He also proposes methodologies for studying the practice in its own merits.

Hermeneutics has been central to the practice of Jung's psychology from the beginning, although he never fully and consistently developed a hermeneutic method of inquiry and the literature addressing this aspect of his psychology is not extensive. In this paper 1 we undertake a critical re-examination of Jung's relationship to hermeneutic thought, based on his explicit references to hermeneutics in the Collected Works and his theoretical development of the notion of archetypes. Although Jung did not consistently formulate a hermeneutic approach to inquiry, his theoretical development of archetypes is rich in hermeneutic implications. In particular, his notion of the archetype as such can be understood hermeneutically as a form of non-conceptual background understanding. Some implications of this construal of archetypes for Jungian hermeneutics as a form of inquiry are considered.

This paper traces the similarities between the cluster of influences that informed my own training and practice as a British developmental Jungian analyst and those that led to the creation of intersubjective and relational analysis in America. Having outlined five main themes of relational analysis, I show how these were anticipated by several trends in British analysis, especially the work of R.D. Laing and the theory of couple interaction developed by the Institute of Marital Studies at the Tavistock Centre in London. I then show the parallels between relational thinking and Jung's approach to clinical practice and discuss some of the dilemmas around the analyst's subjectivity and personal participation in the analytic relationship that are common to both traditions. My aim is to show that a relational approach to the practice of Jungian analysis is both 'traditional' and 'radical', being rooted in the traditions of the past while opening up pathways towards future development and clinical innovation.

There has always been confusion and disagreement about the nature of the terms archetype and complex in Jungian circles, not to mention non-Jungian ones. Another ongoing concern is whether Jung's concept of the archetype and complex can be justified in terms of current scientific research, most notably that of neurophysiologists and others interested in the brain and consciousness. This paper proposes a theory of the formation of complexes, namely, that they are created through self-organization within the brain/mind. Self-organization is a process typical of large complex systems, and is generally accepted to operate within the brain and to be important in its functioning. Examples of self-organization in biology are related to the psychic processes that form the complexes. It is then natural to define the archetype in terms of the complex, and the authors propose a definition of the archetype as an equivalence class of complexes. On this view, the archetype is an emergent property of the activity of the brain/mind, and is, appropriately, defined at the level at which it emerges. This definition is in line with the original development of Jung's ideas, in that he derived the concept of the archetype from his earlier discovery of the feeling-toned complex.

An empirical research a VITTORIO LINGIARDI and b PAOLA CAPOZZI a via Vigevano, 41, I-20144 Milano, Italy -vittorio.lingiardi@uniroma1.it b via Ramazzini 7, I-20129 Milano, Italy -paolacapozzi@tiscalinet.it Homosexuality is a challenging subject for the psychoanalytic community, which is now rethinking some of its basic theoretical and institutional assumptions. In recent decades psychoanalytic theory has changed, and the classical psychosexual model has been challenged. After a short review of major psychoanalytical theories of homosexuality, the authors focus on the existence of contrasting attitudes towards homosexuality. This plurality of theories and their clinical and institutional consequences stimulated the authors to investigate the relationship between the individual analyst's theoretical model and his/her clinical practice. The authors present the results of empirical research conducted in the Italian psychoanalytic community on the attitude of psychoanalysts towards homosexuality and the implications for cultural, theoretical and institutional issues. A questionnaire was sent to 600 psychoanalysts (206 of which responded), members of the ve main Italian psychoanalytic institutions. First, analysts' personal characteristics and preferred theoretical models were investigated. Second, the respondents responded to statements eliciting their theoretical and clinical approach towards homosexuality. Results indicate that: a) cultural and theoretical background in uences the analysts' attitudes towards homosexuality more than gender; b) there is a discrepancy between analysts' theoretical position and their clinical practice; and c) IPA institutes are more discriminatory towards homosexual colleagues than are Jungian ones.

The author investigates the relation of Kant, Schopenhauer and Heidegger to Jung's attempts to formulate theory regarding the epistemological conundrum of what can and what cannot be known and what must remain uncertain. Jung's ambivalent use and misuse of Kant's division of the world into phenomenal and noumenal realms is highlighted in discussion of concepts such as the psychoid archetype which he called 'esse in anima' and his use of Schopenhauer's concept of 'will' to justify a transcendence of the psyche/soma divide in a postulation of a 'psychoid' realm. Finally, the author describes Jung's reaction to Heidegger's theories via his assertion that Heidegger's 'pre-given world design' was an alternate formulation of his concept of the archetypes. An underlying theme of the paper is a critique of Jung's foundationalism which perpetuates the myth of an isolated mind. This model of understanding subjectivity is briefly contrasted with Heidegger's 'fundamental ontology' which focuses on a non-Cartesian 'understanding' of the 'presencing of being' in everyday social and historical contexts.

Four experiments tested the hypothesis that people distance themselves from others who display characteristics they fear in themselves. In Study 1, participants were given false feedback that they were high or low in repressed anger and were given informa~on about a person who became angry and responded in a violent or nonviolent manner. High anger feedback participants distanced themselves only from the violent person. In Study 2, high anger feedback led to distancing from a violent other but not a dishonest other, whereas dishonesty feedback led to distancing from a dishonest other but not a violent other. The results of Studies 3 and 4 replicated and extended the distancing effect with an anger induction: Participants who were insulted distanced themselves from an angry/violent person, and verbalizing their emotions about being insulted eliminated this effect. Implications for understanding defenses against undesirable self-attributions are discussed.

Small group dream work provides opportunity for phenomenologic and psychological meaning. ➤ Self-analysis, "the dreamer as authority," is essential. ➤ Nurses showed more awareness of their own feelings and those of patients and coworkers in interviews after the group dream work. ➤ Organizations can incorporate small group dream work as a resource for nurses' personal fulfillment. Purpose/Objectives: To explore dream work as a possible means for nurses to increase self-understanding and problem solving in personal and professional life. Design: Hermeneutic phenomenologic, descriptive, and interpretive. Setting: A comprehensive cancer center in the southern United States. Sample: Six nurses with a mean age of 40 and 1-10 years of oncology nursing experience. Methods: Interviews, guided by descriptive and interpretive phenomenology, were conducted with nurses before and one and six months after they participated in eight weekly sessions of a group focused on dream work. Phenomenologic analysis was done on verbatim transcriptions of all interviews. Findings: Nurses found value in participating in dream groups, including having more open discussions about feelings and death, managing difficult situations, and attending to patients in the present. Conclusions: The value of learning to attend to dreams may be subtle but has value to nurses. Implications for Nursing: Incorporating dream work is one holistic intervention that may be useful to improve job satisfaction, communication, and relationships in this time of nursing shortage.

In this paper I examine the various meanings of the term 'internal object', and the differences between various theoretical models for the formation of internal objects. I suggest that the idea in attachment theory of 'internal working models' emphasizes the internal world as one consisting of unconscious internalized patterns of emotional relationship. The term 'internal object' lacks this clarity and the different meanings it carries within differing theoretical frameworks are a source of confusion.

The standard form of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers & McCaulley, 1985) was constructed to measure introversion/extroversion, sensing/intuiting, and thinking/feeling as single, bipolar dimensions. We tested this assumption of bipolarity with a Likert form of the MBTI that allowed for the independent assessment of each attitude and function. A total of 106 female and 59 male undergraduate and graduate students completed the standard and Likert MBTI forms approximately 3 weeks apart. Evidence for the bipolarity of the introversion/extroversion dimension was weak, and findings did not support the bipolarity of the sensing/intuiting or thinking/feeling dimensions. Results provide evidence that high negative correlations within MBTI dimensions are an artifact of its forced-choice format. Implications of the findings for typology measurement are discussed.

Whilst the loss of a sense of living connection with the material world is mainly associated with the scientific revolution in seventeenth century Europe, it can be traced back to Plato's introduction of a hierarchy between soul and body. Jung's attempted solution to this - esse in anima - is ingenious but maintains the Cartesian split by which the aliveness of the world is reduced to a projection of psychic forces (the archetypes). An alternative approach is proposed, rooted in the Aristotelean emphasis on practical activity that sees the soul as a function of our way of being in the world. Human cognition is extended and distributed by our social and material engagement with the world, especially via collective representations whose symbolic character is constitutive of the reality of the world in which we live. Despite the dominance of 'scientific Cartesian' representations in the modern Western world, there remain numerous instances of participation mystique that cannot be captured by the Cartesian notion of projection. These indicate an opening to ways of being in the world that may lead us out of the impasse of the Cartesian matrix.

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'.

This paper describes some similarities and differences between contemporary approaches to analysis as practised by 'Freudians' and 'Jungians' in London today. It aims to contribute to mutual understanding between different schools of analysis by showing how the analyst's interventions can only be understood in terms of the theoretical context from which they arise (cf. 'the analyst's preconscious', as discussed by ). A discussion of five key themes of Jungian theory is followed by an account of clinical work with a patient who enacted her inner world through the use of material objects brought to the consulting room, presenting difficult technical dilemmas concerning boundaries and enactment. The paper aims to shows how these Jungian themes influenced the analyst's response, particularly in relation to ideas of symbolic transformation, the unknowable nature of unconscious processes and the purposive orientation of the self towards wholeness and integration.

As a keynote to a conference bringing together psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists, this paper addresses different mythic attitudes toward the unconscious, starting with the caricatures of Oedipus and Narcissus that the author feels Jung and Freud originally projected onto each other in the course of their quarrel. He moves on to the fairytale-like stories of Perseus and Beauty and the Beast to discover more complex images of the stance taken in relation to the unconscious by present-day analysts working within both the Jungian and the Freudian traditions.

This article explores one of C. G. Jung's generally neglected essays, his psychological interpretation of the Trinity, and links up key theoretical notions with several more mainstream psychoanalytic concepts. It further uses the notions of oneness, otherness, thirdness, and the fourth to consider the recent points of convergence between psychoanalysis and religion.

In this paper, destructiveness is approached as a multi-dimensional phenomenon where the mental health perspective addresses only one of these dimensions. An attempt is made to locate this phenomenon in the context of epistemological and societal considerations. Critical of mono-dimensional explanations based on causalreductive epistemology, the paper instead proposes the idea of an 'ecology of destructiveness', according to which mental health professionals cannot possibly continue to assume the role of detached observers. The ordinariness and archetypal fascination of destructiveness are discussed as preventing the psychologizing and pathologizing of it. In addition, it is suggested that 'destructiveness may be a tragic facet of the human condition', without this implying any justification of it. Based on my work with a group of Bosnian ex-camp prisoners, some basic principles of how one can work with survivors of atrocities are derived and discussed. A central feature of this work is the attempt to create an appropriate therapeutic context within which a 'therapeutic presence' and 'therapeutic witnessing' can be developed. Finally, the relevance of Jungian insights to this kind of work is reviewed and the emergence of new types of defences of the self is identified.

This panel is a series of presentations by a father and his three sons. The first is a critique of the concept of the Unus Mundus, an idea that goes back at least as far as Plato's Cave in western intellectual history. A longing for unchanging foundational ideas lies at the core of much of our culture, psychology, and theology. The subsequent presentations describe various unforeseen, destructive results stemming from the perspective of the Unus Mundus. The first example is of persons with Alzheimer's disease, whose singular subjectivity is often ignored because they are seen as a category. They are 'Alzheimer-ed', subtly enabling those around them to avoid an anxietyproducing encounter with their enigmatic otherness. Another important perspective is the modernist re-construction of city spaces that has resulted in the loss of an organic sense of containment. The lengthy horizon of the grand boulevards seemed like openings upon infinity, often provoking panic and agoraphobia, as seen in the work of Edvard Munch. Lastly, the genocidal tendencies of modern times epitomize the dangers of totalizing, Utopian ideas. Violent elimination may be visited upon groups or peoples who are deemed 'impure', as besmirching idealized social visions. Such examples illustrate some of the ethical dangers of conceptualizations related to the Unus Mundus.

In this paper, the theme of the other will be examined and it will be argued that it is important to differentiate between two distinct types of other-the 'exotic' other which is distant and very different from the subject, and the 'familiar' other which is closer to the subject. The dynamic relationship between these two others will be investigated, and emphasis will be given to the process through which the exotic other tends to subjugate the familiar other. This relationship will then be discussed in its various applied forms, in the contexts of clinical practice and socio-political dimensions. In particular, a new reading of Jung's approach to the 'primitive' will be developed, based on the subjugation of the 'familiar' other by the 'exotic' other. A similar line of investigation will be followed to examine the concept of psychological trauma. In addition, Freud's 'narcissism of minor differences' and Bion's distinction between 'narcissism' and 'socialism' will be considered in the light of this differentiation between these two others.

These papers were presented at the 7 th meeting between Freudian and Jungian analysts held at the Montreal Congress of the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP) in August 2010. The introduction describes the history and themes of previous meetings and discusses the choice of theme for the Montreal meeting. Both primal phantasies and archetypes imply a structural approach to psychological function but in different theoretical terms. These theoretical differences may also be emblematic of clinical differences between a focus on the sexual aspects of infancy in the Freudian tradition and a focus on ongoing emergence and transformation towards a goal of self-becoming in the Jungian tradition. The discussion aimed to test these hypotheses through the presentation of a single case history by Joseph Cambray (IAAP, USA), followed by commentaries from Eduardo Gastelumendi (IPA, Peru) and Verena Kast (IAAP, Switzerland).

This paper explores how the institutional life of analytical psychology has been beset by its historical and continuing conflictual relationship with psychoanalysis. Stemming from a division in Jung's identity, that of the spiritual seeker and that of a mental health practitioner, the organizations of analytical psychology have repeatedly enacted that division, resulting in an unclear mission and considerable conflict. In England those conflicts have led to schisms; in America they have played out in internal conflicts within training institutes. Examples of areas of conflict are provided, along with suggestions for addressing these conflicts by recognizing them more openly.

Post-modern psychology embodies two core themes, the social mind and the narrative self. Whereas the social-mind thesis seems diametrically opposed to Jung’s position regarding human nature, the narrative-self thesis is associated with research and theorizing about personal myth and mythmaking in ways that could make contact with Jung’s concerns. Jung’s view is examined here with particular attention to McAdams’ theory of narrative identity. It is suggested that the ostensible differences between Jung and post-modern psychology might reflect divergent interests, rather than necessarily irreconcilable worldviews.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Working against Dorian Gray: analysis and the old Luigi Zoja The project of Zoja's paper is far wider than its title implies. In addition, there is a salient critique of Freudian theory, in which the psychoanalytic contribution is linked with several problema-tic ...

This paper is a preliminary communication of several years of research into the life and work of the Austrian psychoanalyst and anarchist Otto Gross (1877-1920). Although he played a pivotal role in the birth of modernity, acting as a significant influence upon psychiatry, psychoanalysis, ethics, sociology and literature, he has remained virtually unknown to this day. Following a biographical sketch and an overview of his main theoretical contributions, the impact of Gross' life and work on the development of analytical theory and practice is described. His relationship with some of the key figures in psychoanalysis is presented, with particular emphasis on his connections to Jung. The paper concludes with an account of relevant contemporary interest in his work: the founding of the International Otto Gross Society, the first edition of The Collected Works of Otto Gross on the Internet, and the 1st and 2nd International Otto Gross Congresses which took place in Berlin in 1999 and at the Burghölzli Clinic, Zürich, in October 2000.

The relationship between analytical psychology and religion is part of the larger issue of the relationship between modernity and religion. There are three main views on the issue. The fundamentalist position sets religion against modernity and opts for religion over modernity. What I call the 'rationalist' position likewise sets religion against modernity but opts for modernity over religion. By contrast to both views, what I call the 'romantic' position reconciles religion with modernity. Rationalists maintain that religion can exist only in so far as it serves as an explanation of the physical world, which the rise of science now precludes. Romantics maintain that religion, while serving as an explanation of the physical world till dislodged by science, is at heart anything but an explanation. The toppling of the religious explanation by the scientific one, far from dooming religion, prods religion into making explicit what it has in fact been all along. By this categorization, Jung is overwhelmingly a romantic. For him, the function of religion has always been more psychological than explanatory, and the rise of science does not preclude the continuing existence of religious myths as a psychological rather than an explanatory phenomenon. For those for whom science does spell the demise of religion, secular myths can replace religious ones, and those secular myths are more secular versions of religious myths than secular alternatives to religious myths. Yet even if for Jung religion can still exist today because religion is in fact psychology, it does not follow that psychology is therefore a religion.

The discussion comments firstly on the role of synchronicity which seems so natural and significant for Jungians but which Freudians would think no more than interesting coincidences. This gives an idea of how different the two schools' approach to the psyche can be. Some theoretical elaboration is made regarding archetypes and primal phantasies: primal phantasies are much related to sexuality, but sexuality understood as intimately linked to the great mysteries of life. The discussion of the clinical work shows more similarities than differences. This suggests that for both perspectives the clinical is sovereign. As we know, respect and care for the patient's evolution, true concern for the patient and skilful use of technique remain the most important indicators of successful therapeutic work in the different psychotherapeutic approaches.

In this paper, Jungian and Freudian perspectives on the fantasy of rebirth are explored and a brief review of the literature on the theme is used to show how that the rebirth fantasy seems to be a universal fantasy in the human mind, connected with the experience of both destruction and creation. In the psychoanalytic process the rebirth fantasy is connected with initial hopes for a better life, but is also a vehicle for creating the analytic pair and for separating from the 'totalitarian object'. An account of clinical work with a patient is given to illustrate the mutual and parallel process of rebirth in both the patient and the therapist. For the patient, the therapy was experienced as an awakening or a birth. The therapist was initially doubtful about the patient's capacity to engage in the analytic process but his involvement and interest were 'born' during the early sessions, enabling the patient to rely on him to lead her out of the claustrophobic power of the totalitarian object.

It is commonly assumed that Jung's view of myth, like his view of everything else, is best understood vis-à-vis Freud's. I argue that Jung in fact positions himself much more broadly, not merely against other psychologists of myth but more fundamentally against non-psychologists altogether. Undeniably, Jung pits his theory against Freud's, but only after pitting both his theory and Freud's against those theories that assume the subject matter of myth to be the external world rather than the human mind and that assume the function of myth to be either the explanation or the description of the external world rather than the expression of the human mind. The theorists whom Jung challenges are called 'nature mythologists', for whom myth is either a literal explanation or a symbolic description of the natural world. Which element of the natural world myth is about varies from nature mythologist to nature mythologist. The two leading nature mythologists, both of whom Jung cites, were Edward Tylor and James Frazer. Their theories epitomize the nineteenth-century approach to myth. For them, myth is the 'primitive' counterpart to science, which is entirely modern. For them, myth and science are incompatible, science is true and myth false, and myth must therefore go when science comes. Jung's rejection of the external world as the referent of myth and of explanation or description of that world as the function of myth epitomizes the twentieth-century response to nineteenth-century theories. For not merely Jung and Freud but also twentieth-century theorists generally, myth is anything but the 'primitive' counterpart to modern science. Consequently, myth and science are not rivals, so that myth need not go when science comes.