The transcendent function in adolescence: miracle cures and bogeymen

Abstract: This paper proposes that Damasio's mental images, Stern's moments of meeting and Tronick's dyadically expanded consciousness refer to different aspects of the same psychological process as Jung describes in the transcendent function. This proposition is illustrated with two case vignettes of adolescents who functioned on a pre‐symbolic level, but who through a transformative experience were catapulted into new developmental trajectories and the beginning of symbol formation.     

To have and to be: towards the social representation of quality of life in China

This study explores the social representation of quality of life (QOL) in the Chinese socio‐cultural context. The data were collected by 16 open‐ended individual interviews. The study shows that the social representation of QOL embedded deeply in the collective memory of Chinese society is generated from, and organized around, the central thema of ‘having’/‘being’. ‘Having’ and ‘being’ are both antinomic and dialogically interdependent. ‘Having’ gives priority to how subject instrumentalizes object as resources to be possessed and consumed. It is manifested in the possessions of money, food, housing and car. The possessions are not only simply the material things but also the objects of symbolic significance. ‘Being’ prioritizes the authentic relationship between subject and object. It is manifested in rootedness, connectedness, participation and freedom. These provide a sense of belonging, commitment, direction and purpose and involve the establishment and maintenance of the union between the self and others, and between the individual and the outside world. On the other hand, neither ‘having’ nor ‘being’ exists in its pure form. Rather, they co‐exist dynamically, in rival or complementary ways, and each calls the possibility of the other into play. It is the synthesis of opposites between ‘having’ and ‘being’ that the social representation of QOL is generated and structured. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On defining words, some scenarios and vectors in the 'autobiography' of C. G. Jung

Having first considered recent research into the circumstances surrounding the production and publication of the 'autobiography' of Jung, the author concludes that in spite of its being the work of several authors, it nevertheless constitutes a whole. Taken from whichever angle, they all point to Jung's particular inquiry into the unconscious, as it emerges through Jung's own words. The author goes on to suggest both a lateral and a structural reading of MDR (Memories, Dreams, Reflections) which in turn reveals, on the basis of the several dreams reported, the central 'fantasy' which inspired Jung's research and his oeuvre. Finally, he discusses the idea of the collective or impersonal unconscious and highlights the emphasis Jung places on processes which unfold according to rhythms which are associated with distinct scales, depending on whether they are those of the individual, the clan or the culture.     

Requiem for analytical psychology: a reflection on Jung's (anti)catastrophic psychology

This article is an interpretation of analytical psychology in the light of the catastrophic vision and dreams that Jung had in 1913 and 1914. It is shown how the guiding spirit of Jung's psychological project is to be found in that psychic material. Then it is proposed that the completion of the symbolic catastrophe displayed in Jung's last vision (1961) points to the end of the psychological foundations upon which analytical psychology is built, and thus to its cultural obsolescence, extensive to any psychology grounded in Jung's notion of ‘soul’.     

Confronting Bluebeard: totalitarian regimes in childhood and in the collective psyche

Beginning with the story of Bluebeard, the author considers how traumatic overwhelm can occur in everyday childhood situations of a psychically murderous quality; for example, a nanny’s totalitarian regime may be invisible to parents ruled by collective social and cultural norms. A child who is remote from mother and idealises a father embodying a powerful patriarchal system may remain naïvely dependent in marriage and unable to cope with the realities of human aggression. The paper describes analytic work with a woman who had suffered repeated breakdowns and needed to relinquish a fragile, socially constructed identity in order to establish her own true orientation.     

‘Clemency on the way to the gallows’: death,dreams and dissociation

The survivor of a decade of childhood sexual trauma and violence, perpetrated by a monstrous father, produced a series of dreams in the final year of a ten‐year analysis. They illuminated the ‘death drive’ beneath a lifelong preoccupation with dying and fantasies of submission to death, perpetuated by the promise of hoped‐for freedom from pain and release from a life of suffering. The initial dream involved the collapse of a team of white horses drawing him in a pillory cart to his own hanging for a crime he did not commit. It signified the collapse of a fragile psychological system based on his role as the ‘sacrificial lamb,’ protecting a (not so) innocent mother. The raw truth was now unconcealed: primal, violent, and terrifying dreams and affects emerged where he was now the murderous aggressor. His dreams would become primary agents for an instinctive, life‐giving authenticity to emerge, offering him clemency from the shattering repetitions of persecution and dissociation.     

Supervisory countertransferences and impingements in evaluating readiness for graduation: Always present,routinely under‐recognized

Utilizing detailed, in‐depth material from supervisory hours from around the world (explored in End of Training Evaluation groups), this paper shows that supervisors are subject to multiple, diverse and, at times, ongoing intense countertransferences and impingements on their ability to evaluate candidates’ progress. Multiple external and internal sources of these impingements are explored. It is suggested that supervisory countertransferences and their manifestation in parallel enactments remain under‐recognized, their impact underappreciated, and the information they contain underutilized. It is argued that the recognition, containment, and effective use of the parallel process phenomena and supervisory countertransferences are essential in order to evaluate candidates’ progression and readiness to graduate. Common signals of such entanglements in the supervisor's evaluative function are identified. Three remedies, each of which provides a ‘third,’ are offered to assist supervisors in making effective use of their countertransference: self‐supervision, consultation, and institutional correctives.     

While We Wait: The Foolishness of Scarcity,the “Devalued Other,” and Pedagogies of “Becoming”

This article considers how Christian women leaders might, in the absence of global economic equality for women, reframe theological dialogue that affirms the work and worth of the “devalued other” – 21st‐century women living in economic insecurity – and to declare that Jesus' eschatological hope is in the feminization of abundance. The article engages the parable of the wise and foolish virgins as a messianic requirement to deconstruct the barriers that keep the devalued other from seeing her full potential and to challenge the foolishness of scarcity that has taken hold of the daughters of privilege. It seeks to engage an African feminist hermeneutic as the primary methodology and to craft an emerging pedagogy of “becoming” that speaks to the cosmic shift to strengthen the agency of women as we await the coming Parousia.     

The Garden of the Heart and Soul: the image,the way,and the meaning

This paper begins with an explanation of the four Chinese characters that represent the project of the Garden of the Heart and Soul. This project was founded to help the psychological development of orphans, as well as to provide psychological relief for the victims of ecological disasters such as earthquakes through the use of Jungian psychology, sandplay therapy, and the psychology of the Heart. Eleven years after its founding, there are 83 work‐stations on mainland China. The authors discuss how the Chinese characters influenced the way they set up their project and the values that guide them. In addition to helping the individuation of the people they work with, their work provides a container for the collective psyche and a connection with the cultural archetypal roots.     

Unformulated experience,dissociation, and Nachträglichkeit

The paper is divided into two parts. The first part is an interpersonal/relational psychoanalytic account of some relationships between dissociation, time, and unformulated experience. Trauma, and the dissociation to which trauma leads, freezes time, which makes it impossible to formulate certain kinds of new experience. Instead, potential new meanings remain unformulated. The route of clinical access to frozen time is the interpersonal field: to thaw time and allow new experience, the ways in which the interpersonal field is itself frozen need to be addressed. A clinical illustration of these ideas is offered. The second part of the paper presents and explores a point of confluence between the views in Part 1 and certain aspects of French psychoanalysis, with particular reference to the concept of Nachträglichkeit in the work of Jean Laplanche and Haydée Faimberg.     

Children's and Parents’ Well‐Being in Joint Physical Custody: A Literature Review

Joint physical custody (JPC), a parental care arrangement in which a child lives with each parent for at least 25–50% of the time after separation or divorce, is increasingly common in many Western societies. This is a major shift from the standard of sole physical custody, with mostly mothers providing primary childcare after a parental separation or divorce. The increasing share of separated or divorced parents who practice JPC, which in some countries, US states, and regions reaches 30% and more, results from increasing gender equality due to mothers participating considerably in the labor force and fathers being actively involved in their children's daily lives. This review focuses on the effects of JPC on children's and parents’ well‐being, based on 40 studies from North America, Australia, and Europe published between 2007 and 2018. In sum, there is empirical evidence from different countries that suggests that JPC arrangements can have positive effects on the well‐being of children and of parents. However, the existing studies are conceptually, methodologically, and contextually very heterogeneous. In addition, self‐selected highly educated parents with a high socio‐economic status, a low conflict level, and children between the ages of 6–15 practicing JPC dominate the samples. Thus, the risks and benefits of JPC are not clear yet and are heavily debated by advocates and academics. The review concludes with suggestions for future research.     

Another serious misunderstanding: Jung,Giegerich and a premature requiem

Barreto's paper, ‘Requiem for analytical psychology’ utilized Jung's dreams and visions to argue for the obsolescence of Jungian psychology. Its thesis rested upon the theoretical assumptions of Giegerich's psychology as a Discipline of Interiority, which he and Giegerich claim are themselves based in Jung's psychology. Here I argue that that claim is misplaced because it depends upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Jung's psychological project. I shall further argue that Giegerich's arguments for a Jungian basis to his psychology rely upon misreadings and decontextualisations of Jung's original texts. Finally, I shall attempt to draw attention to the weaknesses and contradictions involved in Barreto's interpretations of Jung's dreams and visions.     

A revolution of the mind: some implications of George Hogenson's ‘The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutionary thinking’ (2001)

George Hogenson's 2001 paper ‘The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutionary thinking’ developed the radical argument that, if archetypes are emergent, they ‘do not exist in the sense that there is no place that the archetypes can be said to be’. In this paper, I show how Hogenson's thinking has been seminal to my own: it is not just archetypes but the mind itself that has no ‘place’. The mind is a dynamic system, emergent from the cultural environment of symbolic meanings to which humans are evolutionarily adapted. Drawing on the work of philosopher John Searle, I argue that symbols constitute the realities that they bring forth, including the imaginal realities of the psyche. The implications for clinical work include a rejection of structural models of the psyche in favour of the emergence of symbolic realities in the context of psychoanalysis as a distributed system of cognition.     

Rivers of milk and honey ‐ an exploration of nurturing the self in a Russian context

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.     

The riddle of Siegfried: exploring methods and psychological perspectives in analytical psychology

Jung's dream of the killing of Siegfried poses a riddle: why did the unconscious choose precisely Siegfried as the hero to be murdered? Jung himself declares that he does not know. This paper attempts to decipher this riddle using three distinct methodological approaches accepted by Jung, two of them in fact grounded in his theories of dream interpretation. Besides presenting some possible answers to the riddle of Siegfried, this interpretative reflection brings to light the discrepancy of the psychological perspectives created by the heterogeneity of methods within analytical psychology.     

Learning from the patient: The East,synchronicity and transference in the history of an unknown case of C.G. Jung

This article presents the history of one until now unknown case of C.G. Jung: Maggy Reichstein. Born in Indonesia in 1894 in a very aristocratic family, she brought her sister to Zurich to be treated by Jung in 1919, and later she herself was in analysis with him. Jung used her case as example in his lecture in 1937 on the realities of practical psychotherapy, relating it to the process of transference and countertransference. Jung deepened his studies in Eastern psychology after a series of dreams she had, which culminated in the Yoga Kundalini Seminars. She was also the case presented in his article of 1951 on the concept of synchronicity. Jung wrote that her case, concerning synchronicity, remained unique in his experience. Jung also published some of her mandalas. He considered her able to understand his ideas in depth. Reichstein was for Jung an important case, which challenged and triggered his interests in different subjects.