Bridging worlds: participatory thinking in Jungian context

Introducing the ‘participatory’ paradigm associated with the work of transpersonalists Richard Tarnas and Jorge Ferrer, the author outlines an approach to Jung's archetypal thinking that might offer a more adequate basis in which to ground a non‐reductive approach to practice. In order to demonstrate the relevance of this outlook at the present time, the author begins by examining recent debates concerning the nature of ‘truth’ in the clinical setting. Reflecting on the difficulties analysts face in attempting to maintain professional authority without falling into an implicit authoritarianism, it is argued that any approach to therapy seeking to orient itself towards ‘the unconscious’ must posit the challenges of pluralism as a central concern for practice. With reference to the relationship between analytical psychology and the psychoanalytic mainstream, attention is drawn to the theoretical problems raised by the relational commitment to constructivist epistemologies, and a consequent tendency towards biological reductionism. Turning to the Jungian literature, similar tensions are observed at play in the present state of analytical psychology. Drawing attention to the process‐oriented qualities of Jung's work, it is suggested that the speculative nature of Jung's psychology offers a more adequate basis for contemporary practice than might be assumed.     

Faith and the practising analyst

Abstract: In this brief essay, I reflect on three questions: What is ‘faith’ in a modern and post‐modern cultural context? Do I, a Jungian analyst, have ‘faith’ or do I not? Does having ‘faith’ or not make a difference in the practice of analysis? I make reference to Jung's understanding of ‘faith’ and his frequent disclaimers about making metaphysical claims. I conclude that a post‐credal ‘faith’ is possible for contemporary Jungian analysts, that I do have such a faith personally, and that in my experience this makes a significant difference in analytic practice at least with some patients. Traditional faith statements must be translated into depth psychological terms, however, in order for them to be applicable in post‐modern, multicultural contexts.     

Are waves of relational assumptions eroding traditional analysis?

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.     

Influences on my clinical practice and identity. Jungian analysis on the couch–what and where is the truth of it?

The author considers the various influences that have shaped his clinical practice and particular identity as a Jungian analyst. It is hoped that the sharing of these observations will, like a shard of a hologram, reflect aspects of the Jungian community as a whole. The author also attempts to put Jungian analysis ‘on the couch’ by looking at the current debate in the Journal between traditional and relational psychoanalysis. This is compared to the discourse that philosophy has been struggling with for centuries concerning the nature of truth.     

Political and clinical developments in analytical psychology, 1972‐2014: subjectivity,equality and diversity—inside and outside the consulting room

Utilizing Jung's idea of theory as a ‘personal confession’, the author charts his own development as a theorist, establishing links between his personal history and his ideas. Such links include his relationship with both parents, his sexuality, his cultural heritage, and his fascination with Tricksters and with Hermes. There follows a substantial critical interrogation of what the author discerns as the two main lines of clinical theorizing in contemporary analytical psychotherapy: interpretation of transference‐countertransference, and the relational approach. His conclusion is that neither is superior to the other and neither is in fact adequate as a basis for clinical work. The focus then shifts to explore a range of political and social aspects of the clinical project of analytical psychology: economic inequality, diversity within the professional field, and Jung's controversial ideas about Jews and Africans. The author calls for an apology from the ‘Jungian community’ for remarks about Africans analogous to the apology already issued for remarks about Jews. The paper is dedicated to the author's friend Fred Plaut (1913‐2009).     

Constructing the collective unconscious

Abstract: Innovative attempts at collating Jungian analytical psychology with a range of ‘post‐modern’ theories have yielded significant results. This paper adopts an alternative strategy: a Lacanian vantage point on Jungian theory that eschews an attempt at reconciling Jung with post‐structuralism. A focused Lacanian gaze on Jung will establish an irreducible tension between Jung's view of archetypes as factors immanent to the psyche and a Lacanian critique that lays bare the contingent structures and mechanisms of their constitution, unveiling the supposed archetypes’a posteriori production through the efficacy of a discursive field. Theories of ideology developed in the wake of Lacan provide a powerful methodological tool allowing to bring this distinction into focus. An assembly of Lacan's fragmentary accounts of Jung will be supplemented with an approach to Jungian theory via ?i?ek's Lacan‐oriented theory of the signifying mechanism underpinning ‘ideology’. Accordingly, the Jungian archetype of the self, which is considered in some depth, can begin to be seen in a new light, namely as a ‘master signifier’, not only of Jung's academic edifice, but also —and initially—of the discursive strategies that establish his own subjectivity. A discussion of Jung's approach to mythology reveals how the ‘quilting point’ of his discourse comes to be coupled with a correlate in the Real, a non‐discursive ‘sublime object’ conferring upon archetypes their fascinating aura.     

How Much Jungian Theory Is There in My Practice?

This non-clinical paper consists of the author's subjective and personal value judgements on theory and practice. He discusses nine topics: I) What is analysis and why do people seek therapy? 2) Dangers of reification and hypostatizing: reinforcement of narcissistic defences and schizoid unrelatedness. 3) The problems of archetypal psychology and amplification. 4) The cultural and political aspects of the unconscious psyche, and the value of studying the philosophical background to the psychodynamic approach. 5) Criticism of the classical Jungian over-emphasis of the intrapsychic at the expense of the interpersonal. 6) Psychosomatic healing through experience and interpretation of psychosomatic identity in the transference/countertrans-ference; idea of the ‘animating body’. 7) Dangers of theoretical hndamentalism and crusading among Jungian schools: envy and intolerance. 8) The need for the analyst to have enough good objects. 9) An acknowledgement of theoretical influences other than Jung on the author's practice; although Jung's ideas facilitate a personal pluralism - the spirit of Jung.     

An Independent Theory of Clinical Technique Viewed Through a Relational Lens: Commentary on Paper by Michael Parsons

This discussion of Michael Parsons's exposition of the Independent Tradition's clinical theory of technique compares and contrasts the British Independent and American Relational perspectives in regard to their approach to technique. In this discussion I will consider the question whether, given strong object relational influences on relational psychoanalytic theory, we are able to locate systematic differences in the way that Independent and Relational analysts attempt to work, to be with, and to relate to their patients in the psychoanalytic situation. Overlapping historical roots of the two traditions are considered, along with apparent differences in the ways in which the contributions of common ancestors, such as Ferenzci, are applied. I suggest that the integration of American Interpersonal School ideas with Object Relations theory in American Relational Psychoanalysis led to a different therapeutic sensibility, different ways of thinking about and participating in the analytic process from those that are reflected in the Independent Tradition as Dr. Parsons describes it. The discussion includes an imaginative reconsideration of clinical process along relational lines, in an attempt to clarify different emphases in technique between the two schools.     

Alasdair MacIntyre's Analysis of Tradition

I argue that, in analysing the structure and development of moral traditions, MacIntyre relies primarily on Kuhn's model of scientific tradition, rather than (as is held by at least two influential commentators) on Lakatos' model. I unpack three foci of Kuhn's conception of the sciences, namely: the ‘crisis’ conception of scientific development, what I call the ‘systematic conception’ of scientific paradigms, and the view that successive paradigms are incommensurable. I then show that these three foci are integrated into MacIntyre's account of the development of moral traditions with a surprising degree of faithfulness to Kuhn. And crucially, I argue against the overall cogency of his account, given the disparities I pinpoint between scientific and moral traditions. My overall critique is, however, fundamentally friendly, since nothing I have to say invalidates the very notion of a moral tradition, and all I am calling for are less problematic construals of that notion.     

Race,power and intimacy in the intersubjective field: the intersection of racialised cultural complexes and personal complexes

This paper presents work with a biracial young woman, in the context of a predominantly white Jungian training organisation. The patient's relational difficulties and her struggle to integrate different aspects of her personality are understood in terms of the overlapping influences of developmental trauma, transgenerational trauma relating to the legacy of slavery in the Caribbean, conflictual racial identities, internalised racism, and the British black/white racial cultural complex. The author presents her understanding of an unfolding dynamic in the analytic relationship in which the black slave/white master schema was apparently reversed between them, with the white analyst becoming subservient to the black patient. The paper tracks the process through which trust was built alongside the development of this joint defence against intimacy ‐ which eventually had to be relinquished by both partners in the dyad. A white on black ‘rescue fantasy’, identified by the patient as a self‐serving part of her father's personality, is explored in relation to the analytic relationship and the training context.     

The Great Mother and the Terrible Mother: mimesis,alterity and attachment in adolescence

This paper discusses attachment, the longing for familiarity and sameness (mimesis), the search for difference and separateness (alterity) and the problem with the Other¹ seen through the lens ofthe individuation process in adolescence. These are explored with reference to relational aspects and Levinas and Girard's divergent views of the Other. The relational space, which in Phillip Bromberg's (2003) words is ‘uniquely relational, but still uniquely individual’ and in which analyst and patient ‘stand together in the space between realities’, might under exceptional circumstances be transformed into ‘a twilight space where the impossible becomes possible’ (p. 573). I will sketch a developmental trajectory starting from primitive states, in which the presence of the Other,as a separate entity cannot be tolerated and where the patient strives for total mimesis. Should the analyst prematurely shatter this illusion, she becomes an alien ‘Other’; a wolf in sheep's clothing. I trace the current psychoanalytic paradigm shift to an emphasis on the co‐creation of meaning in the interpersonal space and explore what alterity consists of and how much of the other's unknowability can be tolerated and respected without a translation into one's own idiom. The clinical vignettes illustrate aspects of therapy which normally lie outside the analytical remit and are culled from an inpatient setting and private practice.     

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.     

Who is my Jung? Memories,Reflections, Prospects

The author describes his personal and professional journey in relation to the subject of the AJA 40^th anniversary conference, ‘Who is my Jung?’ The first part of the paper covers his early life and his attempt to bring together two opposing parts within him: valuation of a scientific approach, and an interest in the inner world, dreams and the paranormal. Discussion of his professional life follows, including his relationship with Gerhard Adler, past problems and splits within the Jungian community and the author's attempts to heal these. The value of both remembering and forgetting is questioned. This leads onto ideas that bring value and meaning to his work and life, and which bridge the inner divisions he felt in his early life: notably Jung's focus on applying scientific theory to the mystery of the psyche, his relational attitude (exemplified by the dialectical process and his interest in countertransference) and his theory of synchronicity. Recent discussion in Jungian writing has questioned the nature of synchronistic experiences and explored how they may emerge naturally from complex systems. The paper ends the author's continuing journey with two personal vignettes describing how meaning may emerge from the unconscious.     

Jung,Winnicott and the divided psyche

In his review of Memories Dreams Reflections, Winnicott diagnosed Jung as suffering from a psychic split, and characterized the content and the structure of analytical psychology as primarily moulded and conditioned by Jung's own defensive quest for a ‘self that he could call his own’. This pathologizing analysis continues to be endorsed by contemporary Jungian writers. In this paper I attempt to show that Winnicott's critique is fundamentally misguided because it derives from a psychoanalytic model of the psyche, a model that regards all dissociation as necessarily pathological. I argue that Jung's understanding of the psyche differs radically from this model, and further, that it conforms by and large to the kind of dissociative model that we find in the writings of Frederic Myers, William James and Theodor Flournoy. I conclude that a fruitful relationship between psychoanalysis and analytical psychology must depend upon an awareness of these important differences between the two psychic models.     

The I Ching as a Potential Jungian Application: History and Practice

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung had a lifelong interest in the I Ching after discovering it in 1919. Jung’s interest in the I Ching is arguably more practical than purely theoretical or intellectual, and references to I Ching divination appear frequently in his various publications, seminars, letters and clinical practice records. After a few observations on the history of the study of the I Ching in China, the author categorizes Jung’s three uses of the I Ching as physical use (to preview future potentials of outer reality), psychological use (to reveal one’s psychological state), and psychical approach (to engage with the divine through “神”[“shen”, spiritual agencies]). Finally, the author discusses the current Jungian engagement by demonstrating clinical cases in contemporary times. Some Jungian analysts practise I Ching divination to obtain insights into the physical and psychological state of therapeutic relationships and for personal development. This paper is a historical and critical engagement of the Jungian practice of I Ching divination.     

Archetypes and Spirits: A Jungian Analysis of Puerto Rican Espiritismo

In this paper a comparison is made between Jung's approach to healing with a traditional healing system practised in Puerto Rico, called ‘Espiritismo’. Jungian psychology and ‘Espiritismo’ have several strong similarities in their conception of the therapeutic process, similarities which suggest that the healing process itself has generic properties which can be found in several therapeutic systems. In addition, by analysing Jung's development as a healer, it is possible to draw parallels between his development as a psychotherapist and the process of becoming a spiritist healer. In both healing systems, a transpersonal dimension is recognized as an integral element in the healing process. In ‘Espiritismo’, the suffering individual has to confront the spirit world; in analytical psychotherapy the patient has to confront the collective unconscious. This parallel was explicitly recognized by Jung in his autobiography when he compared the collective unconscious with the land of the dead. For Jung, knowledge of the figures of the unconscious enormously facilitates the individuation process; in ‘Espiritismo’ it is necessary to know the spirit world and to establish a relationship with the spirits. In Jungian psychology, healing is a process of ‘exorcizing’ some types of complexes or integrating others to consciousness. On the other hand, spiritist healers ‘exorcize’ ignorant spirits in order to heal a client or help him/her to identify spirit guides. In both systems, healing is essentially a process of establishing a dialogue with a transpersonal dimension (archetypes or spirits). Healing in ‘Espiritismo’ and Jungian psychology is a process of transcending the limited perspective of the ego (the ‘material world’) in order to experience a much broader reality (spiritual world or collective unconscious). Both systems emphasize the need to work with resources beyond the boundaries of the ego and to connect with forces that belong to a different reality.     

Ethical narratives,street kitchens and doing religious difference amongst post-migrant communities in contemporary Britain

Street kitchens organised by religious groups in response to food poverty and homelessness have become a ubiquitous feature of British cities. Although a good deal of literature has explored this genre of social action, relatively little has analysed it as a feature of religious practice associated with post-migrant communities. This paper uses data drawn from ethnographic research on Sikh and Muslim street kitchens in two British cities to consider the significance of such initiatives amongst Britain’s South Asian communities. The paper focuses on the role of narrative in this context, deploying Ingold’s notion of ‘storied knowledge’ to analyse fluid, emergent ethical practices expressed through religion-related stories. These practices, envisaged here as ‘religioning’, draw on South Asian religious traditions creatively reconfigured in the postcolonial city. I argue that such developments constitute a significant diasporic intervention into settled accounts of ‘faith’ as a vehicle for ethical citizenship in British urban environments.     

Working with chronic and relentless self‐hatred,self‐harm,and existential shame: a clinical study and reflections (Paper 2 of 2)

This second of two papers focuses on the shame which emerged in the first 14 years of analysis of a woman who was bulimic, self‐harmed, and repeatedly described herself as ‘feeling like a piece of shit’. To explore this intense and pervasive shame I draw on Jung's and Laplanche's emphasis on experiences of unresolvable, non‐pathological ‘foreignness’ or ‘otherness’ at the heart of the psyche. Images, metaphors, elements of clinical experience, and working hypotheses from a number of analytic traditions are used to flesh out this exploration. These include Kilborne's use of Pirandello's image of shame as like a ‘hole in the paper sky’ which, I suggest, points to a crack in subjectivity, and reveals our belief in the efficacy of the self to be illusory. Hultberg's observations on shame as having an existential mode (function) are also explored, as is the nature of analytic truth. Using these ideas I describe my patient's process of finding some small but freeing space in relation to her shame and self‐hatred. Through enduring and learning from her shame in analysis she realized that it was part of a desperate unconscious attempt to draw close to her troubled father and so to ‘love him better’.     

Springs,Nitre, and Conatus. The Role of the Heart in Hobbes's Physiology and Animal Locomotion

This paper focuses on an understudied aspect of Hobbes's natural philosophy: his approach to the domain of life. I concentrate on the role assigned by Hobbes to the heart, which occupies a central role in both his account of human physiology (which he names ‘vital motion’) and of the origin of animal locomotion (‘animal or voluntary motion’). With this, I have three goals in mind. First, I aim to offer a cross-section of Hobbes's effort to provide a mechanistic picture of human life. Second, I aim to contextualize Hobbes's views in the seventeenth-century debates on human physiology and animal locomotion. In particular, I will compare Hobbes's views with the theories put forth by Harvey, Descartes, the Galenic, and Peripatetic traditions. Also, I will show that Hobbes was receptive to advances within contemporary English physiology and chemistry. Third, by means of a comparison with Descartes, I advance some hypothesis to explain why Hobbes indentified the heart, and not the brain (as was increasingly common in his day), as the organ originating animal locomotion. In this regard, I trace out some possible implications of Hobbes's views on human physiology and locomotion for his psychology and political philosophy.     

Psychotherapists' dreams about their patients

Abstract This study examines therapists’ dreams about their patients from the Jungian and the relational perspectives. Few clinical and empirical references to this subject are to be found in the literature. In the present study 31 dreams were collected from 22 therapists. Dreams were collected using anonymous self‐report inventory. The research focused on three theoretical research questions: 1. What themes appear in the manifest content of therapists’ dreams about their patients? 2. What contributions are made by Jungian interpretation of therapists’ dreams about their patients? 3. To what extent are masochistic contents present in the manifest content of therapists’ dreams about their patients? The first question was addressed using categorical content analysis of a) themes common to different dreams and b) pre‐determined themes for all dreams. The third research question was addressed using Beck's (1967) ‘Masochistic Dream’ measure. Results: Among the themes common to different dreams were: therapist‐patient role reversal; therapist and/or patient attends and remains in meeting, departs/doesn’t depart; cancellation of therapy session; sexuality between therapist and patient; aggression; presence vs. absence; non‐verbal relationship and communication; time; driving vs. stopping. With regard to pre‐determined themes it was found that in 20 of the 31 dreams, the therapist had a negative experience and was characterized as vulnerable. Likewise it was found that 26 out of 31 dreams took place in either a) a street, a road, a route, a corridor; b) en route to somewhere; c) a therapy room and/or building; d) a house. With regard to the contribution of Jungian interpretations of the dreams it was found that 17 of the dreams had diagnostic and prognostic elements, 4 of which were initial dreams, 9 of them were compensatory dreams and in 14 it was found that the patient represents the shadow of the therapist. With regard to the third question it was found that 18 of the 31 dreams met Beck's (1967) criteria for masochistic dreams. The theoretical discussion examines the findings from a Jungian perspective, with an emphasis on also understanding the dream in terms of its expression of relational aspects of the therapist‐patient relationship. The findings affirm the presence of the ‘wounded healer’ archetypes in therapists’ dreams about their patients. The results of the study indicate that therapists’ dreams about their patients can be a valuable tool for deepening understanding of the therapeutic relationship and process.