A preliminary sketch of a Jungian socioanalysis – an emerging theory combining analytical psychology,complexity theories,sociological theories,socio- and psycho-analysis,group analysis and affect theories1

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.     

Social dreaming:competition or complementation to individual dreaming?

Social dreaming is presented as a method to explore the unconscious dimension of the social world. The theoretical position of social dreaming and its historical development is described. Two examples are given for the practical application of social dreaming, a professional meeting of psychotherapists and an experiential workshop dealing with the aftermath of trauma. It is suggested that social dreaming is complementary to individual dreaming and offers insights and explanations, as well as guidance on various levels for applications in clinical, organizational, institutional and social settings.     

Between the analytical and the critical: implications for theorizing the self

This article considers some of the implications of the critical standpoint in 'general' psychology in view of Jungian assumptions about the development of the self. The first part introduces the critical standpoint, which encompasses a spectrum of postmodern psychologies sharing a critique of the discipline's 'mainstream' positivist approach, an interest in human lives as existing in culture and historical time, and sensitivity to the dialogical unfolding of the self. Social constructionism and specifically the theory of positioning, which posits the self as a discursive production, are described. The second part illustrates the contrast between the social constructionist and Jungian viewpoints with two possible interpretations of a four-year-old boy's fantasies. Although these viewpoints are diametrically opposed, the possibility of a conceptual 'middle ground' between them is indicated here with particular reference to Bakhtin's understanding of the dialogical act.     

Dreaming for the World: A Jungian Study of Dreams During the COVID-19 Pandemic1

This project explores what dreams might reveal about the collective psyche’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic in its first year, before the development of vaccines. A brief survey, distributed to Jungian colleagues and organizations, and to various social media sites, invited people to submit online a dream related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four hundred and thirty-six dreams were submitted. Forty additional Russian dreams were collected and submitted by Russian colleagues. Using qualitative research methods based on phenomenological hermeneutics, the researchers categorized and counted the range of COVID imagery. In addition, the researchers describe a range of psychic responses to the pandemic, including horror, grief, sickness, social discord, and violence, but also images of healing and transformation, increased sense of community, and spiritual renewal. Several healing nightmares are presented. Healing alchemical and anima/animus imagery is described. Twelve dreams are introduced and presented. It is concluded that the collective psyche, rooted in the Self, is a healing resource for social and cultural trauma. This project supports Beradt’s (1968) inspirational study of dreaming in Nazi Germany, as well as recent studies of COVID-related dreams and recent publications on the social nature of dreaming.     

An Epistolary Conversation

This written exchange is between a senior and a younger Jungian analyst on issues relevant to the development of analytical psychology throughout the world today. The younger analyst, Stefano Carpani, considers himself a neo-Jungian. He explains to John Beebe, known for post-Jungian contributions to the study of typology, integrity, and gender, how important it is to include sociological perspectives alongside those that stem from the Jungian practice of relational psychoanalysis. The degree to which analysis has become an extended meditation on the relation of individual self-exploration to supra-personal Self-realization is emphasized by both authors, who envision this introspection leading to an expanded inner openness that Carpani has called “absolute freedom.” The authors conclude that absolute freedom is a space of engaged reflection that can permit an informed but individualized approach to the complexities of the world soul today.     

When does a dream begin to ‘have meaning’? Linguistic constraints and significant moments in the construction of the meaning of a dream

The paper investigates the origin of the meaning of dreams starting with a discussion of psychotic dreams. The author distinguishes the dream as dream from the remembered and the narrated. A two-step dream phenomenology is proposed that both acknowledges the objectivity of the dream and traces the origin of its meaning to its translation into language. Following a review of recent neurobiological theories of dreaming, the paper focuses on certain aspects of the psychoanalytical understanding of the dream phenomenon and in particular on the interpretation of dreams from the perspective of intersubjectivity and phantasy.     

How to integrate dreaming into a general theory of consciousness--a critical review of existing positions and suggestions for future research

In this paper, we address the different ways in which dream research can contribute to interdisciplinary consciousness research. As a second global state of consciousness aside from wakefulness, dreaming is an important contrast condition for theories of waking consciousness. However, programmatic suggestions for integrating dreaming into broader theories of consciousness, for instance by regarding dreams as a model system of standard or pathological wake states, have not yielded straightforward results. We review existing proposals for using dreaming as a model system, taking into account concerns about the concept of modeling and the adequacy and practical feasibility of dreaming as a model system. We conclude that existing modeling approaches are premature and rely on controversial background assumptions. Instead, we suggest that contrastive analysis of dreaming and wakefulness presents a more promising strategy for integrating dreaming into a broader research context and solving many of the problems involved in the modeling approach.     

Does knowing translate to doing? Practitioners’ experiences of Circle of Security-Parenting (COS-P) training and implementation

This study sought to understand how practitioners perceive and experience the Circle of Security-Parenting (COS-P) training, and further, how they integrate and implement it into practice, and how these experiences influence their use and understanding of the program and its underlying model. A thematic analysis of semistructured interviews at two time points (shortly after training and 3–6 months after training) was used to explore 12 practitioners’ experiences of COS-P training and subsequent implementation. Three main themes were identified; clinical salience, personal salience, and partial use of the program. The findings reflected participants’ common perception that the model is relevant and generalizable to a wide variety of contexts. It also highlighted potential barriers to implementation, particularly practitioners’ experiences using only components of the COS-P program in isolation. The results suggest practitioners’ assumptions about client complexities, vulnerabilities, and/or incapacities, can prompt practitioners to withhold the use of COS-P (in part or whole), thereby potentially neglecting key components required for client change. The only participants who implemented the COS-P training in full had additional training in Circle of Security.     

From Freud’s dream-work to Bion’s work of dreaming: The changing conception of dreaming in psychoanalytic theory

Bion moved psychoanalytic theory from Freud's theory of dream-work to a concept of dreaming in which dreaming is the central aspect of all emotional functioning. In this paper, I first review historical, theoretical, and clinical aspects of dreaming as seen by Freud and Bion. I then propose two interconnected ideas that I believe reflect Bion’s split from Freud regarding the understanding of dreaming. Bion believed that all dreams are psychological works in progress and at one point suggested that all dreams contain elements that are akin to visual hallucinations. I explore and elaborate Bion’s ideas that all dreams contain aspects of emotional experience that are too disturbing to be dreamt, and that, in analysis, the patient brings a dream with the hope of receiving the analyst’s help in completing the unconscious work that was entirely or partially too disturbing for the patient to dream on his own. Freud views dreams as mental phenomena with which to understand how the mind functions, but believes that dreams are solely the ‘guardians of sleep,’ and not, in themselves, vehicles for unconscious psychological work and growth until they are interpreted by the analyst. Bion extends Freud's ideas, but also departs from Freud and re-conceives of dreaming as synonymous with unconscious emotional thinking – a process that continues both while we are awake and while we are asleep. From another somewhat puzzling perspective, he views dreams solely as manifestations of what the dreamer is unable to think.     

On Theoretical Edges and Exclusionary Borders: Towards a Genealogy of “Analyzability” in Jungian Psychoanalysis1

An oft-repeated and largely unexamined assumption in Jungian psychoanalysis is the notion of “analyzability”, that is, of an individual's ability or present capacity to think symbolically. It is often taught that if someone is unable to think symbolically, a depth analysis is not possible. Such an individual may be more aptly suited for supportive psychotherapy, the argument goes, an experience that may very well lead to the development of the ego's capacity for symbolic thought but is not, in and of itself, a Jungian analysis. While this sort of categorical thinking has, at times, crossed over into ontological claims about individuals and groups, the notion of analyzability encountered in psychoanalytic theory and praxis is often cloaked in facially neutral language. The impact, however, has been anything but neutral in effect. In this paper, I propose a softening of our theoretical edges through a genealogy of the category of analyzability within the broader history of psychoanalysis. Through this excavation, I explore the contingent nature of the category of analyzability, how it has constricted knowledge, perpetuated inequality, and, more broadly, obscured ways of knowing. In so doing, I recover the radically democratic potential that lies at the heart of Jungian psychoanalysis.     

Jungian theory of dreaming and contemporary dream research – findings from the research project ‘Structural Dream Analysis’

The research method ‘Structural Dream Analysis’ (SDA) is described which allows for systematic and objective analysis of the meaning of dreams produced by patients in Jungian psychotherapies. The method focuses especially on the relationship between the dream ego and other figures in the dream and the extent of activity of the dream ego. Five major dream patterns were identified which accounted for the majority of the dreams. The clients’ dream series were dominated by one or two repetitive patterns which were closely connected to the psychological problems of the dreamers. Additionally, typical changes in the dream series’ patterns could be identified which corresponded with therapeutic change. These findings support Jung's theory of dreams as providing a holistic image of the dreamer’s psyche, including unconscious aspects. The implications for different psychoanalytic theories of dreaming and dream interpretation are discussed as well as implications for the continuity hypothesis.     

A Task Analysis of Client Re-engagement: Therapeutic De-escalation of High-Conflict Coparents

Parents who are engaged in protracted conflict following a divorce are often referred to coparenting therapy. Episodes of intense conflict are common during these therapy sessions and often result in coparents disengaging from the therapist while they engage in escalating conflict with each other, potentially disrupting their progress in therapy. The purpose of this study was to identify how therapists successfully re-engage clients in the session. To understand this process, 24 disengagement events (12 successful and 12 unsuccessful) from 13 cases were analyzed using a task analytic approach. The sample included coparent dyads referred by the judicial system to a high-conflict coparenting therapy program. Task analysis was used to create a model of how re-engagement unfolds in treatment. The empirical model that resulted has five phases: (1) disengagement from the therapeutic process, (2) disruption of the conflict, (3) de-escalating the most escalated coparent, (4) de-escalating the other coparent, and (5) therapist buffered re-engagement. Successful episodes of re-engagement tended to have therapists who remained active throughout the conflict episode, used structuring interventions aimed at disrupting and then regulating the most escalated partner, blocked attempts to re-engage in conflict, and then repeated this process with the less escalated partner. Additional interventions that promote therapeutic re-engagement are described for each phase, and implications for clinicians and researchers are discussed.     

Encountering the dream: Intersecting anthropological and psychoanalytical approaches

The human dream has been a central and contested therapeutic resource for the various schools of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. However, anthropology has been less concerned with human dreaming, though many anthropologists have studied indigenous peoples' dream theories as a consequence of the importance that such people gave to their dreaming. During the twentieth century there has been a fertile interaction between psychoanalytical approaches to dreaming and pertinent anthropological studies. This paper situates these interconnected disciplinary approaches to dreaming in the context of the historical development of thinking about culture and dreaming. The dream is considered as a multiple human resource. Discussion focuses on a fourfold approach to the dream: as therapeutic and existential encounter; as potential social knowledge; as cultural template; and finally as reflexive opportunity. Overall, the paper asserts the centrality of the dream as both a cultural and therapeutic resource.     

Systèmes de personnalité au niveau de l'individu : vers une évaluation de l'architecture sociocognitive de la personnalité

This paper addresses conceptual strategies in the assessment of intra-individual personality architecture, including the assessment of those social-cognitive structures and dynamics that contribute to personality coherence. The paper also relates social-cognitive analyses of intra-individual personality architecture to trait-theoretic analyses of inter-individual differences in the population. An overarching theme is that these alternative research traditions should be understood as approaches to different scientific problems. Unlike, for example, the lexical Big Five tradition of personality research, social-cognitive theories are concerned fundamentally with mental structures and dynamics that causally contribute to personality functioning and coherence, and with understanding how these cognitive and affective systems develop and function in interaction with the social environment. As has been explained by Lamiell (2003) and others, inter-individual analyses cannot substitute for the study of intra-individual personality dynamics and dispositions.     

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.     

Working Online During the Contemporary COVID-19 Pandemic1

Within the psychoanalytic school there has been substantial and ongoing debate about the efficacy of teleanalysis. However, as a result of the current COVID-19 pandemic and the online work with which the Jungian analytic community has now had to engage, this paper initially focuses on analysts’ actual experiences of working by teleanalysis. These experiences highlight a range of issues like “Zoom fatigue”, “online disinhibition”, dissonance, confidentiality, the frame and working with new patients. Alongside these issues, there were ample experiences by analysts of both productive psychotherapy apace with analytic work involving transference and countertransference phenomena, all indicating that a genuine and good enough analytic process can occur with teleanalysis. An overview of the research and literature both prior to the pandemic and as a result of it, confirms the validity of these experiences so long as analysts are cognizant of the specifics of such an online modality. Conclusions to do with the question, “what have we learned?”, alongside training, ethics and supervision issues are subsequently discussed.     

Working with patients with disruptions in symbolic capacity1

This article focuses on understanding and working with patients who have poorly developed symbolic capacity, or for whom symbolic capacity has been disrupted due to trauma, particularly as it pertains to the use of reverie and interpretation in the analytic process. Many patients who present for Jungian analysis will initially present with deficits in symbolic functioning. This situation results in necessary limitations or modifications in utilizing traditional Jungian techniques such as dream analysis, active imagination, sand tray and other expressive art techniques. The initial phase of analytic work with these patients requires a focus on developing their symbolic capacity before traditional Jungian techniques can be utilized effectively. During the paper Jung's concept of ‘the symbolic attitude’ will be examined as well as the conceptual models of Wilfred Bion and other post-Bionians who outline theories and method for cultivating symbolic capacity and reflective functioning in patients for whom these capacities are impaired or poorly developed.     

Associations between sleep variables and ostensibly paranormal experiences and paranormal beliefs: A scoping review

Night-time is a period of great significance for many people who report paranormal experiences. However, there is limited understanding of the associations between sleep variables and seemingly paranormal experiences and/or beliefs. The aim of this review is to improve our understanding of these associations while unifying a currently fragmented literature-base into a structured, practical review. In this pre-registered scoping review, we searched for relevant studies in MEDLINE (PubMed), PsycINFO (EBSCO), Web of Science and EMBASE using terms related to sleep and ostensibly paranormal experiences and beliefs. Forty-four studies met all inclusion criteria. All were cross-sectional and most investigated sleep paralysis and/or lucid dreaming in relation to ostensibly paranormal experiences and paranormal beliefs. Overall, there were positive associations between many sleep variables (including sleep paralysis, lucid dreams, nightmares, and hypnagogic hallucinations) and ostensibly paranormal experiences and paranormal beliefs (including those of ghosts, spirits, and near-death experiences). The findings of this review have potential clinical implications such as reducing misdiagnosis and treatment development and provide foundations for further research. Our findings also highlight the importance of understanding why so many people report ‘things that go bump in the night’.     

Integration versus conflict between schools of dream theory and dreamwork: integrating the psychological core qualities of dreams with the contemporary knowledge of the dreaming brain

The various ways schools of psychotherapy relate to dreams have been marked by isolationism and mutual conflict rather than self-examination and then integrating the discoveries and methods of other schools. Jung’s method was in opposition to Freud’s psychoanalysis. Existential psychology was dismissive of Freud’s and Jung’s discoveries, while cognitive dream interpretation and cognitive therapy sought other roads entirely. In addition, scientific and neuropsychological dream research has been only insignificantly tied to the psychotherapeutic dream theories. These conflicts and the lack of a comprehensive dream theory has made it convenient for the current rationalist collective consciousness and treatment systems to reject the often times challenging knowledge about ourselves that dreams can provide. This paper describes how contemporary theories of complex cybernetic information networks can create an overriding, constructive framework for uncovering common traits within the above-mentioned branches of dream research and dreamwork. Within this framework, ten core qualities are delineated, supported by both therapeutic knowledge as well as scientific research: 1) Dreams deal with matters important to us; 2) Dreams symbolize; 3) Dreams personify; 4) Dreams are trial runs in a safe place; 5) Dreams are online to unconscious intelligence; 6) Dreams are pattern recognition; 7) Dreams are high level communication; 8) Dreams are condensed information; 9) Dreams are experiences of wholeness; 10) Dreams are psychological energy landscapes. For each core quality I describe short dreamwork sequences from my own practice and a schematic image of how I perceive the overriding interaction between systems in the dreaming brain. For each core quality recommendations for practical dreamwork are provided. Finally, I draw attention to dreams as a huge psychological resource for humankind.