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.     

Évolution des idées en psychologie de la santé dans le monde anglo-saxon. De la psychologie de la santé (health psychology) à la psychologie critique de la santé (critical health psychology)

The authors adopt a historical perspective and exhibit the debates held within Health Psychology in the Anglo-Saxon universe since the 1980s. They show how the development of the North-American mainstream approach has aroused several objections. These objections were firstly methodological (qualitative methods) then, theoretical and epistemological. This evolution has allowed the creation of two main approaches: Qualitative Health Psychology and Critical Health Psychology. While this course is not yet well-known in France, it illustrates, however, the present developments and the richness of the discussion within Anglo-Saxon Psychology. The conclusion shows that these debates should be known and accepted if we intend to improve our models in Psychology, so that they take into account the situated nature of the human being, its dynamics, its temporality as well and its complexity. Hence, Health Psychology perspectives as a whole will gain in pertinence in the fields of research and intervention.     

Complex in memory,mind in matter: walking hand in hand

This paper aims to highlight four major points: first: a ‘Jungian attitude’ understood as a viewpoint which enables work with interconnectedness through various fields of knowledge. Second, that complexes are dynamic, as is memory, and that both are transformed by experience and develop hand in hand with each other i.e., the transformation of the complex occurs through the transformation of memory as embodied in internal working models, and vice versa. Third, complexes and archetypes are linked to each other in matrices of one form or another and lead to the complexity of the psyche, which is a developing system. Fourth, the analytical process provides an arena that enables and consolidates interconnections that foster a better intrapsychic transition. The analytic meeting promotes profound changes, redesigning our neural architecture as well as our psychic landscape.     

And the dish ran away with the spoon: a hodgepodge of reflections,as rigorous as they are rambling,on the true subject

In this article, the topic of ‘the true subject’ is explored in terms of a dialectical mode thinking which is in keeping with Jung's great insight concerning psychology's lack of an Archimedean vantage‐point distinct from its topics and subject matters. Evocative and expository, the emphasis is upon the performative poetics of such thinking within the sphere of our soul‐making. The interpretative mode of practice presented in the article is richly illustrated with examples from Biblical texts, literary images, and proverbial sayings, as well as from the sur‐real of nursery rhyme and the genre of the murder mystery. Essential insights of Jung's concerning the infinite and the finite as dimensions of self are revisited in terms of that contemporary trend of Jungian thought known as psychology as the discipline of interiority.     

INTRODUCTION to Special Edition of JAP on the ‘Who is My Jung?’ conference held at the British Library in October 2017 to mark the 40th Anniversary of the foundation of the Association of Jungian Analysts (AJA)

The paper reviews the processes which went into the creation of an exceptionally comprehensive conference on Jungian analysis and psychology. The conference brought together all five of the constituent societies based in London of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP). The personal nature of the conference contributions is highlighted together with observations about the passage from spoken to written modes. The idea of ‘conference space’ is reviewed and this leads to a discussion of the often overlooked benign role of conferences in professional life.     

Jungian dialogism and the problem of depth

Notions of dialogical inquiry and of the dialogical self have become increasingly influential in contemporary psychology in response to the limitations of the traditional view of monologically encapsulated and radically disengaged consciousness. Conceptions of self and inquiry as intrinsically embedded in and constituted by our shared life with others seem to do better justice to the richly interconnected character of contemporary life. At the same time, our highly interconnected global world has also tended to foster a flattening of cultural and inter‐cultural horizons that undermines dialogical engagement in any deeply meaningful sense. What is needed is to enrich current conceptions of dialogue with an understanding of experiential and cultural depth. This paper seeks an understanding of the depth dimensions of dialogue through an engagement of dialogical self theory with Jungian dialogical thought. Critical to this engagement is to appreciate the expressive potential of Jungian dialogism beyond Jung's theoretical claims about dialogue.     

An information processing theory of aspects of the development of weight seriation in children

Children varying in age from six to 12 years were video-tape recorded while trying to seriate seven blocks according to weight with the aid of a scale. The typical behavior patterns that Piaget first described for the stages of intellectual development on this task were observed. Our protocols are analyzed in terms of stage specific base strategies coupled with a mechanism for translating them into task specific production systems. The actual simulation programs, written as production systems in a specially constructed language, BG, are evaluated in terms of how well they regenerate the protocols.     

Misattribution of arousal and the effects of self-threatening information

Two experiments are reported on the effects of misattributing arousal. In both experiments, subjects took an intelligence test and received fictitious negative results about their performance. In the first experiment, subjects before receiving feedback were given a pill labeled as arousing; however, the ostensible effectiveness of the pill was varied. The greater the alleged strength of the pill, the less the test was derogated following feedback about performance on it and the more effort subjects reported expending on the test. In the second experiment, subjects were told that the pill was either arousing or relaxing and that its effect lasted for either a short or a long period of time. Initial test evaluations were more positive and estimates of effort expended were greater when the pill was described as arousing than when it was described as relaxing. However, whereas these differences were maintained over time when the pill's effects were described as of long duration, they disappeared over time when the pill's effects were described as of short duration.     

Les représentations philosophiques de la relation entre l’« esprit » et le cerveau des enseignants-chercheurs de psychologie : quelques implications

The history of psychology has been marked by strong methodological, theoretical and epistemological controversies. In this paper, we evaluate the hypothesis that these well-known controversies are often implicitly supported by philosophical, metaphysical and probably religious oppositions. The focus of our investigation concerns the classical opposition in philosophy between dualism and physicalism, more specifically the complex relationship between the brain and the mind. One hundred and sixty-six teachers and researchers (30 in clinical psychology, 37 in cognitive psychology, 31 in development psychology, 38 in social psychology and 30 in neurosciences) from 8 French universities have accepted to participate in this survey by responding to a questionnaire made of 17 questions. Data were analyzed using factor analysis technique and the results of the principal component analysis (PCA) revealed four main factors that are more likely to define accurately the philosophical profile of each sub-discipline. The main result of this survey is that philosophical and metaphysical positions, at the foundations of psychology, clearly distinguish and oppose the five studied sub-disciplines. At one extreme, there are cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists who are strongly physicalist. To the contrary, clinical and social psychologists exhibit more dualistic representation. Developmental psychologists occupy an intermediate position between these two extremes. Finally, we analyzed the implications of the participants’ philosophical representation differences, from an epistemological and clinical/practical point of view. The important point is that these philosophical and metaphysical oppositions are largely implicit. Indeed, inside our community, it is very rare, if not exceptional, that they are explicitly involved in the theoretical or epistemological conflicts, which exist inside our discipline. However, it is probable that they play a massive role in our debates, a role all the more important, as we are largely unconscious of them. The current study is the first to tackle such an important topic by describing more accurately the philosophical representation of scholars in major sub-fields of psychology. By revealing such deep metaphysical oppositions, we hope to shed a new light on the origins of these persisting conflicts in psychology.     

The psychologist who is not a psychologist: a deconstructive reading of Wolfgang Giegerich's idea of psychology proper

This paper represents an archetypal and deconstructive reading of the work of Wolfgang Giegerich. In an attempt to extend and philosophically develop Jung's late‐life view of the objective psyche, Giegerich, via Hegel, defines psychology proper as fundamentally separate from the everyday person and the ‘human, all‐too‐human’ aspects of the soul. It is argued that, in so doing, Giegerich removes the human person from being the primary focus of his psychology and creates instead a hierarchy of ideas and values privileging syntax over semantics, the logical over the empirical, and thinking over imagination. This bypasses the emotionality of the everyday person/patient and also renders psychology proper unable to address the day‐to‐day practice of the analyst. Giegerich attempts to rectify this problem by re‐incorporating what he had previously rejected, making his theory more complex than is apparent in his binary oppositions. In the end, however, it remains a question to what extent Giegerich is successful in avoiding a binary scission (Saban 2015) or a tendency to regularly de‐emphasize the human aspect of the soul (Hoedl 2015) in his need to continue to heroically push off from the ego seeking total freedom from neurosis and from our humanity.