The challenges of editorship: a reflection on editing the Jung‐Neumann correspondence

The complete correspondence between C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann was published in 2015. This article attempts to provide insight into the practical task, as well as the theoretical background, of the editing process. The advantages and possibilities of an unabridged edition with an extensive historical contextualization are demonstrated, and compared to the approach of the editors of the Jung Letters and their selection therein of Jung's letters to Neumann. The practical points under consideration include the establishment of the letter corpus, the ascertainment of dates and the chronological arrangement of the letter exchange, as well as the deciphering of handwritten letters. Theoretical aspects under discussion involve the question of the merits of a critical contextualisation and the position of the editor vis‐à‐vis the research object. The example of the selecting and editing of Jung's letters to Neumann by Aniela Jaffé and Gerhard Adler reveals how drastically the close ties of those editors with Jung, Neumann, and members of the Zurich analytical circles compromised their editorial work at times. The advantage for an editor being able to work from an historical distance is appreciated.     

A personal commentary on J.W. Perry,M.D., and introduction to ‘Reconstitutive process in the psychopathology of the Self’

John Weir Perry’s influence on the understanding of the psychotic process through his research in San Francisco between 1950 and 1981 was groundbreaking, because it both verified and expanded upon C.G. Jung’s research at the Burghölzli Hospital in Switzerland in the early 1900’s. The author explores both the brilliance of Perry’s contribution as a psychiatrist and Jungian analyst and also shows the flawed human, who, with his rare sensitivity to the psychotic process, devoted his life work to the schizophrenic population and their often ill-fated search for meaning. She tells how his creative engagement with the analytic processes of Self discovery eventually led to analytic boundary violations, which ultimately resulted in his indefinite suspension from membership in his local Jungian community. Further, this paper describes her reflections on the innovative work that influenced both the treatment of this population, as well as educating candidates in analytical training to be receptive to and cognizant of psychotic affects and imagery. The archetypal field of the psychotic process, its influence on the development of analytical psychology relative to the psychotic process, and one man’s impact on the analytic community are considered.     

Psychosis,symbol, affectivity 2: another perspective on the treatment of psychotic disorder

This is the second of two papers concerning our study into an integrated approach to psychotic disorders conducted at the University Psychiatry Unit of Palermo’s Polyclinic over approximately 15 years; this paper concentrates on the clinical phenomena. The study aimed to find the best possible treatment and to improve the prognosis of this patient group. We have explored the efficacy of a range of psycho-therapeutic (cognitive-behavioural, systemic-relational, psychodynamic, group and others), psycho-pharmaceutical, psychiatric rehabilitative and psycho-educational treatments, with a hermeneutic approach instead of a systematic one. The study’s conclusions, described in the paper, are that all psychotic functions start with a nuclear psychic issue connected to emotional development. We describe how the most significant symptoms of acute psychotic manifestations (delusions and misperceptions) make use of an encrypted psychological meaning that can be decoded through the patient’s symbolic language. This language is a key element in diagnosis and in the choice of treatment. The paper describes how we revised our understanding of psychosis from being a brain disease to being a process aimed at the rearrangement of psychic functioning. Our significant results are described.     

Art in support of life: Caravaggio and the plague

In the struggle with COVID-19, art offered a way to face the solitude of the lockdown. The focus of this paper is primarily on Caravaggio’s painting The Seven Works of Mercy, with references to other paintings to amplify some aspects of the artist’s approach to life and his uniqueness in the artistic landscape of his time. Darkness was part of Caravaggio’s research for spiritual truth and by entering the stories of his life and exploring the tales told through imaginative expression in his paintings, it is possible to understand his process of exploration of ancestral darkness. The author uses her imagination to reflect on how art can help to contact the profound fears buried in the unconscious which are now being awakened by the pandemic. The contemplation of this painting facilitated the emergence of emotions related to the darkness of our time, with the discovery that empathy and mercy offer a way to come to terms with the pandemic. This approach demands a different understanding of reality with Caravaggio’s dark creative world becoming a companion that permits the exploration of what is not yet thinkable in daily life. Images accompany the author’s research that relies on her imagination and amplifications.     

George Floyd’s death and COVID-19: inflection points in the Anthropocene Era?

George Floyd’s death, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change are on a continuum from the immediate shock of viewing a video-recorded murder, to millions dying worldwide from disease, to deaths related to climate change accumulating over a millennium. They participate in the powerful archetypes of death and inequality. ‘Increase’, Hexagram 42 in the I Ching, archetypically addresses inequalities at all levels – racial, economic, political and the profound imbalance between humans and the environment. Floyd’s death highlights the consequences of systemic racism and income inequalities. The pandemic as ‘nature’s revenge’ hits minority populations harder due to underlying health conditions resulting from poverty and greater exposure to the virus in the workplace. President Trump as Trickster showed Americans their shadow and his response to the pandemic amplified its severity. The pandemic has shocked our social, political and economic systems and paused our species rush into environmental disasters at many levels. The disruptions present opportunities for reflection, experimentation and developing new systems as old forms are challenged. The ecological dimensions of Jung’s concepts emphasize interconnectedness at all levels and the paradigm shift he called a ‘new age’ provides a framework for altering the course of the Anthropocene Era.     

Aqua vitae,aqua permanens: dreaming,drowning, swimming and surfing in analysis

In response to the question ‘Who is My Jung?’, this paper describes the profound personal impact of Jung's creative / artistic approach to the unconscious, beginning with my discovery of The Red Book at the age of twelve. Echoing the flow of my own dream‐life, I trace the course of two analyses through the alchemical process of solutio, which began with numinous dreams of tidal waves and plunged us into inter‐ and intra‐psychic analytic relationships that evoked vestigial memories of our first aquatic world in utero.     

The Experience of Abandonment and Adoption,as a Child and as a Parent,in a Psychological Motivational Perspective

Abstract

The publication of the relationship between Sabina Spielrein and Carl Jung in 1980 gave rise to a veritable cottage industry of mythomania at the expense of historical truth. The fictions grafted upon the historical facts have conjured up a sensational aura of scandal and gossip about the protagonists. The arch fiction is that Spielrein and Jung had a sexual relationship during her analysis by Jung. At the very least, based on documents published by the author, this opinion can no longer be maintained beyond reasonable doubt. After 1905, Spielrein was no longer Jung's patient but continued as Jung's medical student, whereupon Jung sought her out as friend. In addition, it was Spielrein herself who fell passionately in love with Jung, and analysed this relationship as a case of mutual oedipal dynamics. The author further pursues the oedipal analysis of and links it to (1) love as reality and transference, (2) the reality of Jewish and Gentile relationships in Europe, and (3) mutual ethnic transferences between Spielrein and Jung. Jung, who was also passionately drawn to Spielrein, displaced his marital problems owing to a “Don Juan complex” to concocted problems in treatment, deceiving both himself and Freud out of the dread of social consequences.     

Jung's Breath-Body and African Spiritual Healing

Psychology essentially refers to the study and use (logos) of the breath, soul or spirit of life (psyche) that leaves a person at death and continues in some other form. From such a fundamental perspective, all forms of ancient and modern caring, helping and healing have their foundations in breath-based behaviour, experiences and spirituality. This article examines Jung's image of the breath-body or spirit-body in relation to various spiritual healing traditions with special focus on their source in African spiritual healing.     

Analytical psychology and the ghost of Lamarck: did Jung believe in the inheritance of acquired characteristics?

Whether Jung was a Lamarckian or not has always been a hotly debated topic, both within the post‐Jungian community and amongst scholars with an interest in Jung in the wider academic community. Yet surprisingly few substantial pieces of work have been dedicated to it and, to my mind, no one has yet managed to do justice to all the subtleties involved. The scholars who have claimed that Jung is a Lamarckian have, for the most part, oversimplified the debate by failing to discuss the passages in which Jung appears to be defending himself against Lamarckism; the scholars who have defended Jung against Lamarckism, however, have as a rule not adequately dealt with the question of whether these passages actually get Jung off the hook. This paper will attempt to correct this imbalance by putting forward four key passages spanning Jung's career that all represent conclusive evidence that Jung was indeed a Lamarckian. After discussing these, it will then deal in detail with the passages in which Jung appears to be defending himself against Lamarckism, making the case that they do not represent a defence against Lamarckism at all and have therefore generally been misinterpreted by many scholars.     

Preface to Opicinus de Canistris: concluding lecture by C.G. Jung,Eranos, Ascona, 1943 and Further studies on Jung's Eranos seminar on Opicinus de Canistris

In 1943, Jung held a seminar at Eranos for a limited number of students dedicated to ‘solar myths’, which were exemplified specifically in the cartographic art of Opicinus de Canistris (c. 1296–1352). This seminar has stayed out of print until a few years ago. Notes taken during the seminar by one of Jung's students, Alwine von Keller (1878–1965), were discovered in the Eranos archives and published. Now, for the first time ever, the notes of another of his students, Rivkah Schärf Kluger, taken during the same seminar, are being published. This second series of notes are more extensive. They complete the first series by adding many features and so allow us to put together a more complete picture of Jung's seminar. James Hillman, who received these notes from William McGuire in 1976, firmly believed that they were important enough to be published. Now, seventy years after this seminar, thanks to the support of the Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung, the Eranos Foundation and the Journal of Analytical Psychology, these notes are finally being published.