Converting a Freudian analysis into a Jungian one: obsession,addiction, and an answer from Job

In his analyses of obsessional patients, Sigmund Freud suggested that they suffered from intrusive cognitions and compulsive activities. Early psychoanalysts delineated the phenomenology of obsessionality, but did not differentiate what is currently termed obsessive‐compulsive disorder from obsessional personality. However, it was widely recognized that the success of psychoanalysis with obsessional patients was limited due to rigid characterological defences and transference resistances. The present paper examines the case of a middle‐aged obsessional academic who had been treated for nearly twenty years in a ‘classical' Freudian psychoanalysis prior to entering Jungian analysis. It examines how persistent focus on Oedipal conflicts undesirably reinforced the transference resistance in this obsessional man, and suggests that focusing instead on diminishing the harshness of the super‐ego via the therapeutic alliance, and fostering faith in the salutary aspects of unconscious processing has led to salutary results in this case. The biblical book of Job is adopted as ancient instruction in how to address the scrupulosity and addictive mental structuring of obsessionality in analysis.     

The analytic setting today: using the couch or the chair?

This paper re‐visits Murray Jackson's 1961 paper in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, ‘Chair, couch and countertransference’, with the aim of exploring the role of the couch for Jungian analysts in clinical practice today. Within the Society of Analytical Psychology (SAP) and some other London‐based societies, there has been an evolution of practice from face‐to‐face sessions with the patient in the chair, as was Jung's preference, to a mode of practice where patients use the couch with the analyst sitting to the side rather than behind, as has been the tradition in psychoanalysis. Fordham was the founding member of the SAP and it was because of his liaison with psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts that this cultural shift came about. Using clinical examples, the author explores the couch/chair question in terms of her own practice and the internal setting as a structure in her mind. With reference to Bleger's (2013) paper ‘Psychoanalysis of the psychoanalytic setting’, the author discusses how the analytic setting, including use of the couch or the chair, can act as a silent container for the most primitive aspects of the patient's psyche which will only emerge in analysis when the setting changes or is breached.     

Mathematical concepts for analyzing ambiguous situations

Abstract

We examine some mathematical tools for dealing with ambiguous situations. The main tool is the use of non-standard logic with truth-values in what is called a locale. This approach is related to fuzzy set theory, which we briefly discuss. We also consider probabilistic concepts. We include specific examples and describe the way a researcher can set up a suitable locale to analyse a concrete situation.     

Exploring Expressive Sandwork as a Form of Psychosocial Care: A Case Study of a Vulnerable Adolescent

This paper explores the use of expressive sandwork as a form of psychological support for a youth with psychosocial vulnerability. A case study, which emanated from a community outreach project, is briefly described of a male black participant, from a low socioeconomic background, who is currently in correctional services care. The participant engaged with sandplay over five weekly sessions, lasting approximately an hour each. The data obtained during these sessions were thematically analyzed and the findings suggest that expressive sandwork enabled this individual to become more aware of his emotional wellbeing and foster a sense of hope. Expressive sandwork offers a form of short-term psychological support in circumstances where limited or no help is available.     

Sacrifice and At-one-ment: Joseph de Maistre and Cudworth's Types and Shadows Admired

This article pursues the perhaps surprising interest of the Savoyard polemicist and counter-revolutionary philosopher Joseph de Maistre for the early work of the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth. I argue that their shared Platonism and fascination for the imagery of the Temple of the Hebrews helps explain this unlikely alliance. I refer to the innovative work of Margaret Barker on Temple imagery in Christian theology to elucidate the biblical dimension of the theory of correspondences employed by both men.     

Response to Mara Sidoli

My paper is a response to the clinical material in Mara Sidoli's paper about two patients who in the course of their treatment create an important symbol – a roaring symbol. In my response I construct a Freudian lion from the material of the first patient, and a Jungian lion from the second one. In both instances the vicissitudes of aggression as discussed are extracted from the therapeutic process.     

Psychological Type: A 32-Year Follow-Up

This study is a follow-up to three previous studies of psychological type published in this Journal in 1964, 1976 and 1978 by Bradway, Bradway and Detloff, and Bradway and Joseph Wheelwright. Participants in all of our studies were limited to Jungian analysts and candidates. Participants of the first two studies and of the current study were from California; participants of the 1978 study included the participants from the previous study plus persons attending the 1974 International Congress in London. In 1993 we sent letters to the 232 current analysts and candidates in the San Francisco and Los Angeles C.G. Jung Institutes, as well as to the nine participants in our 1974 study who were no longer members of the Institutes but could be located, asking them to fill out a questionnaire that included self-typing, and to self-administer the Gray-Wheelwrights Jungian Type Survey (GW). The response rate was high: 196 or 81% of the 241 persons to whom we sent letters returned filled-in questionnaires and GWs; all 67 or 100% of the participants in the 1974 study who could be located returned the filled-in material. Eight of those 67 had also been in the 1961 study. The current study provides data on the changes in psychological type over time, in some instances over a period of 32 years. It added for the first time a consideration of analysts' rating of themselves as primarily clinically or symbolically orientated, and a survey of analyst opinions as to the determinants of psychological type. Summarizing the results: A smaller percentage of analysts typed themselves as intuitive thinking than in 1961; the percentages of congruence between self-typing and the Gray-Wheelwrights scores in the three dimensions (introvert/extravert, sensation/intuition, and thinking/feeling) in 1961, 1974 and 1993 are between 76% and 96%; changes in typology from 1961 to 1993 occur more frequently in the younger age group than in the older age group; 65% of the participants considered the distinction between clinical and symbolic important, but only 41% rated themselves as either primarily clinically oriented or symbolically oriented with essentially no relationship between that orientation and typology; a sub-study of typology of partners within this study does not support the concept that opposites marry; according to the opinion of this group of analysts and candidates as to the determinants of adult typology, genetics (chromosomes) is distinctly the strongest contributor with family dynamics a not-very-close next contributor.     

Malchish‐Kibalchish: cultural factors in a clinical case

In this paper, a Jungian understanding of cultural factors influencing individual analysis is illustrated with the case of a patient suffering from panic attacks. The analysis revealed that, in addition to the patient's personal background, the collectivistic attitudes of the Soviet culture, which had a moulding effect on the patient in his childhood and obstructed his individuation, should be taken into account. The concepts of the totalitarian object and the Russian cultural complex encompassing a grandiosity pole and an inferiority pole are used to explore the patient's condition, and the crucial role of creating mutual language with the patient is outlined.     

Prototypes of Faith: Findings with the Faith Q‐Sort

Defining religion and finding ways to assess it in individual lives has long challenged psychologists of religion. At first, open‐ended questionnaires were used, but with the advent of modern statistical methods, a succession of religiosity scales was developed. But these usually brief scales were typically based on the preconceptions of their authors, who were overwhelmingly Protestant Christian and often conservative, much as were those who completed them. To provide a more adequate way of assessing “faith,” a term here encompassing both religious and nonreligious attitudes, a new assessment device was developed that incorporates the singular advantages of Q methodology. The Faith Q‐Sort consists of 101 statements that respondents sort on a nine‐category continuum, indicating the degree to which each statement describes himself or herself. Factor analysis based on correlations of the sorts rather than individual items yielded, for the initial group of participants, three major prototypes and five minor ones, accounting for 67 percent of the variance. Of the 42 participants, 31 proved to be exemplars of one or another of the eight prototypes. Subsequent explorations illustrate the wealth of possibilities the FQS offers, both as a research instrument and a counseling tool.