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.     

FATHER PLAY: IS IT SPECIAL?

Both mothers and fathers play with their children, but research on parent–child play interactions is conducted with mothers three times more often than it is with fathers. The articles in this special issue address this gap by focusing on the nature and quality of father–child play, across cultural contexts, and considering whether father play offers something unique and special for early human development, in infancy or early childhood. The studies show that fathers can be just as developmentally supportive as are mothers in terms of being playful and engaged with their children in ways that are related to greater child socioemotional competence, emotion regulation, and vocabulary, and to less aggression, anxiety, and negativity. We encourage future research to examine the cultural influences, family system dynamics, and specificity of timing and types of father–child play in relation to children's developmental competence.     

Tele‐analysis: the use of media technology in psychotherapy and its impact on the therapeutic relationship

A growing number of approaches in psychotherapy make use of internet‐ and other media‐based interactions. This paper discusses the impact on the therapist‐client relationship of using media technology and gives an overview of the current state of the debate. It is suggested that the technical conditions of internet‐based interactions produce new forms of social relationships that differ significantly from face‐to‐face‐interactions and that unconscious, nonverbal cues get lost. Research on the therapeutic interaction making use of ‘discourse linguistic’ methods is presented. The loss of nonverbal cues has implications for psychotherapy in general and especially for the treatment of patients who have difficulties relying on a secure therapeutic relationship. Emotional security in interactional relationships is transmitted to a much greater extent by nonverbal cues than by verbal content; psychoanalytic methods are specialized to refer to this level of interaction. Two alternative scenarios are discussed based on the psychoanalytic theories of Winnicott and Lacan: the risk of an illusionary, idealized image of the other and the possibility that cyberspace can be used for psychological development as a transitional space.     

What Are They Thinking? A National Study of Stability and Change in Divorce Ideation

This study reports on a nationally representative sample of married individuals ages 25–50 (N = 3,000) surveyed twice (1 year apart) to investigate the phenomenon of divorce ideation, or what people are thinking when they are thinking about divorce. Twenty‐eight percent of respondents had thought their marriage was in serious trouble in the past but not recently. Another 25% had thoughts about divorce in the last 6 months. Latent Class Analysis revealed three distinct groups among those thinking about divorce at Time 1: soft thinkers (49%), long‐term‐serious thinkers (45%), and conflicted thinkers (6%). Yet, divorce ideation was not static; 31% of Time 1 thinkers were not thinking about it 1 year later (and 36% of nonthinkers at Time 1 were thinking about it 1 year later). Also, Latent Transition Analysis revealed 49% of Time 1 long‐term‐serious thinkers, 56% of soft thinkers, and 51% of conflicted thinkers had shifted groups at Time 2, mostly in the direction of less and softer thinking about divorce. Overall, divorce ideation is common but dynamic, and it is not necessarily an indication of imminent marital dissolution.     

From Couple Therapy 1.0 to a Comprehensive Model: A Roadmap for Sequencing and Integrating Systemic,Psychodynamic, and Behavioral Approaches in Couple Therapy

Couple therapy is a complex undertaking that proceeds best by integrating various schools of thought. Grounded in an in‐depth review of the clinical and research literature, and drawing on the author's 40‐plus years of experience, this paper presents a comprehensive, flexible, and user‐friendly roadmap for conducting couple therapy. It begins by describing “Couple Therapy 1.0,” the basic conjoint couple therapy format in which partners talk to each other with the help of the therapist. After noting the limitations of this model, the paper introduces upgrades derived from systemic, psychodynamic, and behavioral/educational approaches, and shows how to combine and sequence them. The most important upgrade is the early focus on the couple's negative interaction cycle, which causes them pain and impedes their ability to address it. Using a clinical case example, the paper shows how all three approaches can improve couple process as a prerequisite for better problem solving. Additional modules and sequencing choice points are also discussed, including discernment counseling and encouraging positive couple experiences.     

On Murray Jackson's 1961 ‘Chair,couch and countertransference’

One of the problems facing psychoanalysts of all schools is that theory has evolved at a much faster pace than practice. Whereas there has been an explosion of theory, practice has remained, at least officially, static and unchanging. It is in this sense that Murray Jackson's 1961 paper is still relevant today. Despite the rise of the new relational and intersubjective paradigms, most psychoanalysts, and not a few Jungian analysts, still seem to feel that the couch is an essential component of the analytical setting and process. If the use of the couch is usually justified by the argument that it favours regression, facilitates analytical reverie and protects the patient from the influence of the analyst, over time many important psychoanalysts have come to challenge this position. Increasingly these analysts suggest that the use of the couch may actually be incompatible with the newer theoretical models. This contention is strengthened by some of the findings coming from the neurosciences and infant research. This underlines the necessity of empirical research to verify the clinical effectiveness of these different positions, couch or face‐to‐face, but it is exactly this type of research that is lacking.     

Reflections on the Jungian nature of psychology as the discipline of interiority: a response to Saban's ‘Misunderstandings’

Psychology as the discipline of interiority is the name of the psychology that has developed from Wolfgang Giegerich's work in the field of analytical psychology. This article offers a counterview to that of Mark Saban's claim that Giegerich's psychology is ‘irrelevant’ to Jungians today and is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of Jungian psychology. It will be shown that, in fact, it is a fundamental misunderstanding of Giegerich's work that has led Saban to form erroneous conclusions. Links between Jung's and Giegerich's conceptions of the ‘objective psyche’ will be highlighted, along with other examples of how, contrary to Saban's conclusions, psychology as the discipline of interiority has obvious connections to, and grounding in, Jungian psychology.     

Transmission of Cultural Values among Mexican‐Origin Parents and Their Adolescent and Emerging Adult Offspring

The integration of the U.S. and Mexican culture is an important process associated with Mexican‐origin youths' adjustment and family dynamics. The current study examined the reciprocal associations in parents' and two offspring's cultural values (i.e., familism and respect) in 246 Mexican‐origin families. Overall, mothers' values were associated with increases in youths' values 5 years later. In contrast, youths' familism values were associated with increases in fathers' familism values 5 years later. In addition, developmental differences emerged where parent‐to‐offspring effects were more consistent for youth transitioning from early to late adolescence than for youth transitioning from middle adolescence to emerging adulthood. Finally, moderation by immigrant status revealed a youth‐to‐parent effect for mother–youth immigrant dyads, but not for dyads where youth were U.S.‐raised. Our findings highlight the reciprocal nature of parent–youth value socialization and provide a nuanced understanding of these processes through the consideration of familism and respect values. As Mexican‐origin youth represent a large and rapidly growing segment of the U.S. population, research that advances our understanding of how these youth develop values that foster family cohesion and support is crucial.     

Peace and Justice: A Limited Reconciliation

This paper aims to relax the tension between the political requirements of making peace and the moral demands of doing justice, in light of the ‘peace processes’ in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It begins by arguing that criminal justice should be reconceived as consisting primarily in the vindication of victims, both direct and indirect. This is not to deny the retributive punishment of perpetrators any role at all, only to insist that it be largely subservient to the goal of vindication. Why should we take such an account of justice to be true? The paper offers two reasons. First, Christians – and even secularist liberals – have a prima facie reason in the consonance of this account with the Bible's eudaimonistic conception of justice as ordered to the restoration of healthy community. Second, since all concepts of criminal justice share the basic notion of putting right what is wrong, it would be odd if the repair of damage done to victims (i.e., their ‘vindication’) were not prominent among its concerns; and there are reasons to suppose that this vindication should actually predominate in relation to the other principles of justice (the retributive ‘balancing’ of crime and punishment, and the reform of the criminal for his own sake). In its final sections, the paper applies the proposed conception of criminal justice to the ‘peace processes’ in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and concludes that in both cases, notwithstanding concessions to the politics of peace-making, considerable justice has been done.