“Loving Nature” Nature’s Way: Exploring Radical Participation With Nature Through the Metaphor of Complex,Dynamic Self-Systems

The Western metaphor of self-as-identity—as a static, inherently exclusive entity—has been instrumental, historically, to our radical separation from nature, and still hampers a reviving of genuine participation with nature. Suggesting an alternative to this metaphor (informed by literacy as technology), I explore the more nature-informed metaphor of dynamic, complex self-systems, involving both natural and human subsystems. Through this latter metaphor, I re-vision radical participation with nature: in the process of perception, in epistemology/ontology, and in the ways of indigenous, oral cultures. This systems metaphor also sheds contrasting light on literacy-informed, Western ways.     

“AFTER THE EVENT”: FREUD'S UNCANNY AND THE ANXIETY OF ORIGINS

This essay aims to revise Freud's theory of the uncanny by rereading his own essay of that name along with the key material Freud drew on in formulating his theory: E. T. A. Hoffmann's short story “The Sandman” (1816a) and Ernst Jentsch's essay “On the Psychology of the Uncanny” (1906a). While arguing, initially, both that Jentsch's work is fundamentally misconstrued by Freud and that it offers a better account of what happens in Hoffmann's story, the essay moves beyond Jentsch's account to offer a more philosophically oriented theory of the uncanny, one more in line with Freud's ideas in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920a).     

Group process in Jungian analytic training and institute life

Group process experience for analytic candidates is a neglected dimension of training, and receives little attention in the analytic literature. Jung observed group dynamics, but he never studied them closely, attending instead to the psychology of the individual. Unconscious currents in small groups have been studied by others, most notably by Wilfred Bion, and there are similarities between his theories of the group unconscious and Jung's theories of complexes. Experiential and didactic seminars in group process were added to the analytic curriculum at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in the early 1990s, leading to changes in the group dynamic of trainees and analysts alike. A discussion of the theories of Bion and Jung are followed by a report on our experiences of facilitating group process for analytic candidates. We give quotes from candidates and analyst members to illustrate the group process and its effects. The need for further study to develop a uniquely Jungian perspective on the unconscious structure and dynamics of the group is suggested.     

Who's afraid of the Wolfe couple: the interlocking traumatic scene

Fulfilling intimate relationships require a constant emotional and psychological struggle to disentangle strangleholds created by the interpenetration of unresolved complexes stemming from previous disappointing relational experiences. These complexes may manifest as an encrypted pattern of engagement that each partner brings to the marriage, like a 'malignant dowry'. The dowry box, once opened, releases its nefarious contents to create an extremely complex and entangled drama I call the 'interlocking traumatic scene'. Partners unconsciously entrap each other to play a part in such a scene with double (sometimes multiple) roles for each antagonist. The imaginal space between the two characters can be seen as a projection screen, upon which are superimposed two separate shadow plays, one on each side of the screen. A third play, which is a co-created product of these two individual traumatic scenes, can also be observed. Three plays are performed simultaneously. The defensive systems that the two individuals bring to the equation dovetail together, but the actual interlocking mechanism itself deadlocks in such a way that it seems to have its own malignant presence, a 'malevolent third' (after Ogden 1994). I outline therapeutic interventions using the metaphor of the therapist as 'anti-director' and I introduce my concept of the conjoint selected fact (after Bion 1963 after Poincaré 1952).     

Race and sex in a lifetime

Abstract: The Jungian analysts who participated in the writing of this paper 1 explicitly or implicitly address issues of social and political stasis, retrogression and change via their particular usages of the concept of the transcendent function. Singer proposes that the transcendent function is a term that is usually applied to individuals in whom symbolic material appears that suggests the reconciling of opposites, leading to psycho‐spiritual growth. He also looks at the notion of the transcendent function as it can appear in a similar way in the collective psyche. In addition, he gives attention to the opposite phenomenon—what might be called the descendent function—as it appears in the collective psyche and its leadership, wherein symbolic material can create the division of groups of people into opposites, mobilizing destructive rather than transformative experience. Meador states that Jung designated the mediating process of assimilating unconscious images and ideas into consciousness as the transcendent function. Just as this synthesizing process can produce insight in the individual, it can also be applied to changes in collective society. Embedded collective assumptions tend to shift when opposites collide, as they did, for example, in the turmoils of the 1960s. Her contribution focuses on the recent revolution in racial and sexual attitudes as the product of a collective struggle between certain ingrained social mores from the past and conflicting new points of view. Samuels’ conclusion is that the concept of the transcendent function has little value with respect to political problems. His contribution focuses on: (i) The limitations of using ideas (such as the transcendent function) derived from analysis with individuals in furtherance of an understanding of social and political phenomena. (ii) The specific problem of a lack of credible psycho‐political models for social progress and regress—he argues that the transcendent function is not useful in this regard. (iii) The question of political aggression, violence and conflict in society is explored from the standpoint of the transcendent function so as to investigate its possible role in the management of political conflict. Samuels severely criticizes what he terms ‘triangulation’ and ‘hyper‐reflection’ on the part of analysts who engage with political debates and issues. (iv) Leadership is examined from the standpoint of the transcendent function which, again, does not seem pertinent. Rather, new discoveries in family psychology about the role of the father have greater possibilities as a basis for new thinking about leadership.     

USING COMPLEX AUDITORY—VISUAL SAMPLES TO PRODUCE EMERGENT RELATIONS IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Six participants with autism learned conditional relations between complex auditory‐visual sample stimuli (dictated words and pictures) and simple visual comparisons (printed words) using matching‐to‐sample training procedures. Pre‐ and posttests examined potential stimulus control by each element of the complex sample when presented individually and emergence of additional conditional relations and oral labeling. Tests revealed class‐consistent performance for all participants following training.     

荀子社会分层的政治伦理思想及其现代价值

基于天人关系,荀子从人的自然本性和社会性出发,对其社会分层的政治伦理思想作了哲学论证。以“礼”为核心和标准,荀子把社会分层划分为社会等级分层与社会职业分层两个层面。荀子把“礼”的功能———“群”与“分”,特别是等级差别之“分”作为社会分层的手段,以最终实现社会和谐有序的政治理想。这对于我们今天构建社会主义和谐社会仍具有一定的现实意义。     

Sense of fairness in the division of labor in close relationships: Procedure and gender role ideology

The present study examined whether the procedures used in establishing a couple's division of labor and each partner's gender role ideology have a significant impact on the perception of fairness in the division of labor. The data collection involved conducting a questionnaire survey of 181 Japanese participants who shared basic household work and paid work. The results from a multiple regression analysis presented a clear pattern of sex differences in the way and degree to which fairness was perceived. In the model for women, the variables of the procedure and gender role ideology had significant predictive power. In particular, the interactive communication procedure was a powerful predictor of women's sense of fairness. In contrast, among men the perception of fairness in the division of labor did not have a significant relation to the variables of the procedure and gender role ideology.