Opening the closed heart: affect-focused clinical work with the victims of early trauma

This paper begins with the understanding that early trauma leads to powerful dissociative defenses which injure the capacity to feel. It further explores ways to restore this capacity through body-centred attention to affect-in-the-moment in the psychoanalytic situation. Using the author’s personal experience while in analysis as well as a case of severe early trauma, he demonstrates the consciousness-killing effect of primitive defenses and shows how body-sensitive techniques hold the promise of restoring the patient’s sense of aliveness and hence, opening the unconscious to those affect-images that are the building blocks of the human imagination. A final section focuses on the neglect of feeling in Jungian psychology and suggests that the “creation of consciousness” which Jung described as his personal myth, is quintessentially a process of emotional transformation – of bringing unconscious suffering into consciousness – as feelings.     

The construct of the ‘mana personality’ in Jung’s works: a historic-hermeneutic perspective. Part I

According to Jung, the ‘mana personality’ represents an archetypal phase of the individuation process of remarkable interest in psychological, hermeneutic and theoretical terms. This figure is characterized by a high initiatic potential that fosters the approximation of the consciousness of the Self. At the same time, it entails a risk of psychic inflation or of ‘similarity to God’. In this article, divided in two parts, I deal with those aspects through a reconstruction of the development of this notion within Jung’s published works, adopting a primarily chronological and, secondarily, thematic approach moving from a textual analysis of relevant passages. In this first part, I consider some passages which deal mainly with the risks of the assimilation of the unconscious in ‘La structure de l’inconscient’ (1916) that preceded the successive proper treatment of the mana personality’s notion presented, and here examined, in ‘The relations between the ego and the unconscious’ (1928). Successively, I take into consideration some further issues related to it discussed by Jung in ‘The structure of the psyche’ (1928/1931), ‘Archaic man’ (1931), and ‘Nietzsche’s Zarathustra’.     

The construct of the ‘mana personality’ in Jung’s works: a historic-hermeneutic perspective. Part II

This is the second part of an article that tries to provide a framework of understanding of, and a seminal reflection on, a highly interesting yet little explored psychological construct of Jung’s analytical psychology, namely the ‘mana personality’. Here I take into consideration some issues around the ‘saviour complex’, discussed in Jung’s seminar on Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, concerning both the psychological analysis of the individual and the socio-political level related to the collective horizon of the 1930s. Moreover, I consider the continuity of Jung’s analysis of such issues in other works such as ‘Psychology and national problems’ (1936), Symbols of Transformation (1952), and Aion (1950). I finally make some suggestions concerning Jung’s apparent hermeneutic tendency to apply the construct of the mana personality to collective historical phenomena.     

Margarita Von Lüttichau: Intermediary between Jung and Bill Wilson

This paper details Von Lüttichau’s relationship with Carl Jung and Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), and her role as intermediary in the relationship between the two men. Her contribution within this mediator role has not been previously recognized but is an important factor in explaining how Jung became introduced to the AA 12-step format and validated the effectiveness of group work. After the Second World War, Von Lüttichau travelled between America and Switzerland and introduced the writings and ideas of Wilson and Jung to each other and acted as an intermediary between both titans. Jung gave Von Lüttichau extraordinarily detailed instructions on how the 12-step programme of AA could be applied to ‘general neurotics’. Von Lüttichau’s private papers provide a bridge between Jung and Wilson’s correspondence and help to piece together gaps in both Jungian and AA history.     

The Creative Imagination of the Sufi Mystic, Ibn ‘Arabi

The 12^th–13^thcentury mystic, Ibn 'Arabi, was known as the Greatest Master among the Sufis. His insights into dreams, visions and prophetic processes may prove enlightening to our own more secular age. The findings of Carl Jung parallel some of the revelations of the mystic, but Ibn 'Arabi goes farther than Jung into the Active Imagination as both conscious—willed—and spontaneous, autonomous process. Through surrender and annihilation in the Divine, the mystic opens himself to receive theophanies, resulting in a life lived perpetually in awareness of Divine Presence. Union with the Divine is the aim of the mystic and Ibn 'Arabi shows us a detailed account of how that life is experienced.     

Decisionarium ‐ aiding decisions,negotiating and collecting opinions on the web

Decisionarium ( www.decisionarium.hut.fi ) is the first public site for interactive multicriteria decision support with tools for individual decision‐making as well as for group collaboration and negotiation. Web‐HIPRE ( www.hipre.hut.fi ) supports value tree and AHP analysis including group models. The RICH methodology ( www.rich.hut.fi ) allows the decision maker to provide incomplete ordinal preference statements when considering the relative importance of attributes in a value tree. Opinions‐Online ( www.opinion.huf.fi ) is a platform for surveys voting and group collaboration. There are different ways for voting, multiattribute scoring, surveys as well as interactive viewing of the results. Joint Gains ( www.jointgains.hut.fi ) applies the method of improving directions to support multiparty negotiations in a multicriteria setting. Smart Swaps offers an implementation of the even swaps procedure ( www.smart‐swaps.hut.fi ). All of the tools above are web‐based, so global interaction is natural and links can be utilized for multimedia information support. Decisionarium also offers access to complete e‐learning modules ( www.dm.hut.fi ) based on the use of the software. There are also illustrative powerpoint presentations and additional Windows software WINPRE and PRIME‐Decisions for value tree analysis under incomplete information. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Motivation autodéterminée, perceptions de conflit et d'instrumentalité et assiduité envers la pratique d'une activité physique : une étude prospective sur six mois

Exercising regularly represents a challenging public health issue. The purpose of this study was to extend prior research based on self-determination theory by considering perceptions of conflict-instrumentality with regard to physical activity. A 6-month prospective study was conducted among 62 adults. In January, their self-determined motivation toward exercise and work was assessed by questionnaire, as well as their perceptions associated to the role of exerciser. Their presence was then controlled until the end of the season. The analyses revealed a negative relationship between self-determined motivation and role conflicts, and between this variable and observed assiduity. Those results are discussed with regard to their practical implications for exercise adherence.     

Jung and Lévy-Bruhl

Abstract: For his knowledge of ‘primitive’ peoples, C. G. Jung relied on the work of Lucien Lévy‐Bruhl (1857–1939), a French philosopher who in mid‐career became an armchair anthropologist. In a series of books from 1910 on, Lévy‐Bruhl asserted that ‘primitive’ peoples had been misunderstood by modern Westerners. Rather than thinking like moderns, just less rigorously, ‘primitives’ harbour a mentality of their own. ‘Primitive’ thinking is both ‘mystical’ and ‘prelogical’. By ‘mystical’, Lévy‐Bruhl meant that ‘primitive’ peoples experience the world as identical with themselves. Their relationship to the world, including to fellow human beings, is that of participation mystique. By ‘prelogical’, Lévy‐Bruhl meant that ‘primitive’ thinking is indifferent to contradictions. ‘Primitive’ peoples deem all things identical with one another yet somehow still distinct. A human is at once a tree and still a human being. Jung accepted unquestioningly Lévy‐Bruhl's depiction of the ‘primitive’ mind, even when Jung, unlike Lévy‐Bruhl, journeyed to the field to see ‘primitive’ peoples firsthand. But Jung altered Lévy‐Bruhl's conception of ‘primitive’ mentality in three key ways. First, he psychologized it. Whereas for Lévy‐Bruhl ‘primitive’ thinking is to be explained sociologically, for Jung it is to be explained psychologically: ‘primitive’ peoples think as they do because they live in a state of unconsciousness. Second, Jung universalized ‘primitive’ mentality. Whereas for Lévy‐Bruhl ‘primitive’ thinking is ever more being replaced by modern thinking, for Jung ‘primitive’ thinking is the initial psychological state of all human beings. Third, Jung appreciated ‘primitive’ thinking. Whereas for Lévy‐Bruhl ‘primitive’ thinking is false, for Jung it is true—once it is recognized as an expression not of how the world but of how the unconscious works. I consider, along with the criticisms of Lévy‐Bruhl's conception of ‘primitive’ thinking by his fellow anthropologists and philosophers, whether Jung in fact grasped all that Lévy‐Bruhl meant by ‘primitive’ thinking.     

Do laterality measures relate to speed of response in central vision?

This study was aimed at determining whether an efficiency index (speed of response in central vision) related to a laterality index (difference in speed of response between right and left field presentations). In Experiment 1 female subjects were required to discriminate facial emotional expressions shown in either central vision or the periphery. In Experiment 2 male and female subjects had to classify as same or different pairs of letters printed in different typefaces. It was found that the efficiency index related (negatively) to the laterality index only in Experiment 1 so that slower responses indicate larger visual field differences. The results are discussed in terms of current models of hemispheric specialization.