Freud,Jung and The Great Chain of Being

For some time, it has been clear that psychoanalytic theories are built upon the kind of master narratives Roy Schafer, a New York psychoanalyst, described in 1980. As such, psychoanalytic theories may today have lost some of their initial scientific credibility in that they can no longer be seen as summarizing findings from data collected in a research environment. As aids in participating in their patients’ process of healing, however, narratives continue to be used by practitioners and reflect allegiance to core beliefs and propositions with roots in long‐standing Western thought. In this article, the metaphors in master narratives of Freud and Jung are compared with a conceptual system identified by cognitive linguists as ‘The Great Chain of Being’. Based on this analysis, the article proposes that theoretical formulations have mainly a secondary role to play in achieving good outcomes. The most critical element is the therapist's capacity to access a specific narrative for what transpires throughout each treatment.     

Go Set a Watchman: revealing phantom narratives and shattering projections in the era of Black Lives Matter

Harper Lee’s novels, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman, are examined through the lens of reader-response theory and the Jungian concept of the cultural complex or phantom narratives. Socio-historical context includes the American civil rights movement of the 60’s as well as Black Lives Matter. The clinical and institutional implications are briefly considered.     

Acoustic resonance at the dawn of life: musical fundamentals of the psychoanalytic relationship

This paper uses a case vignette to show how musical elements of speech are a crucial source of information regarding the patient's emotional states and associated memory systems that are activated at a given moment in the analytic field. There are specific psychoacoustic markers associated with different memory systems which indicate whether a patient is immersed in a state of creative intersubjective relatedness related to autobiographical memory, or has been triggered into a traumatic memory system. When a patient feels immersed in an atmosphere of intersubjective mutuality, dialogue features a rhythmical and tuneful form of speech featuring improvized reciprocal imitation, theme and variation. When the patient is catapulted into a traumatic memory system, speech becomes monotone and disjointed. Awareness of such acoustic features of the traumatic memory system helps to alert the analyst that such a shift has taken place informing appropriate responses and interventions. Communicative musicality (Malloch & Trevarthen 2009) originates in the earliest non‐verbal vocal communication between infant and care‐giver, states of primary intersubjectivity. Such musicality continues to be the primary vehicle for transmitting emotional meaning and for integrating right and left hemispheres. This enables communication that expresses emotional significance, personal value as well as conceptual reasoning.