Teaching Jung in a theological seminary and a graduate school of religion: a response to David Tacey

In this article, in response to Professor Tacey's, I discuss the teaching of depth psychology, and of Jung in particular, in a theological seminary which is also a graduate school of religion. What distinguishes our approach to the teaching of religion at Union is the conviction that no finite theory can capture the whole truth. Our teaching in the program of Psychiatry and Religion is always part of a continuing conversation with other theorists of the unconscious. Thus we avoid the extremes of repudiation and idolization of Jung which Professor Tacey describes. Ours is less a world of disjunction than of conjunction. Resistance in my context focuses on the objectivity of psychic reality, especially the unconscious dimension. Through all of this, happily, closeness of the living psyche to religious life and thought is understood, experienced, and accepted.