Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog: Recent Episodes
C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Carl Jung called it “an acausal connecting principle” — but for Dan Ross, a Jungian analyst working in hospice care, synchronicity isn’t just theoretical. In this episode, Dan reveals what thirty years of end-of-life work taught him about Jung’s most misappropriated theory, its roots in Jung’s relationship with physicist Wolfgang Pauli, and why studying synchronicity seems to produce more of it. This episode is rich with poignant examples blended that will leave you thinking differently about how synchronicity works in your own life.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, he brings both a medical and psychiatric experience to the field of end-of-life care. He is a Jungian Analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago where he has been Director of Training in the Analyst Training Program and Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program. Dan works in the field of Hospice and Palliative Care and is in private practice as a psychotherapist in Chicago.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe Kalaw
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | Synchronicity at the Deathbed: Jung and Meaning at the End of Life with Daniel Ross appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vlado Solc appeared on the Jung and the World podcast. From the episode description:
In this episode of the podcast I am speaking with Vladislav Solc about fundamentalism. Amongst other things we talk about his book Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology (with George Didier). How much do we really know about life? the tremendous mystery, fundamentalism from a Jungian perspective, the ego, the need for certainty, the cults the ism’s and the sects, ideological ‘possession’, there is something wrong with the narrowing and the constricting and fundamentalism within contemporary political currents.
YouTube ChannelPodcast Page
Vlado Šolc is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst practicing in Wisconsin and Illinois. He serves as an analyst, consultant, educator, and co-director of the Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is a member of the Slovak Society for Analytical Psychology (SSAP). Vlado lives in constant awe of the miracle of existence. His clinical focus includes psycho-spiritual crises such as loss of meaning and direction in life, the mind-body connection and psychosomatic concerns, as well as issues related to immigration and cultural adaptation. His research interests encompass narcissism, collective psychology, religious fundamentalism, illusion, and transformation. He has presented at conferences across North America, Asia, and Europe and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and seven books in the field of depth psychology. Learn more at therapyvlado.com.
The post Jung and the World Podcast | Fundamentalism from a Jungian Perspective with Vladislav Šolc (Video/Audio) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
In preparation for the upcoming Christopher Nolan film, we begin our coverage of The Odyssey with a focus on the isles of Polyphemus and Calypso. As the story is far too long to read aloud, Raisa reads a summary of Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus from Claudio Patrini’s, “Odyssey: Symbols and Meaning.”
There are many versions of The Odyssey out there, but these are the ones that we have found most recommended:
- Stephen Mitchell translation. (Adina’s read this one)
- Robert Fagles translation. (Raisa listened to the audiobook version, read by Sir Ian McKellan)
- Emily Wilson translation. (First translation by a woman and entirely in iambic pentameter. Highly recommended by Raisa’s wife, brother, and many others. Unfortunately the audiobook is exclusively on Audible)
- Stephen Fry retelling. (A contemporary version that adds extra context and is easy to digest. Brilliantly narrated by Stephen Fry himself. Raisa listened to this one first before moving on to Fagles and McKellan)
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: Athena appearing to Odysseus to reveal the Island of Ithaca by Giuseppe Bottani
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
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The post Jungian Ever After | Odysseus: Trickster and Homesickness appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This interview with Vladislav Šolc by Jitka Schlichtsová was originally published in Czech at dingir.cz.
How does conspiracism appear from a Jungian perspective?
Psychologically speaking, conspiracy theories are, in essence, theories about hidden connections between reality and fantasy. The desire to discover reality and explore the deeper meaning of existence is instinctive. Mythology and ritual behavior testify to humanity’s ancient effort to grasp the mystery of life and use that knowledge to navigate reality more effectively through the expansion of consciousness. Similarly, religion responds to the human longing for salvation and the revelation of eternal truth—a desire, one might say, to crack the ultimate code of existence. Conspiracy theories are driven by the same instinct.
From a Jungian perspective, conspiracy theories may be understood as private—or what I have elsewhere called dark religious—systems through which the ego attempts to come to terms with the overwhelming impact of numinosity. Numinous experience arises from an encounter with the paradox of the holy, what Rudolf Otto termed the mysterium tremendum et fascinans: an experience that simultaneously evokes fascination and awe. The less conscious the ego is of these opposing emotional forces, the more likely it is to become possessed by them. The key is to minimize the phenomenon of splitting so that the ego may proceed further in the quest for the integration of the Self.
Conspiracy theories may thus be regarded as partially protective and partially healing constructs through which a person is able to experience relief from existential anxiety while simultaneously achieving a provisional grasp of reality. They provide the conspiracist with a feeling of personal power and control over reality. By “revealing” evil and its causes, they alleviate so-called negative feelings and temporarily restore a sense of meaning, orientation, and certainty.
Do you encounter conspiracists in your psychotherapeutic work?
Belief in various conspiracy theories—that is, illusory systems of belief that attribute near-perfect control over world affairs to hidden groups or individuals—is fairly common. In therapy, however, such beliefs usually appear only as substitute problems that mask deeper neurotic constellations and veil painful unconscious emotions. Conspiracists, as a rule, do not experience themselves as having a problem. After all, it is the world that is corrupt, not themselves. They have answers. They remain in a state of splitting sustained by a narcissistic image of certainty and special knowledge, relying upon defensive projection unless their version of reality begins to crumble. In this sense, they are caught in what Jung called one-sidedness, a condition in which consciousness becomes identified with a single standpoint while excluding its opposite. This dynamic can be uncovered in therapy, but only slowly and gradually, as the ego develops sufficient strength to tolerate the possibility that the shadow may belong to oneself.
Do conspiracists share any common psychological characteristics?
In general, conspiracists tend to struggle in the areas of emotional intelligence, self-reflection, and self-confidence. Conspiracy theories often serve as psychological fortresses that bolster a fragile sense of certainty by presenting themselves as powerful truths. They tend to prefer simple explanations over complex realities and often distrust science and expertise because these challenge the certainty upon which their worldview depends.
Many conspiracists are highly imaginative and possess a rich fantasy life. Paradoxically, however, they often struggle with symbolic thinking. Their capacity for symbolization is short-circuited by concretization and ego-projection, preventing the symbolic from leading to greater insight. Instead, it becomes organized into rigid explanatory systems and fantasy constructs. In this sense, conspiracy theories function as defenses of ego-positions against deeper encounters with painful emotions such as helplessness, shame, alienation, uncertainty, low self-worth, and vulnerability. Yet it is precisely these emotions that form essential components of the image-symbol and are therefore necessary for the growth of consciousness.
Conspiracy theories tend to attract individuals who experience heightened distrust of institutions, uncertainty, or a feeling that they have little control over their lives and the world around them. Typically men, particularly in relation to political and anti-establishment narratives, and among individuals with lower levels of formal education or inclinations toward authoritarian forms of leadership. Nevertheless, conspiracy beliefs are by no means confined to any particular demographic group.
The key question is what underlying psychological factors give rise to conspiracism. It is typically a combination of personal predispositions, personality structure, the severity of personal trauma, and the indoctrinating influences to which an individual has been exposed.
Have you ever encountered a case in which a conspiracist admitted the failure of his or her persuasions?
This is not a straightforward process. Psychic transformation is a gradual circling around various complexes and their accompanying emotions—most often shame, anger, fear, and disappointment. Only later does joy emerge, and with it a sense of liberation. New knowledge liberates.
I recall one patient, a biology student, who at the beginning of her studies questioned the human contribution to global warming and quite firmly believed that climate change was largely a falsification of data designed to generate profit for “liberal elites.” After four years at university, however, her views changed substantially.
Education can be a remedy for conspiracism, but not always. There are highly educated individuals with access to credible evidence who nevertheless remain under what Immanuel Kant called self-imposed tutelage. Knowledge alone is not enough. One must also be willing to tolerate uncertainty, confront uncomfortable truths, and relinquish convictions that have become part of one’s identity. To put it simply, to surrender to Not knowing.
Do you have experience with someone leaving conspiratorial thinking behind?
Yes. I had the opportunity to witness the process of one of my patients leaving the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization. Sectarianism is, in many respects, a conspiracy theory sui generis. It is a form of belief in which control over the individual is gradually assumed, in the name of God, by an organization. My patient was profoundly influenced and manipulated by this way of thinking.
The whole process of leaving lasted several years. She came to me only in its final phase, when she had begun to doubt whether her faith was truly bringing her fulfillment. Her husband was manipulative and emotionally tyrannical, yet the movement persuaded her of the necessity of submitting to “God’s command.” She found herself caught in an enormous moral conflict between the voice of her own soul and the collective hypnosis of the group.
In the end, she chose divorce. She found the courage to face her own pain and trust her own God. The organization subsequently disfellowshipped her. She told me that for her it felt like a kind of death, that she had become a zombie, cut off from the only world she had ever known. Yet, as so often happens in profound psychological transformations, this symbolic death became the beginning of a new life. She was, in a sense, born again, and today she lives more wholly.
Why has conspiracism always flourished so much in the United States?
Conspiracy theories flourish everywhere. I see them primarily as ideas about reality that have been distorted by unconscious factors. In that sense, they are not uniquely American. They are widespread across the world because they represent a recurring stage in the development of consciousness. Human beings naturally seek explanations for uncertainty, suffering, and evil. When consciousness is unable to tolerate ambiguity, it tends to fill the gaps with certainty. This is especially likely to occur during periods of major social upheaval, when familiar structures of meaning begin to crumble and anxiety seeks an outlet.
Conspiracy theories are perhaps simply more visible and more diverse in the United States. America has always been a nation that values individualism, freedom of thought, and skepticism toward authority. These qualities can be tremendously creative, but they also have a shadow side.
The United States is a country built upon many competing religious, political, and cultural narratives. There is a certain paradox in the fact that the same principles that encourage freedom of belief can also provide fertile ground for unconventional beliefs, including forms of conspiracism and religious fundamentalism. Eastern Europe has its conspiracies, the Middle East has its conspiracies, and so does Latin America. The specific stories differ, but the underlying psychology is remarkably similar.
Vlado Šolc is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst practicing in Wisconsin and Illinois. He serves as an analyst, consultant, educator, and co-director of the Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is a member of the Slovak Society for Analytical Psychology (SSAP). Vlado lives in constant awe of the miracle of existence. His clinical focus includes psycho-spiritual crises such as loss of meaning and direction in life, the mind-body connection and psychosomatic concerns, as well as issues related to immigration and cultural adaptation. His research interests encompass narcissism, collective psychology, religious fundamentalism, illusion, and transformation. He has presented at conferences across North America, Asia, and Europe and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and seven books in the field of depth psychology. Learn more at therapyvlado.com.
The post Dingir.cz | Conspiracism as a Private Religion: A Jungian View of the Longing for Hidden Truth – Interview with Vlado Šolc appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We analyze the story of Medea and her embodiment of perhaps the most disturbing archetype – the Death Mother.
Content warning: Infanticide
This episode we will be reading from Medea, by Euripides (Translated by Rex Warner). The following is also referenced in this episode:
- The Death Mother as Nature’s Shadow: Infanticide, Abandonment and The Collective Unconscious – by Daniela Sieff
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: Madame Janauschek as Medea
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
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Judith Herman is widely known as a defining voice in trauma psychiatry for more than fifty years. Her work bridges the personal and the political, framing trauma as not only an individual experience, but a public health and human rights issue. In this interview with host Patricia Martin, Judith Herman tells the story of how her work evolved, what remains to be done for CPTSD victims, and what all of us can do to create conditions survivors need to heal.
Judith Lewis Herman, MD, is Professor of Psychiatry (part time) at Harvard Medical School. For 30 years, until she retired, she was Director of Training at the Victims of Violence Program at The Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge, MA. She is the author of the award-winning books Father–Daughter Incest (Harvard University Press, 1981), and Trauma and Recovery (Basic Books, 1992). She is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Guggenheim fellowship in 1984 and the 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. In 2007 she was named a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Her new book, Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice, was published in March, 2023.
Books by Judith Herman:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe Kalaw
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | Judith Herman, M.D. on Trauma and What Remains appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This video is a continuation of Three Psychodynamic Approaches to Psychotherapy: Erik Mansager, Kenneth James, and Nancy McWilliams with Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Ken James. Watch the video below or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
The post Daniel T. Bourne Show | Post-Project Interview: Three Psychodynamic Approaches to Psychotherapy (Video/Audio) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
The first of a grim pair of episodes depicting filicide within Greek myths. We piece together the story of Agamemnon’s sacrificing Iphigenia for favorable winds – and the fallout of such action after the war. All this with an eye for how the choices parents make either support or harm the parents’ individuation.
This episode we will be reading from Mythology, by Edith Hamilton. The following are also referenced in this episode:
- Mercury Rising: Women, Evil and the Trickster Gods – by Deldon Anne McNeely
- The Red Book: Liber Novus – by C.G. Jung
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: Agamemnon Condemns Iphigenia by Pierto Aldi
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
The post Jungian Ever After | Agamemnon & Iphigenia appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Registration is open for Vlado’s webinar, Bridging Chaos and Cosmos: The Search for Meaning in Times of Narcissistic Split on May 23
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vlado Solc appeared on the Howl in the Wilderness Podcast. Stream part 1 below or on YouTube. The full episode is on Patreon.
YouTube ChannelPatreon Page
Vlado Šolc is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst practicing in Wisconsin and Illinois. He serves as an analyst, consultant, educator, and co-director of the Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is a member of the Slovak Society for Analytical Psychology (SSAP). Vlado lives in constant awe of the miracle of existence. His clinical focus includes psycho-spiritual crises such as loss of meaning and direction in life, the mind-body connection and psychosomatic concerns, as well as issues related to immigration and cultural adaptation. His research interests encompass narcissism, collective psychology, religious fundamentalism, illusion, and transformation. He has presented at conferences across North America, Asia, and Europe and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and seven books in the field of depth psychology. Learn more at therapyvlado.com.
The post Howl in the Wilderness Podcast | Dark Religion: A Jungian View of Fundamentalism with Vladislav Šolc (Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Psychotherapist Daniel Shaw survived a decade in a cult — then spent 30 years helping victims of traumatic narcissism heal. He talks with host Patricia Martin about the mechanics of subjugation, why “no contact” isn’t always the answer, and how reclaiming dignity supports recovery.
Keywords: Narcissism, narcissistic trauma, cult, psychology, recovery
Daniel Shaw, LCSW, is a psychotherapist trained in psychoanalysis as well as in trauma-informed psychotherapies, including Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment (TIST). He is in private practice in New York City and in Nyack, New York; and Faculty and Supervisor at The National Institute for the Psychotherapies in New York.
In his book Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation, published by Routledge in 2014 for the Relational Perspectives Series and nominated for the prestigious Gradiva Award, Shaw introduced the traumatic narcissism theory. Shaw’s theory focuses on how the “traumatizing narcissist” manipulates victims, causing them to be fearful and insecure at the same time as they are becoming more and more dependent. Unlike with theories of pathological narcissism that focus on treating people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Shaw’s work focuses on helping victims of traumatizing narcissists recover their faith and trust in themselves. His book Traumatic Narcissism and Recovery: Leaving the Prison of Shame and Fear was published in 2021. In 2018, the International Cultic Studies Association awarded Dan the Margaret Thaler Singer Award for advancing the understanding of coercive persuasion and undue influence. A third book, Traumatic Narcissism Theory: A Contemporary Introduction, will be published in 2026.
Shaw has for many years been teaching groups of mental health professionals how to understand and use the traumatic narcissism theory to help not only cult survivors, but survivors of all kinds of traumatic narcissistic abuse. Learn more at danielshawlcsw.com.
Books by Daniel Shaw:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe Kalaw
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | Traumatic Narcissism, Cult Survival, and Reclaiming Dignity with Daniel Shaw, LCSW appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
While our last episode discussed Orpheus through the lens of archetypal creativity, this episode focuses on the grief elements of the story as depicted in Ovid’s version of the story. We share our own grief stories and explore the hazards experienced when people do not allow themselves to grieve.
This episode we will be reading from:
- Metamorphoses – by Ovid
- Parables and Portraits – by Stephen Mitchell
- Orpheus. Euridice. Hermes. – by Rainer Maria Rilke
You can listen to El Maleh Rachamim prayer on My Jewish Learning here. This prayer asks God to grant rest to departed souls and is often recited at funerals.
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: Kratzenstein orpheus.jpg – Wikipedia
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
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The post Jungian Ever After | Orpheus – Archetypal Grief and Failure to Grieve appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
What if the harms of living an increasingly digital life go beyond undercutting our attention spans or blunting our social skills? What if it cuts deeper, to the core of who we are and who we know ourselves to be?
Patricia Martin, author, researcher, and host of the Jung in the World podcast, explores the challenges that tech and the internet impose on the human psyche. In Will the Future Like You? Reflections on the Age of Hyper-Reinvention, she argues that 24/7 online connectivity reshapes not only our sense of self, but erodes our very ability to form our identities.
Weaving together memoir, depth psychology, cultural criticism, and reportage, Martin guides readers through the hidden processes that form identity — and reveals how digital life is quietly dismantling them. At once a rigorous inquiry and a deeply human one, Will the Future Like You? asks what it means to hold onto a coherent self in an era designed to keep us endlessly reinventing. Releases March 5, 2026; Karnac Books UK. Available for pre-order on Amazon.
“Courageous, urgent, and deeply necessary.”
–James Hollis, Jungian analyst, author of Swamplands of the Soul and Living with Borrowed Dust, and 22 other books.
About the author:
Patricia Martin writes about the intersection of culture, psychology, and technology. A graduate of the JSP and a professional affiliate at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she hosts the popular podcast Jung in the World. She spent the last decade researching digital culture’s impact on the psyche. The author of four books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post and Psyche Magazine. Learn more: www.patricia-martin.com
The post Book Release | Will the Future Like You: Reflections on the Age of Hyper-reinvention by Patricia Martin appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Ken James appeared on the Daniel T. Bourne Show to discuss Jungian Analysis. Watch the video below or listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
From the episode description:
Three Psychodynamic Approaches to Psychotherapy What does psychodynamic therapy actually look like in the room? Inspired by the APA’s Three Approaches to Psychotherapy, this video offers a public-facing demonstration of three psychodynamic traditions in action:
• Adlerian Depth Psychotherapy
• Jungian Analysis
• PsychoanalysisRather than explaining these approaches in theory, this video shows how each therapist listens, responds, and works with meaning, relationship, and inner life as it unfolds in real time. This project was created with accessibility in mind. Too often, psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalysis are hidden behind paywalls, dense language, or misconceptions about being outdated or inaccessible. My goal is to make these approaches visible, understandable, and freely available to students, clinicians, and anyone curious about depth-oriented therapy. In a field where this kind of material is often locked behind expensive trainings or subscriptions, it’s genuinely exciting to be able to offer nearly five hours of high quality content completely free. Psychodynamic therapy has shaped the foundations of psychotherapy as we know it. This video is a small effort to give it its rightful due, while showing that it remains alive, relational, and deeply human. Whether you’re new to therapy, considering training, or simply curious about how different therapists think and work, I hope this offers a clear window into psychodynamic practice.
Note: Information contained in this video is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment or consultation with a mental health professional or business consultant.
The post Daniel T. Bourne Show | Three Psychodynamic Approaches to Psychotherapy: Erik Mansager, Kenneth James, and Nancy McWilliams (Video/Audio) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
“In every chaos there is a cosmos; in every disorder there is a secret order.”
(C.G. Jung)
The unceasing interest in techno scene naturally raises the question of what it is about this “technoculture,” as it likes to call itself, that is so attractive and fascinates young people practically all over the world.² The name techno—i.e., Electronic Dance Music (EDM)³—already indicates that it is the result of the modern computerization of music. This music emerged in the second half of the 1980s in the United States, particularly in Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago. The original sound of techno developed from synthesized music shaped by strong African American influences, including Chicago house, funk, electro, and electric jazz. These elements blended with rhythms reminiscent of African tribal drumming, as well as futuristic and science-fiction motifs reflecting the social imagination and lived realities of late-twentieth-century America.
Within less than a decade, techno music spread to Brazil and to the Old Continent—especially to Great Britain and Germany—where it branched into various styles such as house, rave, garage, trance, acid, drum-and-bass, minimal techno, wonky techno, ghettotech, nortec, glitch, digital hardcore, so-called no-beat techno, and others, depending on the typology of its listeners. Although interest in this music has stabilized in Western countries today, an unexpected boom has occurred in the so-called post-communist bloc. A characteristic feature of techno music is the rhythm of percussion instruments (drums), on which this music is fundamentally built. Although many offshoots of this musical style exist today, they differ primarily in the hardness and tempo of the drum beats; the musical logic itself—gradual build-up, climax, and a phase of repetitive, stereotyped patterning—remains largely unchanged. Older generations would likely claim that this music lacks melody, and this assessment is not without merit, as the melodic form that structures most other musical traditions is of secondary importance in techno. The capacities enabled by the development of the cerebral cortex—creativity and inventiveness that elaborate a musical theme into melodic and harmonic complexity—are, in this context, largely unnecessary. In its structure and rhythmic insistence, techno more closely resembles tribal music performed during initiation rituals, where sound and rhythm serve as instruments for inducing ecstatic trance rather than for melodic expression.⁴ Although many offshoots of this musical style exist today, they differ primarily in the hardness and tempo of the drum beats; the musical logic itself—gradual build-up, climax, and a phase of repetitive, stereotyped patterning—remains largely unchanged. Older generations would likely claim that this music lacks melody, and this assessment is not without merit, as the melodic form that structures most other musical traditions is of secondary importance in techno. The capacities enabled by the development of the cerebral cortex—creativity and inventiveness that elaborate a musical theme into melodic and harmonic complexity—are, in this context, largely unnecessary. In its structure and rhythmic insistence, techno more closely resembles tribal music performed during initiation rituals, where sound and rhythm serve as instruments for inducing ecstatic trance rather than for melodic expression. As Jung writes, “a great many ritualistic performances are carried out for the sole purpose of producing at will the effect of the numinosum by means of certain devices” (Jung, Psychology and Religion, CW 11); the techno ritual can be understood as belonging to this same category.⁵˒⁶
It can be said that this music engages the most archaic layers of the psyche, or even arises from them. From a contemporary neuroscientific perspective, techno’s repetitive, low-frequency rhythmic structure strongly entrains subcortical and sensorimotor systems that predate higher cortical functions responsible for symbolic thought, melody, and narrative meaning. Research on neural entrainment demonstrates that steady, predictable beats synchronize oscillatory activity in motor, premotor, basal ganglia, and cerebellar networks, creating an automatic coupling between auditory input and bodily movement (Grahn & Brett, 2007; Large & Snyder, 2009). Once this coupling is established, movement becomes increasingly involuntary, which explains why prolonged exposure to such rhythms makes resistance to synchronized motion difficult (trance). This process closely resembles mechanisms observed in hypnosis. Monotonous, repetitive auditory stimulation has been shown to reduce prefrontal executive monitoring and shift dominant brain activity toward slower alpha and theta oscillations—states associated with focused absorption, diminished self-reflective awareness, and heightened suggestibility (Oakley & Halligan, 2013; Jensen et al., 2015). Similar oscillatory patterns occur during the hypnagogic phase of sleep and in REM sleep, where emotional memory processing and associative integration are enhanced while logical, linear cognition is attenuated. In techno settings, this shift is further intensified by prolonged rhythmic repetition and sensory saturation, producing a trance-like state that is neither fully waking nor sleeping, but functionally analogous to both.
The extensive use of stroboscopic and rhythmic lighting at rave events amplifies these effects. Visual flicker at certain frequencies has been shown to synchronize cortical activity and deepen altered states of consciousness by reinforcing thalamocortical entrainment (Vernet et al., 2019). This combination of repetitive sound and rhythmic light closely parallels techniques used in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, where bilateral auditory or visual stimulation facilitates access to emotionally charged memories while reducing cognitive control and defensive inhibition (Shapiro, 2018). In EMDR, such stimulation is thought to engage mechanisms similar to those active during REM sleep, enabling adaptive reprocessing and emotional integration. Analogously, the rave environment creates conditions in which affective material can surface and be discharged through movement rather than verbal cognition.
In this sense, a rave party functions less as a conventional dance event and more as a modern ritual with trance-hypnotic induction. Technical correctness or adherence to an external norm becomes irrelevant; the norm is subjective and embodied. Each raver must discover individualized movements synchronized with the beat in order to regulate arousal, express emotion, and sustain prolonged dancing. Neuroscientifically, individualized movement allows continuous recalibration of proprioceptive, vestibular, and interoceptive feedback, preventing sensory overload and supporting self-regulation within an otherwise overwhelming stimulus field (Thaut et al., 2015). Psychologically, this individuality of expression constitutes a crucial faculty: it loosens rigid ego-defense control and collective conformity while preserving participation in the group, enabling deep immersion without complete loss of agency. From both a neuroscientific and depth-psychological perspective, this balance between rhythmic synchronization and individual modulation is what allows the experience to be transformative rather than disorganizing.
An uninitiated observer might assume that the raver’s dance movements are merely a sequence of chaotic or meaningless bodily oscillations. This, however, is a misunderstanding. The movements carry clear psychological meaning. They are not only an individual optimization of energy and motor discharge, but also a symbolic mode of expression through which the dancer gives form to an unconscious psychic situation.
By situation we do not mean an external circumstance, but an inner configuration: a dynamically constellated image composed of affect, bodily sensation, impulse, and implicit meaning. This inner image is not consciously designed or choreographed; rather, it emerges autonomously and guides expression from within. Movement becomes the medium through which this situation takes shape, as an embodied image enacted in space and time. In this sense, the body functions as a symbolic organ, translating unconscious contents into visible form without the mediation of reflective thought.
From a depth-psychological perspective, such movement corresponds to the activation of imaginal processes that precede verbal representation. The dancer does not think of the image and then expresses it; the image lives the body and moves it. Rhythm provides the containing structure within which this inner situation can unfold safely, allowing affect and impulse to be shaped rather than discharged chaotically. What appears externally as repetitive or idiosyncratic motion is, internally, a precise regulation of psychic energy in accordance with the dancer’s unconscious inner constellation.
For trance to take place, a unification of bodily movement and psychic form is essential. When movement resonates with the underlying inner situation—an autonomously constellated inner image composed of affect, impulse, and implicit meaning—the usual split between mind and body begins to dissolve. Movement is no longer consciously directed or aesthetically shaped, as in choreographed dance, but arises instinctively, translating the inner image directly into bodily expression. Conscious control recedes, and expression is taken over by an autonomous process in which image, affect, and motion form a single experiential field. In this state, the dancer is no longer representing an experience from a reflective distance but inhabiting it “organically” in the moment, causa praesens. Trance thus arises not from a loss of form, but from a deeper congruence between inner image and embodied expression, where psyche and soma temporarily speak the same, pre-reflective language.
Techno music is not a song in the traditional sense we are accustomed to, but a compact, uninterrupted continuum that can unfold for hours without a clear beginning or end. Within this extended temporal field, the DJ does not merely play music but enters into a living, reciprocal relationship with the crowd. Attuned to subtle shifts in movement, intensity, and collective affect, the DJ senses when the energy tightens, disperses, or seeks release. The crowd, in turn, responds bodily to each modulation of rhythm, texture, and tempo.
What emerges is a circular process resembling biofeedback. The dancers’ movements express an unconscious collective situation; the DJ perceives this expression and translates it back into sound, adjusting the musical flow accordingly. This altered sound then reshapes the crowd’s movement, which again feeds back to the DJ. In this loop, music and movement continuously inform and regulate one another. Neither fully leads nor follows; both co-arise within a shared field.
Psychologically, this dynamic creates a self-organizing system in which individual inner situations are momentarily synchronized within a collective rhythm, without being homogenized. The DJ functions less as a performer and more as a mediator of the ritual container, holding and amplifying what is already present in the crowd. The music becomes a mirror and a guide, allowing unconscious material to surface, circulate, and be embodied through movement. In this sense, the techno set is not a linear composition but a living process, shaped in real time by the dialogue between sound, body, and collective psyche.
Those dancers who manage to reach trance truly dance the entire time without rest, or only with short breaks to replenish fluids. The DJ mixes the techno and has relatively free rein in choosing melody, rhythm, and style.
Entering the hall or dance space resembles entering a sacred space where a ritual takes place. The DJ is in the center or at the front, from where the entire ritual is directed. An unconscious connection between DJ and dancers is quickly established. The DJ is a witness to the drama of creation but also a member of the crowd with which he necessarily identifies in the manner of participation mystique.
Let us not be mistaken: it is a dialogue, not a one-sided stream from equipment to dancer. The equipment comes alive only under human touch. The dancing crowd, becoming one body, dictates tempo and gradation to the DJ, and the DJ dictates the same to the crowd. After a while, it becomes impossible to distinguish what came first—the chicken or the egg. Movement shapes the music, the music shapes movement, and both are carried by something that no longer belongs to either alone. At this point, we can speak of the emergence of the numinosum, of an archetypal field coming into being. What is characteristic of archetypal reality is that ordinary linear causality loses its primacy. Events no longer follow one another in a clear sequence of cause and effect, but unfold in a shared simultaneity, as though coordinated from a center that is not personal, not consciously willed, and yet profoundly ordering.
In such a field, the usual distinctions between subject and object, leader and follower, inner and outer begin to soften. The dancer no longer experiences the music as something external, nor the DJ as an individual agent imposing form. Instead, both seem to participate in a larger pattern that reveals itself through them. This is why participants often describe the experience as being “carried,” “guided,” or “taken over,” not in a pathological sense, but in the feeling of being aligned with something meaningful and alive.
For the observer who has not lived this state, such descriptions may sound vague or exaggerated. Language itself struggles here, because it is shaped to describe linear processes, not unified fields of experience. What can be said is that within this archetypal reality, experience acquires a particular density and intensity, accompanied by a sense of inevitability and rightness. One feels that things are happening as they must, not because someone decided so, but because the situation itself demands it. This quality—both fascinating and difficult to grasp—is precisely what gives the experience its numinous character.
The party may take place in a huge hall where five or even ten thousand people dance, surrounded by high-tech speakers, clouds of smoke, rapidly flashing light effects, and cut off from the external world. The dancers’ clothing is usually soaked through with sweat. I have seen sweat dripping from the ceiling and a half-centimeter layer of sweat flowing on the floor. It is like bathing in one’s own self. Yet at the same time it is an experience of participation and unity, where aggression and hostility practically do not exist. That is why Jung’s used term of participation mystique captures this unconscious unity well.⁸ The dancing crowd is essentially a mass with a soul of its own, however there is a presence of the observing ego that is in awe and deeply touched.
This movement can be understood as the visible expression of a living organism. Dancers are gradually drawn toward the center, where sound, vibration, and collective intensity are strongest, much like air drawn into the core of a low-pressure system or water pulled toward a powerful current. The center functions as a zone of maximal energetic density. Yet few can remain there for long. The intensity is too great, both physically and psychically, and so dancers are gradually pushed back toward the periphery as they dance, where the pressure is lower and the system allows for natural recovery. There , at the edges, the dancer breathes, regains orientation, and restores energy, only to be drawn once again toward the center when readiness returns. This oscillation between immersion and withdrawal is not consciously organized; it seems to unfold automatically, perhaps analogous to the ebb and flow of tides, the circulation of atmospheric currents, or the natural pacing of a meaningful conversation. In a deep dialogue or a psychotherapy session, one can observe a similar rhythm: moments of emotional intensity and depth are followed by pauses, shifts to safer ground, or lighter material, before the conversation once again moves inward. Too much intensity sustained too long would overwhelm the system; too little would lead to stagnation. And it is governed by the psyche’s instinctive wisdom.
In the techno ritual, the crowd as a whole behaves like a living organism, instinctively regulating its own arousal. The center is where transformation threatens and beckons; the periphery is where integration and recovery occur. This continuous circulation allows the ritual to persist for hours without collapse. The journey itself—moving in and out of intensity, repeatedly approaching and retreating—becomes something very akin to the ritual form. It mirrors natural systems and psychological processes alike, where growth does not occur through constant pressure, but through rhythmic alternation between engagement and rest, exposure and containment.
Dancers experience intoxicating affiliative feelings of acceptance, cohesion, understanding, and unity. And, as in the rituals of so-called primitive cultures, drugs also play a role here—most often ecstasy, cannabis, psychedelics and stimulants that increase the dancers’ endurance.⁷
Readers might ask: what is the philosophy of the techno movement? The answer is: there is no philosophy of this movement. The only philosophy is individual experience. Exodus—the rave movement that arose in Great Britain—however, does have certain aims: to spread love, communitas, and friendship among people. In the case of techno music, these aims are not pursued through rational philosophy, but through a form of mystical participation—that is, a state akin to dreaming, in which ego-consciousness enters an imaginal and experiential encounter with the archetypal unconscious.⁸ Ego-consciousness withdraws from its usual position of control and assumes the role of an open, receptive witness, while the intensified unconscious unfolds an inner adventure before the raver’s senses. The raver’s intention—perhaps better understood as an instinctive urge rather than a thought-thru goal—is to reach a purifying, healing, and ultimately transforming experience. As one raver expressed it to me, it is about “resetting the head and the heart.” The dancer seeks inner quiet, a temporary release from the everyday world of obligation, calculation, and rational demands, allowing something deeper and older within the psyche to speak to him directly and clearly.
From a depth-psychological perspective, this is not merely an escape, but an attempt at symbolic rebirth through entry into sacred space, undertaken so that life may be lived more consciously in the profane world, to use Eliade’s classic distinction between the aspects of reality (Eliade, 1959).⁹ One cannot live long in sacred space; it is like an overly intense fire that would soon burn us. Whoever enters must bring the light back into the profane world, for whose sake the sacred exists. Like every ritual, this one must not serve only itself, but must be a principio individuationis, a means to fuller life.
The historical beginnings of ritual ceremonies reach back to the Paleolithic era; in this sense, ritual can be thus regarded as coextensive with humanity itself. Archaeological evidence from Upper Paleolithic burial sites—such as intentional body positioning, the use of ochre, grave goods, and repeated symbolic motifs—indicates that early humans engaged in structured, meaning-laden actions oriented toward transformation, continuity, and relationship with forces of “beyond” (Eliade, 1959; Rappaport, 1999; Lewis-Williams, 2002). Ritual, in this light, is closely interlinked with what we would today call religious behavior, long predating formal belief systems, ideologies or doctrines.
Music, however, is far more difficult to trace archaeologically, as sound itself leaves no direct material record. Despite this limitation, there is compelling indirect evidence that music and rhythmic sound were integral to early ritual life. Archaeologists have identified Paleolithic musical instruments, such as bone flutes dating back over 40,000 years (e.g., finds from Hohle Fels in Germany), as well as percussion-capable objects like hollowed bones, stones, and resonant surfaces likely used for rhythmic purposes (Conard et al., 2009; Morley, 2013). These artifacts suggest that early humans intentionally produced sound not merely for entertainment, but within symbolic and ritual contexts.
From an anthropological and psychological perspective, rhythm and sound likely served as primary tools for inducing altered states of consciousness long before language-based mythologies emerged. Repetitive drumming, chanting, and tonal modulation would have provided reliable means of synchronizing group behavior, regulating affect, and facilitating trance states—functions that later became formalized within religious ritual across cultures (Turner, 1974; Winkelman, 2000). In depth-psychological terms, music can thus be understood as one of the earliest symbolic technologies for engaging archetypal contents of the psyche, offering a nonverbal bridge between bodily experience, emotion, and the imaginal world.¹⁰ The goal of the participant in such a religious act, which usually took place under the guidance of a shaman or medicine man, was to establish contact with gods, spirits, mythical figures, and the like, on whose will his life depended. The shaman’s task was also to find lost souls and bring them back so that the participant’s identity could be restored. Early human cultures developed a wide range of techniques that enabled access to such states, including circular spinning, rhythmic drumming, dance, and the use of hallucinogenic plants, sometimes in carefully crafted forms.¹¹ What such a person would call contact with gods is called, in analytical psychology, the entry of unconscious contents into consciousness. From this perspective, gods are psychic projections of these unconscious contents, archetypes. Archetypes by their nature transcend individual experience and, like instincts, carry information about basic possibilities of psychic functioning in various situations through human phylogeny, essentially since humanity’s origin or possibly even beyond it – apriori, before the experience itself. This is why C. G. Jung called them contents of the collective psyche and thought of them as aspects of anima mundi.
The fact that we no longer call archetypes gods does not mean that we have explained or understood them. They remain as mysterious to us as the gods were to earlier cultures. Archetypes cannot be reduced to purely psychic representations or biological mechanisms, nor can their origin, function, and effects be exhaustively explained through causal nor final analysis. In depth-psychological theory, archetypes emerge from beyond the psyche, “from” a deeper, “essence of universe,” ground of reality. Jung referred to this underlying substrate as the unus mundus (Latin for “one world”), “a unitary world, in which psyche and matter are contained in one and the same world” (Jung, 1973, CW 14, para. 767). Marie-Louise von Franz further emphasized that this unity implies meaningful, non-causal correspondences between inner representations (symbols) and outer events, suggesting that archetypal patterns belong to an order that precedes the split between mind and matter (von Franz, 1974). From this perspective, archetypes are not merely reflections of subjective psychic representations, but expressions of ordering principles of the unus mundus, manifesting simultaneously in psychological experience and in the structure of reality itself, and therefore fundamentally beyond any Cartesian, purely material, or otherwise exhaustive explanation that does not leave room for mystery—particularly because psychological phenomena of observation are inevitably present in any act of cognition, making it impossible to assume a fully detached or purely “objective” position.
Archetypes speak through human ritual activities. When Eliade explains that, through the imitation of exemplary deeds of gods or mythical heroes—or through the retelling of their adventures—people in archaic societies separated themselves from profane time and re-entered sacred or exalted time, this should not be understood to mean that divinity is absent from modern ritual forms. Rather, it suggests that the mode of experiencing the sacred has changed, not that the sacred itself has disappeared. The numinous force, though subjected to critical reflection and defined in terms of analytical psychology, has lost nothing of its magical function in its effect in creating consciousness.⁶ We can say that what distinguishes modern humans from ancient humans is a specific spirituality, i.e., the faith with which they approach their deities. Whereas ancient humans implicitly “believed” or rather “felt” that their life depended entirely on their relationship to their gods and that divinity held a categorical position because human life belonged to it, modern humans with pronounced lack their spirituality in this sense, reduce their existence to some designated value that need not relate to anything higher. It sounds conceptually strong, but it can be clarified and smoothed for readability. Here is a refined version that keeps your meaning intact:
What many modern humans lack is a lived spiritual relationship to the transcendent—a life shaped by the awareness of meaningful existence that exceeds the physical and temporal boundaries of the body, together with a conscious dedication to the responsibilities that such awareness entails. It is not only belief in an afterlife, reincarnation, or salvation, but the transcendent meaning that primitive humans attributed to their existence.
Traditional rituals help to maintain a certain continuity of transcendent dialogue between unconscious and conscious. The participant’s conscious action was – in ancient times – guided by divinity. The human—no longer exclusively a collective being—through ritual established contact with destiny, thereby receiving uniqueness and meaning. Ritual was an act of imitating heroic drama; just as the hero, through confrontation with gods, gained a new quality for himself and his people, so too could the ritual participant integrate a new content – skill – of the collective unconscious. Ritual objectified unconscious drama, enabling their integration into consciousness and thus, in effect, human sapientization. The shaman thus directly participated psychically and physically in a situation that occurred ab origine and usually related to creation. As it appears, many analogies exist between ritual acts and what happens at technoparties.
With techno we can also speak of regression to archaic initiation techniques in which drumming, intoxication, and trance played significant roles. Whereas traditional ritual often objectified unconscious processes and depicted deeds of gods or heroes, technoparty merely reproduces a disordered situation without any apparent frame. It creates a primitive experience of chaos. Yet this chaos is not only chaos; it is the chaos of primordial order. Within this chaos is contained the potential existence of everything possible, i.e., everything potentially realizable. It is an attempt to imitate the state of consciousness before realization by the observer.
Ecstatic spontaneous dancing among so-called primitives is richly documented. After shamanic dance a healing process occurred. The psyche found an instinctive way to heal itself. A new perspective appeared; a temporary state of calm was achieved. Elimination of consciousness causes activation of the inferior function by sudden emergence. It is as if the whole unconscious floods ego consciousness. Trance, which, on some level, resembles psychotic noxa, has something in common with temporary disintegration of the rational system of the partie supérieure. Whereas the evolution of consciousness is a gradual movement from massa confussa toward a more differentiated state, in trance, life energy, libido flows regressively toward the unconscious, where it awakens sleeping gods – actions in potentia.
Activated contents of the unconscious are tamed only by dance, not by rational integration. The raver thus maintains an affective and experience-ridden relationship to the contents of the unconscious. The whole experience is certainly very interesting. It activates deep, primordial and the most archaic emotions and fantasies. Experiences of other kinds of music stimulate cultivated feeling-toned reactions and images linked to previous experience; in techno the raver is often overtaken by raw, undifferentiated emotionality in addition to freely flowing emotions of personal nature. The raver experiences the unconscious in its amoral and irrational form beyond good and evil. It is not uncommon that the raver’s emotions evoked by techno are, so to speak, emotions from another world. They do not simply refer to current experiences but to experiences of past, present, and future simultaneously in a mysterious comingling mode. The numinous experience of technoparty is characterized by leaving ordinary experiences and living mysterious, bizarre, fantastic, or psychedelic emotions and images that are radically foreign to the dancer, and yet he finds in them a sense of familiarity and safety. The archetypal field induced by music, the crowd, the enclosed space, and so on causes the dancer to fall under its power; he ritualistically abandons his ego-attachments and will.¹² John Giannini writes that when we feel something charged with emotional energy in a way that lacks logic, we are in the embrace of an archetype and experience more-than; it carries meaning that can never be fully articulated, and we sense a spiritual aura with which, in the same time, we cannot fully connect.¹³ From an archetypal perspective, technoparty is an experience of the Great Mother archetype, or the feminine aspect of the unconscious. It is a perceptual experience of preconscious, undifferentiated wholeness. Lao Tze writes:¹⁴
“There was something formless and complete
before the universe was born.
It was utterly quiet. Empty.
Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the mother of the universe.
Because I do not know its name,
I call it Tao.
It flows through all things,
inside and outside, and returns
to the origin of all things.”
Whereas the father archetype evokes clarity and purity, differentiation and spirituality, the mother archetype is an experience of psychic unity, togetherness, undifferentiation. It evokes an experience of regressus ad uterum (return to the womb), a psychic movement contra patris—though not completely, because egoic, heroic consciousness is usually preserved and is not wholly consumed by the archetype. We can speak of Fordham’s process of deintegration, in which the primary self is enriched by experience of the object; here the object is not the biological mother but the archetypal mother. Deintegration must not be confused with disintegration, although occasionally it happens among technodancers that the cohesiveness of the ego breaks down.¹⁵
The experience of techno music evokes a sense of timelessness, a moment of causa praesens. Past and present fold into one another and become indistinguishable. The dancer descends into the primordial fabric of experience, into a state in which space, time, and causality were not yet separated—into the moment when consciousness itself was first stirring, into the time of Tao. Strictly speaking, we should no longer speak of time or past at all, for everything unfolds hic et nunc. Consciousness touches a timeless dimension in which the collective psyche naturally dwells, and in doing so momentarily steps outside linear time, beyond ordinary moral oppositions of good and evil. It is no exaggeration to describe this experience as a fleeting glimpse into life before time.
This experience has the character of mysterium fascinans et tremendum, there is something utterly magnetic and at the same time fear-inducing about it. Unconscious wholeness attracts the dancer like a hypnotizing voice, as a subtle recollection of a dream that was true once… On one hand we can describe the state as a “fall,” because the raver feels an irresistible urge to relinquish rationality, identity, and conscious continuity of ego-experience and merge with the infinite universe of the collective unconscious—the Great Mother; on the other hand there is a presence of fear that everything – the ego clings to – will be lost forever. Name, age, gender, parents, friends, place and time—everything must be let go off and forgotten in trembling and sweat. It is terrifying like an image of death, but once the dancer sets out on the path, it is no longer possible to slow down until he reaches the end. The raver must trust the process and maintain hope that it will have a good ending. Though the ritual seems disordered, it contains an immanent structure. Three components of this experience are remarkable:
- Descensus ad inferos— descent to the underworld or descent to the realm of the dead, i.e. descent into the unconscious, or inflation due to activation of the unconscious takes place. An ego must be sacrificed. What must be relinquished at this phase is an extroverted notion of the reality, maya of the ego-concepts. The known relationship to the surrounding world must be abandoned; only the relationship to what exists now in the presence (causa praesense) is a relationship to one’s own unconscious.
- Experience of the archetypal Parent, egocide—the unconscious, in which the ego is radically relativized and humbled by experience of αἰδώς, reverence in front of sacred. This is the phase in which the raver may experience a transcendence of opposites, an archetypal power through psychic identification with the paradoxical aspects of reality. He is in it. He is it, and it is him: the entire universe is within him and he is in the universe. Subsummed by the dream world, he merges with the gods—becomes a god himself. This is a state that must be related to humbly. It cannot be solved rationally; it can only be expressed through bodily movement. It must be held. It cannot be known, judged, or understood; it can only be seen through the dancer’s eyes. There is no other way than to have a relationship with it. One must not allow the situation to swallow him; the best way is to let images and emotions flow freely in the drama of existence. Chinese philosophy calls this wu wei—non-doing or letting flow, not passively but instinct-actively. Here the raver must surrender to the experience of ἔκστασις and trust instinctive forces to lead him to a higher experience.
- Resurrection—reintegration, renewal of the ego-Self axis. A state usually experienced near the end of the party, when the musical rhythm rises and liberates, and it continues after the party ends. It is a state of deep silence, calm, and peace that follows the vibrations and massive intake of energy during the party.¹⁶ In this phase the raver returns to his identity and integrates the experience at more ego-observing conscious level. He is purified and reborn and can return to the profane -the world of obligations, limits and physical forms.
Jung observes that a return to primordial nature and a mystical regression to timeless psychic conditions are common to all religions in which the dynamic force remains a living experience rather than a mere rational abstraction. Such regression is not a pathological retreat, but a temporary descent into the deeper layers of the psyche, where renewal takes place. From this encounter, a restoration of unity with the divine emerges, giving rise to new psychological potential and, in a profound sense, allowing the world to be experienced as newly created. As Jung writes, “The retrograde step to the preconscious psyche is not only a relapse into the past, but at the same time a step forward, a potential advance, since it re-establishes the original totality out of which new forms can arise” (Jung, 1956/1967, CW 6, para. 431).¹⁷ The return to the profane world is a return to a different world: by changing our relationship to it, the world itself changes. In this lies the purifying and healing power of ritual.
Why is this archaic method gaining ever more supporters among young people? It did not take long for dance to return to something close to its original form. Drugs, rhythmic movement, and music readily induce trance states. What is largely missing, however, is a sustained philosophical or symbolic framework—a referential relationship to another reality into which, traditionally, the shaman was carefully initiated. Such a container does not arise spontaneously; it is the result of devoted, patient—one might say alchemical—work.
That opinions and representations possess enormous power hardly needs demonstration. In psychotherapy, they are precisely the means through which psychological suffering is transformed. Thought itself—forms of differentiation and discrimination—allows us to name, structure, and relate to the phenomenal world. The movement from undifferentiation, massa confussa, toward order takes place through the gradual refinement of reason by conscious integration and adopting one’s own individual moral stances that are, of course, a matter of gradual correction as one grows. By naming and symbolically coding instinctual contents, the shaman was able to establish a relationship to them and thereby gain a measure of containment and orientation. Tribal teaching thus functioned as a spiritual reference framework—a supporting staff for the dangerous journey into the depths—but also as a source of norms, religious ideas, and codes of conduct that gave structure, meaning, and ethical orientation to individual and communal life.
The expansion of consciousness occurred through the attribution of meaning—names, qualities, narratives. By grasping what was chaotic and seemingly random into symbolic form, the shaman performed an act of relation and containment. In doing so, a stable observing position emerged, along with boundaries that defined the intensity, quality, and significance of inner experience. This capacity to establish form and limit is the only way heroic consciousness can protect itself from disintegration.
In the context of a technoparty, the shamanic function is assumed not by an individual alone, but by the DJ and, more broadly, by the entire ritual container. The music itself becomes a projective object that helps define boundaries and serves as the primary referential image. It allows participants to descend only as far as their own instinctual capacity permits. As with rites of passage such as funerals or weddings, participants absorb a shift in psychological state. The raver often experiences this as a form of rebirth.
The descent into ᾍδης, in this sense, is a descent into the preconscious—a state that has long awaited articulation and relatable meaning. Preconscious unity, understood as the organized instinctual psyche, exerts a magnetic pull on consciousness. It is as though the psyche itself were invested in its own development, applying continuous, subtle pressure on ego boundaries so that they occasionally yield and admit new content. Wholeness, or harmony, is the implicit aim of every living system, arising from the tendency of all energetic systems toward equilibrium. Were psychological boundaries entirely rigid, adaptation—and thus growth—would be impossible.
No philosophy or doctrine imposes moral and social norms on the ritual participant. On the contrary, precisely because formal boundaries—other than implicit ones—do not exist in the ritual, techno allows adaptation to an external world that is constantly developing. The phenomenon of techno has the greatest resonance where unnatural barriers of mind exist, such as rigid clinging to so-called religious tradition what we called Dark Religion – and other traps of the mind. It is young people whom techno addresses most. It provides a desired compensation for a reality they often perceive as profane—boring or even hostile. The world of adults is, from their perspective, a loss of spirituality at the expense of material values. Their silence rebels against the fact that after some time they themselves will accept social norms and principles they reject. Almost. For young people techno is a way to deal with a negative father complex of the tradition that surrounds them. Contact with the archetypal mother relativizes the value of these rigid structures and makes it possible to establish a new, more adaptive psychological state. From this perspective techno liberates; it is a catalyst of change. It is probably no coincidence that it enjoys such high interest precisely in countries that are abandoning old paradigms and searching for a new spiritual identity that meets the demands of the society they participate in.
Technoculture cannot be blamed for tearing down old dogmas and changing society. Rather, it can be seen as an instinctive attempt to address natural social peripeteia, to contain and address the “spirit of the time.” Technoparty cannot be blamed for attracting incomparably more young people than churches; on the contrary, technoculture arises as a consequence of religious institutions’ inability to offer young people spiritual satisfaction appropriate to the century in which they live. And precisely in times of spiritual confusion, in times of pain arising from the split between faith and knowledge, no dogmatic—masculine—solution will bring an exit. Nature, the feminine itself, is a mediatrix, which through its instinctive mechanism establishes harmony and heals the narcissistic split.
Again it is the unconscious that urgently fascinates young people, especially in Western society characterized by excessive extroversion. This extroversion manifests as a general belief in spiritual satisfaction through the object, especially matter. It is no coincidence that the roots of the technoscene reach into the 1960s in the USA, into the psychedelic epoch that arose as a revolt against the pronounced individualism characteristic of American society at the time. Then too nature entered the one-sided process of apotheosis of matter to help collapse the rigid walls of the fixated ego. It seems the unconscious always finds a way to speak to humans.
We know that the unconscious stands in opposition to consciousness; yet the two mutually compensate one another and together form a dynamic whole that gives rise to a credible imago Dei. Jungian analysts are well aware that a thought or content repressed into the unconscious inevitably returns to the individual in a masked form, much like a boomerang—masked precisely because it is unconscious. In such cases, the person is less the owner of the content than its victim, compelled by forces that have not yet been consciously recognized or integrated.
It is not only orientation to the object but an overall spiritual one-sidedness that opposes instinct. The unconscious does not like this; it is unreflected and produces compensatory pressure—apparently archaic, animalistic, regressive. It fascinates and attracts. Yet regression is not only a descent to a previous level of psychic functioning, but an attempt to return to a previous level where harmony – an adaptation – once successfully reigned. In Jung’s words, regression resembles searching for an old key that could open new doors. Here lies its prospective character, the aim it pursues in the future. The Great Mother herself offers a magical compensatory influence. The dancer is absorbed by it and realizes her will.
And precisely in excessive surrender to the unconscious lies the danger of this ritual. The shadow side is the measure that is crossed. External rational control has vanished already with the loss of the philosophical idea on which the music was once built. The hippie movement still knew that it was about love, the idea of peace, and emancipation. Techno no longer needs an idea; as every raver claims, he feels it on the basis of experience. This is the supposed regression—toward undifferentiation and unity—of tribal organization. Regression must not be an end in itself, otherwise the Great Mother will exact a tax in the form of too strong and unfreeing an embrace. As emphasized above, contact with the unconscious was always only a means toward conscious life. Even if it may seem that nature’s goal is a return to paradise, the world we live in can approach paradise only through conscious effort—opus contra naturam—effort that maintains balance through rational knowledge.
Consciousness arose as the surface of unconscious primal matter through rational knowledge; when there is too much of it, it grows into rigidity; when its importance is neglected, it falls into passivity and succumbs to the unconscious. The human task is to live in balance. Buddha teaches the golden middle way: when a guitar string is tightened too much, it snaps; when it is too loose, it produces no tone.
The danger of technoculture can be seen in this one-sidedness. In the effort to flee the father, one can fall into the archetypal mother. Descent into Hades is not recommended for those who have forgotten their worldly calling, i.e., those without a firm psychological relationship to reality. Minařík similarly warns against purposeless experiments with mystical practices: no one should perform them without “firm morality and strong knowledge of teaching.” Only then can the techno ritual bring the desired freedom.
Whether we consider techno mere craziness or a sophisticated institute, one thing is certain: this old-new ritual has a place in today’s society; and it seems it will continue to have a place as long as nature insists on its reasons.
Footnotes:
- Waardenburg, J. (1999). Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion: Aims, Methods, and Theories of Research. Walter de Gruyter.
- Jung, C. G. (1938). Psychology of Religion (p. 4).
- The word numinosum is derived from the Latin root numen, meaning god, and nuere, to nod or beckon. The term was first coined by the German theologian Rudolf Otto in his work The Idea of the Holy (first published in 1917 under the German title Das Heilige: Über das Irrationale in der Idee des Göttlichen und sein Verhältnis zum Rationalen) and was often used by Jung. Otto explained the numinous as an irrational experience or feeling whose primary or immediate object lies outside the ego. For Otto, the numinous is a mystery (Latin: mysterium) that is both terrifying (tremendum) and fascinating (fascinans). Numinosum refers to a dynamic factor or effect independent of conscious will. Religious teaching as well as the consensus gentium everywhere explains this experience as depending on a cause outside the individual: the numinous is either a quality belonging to a visible object or an influence of an invisible reality producing a peculiar change of consciousness. See Jung, C. G. (Psychology and Religion, CW 11, para. 6). See also Otto, R. (1917). The Idea of the Holy.
- Saunders, N., et al. (1996). Extáze a techno scéna. Brno.
- Participation mystique: Jung borrowed the term from the French anthropologist Lucien Lévy-Bruhl (1857–1939), who used it for a phenomenon in which people identify with a physical object, for example a sacred artifact or a totem. Identity is characteristic of primitive mentality and is the real basis of participation mystique, which is nothing other than a remnant of the original state of undifferentiation of subject and object, and thus of the primordial unconscious state. It is also characteristic of the psychological state of early childhood and finally of the unconscious of the civilized adult. See Jung, C. G. (Definitions, CW 6, para. 741).
- The terms sacred and profane are used here in the sense of analytical psychology. Experience of the sacred has no theological connotation here but a psychological one, i.e., the intrusion of numinous contents into everyday experience. Eliade, M. (1982). The Sacred and the Profane. Oikoymenh.
- In ancient times ritual was a natural part of life; every activity—from eating, sex, to building dwellings—was subject to ritualization. Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions. Oxford University Press; Conard, N. J., Malina, M., & Münzel, S. C. (2009). New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany. Nature, 460(7256), 737–740. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08169; Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace; Lewis-Williams, D. (2002). The mind in the cave: Consciousness and the origins of art. Thames & Hudson; Morley, I. (2013). The prehistory of music: Human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality. Oxford University Press; Rappaport, R. A. (1999). Ritual and religion in the making of humanity. Cambridge University Press; Turner, V. (1974). Dramas, fields, and metaphors: Symbolic action in human society. Cornell University Press; Winkelman, M. (2000). Shamanism: The neural ecology of consciousness and healing. Bergin & Garvey.
- See also Turner, V. (1974). Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society.
- See: Stages of the psychotherapeutic process in the concepts of Carl Jung, Robert Moore, and Edward Edinger in this publication.
- Gianini, J. (2009). The Sacred Secret: The Real Mystery in the Da Vinci Code. (Italics in the original.)
- Mitchell, S. (1988). Verse 25.
- According to Michael Fordham, psychic development occurs through the dialectical process of deintegration and reintegration. Deintegration is a term he used to describe the process in which the primary whole (the fundamental unit of the self) stretches beyond itself or unfolds to connect with the surrounding world, thus deintegrating. This is not negative or destructive. Deintegration is a natural unfolding of archetypal potential necessary for growth, during which the experience remains part of the individual’s unity. Fordham’s typical example is how a child wakes hungry and signals the mother, who then picks the child up and nurses it. Deintegration is thus the child’s spontaneous engagement with different aspects of its emotional environment and relating to them. Fordham’s concept points to a natural developmental process necessary for psychic growth and should not be equated with splitting and disintegration. Disintegration is what happens to an ego that breaks down and fragments. Splitting refers to disintegrations that do not remain part of the self but are isolated or split off from the rest of the personality. Fordham, M. (1985). Explorations into the Self. Academic Press.
- Usually it takes another five hours for the music to stop—after which it continues playing purely in the dancer’s head.
- Jung, C. G. (CW 6, para. 431).
Literature:
- Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace. (Original work published 1957)
- Eliade, M. (1971). The myth of the eternal return: Or, cosmos and history (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1949)
- Eliade, M. (1964). Shamanism: Archaic techniques of ecstasy (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1951)
- Fordham, M. (1985). Explorations into the self. Academic Press.
- Furst, P. T. (1976). Hallucinogens and culture. Chandler & Sharp.
- Génnep, A. van. (1960). The rites of passage (M. B. Vizedom & G. L. Caffee, Trans.). University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1909)
- Giannini, J. (2008). The sacred secret: The real mystery in The Da Vinci Code. Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, 2(2), 63–84. https://doi.org/10.1525/jung.2008.2.2.63
- Jung, C. G. (1969). Psychology and religion: West and East (2nd ed., R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 11)
- Jung, C. G. (1978). Psychology and the East (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
- Lawson, T. T. (2008). Carl Jung: Darwin of the mind. Routledge.
- Minařík, K. (1996). Tajemství Tibetu (Vols. 1–2). Canopus.
- Mitchell, L. L. (1977). The meaning of ritual. Paulist Press.
- Mitchell, S. (1988). Tao te ching: A new English version. Harper & Row.
- Moore, R. L. (2001). The archetype of initiation. Xlibris.
- Neumann, E. (1973). The origins and history of consciousness (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1949)
- Otto, R. (1923). The idea of the holy: An inquiry into the non-rational factor in the idea of the divine and its relation to the rational (J. W. Harvey, Trans.). Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1917)
- Saunders, N. (1996). Extáze a techno scéna [Ecstasy and the techno scene]. Jota.
- Sicko, D. (1999). Techno rebels: The renegades of electronic funk. Billboard Books.
- Stolaroff, M. J. (1994). Thanatos to Eros: Thirty-five years of psychedelic exploration. VWB Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung.
- Turner, V. (1974). Dramas, fields, and metaphors: Symbolic action in human society. Cornell University Press.
- Waardenburg, J. (1999). Classical approaches to the study of religion: Aims, methods, and theories of research. De Gruyter.
- Grahn, J. A., & Brett, M. (2007). Rhythm and beat perception in motor areas of the brain. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 19(5), 893–906. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.5.893
- Jensen, M. P., Adachi, T., & Hakimian, S. (2015). Brain oscillations, hypnosis, and hypnobility. American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis, 57(3), 230–253. https://doi.org/10.1080/00029157.2014.976786
- Bell, C. (1997). Ritual: Perspectives and dimensions. Oxford University Press.
- Conard, N. J., Malina, M., & Münzel, S. C. (2009). New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany. Nature, 460(7256), 737–740. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08169
- Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace.
- Lewis-Williams, D. (2002). The mind in the cave: Consciousness and the origins of art. Thames & Hudson.
- Morley, I. (2013). The prehistory of music: Human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality. Oxford University Press.
- Rappaport, R. A. (1999). Ritual and religion in the making of humanity. Cambridge University Press.
- Turner, V. (1974). Dramas, fields, and metaphors: Symbolic action in human society. Cornell University Press.
- Winkelman, M. (2000). Shamanism: The neural ecology of consciousness and healing. Bergin & Garvey.
- Large, E. W., & Snyder, J. S. (2009). Pulse and meter as neural resonance. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1169, 46–57. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2009.04550.x.
- Oakley, D. A., & Halligan, P. W. (2013). Hypnotic suggestion: Opportunities for cognitive neuroscience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14(8), 565–576. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3538
- Salimpoor, V. N., Benovoy, M., Larcher, K., Dagher, A., & Zatorre, R. J. (2011). Anatomically distinct dopamine release during anticipation and experience of peak emotion to music. Nature Neuroscience, 14(2), 257–262. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2726
- Shapiro, F. (2018). Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Thaut, M. H., McIntosh, G. C., & Hoemberg, V. (2015). Neurobiological foundations of neurologic music therapy: Rhythmic entrainment and the motor system. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1185. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01185
- Vernet, M., Brem, A.-K., Farzan, F., & Pascual-Leone, A. (2019). Synchronous neural oscillations and sensory entrainment. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 23(6), 471–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2019.03.006
Vlado Šolc is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst practicing in Wisconsin and Illinois. He serves as an analyst, consultant, educator, and co-director of the Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is a member of the Slovak Society for Analytical Psychology (SSAP). Vlado lives in constant awe of the miracle of existence. His clinical focus includes psycho-spiritual crises such as loss of meaning and direction in life, the mind-body connection and psychosomatic concerns, as well as issues related to immigration and cultural adaptation. His research interests encompass narcissism, collective psychology, religious fundamentalism, illusion, and transformation. He has presented at conferences across North America, Asia, and Europe and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and seven books in the field of depth psychology. Learn more at therapyvlado.com.
The post Vlado Solc | Mysterium Musicus: Techno, Trance, Rhythm, and the Return of Ancient Rituals appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Individuation isn’t about becoming better. It’s about becoming whole. At 75, neurologist Oliver Sacks finally integrated the parts of himself he’d kept hidden—his sexuality, his need for love, his domestic life (who knew he kept a library of Jung’s work). Bill Hayes talks intimately about Sacks’s late-life transformation which exemplifies Jung’s crucial insight: growth isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about integrating what you’ve exiled.
The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction, Bill Hayes is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and the author of seven books, including Sleep Demons; Five Quarts; The Anatomist; Insomniac City; and How We Live Now: Scenes from the Pandemic. His writing has also appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Review of Books, the New York Times “T” Style Magazine, BuzzFeed, and The Guardian. His most recent book, SWEAT: A History of Exercise, a narrative nonfiction look at exercise from antiquity to the present, is available now wherever books are sold.
Hayes is also a photographer, with credits including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times. His portraits of his partner, the late Oliver Sacks, appear in the volume of Dr. Sacks’s suite of final essays Gratitude. A collection of his street photography, How New York Breaks Your Heart, was published in 2018 by Bloomsbury. His photographs are available for sale as limited edition prints exclusively by CLAMP art gallery in New York City.
Books by Bill Hayes:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vlado Solc appeared on the Explorer Poet Podcast. From the episode description:
In this conversation with Vladislav Šolc, we explore the intersection of Jungian psychology and religion, discussing personal journeys through faith, the concept of dark religion, the importance of self-knowledge, how unconscious beliefs shape our understanding of reality, the role of symbolism in religion, the psychological implications of conspiracies, the quest for consciousness, confronting our inner darkness to achieve personal growth.
Listen on Apple PodcastsThe post The Explorer Poet Podcast | Unconscious Beliefs and Dark Religions with Vladislav Šolc (Audio) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This interview by Zuzana Vitková with Vlado Šolc originally appeared in dennikn.sk.
Do American psychologists or psychiatrists currently comment on Trump’s behavior in the public sphere?
Yes, quite often. Beyond Steven Buser’s book Real and Present Danger, American psychologists and psychiatrists have addressed Trump’s behavior in several other works. For example, psychologist Dan P. McAdams offers a detailed psychological portrait in The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning. Another example is Dangerous Charisma: The Political Psychology of Donald Trump, which combines psychoanalytic perspectives with political psychology to explore what drives Trump’s behavior and his appeal. These books are part of a broader body of psychological commentary that regularly appears in both academic and public discourse.
In recent weeks, Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire for annexing Greenland, established a “Peace Council” to which he invited Vladimir Putin and several other totalitarian countries, and accepted a framed Nobel Peace Prize from its current laureate. As a Jungian Analyst, what is your reaction when you observe the statements and actions of the American president?
Psychologists and Jungians who study Trump have long pointed out that he exhibits pronounced narcissistic traits. In such a personality structure, the central life aim is the gratification of one’s own needs, and experience, relationships, and reality itself are organized around propping the ego. Because he has reached this kind of “inflated position” as president of the United States, he is constantly confirming to himself what he can get away with and what his power allows him to do. And the more he tests it, the more distorted his sense of self becomes. The attempt to annex Greenland is, in my view, just another example of the enactment of the grandiose fantasy.
I perceive his main goal as consolidating the power of the United States globally, rewriting the map of power, and dominating the Western Hemisphere in order to attain a self-affirming ego position that confirms his sense of strength and grandiosity. It appears as if he and Putin have mentally divided the world into Western and Eastern empires, and this can be understood as one of Trump’s attempts to move closer to that vision. As a narcissist, he has no inner restraints, and once he realized that he can get away with almost anything, he will keep pushing the limits. He has essentially legitimized vulgarity and lies, and elevated his own feelings of disdain above the moral principles that people usually carry within themselves. This is no longer just narcissism, but something bordering on psychopathy, as we see an absence of fear, pronounced impulsiveness, objectification of others as tools, a lack of remorse and shame, and an inability to form any moral relationship to his decisions.
Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists are usually reluctant to label public figures, since they have not had the opportunity to diagnose them directly and therefore speak rather about personality traits they observe. How reliably can Trump’s traits be assessed based on his public behavior?
Of course, it is not ethical to definitively diagnose someone without having met them personally in a clinical setting and without administering tests. In Trump’s case, however, we already have an enormous amount of material for analysis. We have books in which authors describe their individual encounters with him, we have his speeches, testimonies, correspondence, videos, and so on. I believe there is so much material that one can conclude with a high degree of certainty that Taken together, these features suggest that he could indeed fit what is often described as a malignant narcissistic personality structure. We observe pronounced traits such as rigidity, entitlement, tendency to control and manipulate, a persistent refusal to take responsibility, a striking incapacity for genuine empathy, an inability to apologize or acknowledge wrongdoing, and a pattern of rigid denial that remains unchanged regardless of presented evidence.
You described Donald Trump in an interview for the portal psychologie.cz as an anointed “über-narcissist” who has unleashed “dark” attitudes and emotions in people. What did you mean by that?
We all are, in essence, collective beings, which means that we are guided by collective psychology. Each of us harbors certain moral and individual persuasions in life, but to a large extent we are unconsciously collective creatures, shaped by unconscious forces, norms, and images related to society and the culture in which we live. Trump is a leader to whom many people attune themselves, and some even identify with him. If such a leader legitimizes a person’s shadow, that person is more likely to allow all the lower impulses and drives within themselves to surface, impulses they previously kept under control because they were not socially acceptable. But once they receive this kind of permission, they become more vulgar. You can see this, for example, on social media, where many people are no longer willing to communicate sensitively with others but go straight into attack mode. In this way, Trump indirectly signals to people that being vulgar, aggressive, xenophobic, or racist, and projecting one’s anger onto someone else, is acceptable. He even encourages them not to be afraid of it and to go ahead with it. They are pitifully, to use Jung’s words, unaware, they are projecting parts of their own psychology onto their neighbors.
Is this narcissistic archetype of a leader perceived differently in American society and culture compared to European one?
This archetype essentially functions as a projective screen onto which society projects its shadow. A narcissist operates with a certain self-image that he considers perfect, and everything that does not fit this image is rejected, attacked. He simply tells himself that this is not who he is, because he sees himself as someone entirely different, and he believes this unconditionally. He can’t bear the idea that he might not always be “a good boy.” At the same time, his goal is to evoke resonance in others so that they confirm this self-image back to him. Everything that does not belong there is split off and projected onto someone else. Hitler found his scapegoat in the Jewish, Roma or Slavic populations. Trump today projects a similar content primarily onto Hispanics, but also onto African Americans and other groups. Every culture has its own specific complex, and such a leader is able to legitimize it and direct it outward. We should ask ourselves, what is it about those minorities that allies with his unconscious image? Russians, for example, have the complex of “Great Russia,” a great-power complex that compensates for the deep Russian wound after losing an empire. Russia “suddenly” shrank, and today this loss is being projected outward. Putin places himself in the position of savior of Russian land and strength and creates an image according to which white Orthodox muscovites appear to be chosen and to have a moral right to occupy Ukraine or neighboring Euro-Asian states.
From the outside, it can seem as if Trump and Putin are now competing over who dares more. Do you see any similarities in their behaviors and traits?
There is a certain similarity, for example, in the inflation of the ego by the mythological images. This is a form of grandiosity, where a person tries to play god and tests what they can get away with. Putin, for instance, said that he “discovered that there are no limits for him.” Of course, he does possess enormous power in reality, but it is not unlimited, and we can see that even his army does not have the strength for there to be “no limits.” With Trump, it is something similar. He constantly tries to push his power further, and he is aided in this by institutions such as the Supreme Court, as well as the House of Representatives and the Senate, which he more or less controls. Republicans stand behind him even as he tries to prove to himself what all he can do. A good example right now is Greenland. Trump behaves there like a petulant child who wants to use every available lever to achieve what he wants, even at the cost of centuries-old international relations. But I think he is at least subconsciously aware that this is not realistic. Similar to the idea of annexing Canada.
Doesn’t the behavior of Trump and Putin remind you of little boys on a playground, despite the fact that they are among the most closely watched leaders in the world?
…Yes, but I rather have the sense that behind the scenes they have agreed to divide that playground between themselves. It is said that French intelligence once fed Trump false information to see whether he would pass it on to Putin, and they found that he did. So they form a strange kind of coalition. I think Putin greatly impresses Trump. There is a peculiar projective relationship there: Trump sees Putin as a strong alpha male and, on an intuitive level, feels respect for him, even fear. Not military fear, but psychological fear. Putin is a narcissist, but also a psychopath, someone who could slit another person’s throat without batting an eye. You can see this in the ruthless way he eliminates his opponents: they fall out of windows, are poisoned with novichok in tea, their cars explode, and so on. He has absolutely no restraints. I would dare to say that human life has no value for him and is merely a chess piece in his grandiose plan. I think this has convinced Trump on some unconscious level. Trump is not very intellectually gifted and mostly acts instinctively, similar to Hitler or Stalin. He senses weakness, senses where to invest money, or who can be manipulated. A narcissist always attacks weak spots, where we feel self-doubt. But that does not work on Putin! You can see it when Trump leaves a joint meeting looking deflated, confused. Putin has no psychological access to his own shame. I would rather say that Putin is playing with him.
Do you consider Trump to be a psychopathic personality similar to Putin?
I cannot say that definitively from a distance, nor can psychologists fully rule it out, but I do think he has certain psychopathic traits. I would not describe him as a classic psychopath. Rather, he is a malignant narcissist who cannot cope with a deep inner sense of shame. The only way he regulates this feeling is by splitting it off and projecting it outward. Once he splits it off, he begins to systematically humiliate others. We saw this when he met with President Zelenskyy in the whitehouse. Conscious people saw clearly, though, that Trump only humiliated himself… He often speaks about himself as perfect, claims that everything works flawlessly, that he is a stable genius, and so on. Psychopathy, however, can gradually develop in him. In people who erotically play with their shadow while simultaneously gaining more and more power, moral restraints and what we call “humanity” slowly shift until they eventually disappear.
It seems that other politicians are so far treating Trump like a privileged child. Does the mechanism just give him what he wants and there will be peace work with such people? Or does their appetite for grandiose acts keep growing and remain impossible to satisfy?
I do not know. Most of the time they give him toys and try to outsmart him with them. They hand him some golden watches, tell him he is a genius and how everything is working perfectly for him, and for a relatively small price they try to gain a major advantage. For example, he often withdraws sanctions he had previously threatened. Unfortunately, America has enormous power and influence in the world, not only militarily but also economically, and Europe needs the United States. But this also works the other way around, except that Trump’s grandiose complex prevents him from seeing that it is not all about him and that he, too, needs the rest of the world. He can claim that America is perfect, beautiful, and needs no one, but the world is far more tightly and complexly interconnected. The ego, always loses when it rejects the whole from which it emerged.
We often see narcissistic personalities as masters of manipulation. But don’t their character traits also make them vulnerable to manipulation from the outside?
Absolutely. One of the basic traits of a narcissist is that he does not live in reality. What Jung said describes it well, he said that “an inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with.” He lives in a kind of grandiose fantasy of his own, and the people around him are expected to nurture that illusion, because if they don’t, he attacks them. We see this with Putin as well, who in fact does not even know the real state of his army, because his generals are afraid of being punished if reality does not match his imagination. With Trump, too, we see how the people around him try to feed his ego. But then, there is a process we called thonemesis, the unconscious forces flips the ego and reality sets in. Historically, this is nothing new—just look at how Julius Caesar, Caligula, or Nero ended up.
Carl Jung did not use the term narcissism very much, but he spoke about what he called mana personality. Mana, for him, was a rare kind of energy that grants almost superhuman power, like the ring in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. This inflation of the ego gives a person an immense sense of power. The problem is that it is not aligned with reality, and sooner or later reality comes knocking at the door. A person can create illusions about himself, but in the end reality usually confronts him when he has to actually prove something in life—earn money, take care of a family, and so on. One can try to avoid this reality through psychological maneuvers, but most of the time reality holds up a mirror and kicks you out.
What can happen when the most powerful man of the democratic world gets kicked out? Aren’t we all then put at risk?
That is precisely the problem: it can pull all of us down with him. In a way, this is also the karma of the nation that elected its mirror. Trump enabled people to bring unconscious contents to the surface, things they projected onto him, and now they will have to confront them. We already see this, for example, in Wisconsin. Of the forty percent of Hispanics who voted for him, many are now suddenly surprised that he is deporting their brothers and sisters. Dairy farmers in northern Wisconsin who employed undocumented workers now see that when those workers are deported, there is no one left to clean manure. So racism or xenophobia returns to people in this concrete form. They realize that it directly affects them, but a narcissistic leader does not see the connection between his I and the practical life of someone else.
Trump and Putin are both over seventy. Does age strengthen or weaken narcissistic traits?
A wise person develops with age and tries to live in the middle of life’s opposites—both inner and outer ones. A foolish person, by contrast, becomes fixed in a single position, and age often contributes to greater rigidity and stubbornness. Such a person often acquires the feeling that he has already figured everything out and must leave a strong legacy behind, because he is so great and perfect that he considers it his duty. I have the impression that we see this process in many narcissistic leaders, whether it is Trump, Putin, or other unchecked leaders. People who acquire too much power while receiving very little feedback or real consequences for their actions lack effective inner means to moderate the inflation of their own ego.
On social media there is now a trend of nostalgia for the year 2016, which Harper’s Bazaar called the “last good year.” What has changed in society over the past ten years that statements by world leaders which would then have been considered absolutely scandalous are today just another Monday or Wednesday?
I have the sense that Democrats failed to register the moods and anxieties that were dormant in the national unconscious and literally awakened during Trump’s first term. Parts of society were bothered, for example, by immigration or deaths related to fentanyl. Of course, these issues were to a large extent inflated by nonsense. But people may have had real experiences with gang crime and a feeling that nothing was being done about it. Others were afraid of the opening of various queer topics. Most Americans are alarmed by the fact that billionaires are accumulating unprecedented wealth. And Trump knew how to skillfully play on precisely these human fears. He acknowledged them and at the same time told people that the only solution was repressive policy. He promised people whom no one had listened to that those they disliked would go to jail or have their rights restricted, and so on.
Democrats claimed that everything would be fine and that there was no need to fear the things mentioned above. To a large extent, they were right—for example, transgender policy is a marginal issue that does not really threaten anyone. America experienced something similar already in the 1960s, when interracial marriages were debated and part of the population predicted God’s wrath, which never came. But in the unconscious and fantasy of many people, deep fears, racism, and a sense that society was falling apart were alive. Democrats, however, failed to find a language or an approach that could calm people and symbolically contain their swollen anger. They grossly underestimated Trump’s ability to con the nation – again!
Over the past decade we have experienced a pandemic, several international conflicts, escalating manifestations of the climate crisis, and the arrival of artificial intelligence. Can any of this be blamed for the fact that a large part of society is leaning toward authoritarian and narcissistic leaders?
It has certainly activated unconscious fears in people. And because many people are unable to connect with such fear symbolically and emotionally, they create compensatory fantasies that often grow into conspiracy theories. Whether these are fantasies that try to solve problems through some heroic, magical act of an individual, or that explain a complicated world through a magical story about elites (the Illuminati), who extract from the blood of small children an elixir of youth (adrenochrome), control the world, and so on. Such mythological fantasies generated by the unconscious are often the result of people failing to respond pragmatically to challenges such as the climate crisis or financial inequality, and instead choosing something simpler—a quasi-theory on the level of magical thinking.
American psychologist Speakery Lee, who wrote the book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, claims that experiencing Trump’s presidency from the perspective of a citizen is like being in an abusive relationship. She argues that he communicates with the public through gaslighting and other manipulative techniques. What emotions and character traits does such a leader awaken in the public?
I have not read the book, but it is very well put, and I agree that we are experiencing a form of narcissistic abuse. I have called it a narcissistic split. My clients often experience this in relationships, when one partner manipulates the other, controls them, and tries to take power over them in order to feel better and consolidate their own sense of dominion. At the same time, such a partner attacks the other’s self-confidence and weakens their ability to defend themselves. And that is exactly what Trump is doing to us. When we do not behave the way he expects, he threatens us with thousands of ICE agents or with the military. At any cost, he tries to impose control, and this naturally evokes fear, anger, and other emotions in people, which we have to “swallow,” causing the nation to live in a state of constant stress.
I see the consequences also in my clients. People are losing trust in reality, they cannot sleep, they experience emotionality, anxiety and depression. The situation has divided many families, and people are permanently under enormous stress. But it is up to us to learn how to reduce the influence of the narcissistic principle on our lives. How to return to ourselves again and awaken within us the capacity to communicate even with the “opposite camp.” Because this spares no one—whether it is a father, an uncle, or a boss at work with a different opinion, we are all exposed to these strong emotions.
Do you personally have fears about the future of the world when you look ahead?
I am an optimist. Of course, when one tries to look at the current situation objectively, there are not many optimistic signals to be seen. But I believe that our essential, “true Self” carries enormous capacity within it, and that something can awaken in us that will push this escalation of evil back. However, we probably first have to go through this mirror—through a moment when people simply “fall flat on their face” and learn something from the Trump era. Most of us learn from our own mistakes; the development of consciousness usually takes place through pain. His speculative behavior also points to many gaps in the system and in legislation that will need to be addressed so that a similar situation does not happen again.
Do you have any practical advice for us on how to preserve hope and optimism during those times?
I would say that a person must not forget their deep Self and the fact that life itself is a miracle. If we chase these projections too much and surrender to fear too easily, we may forget all the beautiful things that exist in life. For example, Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) at a time when he was likely stepping over the bodies of people who had succumbed to the Great plague of London. But because he lived in those times, he simply transcended his pain: imagined, worked, and was creative then. That is what we must do as well. Let us focus on one another, on love for people, for nature, and nurture the good that still exists within us. Because we cannot radically change the world at a collective level. We can only vote and work on ourselves, and in that way change the world.
Narcissistic personalities are almost always spoken about in very negative terms. What chances do people have when working with this personality trait, which develops in childhood?
It is not easy, and it requires years of work. This is because the person developed over many years in a complicated situation. For example, they may have had a narcissistic, sadistic, or emotionally absent parent. These are years in which a child has to cope daily with demanding—manipulative—situations, and later applies them automatically in adult life. Recently, an interesting book was also published in Czech translation, Disarm the Narcissist, which discusses how one can work with such a person. However, that person must reach a point at which they are willing and open to this kind of inner work, for example in therapy or with a life partner. But it is very demanding, because the partner must be able not to enter into the narcissist’s game, and must maintain their own boundaries, and to communicate their wounds uncompromisingly but at the same time compassionately. It is a long-term process of linking ἔρως with λόγος and restoring a true self-image. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it does not. Many Greek myths have already dealt with this phenomenon, and the one about Narcissus also shows that for many people it never becomes possible to change, and they remain frozen in their position.
Literature:
Behary, W. (2013). Disarming the narcissist: Surviving and thriving with the self-absorbed. New Harbinger Publications.
Buser, S. (Ed.). (2016/2017). A clear and present danger: Narcissism in the era of President Trump. Chiron Publications.
Harari, Y. N. (2024). Nexus. Spiegel & Grau.
Lee, B. X. (Ed.). (2017). The dangerous case of Donald Trump: 27 psychiatrists and mental health experts assess a president. Thomas Dunne Books.
McAdams, D. P. (2020). The strange case of Donald J. Trump: A psychological reckoning. Oxford University Press.
Renshon, S. A. (2019). Dangerous charisma: The political psychology of Donald Trump. Routledge.
Newton, I. (1687/1999). The principia: Mathematical principles of natural philosophy (I. B. Cohen & A. Whitman, Trans.). University of California Press.
Šolc, V., & Didier, G. J. (2023). Temné náboženství: Psychologie popření a otevření reality. Triton.
Vlado Šolc is a Diplomate Jungian Analyst practicing in Wisconsin and Illinois. He serves as an analyst, consultant, educator, and co-director of the Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is a member of the Slovak Society for Analytical Psychology (SSAP). Vlado lives in constant awe of the miracle of existence. His clinical focus includes psycho-spiritual crises such as loss of meaning and direction in life, the mind-body connection and psychosomatic concerns, as well as issues related to immigration and cultural adaptation. His research interests encompass narcissism, collective psychology, religious fundamentalism, illusion, and transformation. He has presented at conferences across North America, Asia, and Europe and is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles and seven books in the field of depth psychology. Learn more at therapyvlado.com.
The post Vlado Solc | Healing the Nation in a Time of Narcissistic Split appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Host Patricia Martin explores with guest Peter Demuth, a Jungian analyst, how psychopaths and narcissists construct false selves, their emotional deficits, and why society often rewards their pathology—until individual disorders spiral into collective crises that breach even legal boundaries. Rather than rehashing tired tropes, Demuth strikes original notes on the severest personality disorders, making room for genuine optimism that we can reclaim empathy as our shared human virtue.
Books by Peter Demuth:
Dr. Peter Demuth is a Clinical Forensic Psychologist & Jungian Psychoanalyst in private practice. He is an international lecturer, as well as an instructor at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and has published numerous papers on such subjects as ego strength, the individuation process, and psychopathy. He is a singer-songwriter with 8 full length albums of original introspective folk-pop music and performs regularly in the greater Chicago area. In December of 2023 he released his first book entitled Monsters in Life and Literature. He lives with his wife Karen, 2 cats, and a Golden Retriever in Evanston, Illinois.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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Register for Vlado Solc’s upcoming webinar, Individuation in a Divided World: Deception, Lies, and the Quest for Wholeness
In the game, earthly reality becomes fleeting, a moment thrown behind the shoulder and folded into the past. The mind loosens its habitual boundaries and prepares to accept the unimaginable, stepping into a realm governed by different laws. Here it is relieved of the weights that bind it to ordinary life and becomes, if only for a while, free, unbridled, and touched by the divine (Hugo Rahner).
Unrestrained passions, crowd-madness, and the ecstatic swings between euphoria and wrath appear most vividly in the collective dramas of politics, war, and competitive sport. They also surface in religious gatherings and musical concerts, where the psychic temperature rises and the emotional field becomes charged. The danger always lies in the splitting of affect—whether the crowd collapses into the dualistic moral categories of us and them, heroes and enemies. Once this bifurcation takes hold, the group is seized by archetypal forces that can overwhelm individual consciousness.
Ball games have long been one of the principal cultural vessels for these strong energies. For millennia they have offered humanity a symbolic container in which the primordial struggle between life and death, order and chaos, light and shadow, may be enacted. One might therefore ask whether the ball game and religion share a deeper kinship. Do they both serve, in their own ways, the development and enlargement of consciousness? And is this still true today?
The oldest archaeological evidence of ball games comes from Central America and reaches back more than 3,000 years. Yet the Maya likely played the game known as pitz as early as four and a half millennia ago (Ekholm, 1991). Similar traditions appear in Egypt and Mesopotamia only later. But these ancient ball games were not sports in the contemporary sense. Although crowds filled specially constructed arenas, the games were primarily sacred rituals. Their purpose was to initiate participants into the mysteries of the cosmos, to appease the deities, and to stimulate the fertility of the earth.
The etymology of the word game itself hints at this older sacred function. In many Indo-European languages, the root behind play is connected to ritual movement, dance, or the turning of a wheel—gestures that symbolize cyclical time and the eternal recurrence of creation and destruction. The ball, spherical and complete, is one of the oldest images of the totality of the psyche, thus the existence, the unus mundus (united world). Its movement across the court evokes the dynamic interplay of opposites that forms the essence of life.
In Mesoamerican traditions the ball itself was often identified with the sun, and the game dramatized the eternal combat between light and darkness. To keep the ball in motion was to keep the cosmos alive. The court represented the axis mundi, the meeting place of the underworld, the earthly realm, and the heavens. Whoever entered the game stepped symbolically out of profane time and into mythic time—a movement akin to entering the temenos of the psyche, where one may encounter The Self (Das Selbst) in its numinous, terrifying, or transformative aspects.
The ball game was also an expression of the fertility rite, a reenactment of the original creative act. By participating in it, humans engaged directly in the maintenance of cosmic order. These rituals mattered. The wellbeing of the community, the ripeness of the fields, and the favor of the gods were believed to depend on their proper performance.
In Mesoamerican thought, creation was not a single event in the distant past but an ongoing process requiring continual renewal. The cosmos had to be “kept alive,” nourished through symbolic repetition of the acts by which the gods first shaped the world. The movement of the ball—its rhythmic rise and fall, its passage through the narrow court, its symbolic descent into and ascent from the Underworld—mirrored the cycles of death and regeneration upon which all fertility depended. The game thus served as a dramatic imitation of cosmic processes: the journey of the sun, the seasonal return of rain, the renewal of vegetation.
In this sense, the players stood in for divine beings, embodying forces greater than themselves. Their exertion was not merely athletic but sacramental. If the game went well—if the cosmic drama was reenacted successfully—life would flourish. If it failed, the balance between humans, gods, and the natural world risked disruption.
Such beliefs were not arbitrary. In an environment where agriculture depended on unstable climate cycles, linking ritual performance to cosmic harmony provided a psychological and social framework for managing anxieties, fears and uncertainty. By engaging in the ball game, the community reaffirmed its place within a living universe, participating in the eternal dialogue between creation and decay.
Even the first Olympic Games in 776 BCE were held in the precinct of the Temple of Zeus, linking athletic competition with the presence of the divine. And in Rome, the ball game celebrated during the festum fatuorum around 200 BCE likewise served as an expression of divine glory, echoing the ancient understanding that the play of humans mirrors the play of the gods.
Sport?
The word sport comes from the Latin de(s) porto, meaning to be carried away, deported. Carried where? Into realms beyond the world of the body, into the sphere of gods and of the underworld. And why? The Greek root of to play points toward paideia (childlike spontaneity, improvisation, freedom) and agon (struggle, contest, the agony of effort). The Latin ludus evokes not only skill but also danger, risk, and chance. In play, conditions arise in which the outcome is never predetermined. The player is, for a moment, lent qualities that allow him to bend the ordinary laws of the profane world. It is as if the destiny allotted to humanity by the gods were itself placed in play. The game shows, at least symbolically, that a human being does not always have to lose against the gods. In the arena, the player becomes a hero who dares to challenge divine fate.
The question of human freedom—how far human destiny is fixed by forces greater than oneself—is among the most elemental themes contemplated by mythology and religion. One need not recall only the biblical Adam and Eve, but also the tragic myth of Oedipus or the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. If we set aside philosophical or theological interpretation and focus instead on its experiential dimension, a practical question arises: how does a person, or more precisely the human will, loosen itself from the grip of blind instinct? The psychic development of a human being is, by its nature, a sequence of such liberations—a gradual emergence of consciousness from its original unconscious state.
This important idea, appearing in Mesoamerican mythology, is also the subject of the ritual ball games of the Maya and Aztecs. Long before the Aztecs and the Maya, however, the Olmecs—flourishing as early as 1500–400 BCE—shaped the earliest known form of the Mesoamerican ballgame, endowing it with sacrificial and cosmological meaning. The Zapotecs at Monte Albán, beginning around 500 BCE, and the Mixtecs, whose richly painted codices span the first millennium CE, portrayed the game as a rite of kingship, ancestral renewal, and communion with the dead. The Toltecs (ca. 900–1150 CE) linked the game with Quetzalcoatl and the regeneration of cosmic order, while the great city of Teotihuacan (100 BCE–550 CE) integrated the ballcourt into its solar and underworld theology. Thus, by the time the Maya elaborated their own version of pitz, the game already carried a long heritage of cosmological, sacrificial, and initiatory meaning across Mesoamerica.
Beyond Mesoamerica, the Tarascans played their fiery pelota purépecha—a burning ball symbolizing the sun’s eternal struggle with darkness. In Egypt, ball games were associated with fertility festivals dedicated to Hathor and the cyclical renewal of life. The Greeks participated in athletic games and contests not merely for recreation but as offerings to the gods, integrating the spirit of agon with divine presence. Even among the Romans, the ludus pilae at times belonged to the ritual life of festivals and public ceremonies.
All these traditions reflect a universal psychic motif: the game as a symbolic arena in which the human being encounters the forces that shape fate. Through play, humanity reenacts the cosmic struggle between creation and destruction, light and shadow, freedom and necessity. In this sense, the ball game becomes a ritualized dialogue between human consciousness and the powers that surround and transcend it—a rehearsal of the timeless conflict between the ego and fate, between the finite mortal and the gods.
Ball Game
For the Maya, the ball game was not merely a game but an essential part of religious ceremony. In their world, cultural life and religious life were identical expressions of one indivisible Cosmos. The great cities of the Maya contained imposing architectural complexes—stadiums or ritual courts—constructed with extraordinary seriousness and aligned with solar cycles and the rising of Venus. These were not recreational arenas but cosmic instruments, calibrated to the heavens and to the Underworld, places where tribal customs, family traditions, myth, ritual, and the collective psyche converged in order to hold the affect and humanize raw instinctual forces. Their long narrow shape, often flanked by slanted walls, echoed the passageway between worlds, evoking a stone corridor through which celestial bodies travel and through which the soul descends and ascends in its own transformations.
Jaguar
Each court included two chapels: one reserved for the ruler, who served as the axis connecting human and divine realms, and one for the spectators. The players wore leather garments modeled after the jaguar—an animal revered for its nocturnal sight and its ability to move between day and night, surface and depth, consciousness and dream. Among the Maya, the jaguar was not merely a powerful creature but the very embodiment of shamanic authority, associated with rulers, priests, and those capable of navigating altered states of consciousness. It was believed to traverse the porous boundary between the living and the dead, stalking both the forest floor and the Underworld. In this sense, the jaguar served as a psychopomp, a guide through liminal zones, and its presence in the game underscores that pitz was also a journey into the symbolic Underworld—a passage in which players temporarily assumed the attributes of those who could move safely through darkness and return transformed.
The spectators participated actively. During the match, they placed precious jewels and offerings along the pyramid steps to honor not only the athletes but the divine forces acting through them. This immediate bestowal of gifts points to an ancient understanding that the ritual was not symbolic alone: the gods were present and watching, and the actions on the court were part of an ongoing negotiation with fate.
The ball, made from the resin of the guamul (Calonyction aculeatum), weighed about three kilograms (almost seven pounds!). With no use of hands or feet allowed, players relied solely on hips, thighs, and elbows. The game demanded extreme physical mastery and endurance, turning the match into a sacred ordeal. Archaeological studies show that players often wore heavy protective belts, and many suffered broken ribs, bruised limbs, concussions or even traumatic head injuries. This physical intensity aligns with other world’s initiation rites in which bodily trial accompanies spiritual passage.
Hunahpú and Xbalanqúe
The consequences of defeat were profound. The captains of the losing team were often sacrificed by decapitation, and their heads displayed on the tzompantli—the skull rack common throughout Mesoamerica. The iconography frequently depicts the ball as a human head. These two images—ball and head—merge into a single symbolic equation. Psychologically, the head signifies thought, awareness, spirit, and the fragile flame of consciousness. Thus pitz became not only a ritual of physical skill but a drama concerning the birth, risk, and renewal of consciousness itself.
This re-enactment was rooted in the central cosmogenic myth of the Maya, preserved in the Popol Vuh, their Book of Wisdom. The myth tells of the Hero Twins, Hunahpú and Xbalanqúe, whose father and uncle—renowned pitz players—were defeated by the Lords of Xibalba, the gods of death, disease, and destruction. After sacrificing the father, Hun Hunahpú, the Underworld gods hung his skull in a barren tree as a sign of divine supremacy. Yet when Xquic, daughter of an Underworld deity, approached the tree, the skull spat into her hand, impregnating her miraculously. In mythological terms, life sprang directly from death, new consciousness from the bowels of the unconscious.
Twin hero motifs appear across cultures—Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Romulus and Remus, Castor and Pollux—figures who mediate between worlds and embody psychological doubles: ego and the Self, persona and shadow, mortal and divine, daylight consciousness and nocturnal instinct. The Maya Hero Twins belong to this lineage. Their descent into Xibalba mirrors the nekyia, the night-sea journey described in Jungian psychology: an encounter with the powerful forces of the unconscious.
Skilled and cunning, the twins challenge the Underworld gods to the ball game and win. For the first time, a god—not a human—is sacrificed. Cosmic hierarchy shifts. Fate is no longer absolute. In Jungian terms, this is the moment when the ego, developed through ordeal, stands against overwhelming unconscious powers and gains autonomy. Individuation begins with such moments of inner contest.
After their own sacrificial deaths, the twins ascend in transformed form: Xbalanqúe becomes the Moon, embodying its reflective, cyclical, and feminine character, while Hunahpú becomes the Sun, radiant, decisive, and sovereign. Their eternal positions in the sky guarantee perpetual victory in pitz and establishes a new cosmic order in which light triumphs, again and again, over the depths.
Scholars, such as Miller, point out that many Mesoamericans saw the ball game as a living metaphor for the movement of celestial bodies—the Sun, the Moon, Venus. The ball represented the Sun on its daily journey between the Underworld and the world of humans. The playing field became a cosmic slit, a liminal gateway through which the divine light passed. In that corridor of stone, humans stood face to face with the rhythms of creation.
Recent research suggests that the game also served as a means of political negotiation—symbolic conflict resolution between city-states, a controlled ritual alternative to warfare. This added yet another layer: the game became a space where fate, diplomacy, and communal tension found regulated expression in this symbolized form (transactional space).
In this way, the pitz court was an axis mundi—a world center akin to Greek temples, Egyptian ceremonial fields, Roman circuses, and even modern stadiums where collective emotion surges and individual identity dissolves into a temporary collective Self. Everywhere humans gather to “play with fate,” the same archetypal pattern emerges: through ritualized contest, humanity reenacts the cosmic struggle between life and death, consciousness and instinct, freedom and fate.
Xibalba
If we view the ritual through the lens of depth psychology, we can understand the descent into Xibalba as a journey into the psyche itself, into that inner borderland where unconscious and consciousness, instinct and will, body and soul intersect. In the Popol Vuh, Xibalba is not merely the realm of death. It is a vast, multilayered psychic landscape: rivers of blood and filth, houses filled with obsidian blades, scorpions, jaguars, and absolute darkness. Each chamber mirrors an archetypal trial—an encounter with the inner dangers that arise when consciousness descends toward the depths of the unconscious. The father of the Hero Twins is overwhelmed by these forces; he is swallowed entirely by Xibalba.
The brothers, however, represent the first truly human figures in the mythic cycle—those in whom consciousness has achieved a degree of autonomy sufficient to face the Underworld without disintegration. They do not win by brute strength alone but by intelligence, improvisation, and trickster-like creativity. Trickster energy, which Jung regarded as an early, undifferentiated form of the emerging Self, serves here as an indispensable ally. It is often the trickster impulse—cunning, playfulness, unpredictability—that enables the ego to survive encounters with the overwhelming powers of the unconscious.
Where the gods reign absolutely, human freedom is absent. Jung notes that the domain of the gods begins where consciousness ends; beyond that threshold, the human being is at the mercy of natural and psychic forces that decide survival or destruction. In Jung’s theory, the gods are projections of archetypes—transpersonal psychic energies belonging to the collective unconscious. A “victory” over the gods therefore does not mean their eradication but the establishment of a conscious relationship with these energies. Full domination of the archetypal realm is neither possible nor desirable. Whenever the ego attempts such domination, the unconscious tends to return with destructive force, as if to restore balance.
In the Mayan conception, the ball is associated with the head, with the Sun, and with the human world. The head symbolizes consciousness, thinking, and the emergence of spirit; the Sun corresponds to clarity and illumination; and the human realm represents the fragile sphere where consciousness must be continually renewed. Mayan cosmology held that consciousness itself was precarious—it had to be maintained through ritual, courage, and cyclical renewal, much like the Sun must rise again each morning from the depths of Xibalba.
This constellation corresponds in Jung’s psychology to the archetype of the Self (Das Selbst), the inner center of consciousness and the unconscious psyche. The Self represents wholeness, the living balance of opposites. Without such a center, neither stable consciousness nor a coherent experience of reality can emerge. Without some degree of self-realization, the individual remains captive to fragmentation, illusion, and instinct.
In this sense, pitz becomes a symbolic enactment of the drama of life. The Self is not literally but symbolically in play. The ballgame enacts the struggle for the emergence of the Self as the inner center capable of holding together the opposing forces within the psyche. Although players could indeed die in the ritual, the deeper meaning of “victory” and “defeat” concerns the life of consciousness itself—its formation, growth, regression, or dissolution. Victory corresponds to development and integration; defeat suggests stagnation or reabsorption into the archetypal unconscious. The decapitated head—often depicted as the ball—evokes the alchemical caput mortuum, loss of reason: the old state of consciousness that must be symbolically sacrificed for renewal.
The pitz court thus resembles a stone mandala, a ritual enclosure where the movement of the ball traces the circular rhythm of integration. Many spiritual traditions create similar liminal spaces—the Egyptian Duat, the Greek Hades, the Mesopotamian Kur, the Tibetan mandala, and even modern stadiums where powerful collective emotions surge. Each serves as an axis mundi, a world-center in which individuals and communities confront the forces shaping their destiny. Archaeological research notes that many pitz courts were constructed with unusual acoustics: a single clap could echo seven times, creating the impression that supernatural forces were answering human action. Psychologically, this mirrors the phenomenon of synchronicity, moments when inner and outer worlds appear to respond to one another.
The opposing teams in pitz often represented cosmic dualities: day and night, life and death, wet season and dry season, order and chaos. The game dramatized the necessity of balancing these polarities. It was Jung’s profound insight that psychic wholeness emerges only through the union of opposites.
The Mayan pitz player was above all a warrior—yet not only in physical endurance. Warriorhood here means courage in the face of the unknown, readiness to descend into darkness, and willingness to confront the unpredictable. The Hero Twins belong to a global family of mythic twins—Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Romulus and Remus, Castor and Pollux—who mediate between death and rebirth, conscious and unconscious, human and divine. Their descent into Xibalba is a classic nekyia, the night-sea journey that Jung regarded as fundamental to individuation.
By identifying with the hero on the court, the spectators also participated in this inner drama. Their collective emotion condensed into a temporary unity, forming a kind of communal Self. Personal anxieties and private stories merged into a larger mythic pattern. In this sense, the pitz game facilitated a form of collective individuation, a moment when the entire community symbolically confronted its own shadow, struggled with its tensions, and glimpsed the possibility of transformation.
Thus, while only a few players moved the heavy ball across the stone alley, the entire city engaged in a parallel contest within the arena of the soul. The pitz game became not only a cosmological reenactment but a communal psychological event—a moment in which an entire people sought, however symbolically, the balance and integration represented by the Self.
Ego vs The Self
The game served as a symbolic image of what takes place within ego-consciousness when it is exposed to the influence of archetypal energies. When these energies surge upward, they do not enter the ego gently. Jung writes that consciousness is “a blossom which grows only through the tearing open of the unconscious” (CW 11). Such tearing-open is never mild; the ego’s first reaction is usually defensive. The psyche splits. What cannot be endured internally is projected outward, while the positive pole of the archetype is claimed as one’s own. Subjectively, it appears as though the archetype itself has two poles—bright and dark. Whitman therefore speaks of the bipolarity of the archetype (and of the complex), in which part of the energy is projected while another part is identified with (J. W. Perry, 1970; W. Whitman, 2007). Marie-Louise von Franz reminds us that when archetypal contents break into consciousness without sufficient symbolic containment, they tend to lead either to inflation or panic.
The Mayan warrior, identifying with the hero who battles the forces of darkness, enacts this psychic process. Because pitz is a ritual, both players and spectators experience this encounter with archetypal force in a symbolic setting. Through living out the drama, they learn not only to handle the fierce energy but also to accept its opposite pole. In doing so, the archetypal power becomes less an external god and more an embodied psychological quality. Aggression can be refined rather than acted out blindly. In this respect, the ritual cultivated the beginnings of consciousness by teaching the community how to endure and integrate archetypal intensity. Mircea Eliade’s insight that “every ritual is a return to the beginning, to the moment when the world was created” applies here: pitz brings participants back to the primordial struggle out of which consciousness itself arises.
These psychic processes are closely mirrored in the body’s hormonal response. Testosterone is released in situations such as anticipation of a stressful event, competition and success in competition, an increase in social status, anticipation of sexual activity and success in it, and anger. Conversely, testosterone levels fall during defeat, humiliation, loss of status, failure, the prevention of sexual activity (the Lysistrata phenomenon), isolation, and punishment. These fluctuations parallel the psychic experience of inflation and collapse: the heroic pole swelling with energy, the defeated pole collapsing into impotence. In ritual form, this somatic and psychic surge is contained, shaped, and given symbolic meaning.
Across cultures and millennia, this function has changed very little. James Hillman notes that for many societies, the initiation of youth—especially young men—into a conscious relationship with the violent inner god we call Mars was essential. Without such rites, litima, the unbound and volatile energy of youth, remained primitive and dangerous. The Maori spoke of growing into a person—kia tupu koe hei tangata—meaning precisely entering into a conscious relationship with one’s inner powers. The Spartan agoge served a similar purpose: to temper thymos, raw spiritedness, into andreia, disciplined courage. The Mayan pitz player stands firmly within this lineage of warrior-initiation archetypes.
Even today, it is mostly the young—particularly young men—who participate in ball games and identify with the players. The players become heroic figures, often treated like gods; the opposing team becomes a dark and reprehensible force; the stadium becomes a secular initiation ground. Though the religious dimension of modern sports has faded, the numinous energy surrounding them remains unchanged. Neuropsychological research shows that participation in group sporting events activates the same circuits involved in ritual bonding and warfare: oxytocin for cohesion, adrenaline for risk, dopamine for victory. The psychological function also remains: to integrate unconscious autonomous energies through identification with heroic figures who symbolically confront the archetypal field.
Here René Girard’s theory of mimetic violence clarifies the mechanism: groups under emotional charge naturally polarize, seeking an “enemy” in which to lodge the disowned half of themselves. The opposing team becomes the vessel for the archetype’s projected negative pole. The stadium thus becomes what Hillman calls a “projection field,” an arena for psychic discharge in which the community attempts—sometimes successfully, sometimes disastrously—to metabolize instinctual energy.
However, when the symbolic container of the ritual collapses, the process becomes too concrete. Instead of uniting opposites, the psyche fractures. The energy does not refine itself; it erupts into violence. We see this particularly among youth whose inner Mars remains unconscious and undifferentiated. Football rowdies and hooligan gangs flourish in this psychological gap. Their destruction, often spilling beyond stadium walls, demonstrates what Jung meant when he wrote that archetypes possess an “overwhelming actuality” and behave as if they have “intentionality and will” (CW 9i). When the ego fails to hold its ground, the archetypal field takes over.
In such cases, a person can lose the symbolic battle with the gods and, like Hun Hunahpú in the Mayan myth, sacrifice his head—losing consciousness, judgment, and moral orientation. What was meant to be an initiation becomes possession. What was meant to integrate becomes fragmenting. The ritual slips from a symbolic encounter with the Self into a literal enactment of the ego’s defeat.
Yet it is precisely this danger that reveals why such rituals arose in the first place. In Jungian terms, the symbolic arena protects the ego from being overwhelmed by archetypal forces by giving instinct a form, a rhythm, and a container. When the game remains within its symbolic frame, it channels aggression, rivalry, and primordial emotion into a structure that consciousness can hold. The raw heat of Mars is transformed into courage rather than violence; anger is moved into the realm of image and ritual rather than acted out in the streets.
At their best, ball games contribute to the growth of consciousness: they offer a communal temenos in which shadow, instinct, and competitive drive can be encountered without destroying social bonds. They allow a society to dramatize conflict without collapsing into it. They give form to tension, enabling communities to maintain peace precisely because the darker energies of the psyche are acknowledged rather than repressed.
Thus, the ancient wisdom embedded in pitz still speaks: only when instinct is granted a symbolic field can it be integrated; only when the gods are honored can they be humanized; and only when the Self is allowed to emerge through play can the ego withstand the forces that would otherwise tear it apart.
Šolc, V. (b. 1972). Jungian analyst and psychotherapist. Vlado graduated with a degree in clinical psychology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He currently practices in Glendale, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Illinois. Author of Psyche Matrix Reality (Amos, 2007), The Father Archetype and Other Depth Psychological Studies (Triton, 2009), In the Name of God: Fanaticism in the Concept of Depth Psychology (Triton, 2013), Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology (Chiron Publications, 2018), Democracy and Individuation in the Age of Conspiracy Theories (Bookla, 2021), Dark Religion: The Psychology of Denial and the Discovery of Reality (Malvern, 2025), and Dark Religion: The Psychology of Denial and Discovery of Reality (Exist, 2025).
Register for Vlado Solc’s upcoming webinar, Individuation in a Divided World: Deception, Lies, and the Quest for Wholeness
References:
- Campbell, J. (2008). The hero with a thousand faces. New World Library. (Original work published 1949)
- Dourley, J. P. (2006, October). The foundational elements of Jungian spirituality. Paper presented at “The Symbolic Way in Spirituality” conference, Zürich, Switzerland.
- Eliade, M. (1959). The sacred and the profane: The nature of religion (W. R. Trask, Trans.). Harcourt, Brace & World.
- Ekholm, S. M. (n.d.). Ceramic figurines and the Mesoamerican ball game. In V. L. Scarborough & D. R. Wilcox (Eds.), The Mesoamerican ball game. University of Arizona Press.
- Edinger, E. F. (1984). Ego and archetype. Penguin Books.
- Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.
- Girard, R. (1977). Violence and the sacred (P. Gregory, Trans.). Johns Hopkins University Press. (Original work published 1972)
- Hillman, J. (1994). On Mars. In M. Stein & J. Hollowitz (Eds.), Psyche and sports. Chiron Publications.
- Jung, C. G. (1964a). Civilization in transition (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Routledge & Kegan Paul. (Original work published 1964 as CW 10)
- Jung, C. G. (1964b). Psychology and religion (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1964 as CW 11)
- Jung, C. G. (1968). Archetypes and the collective unconscious (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1959 as CW 9i)
- Miller, D. L. (1970). Gods and games: Toward a theology of play. The World Publishing Company.
- Miller, M., & Taube, K. (1997). The gods and symbols of ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames & Hudson.
- Perry, J. W. (1970). The self in psychotic process: Its symbolization in schizophrenia. University of California Press.
- von Franz, M.-L. (1970). The process of individuation. In C. G. Jung (Ed.), Man and his symbols (pp. 157–254). Doubleday.
- Whitman, W. (2007). The bipolarity of the archetype. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 52, xxx–xxx.
- Rahner, H. (1967). Man at play. Herder and Herder.
- Stein, M., & Hollowitz, J. (1994). Psyche and sports. Chiron Publications.
Image Credit: File:Pok ta pok ballgame maya indians mexico 3.JPG – Wikimedia Commons
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The Experiment: The B-sides Will Explore New Territory in Jungian Thought
Sometimes the best discoveries come from saying “yes” to an experiment.
Five years ago, during the COVID shutdown, I took a leap: launching a podcast with the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. After devoting two years immersed in Jung’s work as a student in the Institute’s Jungian Studies Program, and subsequently leading a Collected Works reading group, I’d joined the Institute’s public program committee just as we faced an urgent question—how do we stay connected when we can’t gather in person?
A podcast felt right. And I was itching to explore new directions during the torpor of the shutdown. What started as an experiment has grown into something beyond what I imagined—a global audience and conversations with leading voices in psychology who generously share their insights with our listeners.
When Restlessness Becomes a Compass
This summer, I felt a familiar stirring again. I’ve learned to trust these moments. They’re rarely about boredom—they’re usually invitations to evolve, to stretch into something new.
That’s how the “B-sides” series was born. Think of it as going off-road on the path to individuation—intimate conversations about what it actually feels like to navigate digital life, wrestle with uncertainty, and maintain the connection to our inner realm.
The Hidden Cost of Online Influence
For our first episode, I sat down with Hilde Helphenstein, an artist and art world critic whose own experiment as an online influencer spiraled into something she never saw coming.
Hilde created Jerry Gagosian—an online persona supposedly related to Larry Gagosian, the legendary NY gallery owner and kingmaker of the contemporary art world. Her feeds drew thousands of followers. At prestigious live events, such as Art Basel and the Whitney Biennial, people approached her as “Jerry” and she’d correct them, explaining Jerry was just an online identity.
People waved that away. The persona stuck.
What began as a cheeky experiment became her identity in the world. And as Hilde surrendered to living as someone else, emotional consequences followed—ultimately reaching a breaking point that forced her to make a choice: keep performing or reclaim her true self.
A Case Study for Our Persona-driven Age
Hilde’s conversation is unflinching. She walks us through her undoing with remarkable honesty delivering a poignant portrait of influencer culture from the inside, and a cautionary tale for an era when who we are online is not necessarily who we actually are.
You may recall the classic New Yorker cartoon. A dog sits at the computer with the caption: “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” It used to be funny. Hilde’s story shows us why it’s no laughing matter anymore—and what it cost her to claw her way back to herself.
Listen In
The conversation is in two parts—a before-and-after portrait of one woman’s struggle with digital identity, followed by her journey back to herself.
Part 1Part 2The collective is living through a metamorphosis few consented to. The question isn’t whether our digital personas will change us—they already have. The pressing question is whether we’ll become conscious of the consequences in time to choose what we’re becoming, or whether we’ll arrive at ourselves as strangers.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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This episode is part of a new series, Jung in the World B-Sides, where we go off-road to explore the rugged psychological terrain of our current culture.
This episode is part 2 of our interview with Hilde Lynn Helphenstein. Part 1
“Know thyself”—from Socrates to Shakespeare, this wisdom echoed across centuries. But the digital age is turning it inside out. As online influencers rise to fame, persona is overtaking the self. The obsession with self-representation has eclipsed the drive to be true to oneself.
What does it mean to live your life as someone else? In this two-part interview, host Patricia Martin talks with the infamous Jerry Gogosian—real name Hilde Helphenstein—about the hidden psychological costs of her seven-year experiment living as her persona and how she clawed her identity back.
Watch the video of this interview:
Hilde Lynn Helphenstein is a visual artist, digital storyteller, and the creative mind behind @jerrygogosian, a popular satirical Instagram meme account that critiques and comments on the global art world through viral images, videos and text pieces. It has since transformed into a community and platform.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe Kalaw
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World B-Sides | Living as Someone Else: The Hidden Cost of Online Personas with Hilde Lynn Helphenstein (Part 2) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
“‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood.”
(Shakespeare, Hamlet, ca. 1600)
On the thirty-first of October, countries as distant as Mexico, Brazil, Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Canada, and, above all, the United States, celebrate one of the strangest and most popular pagan holidays: Halloween. Over the past two decades, this festival has also taken root in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and other Eastern European countries, where it overlaps with the Christian commemoration of All Souls’ Day.
Its origins, however, reach back more than two millennia to the ancient Celtic custom known as Samhain, once celebrated in northern France, England, and Ireland. In various forms, this archetypal motif appears in religions and myths across the world. The theme that Halloween brings to consciousness holds deep psychological significance, as it addresses a core insight for curating the well-being of humankind.
Samhain: The End of SummerThe Celts called the festival Samhain. The old Irish and Gaelic word samfuin means “the end of summer” or “the setting of the sun.” The festival marked the conclusion of the harvest and the beginning of the Celtic New Year. The Gallic calendar divided the year into two halves—the dark and the light—each beginning with the months Samonios and Giamonios, respectively. Samhain thus opened the dark half of the year, a time when the sun withdrew and the fires of transformation were kindled. The New Year’s celebration lasted three days—Trinoux Samoni—a triple feast that symbolically contained the movement from life toward death and back again.
The Celtic calendar aligned itself less with the course of celestial bodies than with the organic rhythm of the earth; in this way, its basis was more psychological than astronomical. Ritual bonfires blazed on high hills; families gathered in their light and offered sacrifices to the gods so that divine wrath would not fall upon them during the long winter. The rites were both agricultural and spiritual: offerings, sacrifices, and symbolic deaths ensured the survival of the community. In Ireland and Scotland, this day was called Feile na Marbh, the festival of the dead, for winter inevitably claimed human lives as well. Even today, in certain regions of Ireland and Scotland, people dedicate this night to their ancestors and recount the stories of those who have gone before.
According to Celtic tradition, when one half of the year overlapped with the other, the world of the living came perilously close to the world of the dead. This contact produced strange and frightening phenomena—what we would today call perhaps paranormal events. During this threshold time, the dead were believed to enter daily reality and for one day to walk among the living. However, those spirits brought both blessings and terror: they could destroy crops or whisper prophecies to the Druids, the Celtic priests who in turn can share them with their people. They advised on matters of love and marriage, on the number of children to come, and on the food stores needed to endure the winter.
The Druids built great fires around which families gathered in symbolic unity, seeking communion with the divine. People dressed in animal skins and wore masks that evoked creatures of the wild, acknowledging that the human being and the animal share a single psychic ground. From a Jungian perspective, such a ritual can be seen as an act of integration—an acknowledgment of instinct as the foundation of psychic vitality but also its use as a tool during difficult times of survival. Though the festival contained a sense of dread, it also carried fascination, beauty, and awe. Most importantly – it built resilience through embodiment and development of a new attitude. The participant experienced the ritual in its totality—with pathos, fear, reverence, and wonder—precisely the conditions under which transformation of consciousness can occur.
Merging with Roman and Christian FeastsWhen the Romans conquered most of the Celtic lands around 43 BCE, the native rituals did not disappear but gradually intertwined with the religious life of the empire. This fusion was not imposed by any imperial order; it unfolded naturally through interpretatio Romana—the Roman practice of assimilating local gods and festivals into its own pantheon to maintain harmony across the provinces. The Romans rarely abolished native deities; they translated them into their own symbolic language, recognizing in them familiar divine forces. Thus, Samhain began to merge with the Roman observances of Feralia and Pomona.
Feralia, a solemn day dedicated to honoring the spirits of the dead, brought families to graves with offerings of food and wine, affirming the continuity between the living and the departed. Pomona, by contrast, introduced a gentler, life-affirming note. As goddess of fruit and orchards, she presided over the fullness of harvest before the world withdrew into dormancy. The apple, sacred to her, became a symbol of regeneration—the life hidden within the seed at the heart of decay. It is likely through this blending that both apple and, later, pumpkin entered the imagery of Halloween.
Pomona belonged to the numinous company of the Numina—divine presences inhabiting woods, streams, and sacred springs. These forces guarded both nature and the human soul, protecting home and spirit from chaos. In them we can sense an early intuition of what Jung would later describe as the psychoid realm, where matter and spirit interpenetrate. Thus, Pomona’s care over orchards and hearth symbolized the safeguarding of the soul’s inner dwelling against destructive powers that arise when the boundary between worlds grows thin.
Through this organic blending of Roman and Celtic imagination—not by decree, but through shared archetypal resonance—two spiritual sensibilities met and transformed each other. The Feralia contributed solemn remembrance; Pomona offered sweetness and renewal. Their union gave rise to a ritual vision in which death was no longer the final end but part of the natural rhythm of life—a quiet prelude to the descent into winter and the soul’s return to its mysterious roots.
By the eighth century CE, Celtic lands had come under Christian rule. Pope Gregory III declared the first of November to be All Saints’ Day, honoring martyrs and the blessed who beheld God in heaven. The following day, November 2, became All Souls’ Day, commemorating those still undergoing purification. The papal intention was to replace the pagan Samhain with a Christian feast, yet the ancient symbolism persisted among the people. Elements of the older rituals were absorbed into the Christian observances, giving rise to All Hallows’ Eve, the night before All Saints’ Day—eventually shortened to Hallowe’en and later Halloween.
Only in modern times did Halloween separate from the church calendar and return to its pre-Christian date of October 31, regaining its “pagan status”—to the dismay of ecclesiastical authorities, who have often viewed it either as “foolish indulgence” or as “the celebration of demonic forces” (Rogers, 2002; Hutton, 1991).
The festival itself, however, has a deep symbolic meaning that transcends both condemnation and commercial trivialization. Its psychological function lies in confronting what civilization habitually represses—the instinctual, the nocturnal, the proximity of death, and the haunting presence of the unconscious.
The Contemporary Festival and the Halloween ArchetypeHalloween, originating in Ireland, reached North America around the mid-nineteenth century and spread across Europe during the twentieth. The celebration includes masks and costumes—especially ghostly and monstrous ones—visiting haunted houses, telling frightening stories, watching horror films, and lighting bonfires. Children go from house to house with the playful threat “trick-or-treat,” receiving sweets as a symbolic exchange. The carved pumpkin, glowing from within, has become its most recognizable emblem. During this season, America swarms with skeletons, devils, and ghosts; according to the National Retail Federation (2024), Americans now spend around four billion dollars on costumes alone, contributing to a total Halloween expenditure of nearly twelve billion dollars each year. Cinemas and streaming platforms earn millions more from horror entertainment. In sheer commercial magnitude, Halloween rivals even Christmas.
Yet rituals honoring the dead or the spirits of the departed are not unique to the Celts or the West. They appear in cultures worldwide—in the Greek Anthesteria, the Egyptian Feast of the Valley, the Australian Alcheringa rites, the Hindu Shrāddha, the Tibetan Ullambana, and the Chinese Zhongyuan Jie. Each of these ceremonies dramatizes the human encounter with mortality and the unseen.
If such festivals were mere remnants of archaic superstition, they would long ago have disappeared. Their persistence suggests a deep psychological necessity. Recent surveys in the United States reveal that one-third of adults believe in ghosts and nearly one-fifth in witches and curses (Harris Poll, 2021). Beyond literal belief lies an archetypal need—the psyche’s urge to symbolize what cannot be grasped by reason alone. The psyche speaks through symbols; rational thought is only one mode of understanding. The symbolic dimension is its native language—an archaic, primordial way of relating to reality that allows meaning to emerge where logic reaches its limits. Let’s look at it through Jungian lenses.
Death: The Mirror of MeaningDeath, after all, is as fundamental to psychic life as birth. It is the boundary that gives shape to existence, the horizon against which life becomes meaningful. Without death, life would lose its direction and its moral gravity. As Jung observed, “Life is teleological only in so far as it is self-limiting; its goal is death” (Jung, 1934/1960, CW 8, para. 812).
The non-existence of consciousness would mean immortality, but also the absence of life. Only that which is reflected by consciousness truly exists. A lifeless world “in itself” is meaningless to the sentient being. To exist psychically, the world must mirror itself in at least one tiny mirror, in one consciousness. The nature of this reflection defines life and that is to say the quality of life. The world perceived by the Dalai Lama is not the same as the one reflected in the mind of a small child—not merely because of knowledge, but because of the depth of freedom experienced in each reflection.
Life and its counterpart, finality, are inseparable. It is almost impossible to imagine existence without death. If death were abolished, moral and social laws would dissolve into a chaos of endless relativism. Life without its counterpart would become a prison—an infinite prolongation stripped of meaning, purpose, and orientation. Its sense is anchored in individuation: the ongoing attempt to find the most conscious and ethical response to the complexities, perplexities, and reversals of existence. Purpose itself can only be measured against our striving within the limits of ultimate choice, defined by the absoluteness of death—finality.
Death remains the greatest unknown of life, the silent justice from which none are exempt. Psychologically, it is the ultimate mystery—a dark realm beyond consciousness, from which only faint voices of faith, imagination, and fantasy reach us. At times these voices whisper terror and cruelty; at others, they promise solace and continuity. Yet though their truth can never be verified, we can still enter into a relationship with them. Death stands as the most enigmatic object of projection—the screen upon which the psyche casts its deepest images, fears, and aspirations. From this interplay, paradoxically, the meaning of life itself begins to emerge.
Since the birth of symbolic agency, death has held a double meaning: fear of absolute annihilation, and the hope of blissful continuity. Both evoke anxiety, for the final answer remains forever uncertain. As Paul Tillich (1952/2000) said, the greatest anxiety is not fear of punishment but “the anxiety of meaninglessness,” the dread that life itself may lack significance.
From the standpoint of the ego, death means dissolution—the collapse of individuality, the annihilation of being. From the standpoint of the unconscious, it signifies return and reunion. Myths across cultures portray death as a joyous homecoming, the restoration of unity with the divine. The moral dimension of this return—heaven or hell, redemption or damnation—merely clothes the archetype in cultural garments.
Integrating Existential AnxietyIn this sense, contact with the dead in ritual form fulfills a profound psychological function: it helps integrate – to contain – the existential anxiety. The spirits of the dead truly “live” in the unconscious; translated into psychological language, they are the latent fears and unresolved complexes surrounding death. For archaic humanity, the acknowledgment of these spirits occurred through projection onto the outer world. During Samhain—and later Halloween—the dead could appear as ghosts and monsters. Fear thus took visible, graspable form; it could be acted out rather than merely endured. What was once diffuse anxiety became embodied symbols. The vague unease of the soul found a face.
This process is not an expression of primitive superstition but a psychic necessity coming from the deep archetypal wisdom. To “express” fear in symbolic form is to externalize and ritualize the inner tension between life and death. Such dramatization mirrors the process of active imagination in Jungian analysis, where unconscious contents are personified and engaged in dialogue rather than split-off and sent off as projections.
In the Celtic lands—especially in Ireland, where winters were long and harsh—the collective psyche carried deep fears of darkness, hunger, and death. Such seasons of isolation and loss filled the community with emotions too heavy for consciousness alone. Festivals like Samhain served as sacred vessels for these tensions. Around great fires, through masks, dance, and story, people gave form to their fears and released them into ritual space.
In this way, the Celts transformed fear into meaning. Samhain was a psychic act of courage—a collective “holding” of darkness rather than being consumed by it. From a Jungian perspective, these rites contained the unconscious, allowing archetypal energies of death and renewal to rise into awareness. By facing the shadow together, the Celtic people found balance and prepared the soul—and the land—for facing the Giamonios, the dark side of the year.
The overlapping of the worlds of the living and the dead corresponds psychologically to the overlapping of consciousness and the unconscious. During Halloween, the unconscious gains energy, forcing consciousness to respond with heightened attention. Contents once denied or repressed—fear, aggression, guilt, and desire—arise as ghosts and walking dead. Yet in this symbolic space, they can be acknowledged and even embraced.
Confronting fear within a defined, socially sanctioned ritual—whether through costume, storytelling, or bonfire—parallels the therapeutic encounter with shadow material in a safe analytic setting. Here, safety isn’t provided by the analyst, but by the ritual container itself, which allows for emotional enactment and play. Many people intuitively seek this controlled exposure to fear, choosing to watch horror films or read Stephen King precisely at this time, engaging with frightening content under the reassuring psychological condition of “as if.”
It would be naïve to think that only children take Halloween seriously. Beneath the laughter and play often lie adult anxieties. Denying them does not free us from their power. Every ritual works unconsciously, and therefore partly against our conscious positions. Children, being closer to instinct, experience the festival more directly and deeply; for them, fear and fascination are still united.
The atavistic identification with animals, monsters, and ghosts—so typical of Halloween—can thus be understood as a psychological attempt to integrate the unconscious. It represents a phylogenetic regression, a descent of ego-consciousness into its instinctual roots. This descent naturally provokes fear of disintegration. The ego feels anxiety as evolution appears to reverse itself, plunging back into the archaic. Yet establishing a relationship with the inner animal is essential for psychic wholeness. Instincts that “modern” people believe they have outgrown have merely sunk into the depths, living silently like coelacanths in the ocean of the unconscious.
Death as Transformation and RebirthHalloween, therefore, serves not as a mere exposure to fear but as a nature-guided process of transformation. The descent into the “underworld” (Tír na nÓg), the world of instinct, corresponds psychologically to a descent into the unconscious. Because every symbol contains something ineffable and numinous, confrontation with it is always mysterious. It brings forth emotions that were previously unknown, split-off, and considered too painful or unbearable for consciousness to hold. Immersion in that horrific and fascinating mystery—whether through ritual, dream, or creative expression—can be turned into a cleansing and healing bath if the mind finds the right propensity and courage. The ego, bathed in the transformative waters of the unconscious, will always emerge more courageous and grown.
Jung said: “The true man is a child who has had his eyes opened. The darkness that hides the good is the same darkness that hides the bad, and we can draw the good out of the darkness only when we can also find the bad there.” (CW 16, para. 544)
The ancient Celts understood that the confrontation with darkness carries a transformative purpose. Confronting the spirits of the dead was not simply an act of terror, but an initiation. Through the symbolic death of the ego, a new life could be born. What we now call the “unconscious,” early humanity referred to as the “world of spirits.” Among the ancient Irish and Celts, this world was known as Annwn or Tech Duinn—realms of the ancestors and of the unseen forces shaping life. From that world came both wisdom and power. By honoring the dead during Samhain, people maintained a dialogue with the invisible realm, ensuring that life remained in balance with its hidden source. Through such rituals, they derived strength to endure existence in the body with all its sufferings and limitations, understanding that descent into darkness was not an end but a passage toward renewal.
Through myth and ritual they summoned their spirits, expanding the image of the world beyond the boundaries of individual existence. Faith in those spirits opened access to the living wellspring of the unconscious—a capacity that many modern people have forgotten. Few civilizations cultivated this art of dying as profoundly as the ancient Egyptians, whose mysteries aimed to initiate the living into the life beyond death. Psychologically understood, this “life after death” represents an initiation into a higher state of consciousness—the transcendence of ignorance and unconsciousness. In this light, death is not the negation of life but its incomplete form, existence without awareness, deprived of the experience of the divine—the divine as the ever-present, eternal ground of life itself.
We find similar parallels in the Greek mysteries, in Christian liturgy, and in other ancient religions. The Bardo Thödol, or Tibetan Book of the Dead, can likewise be understood as a guide for awakening the soul to its original divine nature, forgotten at birth (Jung, 1935/1958, paras. 841–842). As Jung wrote, “The dead who seek recognition are the voices of the dead within us; it is they who demand the work of transformation which leads to individuation” (CW 11, para. 856). The spiritual climax is attained precisely at the moment of bodily death, when the soul is initiated into a higher mode of awareness.
From the depth-psychological perspective, such ritual dramas view life and death symbolically, for the projections surrounding death can never be entirely rationalized. Communication through symbols is not a trivial game of conjuring spirits but a moral and transformative act through which ego-consciousness enters into relation with the deeper reality—a world that continually calls for ethical participation and conscious engagement with the mystery of being.
Halloween, in its contemporary form, is indeed a simplified echo of such ancient initiations. The Druids, guided by instinct, enacted the same process that the Bardo Thödol describes in sophisticated theological language: conscious participation in the transition from one mode of being to another. In a similar way, Jungian analysis is an initiation into new life, assisting the integration of the Self into ego-consciousness. As Jung (1955/1966) wrote, “Penetration into the lower strata of the psyche is a kind of Socratic maieutics which brings to birth psychic contents that were hitherto only in a germinal state, subliminal and therefore unborn” (CW 13, para. 163).
Life “before” birth, therefore, can correspond to the original unconscious totality—the Platonic realm of the Good (to agathon). In Plato’s philosophy, this realm was also called the hyperuranion topos—the “place beyond the heavens”—where the eternal Forms dwell, unchanging and pure, and where the soul contemplates truth before descending into the body. In the Celtic imagination there is a similar symbol-image of the “Land of Youth,” or Mag Mell, the “Plain of Delight”—timeless realms of harmony where the soul dwelled in unity with the divine prior to incarnation. Both express the archetype of primordial wholeness that the human soul seeks to recover through experience of reality. Thus, when the soul remembers its divine origin, it will be reborn. Depth psychology understands this process of transformation as spiritual rebirth. By entering into dialectical relation with archetypal forces—the living symbols of the unconscious—one attains the highest form of wisdom: a consciousness that reconciles the opposites of the mortal with the eternal within the Self.
The Shadow and the Need for DialogueArchaic humans possessed an advantage over the modern: ritual contact with archetypal powers was an organic part of daily life. They lived immersed in symbol, in continuous dialogue with the unconscious, which ensured psychic balance and continuity. Modern humans, by contrast, have overvalued—and even deified—rationality to the point of blindness, leaving themselves defenseless before archetypal energies they no longer recognize or understand. The archetype, as a source of image, emotion, thought, and impulse to act—the very wellspring of psychic energy—cannot be “thought away.” The task of modern humanity is not to banish or subjugate these forces, but to rediscover their roots and, like the ancient Druids, to enter into conscious relationship with them—an attitude that once again aligns life with the deepest and most natural rhythm of being.
The so-called primitive lived in dialogue with his gods and therefore with his own soul. Jung (1961) observed that “while the man without faith walks toward nothingness, the one who entrusts himself to the powers of the archetype walks toward life through death. Both move in uncertainty, yet the one lives against his instincts, the other in accord with them” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p. 306). When archetypes—or “spirits,” are ignored, they turn against us.
James Hillman (1977) demonstrated this in Suicide and the Soul. When the symbolic dimension of death is denied, its archetype may possess the personality, producing the literal urge for self-destruction. Death and rebirth are then experienced as bodily necessity. But the soul, which knows no body, expresses this as an archaic longing for transformation. The task is to understand that the body need not die; it is only the old psychic form that must perish so that a new, spiritual body can emerge. When we follow an archetype concretely, we become trapped in its literal meaning. When we apprehend it symbolically, its energy can be sublimated and transcend the body and its compulsions. Physical destruction is no longer required; the work with the archetype of death leads instead to renewed life.
The “ghosts” that haunt us—the unrecognized contents of the psyche—belong to what depth psychology calls the shadow: all that lies beyond the light of awareness. The more we repress these contents, the more destructive they become. Halloween reminds us that by consciously approaching this danger—whether through mockery, laughter, or the deliberate evocation of fear—we learn to live with death rather than turn away from it.
Here we encounter a phenomenon no longer confined to America—the growing fascination with brutality and violence. The modern obsession with horror films and violent games reveals, on one level, a conscious trivialization of death, and on another, an unconscious build-up of unacknowledged aggression. When the natural impulse toward aggression is dissociated, it sinks into the unconscious and returns as compulsive imagery. What consciousness neglects eventually takes possession. This process, known as psychological compensation, reflects the psyche’s instinctive effort to restore balance by bringing the rejected material back into awareness.
Just as excessive sexual restraint gives rise to obsessive erotic fantasies, and rigid dieting provokes compulsive overeating, an exaggerated attachment to life strengthens the pull of its opposite—death. Nature seeks equilibrium and continually brings both poles before consciousness. Only when the denied and the desired unite can true psychic freedom emerge. Instinctual and moral forces must meet in reflective harmony, converging at the center of the psyche—within what Jung called the transsubjective reality of the Self.
In the ancient Samhain, the world of spirits and the world of humans overlapped, allowing people to face the harsh winter not trembling with fear of death but strengthened through communion with their ancestors. Likewise, modern humanity, if it dares to gaze into its own darkness, may discover guidance rather than terror. The spirits that once haunted the night are, in truth, reflections of our own unlived life.
References Adler, M. (2006). Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today (Rev. ed.). Beacon Press. * Eliade, M. (1997). Šamanizmus a nejstarší techniky extáze [Shamanism and the Ancient Techniques of Ecstasy]. Argo. * Hillman, J. (1977). Suicide and the Soul. Harper Colophon. * Hutton, R. (1991). The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy. Blackwell. * Jakubisko, J. (Director). (1985). Perinbaba [Film]. Koliba Studios. * Jung, C. G. (1934/1960). The Soul and Death. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8). Princeton University Press. * Jung, C. G. (1935/1958). Psychological Commentary on “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.” In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 11). Princeton University Press. * Jung, C. G. (1955/1966). The Practice of Psychotherapy. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 16). Princeton University Press. * Jung, C. G. (1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage Books. * MacKillop, J. (1998). Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford University Press. * Rogers, N. (2002). Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night. Oxford University Press. * Šolc, V. (2016). Psychologie svátku Halloween. In Psychologie Dnes, 22(11), 38–41. * Tillich, P. (1952/2000). The Courage to Be*. Yale University Press.
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This episode is part of a new series, Jung in the World B-Sides, where we go off-road to explore the rugged psychological terrain of our current culture.
Part 2 is now up. Listen to Part 2
“Know thyself”—from Socrates to Shakespeare, this wisdom echoed across centuries. But the digital age is turning it inside out. As online influencers rise to fame, persona is overtaking the self. The obsession with self-representation has eclipsed the drive to be true to oneself.
What does it mean to live your life as someone else? In this two-part interview, host Patricia Martin talks with the infamous Jerry Gogosian—real name Hilde Helphenstein—about the hidden psychological costs of her seven-year experiment living as her persona and how she clawed her identity back.
Watch the video of this interview:
Hilde Lynn Helphenstein is a visual artist, digital storyteller, and the creative mind behind @jerrygogosian, a popular satirical Instagram meme account that critiques and comments on the global art world through viral images, videos and text pieces. It has since transformed into a community and platform.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe Kalaw
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World B-Sides | Living as Someone Else: The Hidden Cost of Online Personas with Hilde Lynn Helphenstein (Part 1) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
The C. G. Jung Institute Chicago welcomes proposals for programs of interest to the general public that explore Jungian thought, including the emotional and psychological issues of contemporary living, from a creative, symbolic, or spiritual perspective. Using the online form, you can propose an event, lecture, or workshop to offer in person and/or virtually. All proposals will be considered for the 2026 calendar year. The submission deadline is November 30, 2025.
Open Online FormThe post Call for Proposals | 2026 Online & In-Person Programs appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thanks to Claire Kohne, MS, LPCC and Robert Carriger, MS, LMFT, for interviewing Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vlado Solc on their podcast, The Jungian Drift.
Listen on BuzzsproutThe post The Jungian Drift Podcast | The Seductive Power of Conspiracies with Vlado Solc (Audio) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Patricia Martin and Connie Zweig discuss the nature of shadow work. Before doing shadow work, we live an unexamined life – overeating, criticizing yourself or your partner, blaming someone, procrastinating – which leads to uncontrollable, self-sabotaging behaviors.
Connie Zweig, PhD is a retired Jungian therapist and author of Meeting the Shadow and Romancing the Shadow. Her award-winning book, The Inner Work of Age: Shifting from Role to Soul, extends Shadow-work into midlife and beyond and explores aging as a spiritual practice. Her book, Meeting the Shadow on the Spiritual Path: The Dance of Darkness and Light in Our Search for Awakening, extends shadow-work into religion and spirituality. See her new SUBSTACK for livestreams and new writing: shadowworkawareness.com/about.
Books by Connie Zweig:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2025-2026 Season Intern: Zoe Kalaw
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | Approaching Shadow Work with Connie Zweig appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
In recent decades, we have observed how high politics and society are being increasingly influenced by low motives and emotional drives such as envy, frustration, manipulation, deception, or revenge. The division of society has intensified, accompanied by aggression and the entrenchment of one-sided positions. In the United States in particular, we are witnessing a rise in irrational attitudes, conspiratorial thinking, and accompanying attacks on pluralism, minorities, those who hold differing opinions and “others.”
The article is an extended and revised version of the one originally published in Vesmír, which was based on an interview that Vlado gave to Psychologie.cz.
Alchemical NigredoA decade before Donald Trump’s emergence on the political scene, those impulses had begun to be heard in American society. Psychologically, we might view this as an emergence of the “narcissistic archetype.” Possession by this archetype manifests in the ego as self-absorbed, self-centered focus, where “mine” is presented as universal, righteous, correct, and perfect. Thus, a sense of entitlement arises to impose this ideal upon others, even at the cost of one-sidedness, control, or cruelty. Mythical Narcissus rejected Echo’s love and remained enchanted by his own reflection. This indicates an emotional detachment, splitting off the psychic poles of thinking and feeling—that is, a loss of contact with the soul, the heart—typically accompanied by a loss of compassion, intuition, perspective, and understanding of higher motives. Things that were previously subjected to moral scrutiny are now – under the new paradigm – reconsidered as a new value; bold acts are no longer feared—because now it is done in the name of truth. The new truth! But where is the “old” truth? It is now pushed away by the complex that got constellated. And Trump emerged as a major object of the collective projection of this complex within the American psyche. As the chosen Über-Narcissus, he legitimized shadow emotions—rage, entitlement, xenophobia—emotions that had previously been repressed under the weight of collective scrutiny. Thus, he allowed the collective shadow to manifest openly, without burdening shame.
This opened the door to authoritarian dynamics and narcissistic manipulation. When society becomes psychically fragmented—when people lose both internal and external cohesion—they often seek a dominant figure to restore a sense of order: someone emotionally expressive, seemingly confident and strong. As a rule manipulators and narcissists then contain the chaos during turbulent times and offer temporary relief by directing the collective shadow outward—by way of scapegoating towards the state, immigrants, minorities… Anyone perceived as different. The forms of oppression in a family controlled by a narcissist are quite similar to those by which a totalitarian state controls its citizens.
The many afflictions that ache us in a rapidly changing world are like splinters of traumas that we do not have time to process. For many, these create uncertainty, fragility that weakens the power of the ego-consciousness, consequently causing emotional and moral regression in society. We can think of an example of the unmet needs of a child who cannot express them by words and enacts them through anger, projection, or magical thinking. In the core there lie legitimate needs for safety, belonging, justice, and transformation—but without conscious reflection, these needs emerge in distorted, primal forms.
Moreover, trauma evokes archetypal fantasies that exist outside of time and space. They manifest unconsciously and often appear as a longing for the lost paradise—for a golden age. Slogans such as “Make America Great Again” are a reflection of this nostalgia; they really are distractions, and represent a soothing psychological defense against a painful present. Trump inspires people to dream on a grand scale, blurring the line between what is possible and impossible. Even ambitions that are unattainable or rooted in darker impulses now appear not only imaginable but, in many cases, socially permitted.
As a nation, speaking metaphorically, the United States is undergoing an alchemical phase of nigredo—a dark and seemingly disorienting phase of decay. Fixed concepts that the ego once adhered to in order to navigate reality are disintegrating; everything is changing and nothing is stable. The reality as ego perceives it is at the same time Maya—an illusion, sustained by collective hypnosis that spins the truth of the masses. Without genuine, conscious confrontation with darkness—and without sincerely suffering through the obsolete parts of ourselves—transformation is not possible. In this phase, old inner structures must be dismantled, and their fragments reconnected and rebuilt to allow new paths for life-giving energy. The search for new pathways and the creation of new attitudes is always painful; suffering must be integrated, not bypassed through scapegoating, conspiracy fantasies, or new “isms” that would only further generate another collective illusions. Unconscious contents would keep projecting and finding new objects and create sophisticated escape routes from reality, thereby replaying the escape game.
In projection, Trump initially appears as a kind of sage, savior and warrior—a mythological figure upon which ideals could be projected including split-off emotions and secret fantasies. Over time, however, he becomes a mirror that reflects it all back to society, including not-so-ideal aspects. This is the archetypal process through which consciousness evolves: the first stage is idealization, wherein magical expectations are attributed to the redeemer; the second stage is disillusionment, when the unwanted shadow comes on the scene and the projections collapse, allowing reality to be confronted and reflected upon. If projections are consciously withdrawn, there is potential for new awareness. If not, they simply transfer onto the next fantasy image. Ego-consciousness eventually has to confront how to hold contradictions—“bad” and “good” psychic actors—together. It appears that Trump’s willingness to declassify Epstein files might be one of these tipping points that forces the position of his followers to change. The image of innocent young girls simply holds too much innocence, too much emotional potential, and it becomes very difficult to justify their abuse, even by rather sophisticated maneuvers.
Trump’s role embodies the archetype of the Trickster—marked by what we can view as narcissistic traits—a figure who breaches taboos and norms, criticizes, disrupts, laughs at, mocks, and exposes hidden hypocrisies, but without offering any actual solutions. The Trickster stirs the smoldering ember of psychic shadow, but if there is no strong enough container for conscious confrontation, the fire only spreads and chaos grows.
We also see elements of the Wounded King here—when his personal woundedness reflects the sickness of the “land.” To use the language of alchemy, the king’s suffering must eventually be transformed in the Athanor. Trump is unlikely to change on a personal level, but through him, the collective shadow has been exposed and brought under collective scrutiny. If society remains locked in an “us versus them” dynamic—viewing him solely as villain or redeemer—the opposites will stay split and remain in conflict. But if we take the mirror in hand and clearly face what we have pushed away within ourselves, the soul work can begin.
Therefore, I believe that although current societal developments bring significant risks, at the same time it also opens us up to a deep opportunity for transformation. Trump, as a cultural phenomenon, uncovers a psychic map full of swamplands we all, as collective inhabit. Healing requires not only fighting outer battles but undertaking a quest for slow, tedious inner work—the vulnerable task of mourning illusions, surviving disillusionment, and assuming responsibility for the world we inhabit, sharing with all forms of existence.
Ultimately—and most likely—Trump’s presidency will expose an old truth: that the task is not to find another redeemer, but to redeem ourselves.
The nigredo, as described in alchemy, is a phase of dissolution—a darkness of the soul that naturally precedes transformation. The question is whether society can make use of this descent and emerge into a stage of renewal. Will those who now admire authoritarian rulers like Putin one day choose leaders who embody emotional maturity and human values? Psychology offers insight, for society ultimately reflects the inner attitudes of individuals.
Narcissistic splitting is a form of regression into a state where the ego feels omnipotent and superior to all it perceives. But this sense of power is deceptive, as it remains disconnected from reality. It reflects a way of being in disharmony with the world—a stance that cannot be sustained over time. It contradicts the natural evolution of consciousness, whose aim is integration: a credible and grounded connection to the world. The psyche—what Kalshed calls the “self-care system”—continually attempts to restore this harmony, often by constructing provisional fantasy images (ideologies, -isms) that mask what has been lost. Yet beneath these images, an erosion begins to take shape—and eventually, the inner rupture becomes visible externally.
Of course, no one can predict how deep the rupture must be before society begins to reckon with the consequences of its own shadow. It wouldn’t be the first time. In therapy, we often observe the same pattern: a person’s delusional stance grows so misaligned with reality until something gives in—a crisis, confrontation, or even a breakdown. Drunk driving, a heart attack, a divorce… Eventually, the family stops tolerating gaslighting, denial and manipulation. The narcissistic bubble bursts. And only then, maybe for the first time, must real problems be faced with humility and honesty.
In his work Aurora Consurgens (The Rising Dawn), Thomas Aquinas presents the soul as a wounded bride longing to unite with her beloved—the divine Bridegroom. A soul that yearns to merge with matter. The birth of consciousness is preceded by chaos and pain.
In the Fisher King legend, the king suffers a mysterious wound in his groin—rendering him unable to lead or move. His land turns barren, dry, and without life. All he can do is go fishing, to sit by the river and wait for the catch.
Knights from far and wide seek the Holy Grail, which could heal both the king and his kingdom. Only one—Parsifal, the pure-hearted knight—matures over time and finally asks the essential question: “What ails you, my king?” That question breaks the curse, heals the king, and revives the land. Parsifal dares to face what is truly wounded. He approaches the king not as a warrior, but as a therapist.
Many individuals may not be able to ask this question of themselves, but society creates institutions that hold space for such reflection. The longing for freedom—which is ultimately a spiritual longing for wholeness—cannot be fooled or permanently suppressed. It stems from a deep yearning for truth! The truth that far transcends the individual ego, illusion of the state, and the collective.
The Axiom of Psychology
The rise of self-serving, manipulative politics—characterized by control, deception, and the exploitation of fear—is not uniquely American but a global phenomenon. In today’s interconnected world, few major shifts remain confined to one region. This prompts a pressing question: why is this happening now? History may offer some perspective. What typically precedes the fall of empires or the outbreak of global conflicts? The narcissistic paradigm often takes root in the wake of collapsed harmony—driven by economic decline, social inequality, the destabilization of institutions, and the erosion of national and cultural confidence.
A narcissistic leader—typically a spokesman for low motives—offers simplistic solutions that resonate with those who feel powerless. When people experience humiliation—economic, social, or cultural—they instinctively gravitate toward figures who appear bold, self-assured, and immune to doubt. Such a leader presents an idealized, and therefore incomplete, image of who they long to become in times of vulnerability.
We can view this phenomenon from at least three angles. First, as causa efficiens—the immediate source of the problem. Among the contemporary forces with destabilizing effects are global climate change, the relentless pace of social transformation accelerated by social media, and, most recently, the disruptive impact of artificial intelligence.
Second, as causa praesens—that what mediates and enlivens this phenomenon in the present. Simply put: here and now. In clinical practice, I see many clients struggling with anxiety, mood disturbances, or depression, often lacking sufficient inner insight or connection to the present moment. This absence of self-awareness feeds projection, interpersonal conflicts, conspiratorial thinking, and other destructive patterns. When emotions remain disconnected—dissociated—from ego-consciousness, they surface in their raw, “shadow” forms as fear, rage, or shame.
Thirdly, causa finalis—and that is a prospective, teleological aim. The psyche is endowed with a self-regulating drive, an instinctive force that works towards reconciling opposites and restoring harmony. Just as the physical body produces immune defenses, the psychic body creates symbolic compensations in forms of images. Jung postulated the psychological axiom stating that when opposites are torn apart—when people can no longer agree even on the most fundamental matters—the unconscious archetypal contents gets activated and emerge into the world through acts and events, as a rule throughout forms of narcissistic aggression; thus the struggle for dominance ensues.
The alchemical nigredo is, in fact, a noble Buddhist truth: there is suffering—and no psychological maneuver can bypass it. It returns the irrational forces back to the realm of the archetypes, while at the same time giving rise to a new form of rationality.
Ignorance or Stupidity?
Buddhism teaches that avidyā, or ignorance, is the root of all suffering. This ignorance is not mere lack of information, but essentially misunderstanding of reality itself. Stupidity is an inherent part of human nature, the opposite of wisdom, and thus also an archetype. Stupidity is a force that places obstacles to our path, causing harm both to ourselves and to others without any apparent benefit. We all know it well—from our own experience and from observing those around us. Carl Gustav Jung warned, even before the Germans unleashed a catastrophic war in Europe, that stupidity is far more dangerous than intelligence—primarily because everyone understands stupidity, while wisdom is grasped by only a few. Stupidity is immune to wisdom and logic, and at the same time susceptible or indifferent to evil. Dietrich Bonhoeffer considered it worse than evil itself, because it is elusive, and even its bearer does not understand it. Stupidity, in essence, is the incapacity to perceive the consequences of one’s own actions. The Buddha likened it to blindness.
From the perspective of depth psychology, stupidity is essentially unconsciousness. The ego initially has no insightful knowledge of its own origins, but through the process of individuation, it can begin to recognize its own blindness. Consciousness begins as perception, then moves into projection, and then into discrimination—a form of relationship—and from there it can be developed into the integrative capacity of higher consciousness, the unification of opposites (coniunctio oppositorum).
For this, a reflective observer is required—one who can observe the experiencer, the projector and the projected. Foolishness lacks this capacity. For the foolish, things simply “happen.” They fail to recognize the common denominator—their own self in relation to the higher Self. Fate, therefore, is nothing more than the consequence of an unconscious being.
From the Jungian perspective, stupidity is the inability of inner dialogue with oneself. It’s the loss of connection with one’s own unconscious. Animals are intelligent because they are guided by instinct—but not consciously, since consciousness also presupposes a subject, a self-reflection. A human being can lose the ability to listen to instinct—and then become lost in the bundle of the world’s intertwined demands. It is the dialogue with one’s own soul that heals stupidity.
In many fairy tales, it is the fool or the naïve young man or a woman who first sets out on the heroic journey. Hero finds himself in a world that compels him to respond, later to experience, then to reflect, and ultimately to perform the heroic deed that leads to transformation of the entire kingdom. What is open to the new is also capable of being transformed. Individuation is the path toward wisdom, yet foolishness is its inseparable part.
In the Christian myth, the first humans sinned because they listened to the serpent’s lure without much reflection. Foolishness, therefore, is an archetypal process—spiritually programmed into human existence. The ego must first separate itself from its source so that, through its clash with reality, it may come to recognize its own foolishness. Many scientific errors, in the end, have brought forth re-evaluation and subsequent progress.
Today, foolishness is amplified by modern forces—AI, algorithms, emotional manipulation through social media, and the like. Foolishness is no longer merely passive; it is cultivated, monetized, and exploited as a tool. As Yuval Harari notes, foolishness is cheap, while wisdom requires great effort and cost.
Without a culture of self-reflection—one that integrates critical analysis and the employment of feeling-consideration—ignorance proliferates throughout society and takes on a life of its own, spreading through social networks and their algorithms. It is important to recognize that many of the reasons behind the election of dictators arise from the electorate’s legitimate, even fundamental, needs. These are not deliberately intended to harm others; rather, in their narrow rationality, they fail to perceive the larger web of interconnection that underlies both humanity and the cosmos. Conflict, therefore, is but a symptom of an inner misunderstanding. The narcissistic leader is merely a transient manifestation on the journey from the ego to the Self.
Opus Contra Naturam
Narcissistic leaders, who instinctively pursue dictatorial ambitions, hold a peculiar fascination for us. They projectively relieve us of our own doubt, feelings of inferiority, shame, and the quietly harbored whispers of our shadows. In this way, our relationship to ignorance— or rather, to stupidity— is deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, where sameness and tribal cohesion once ensured survival. It was meant to protect us from the “other,” yet at times it leaves us defenseless against the very consequences it unwittingly creates.
For millions of years, human society evolved in small groups where loyalty and identity were paramount, serving as the very principles of cohesion and survival. Unconscious identity (participation mystique), an undifferentiated hierarchy of priorities, and shared goals formed the basis of clan cohesion. A leader who could secure a common focus effectively ensured the survival of the group. Such a group functioned like a single organism, sustained by the leader’s control, which eliminated differences that might threaten its integrity. Fear and the numinous experiences of ecstasy born of identification were the primary emotions driving conformity. Imagination and mythopoetic creativity served precisely this purpose.
Only recently—around 70,000 years ago, during the cognitive revolution—humans began to develop capacities for symbolic thinking, complex language, willful decision-making, and moral reasoning. Rational principles started reshaping mass organization. The seed of the individual self took root. Instinct met its counterpart in the “other.” And just as beautiful roses grow from manure, the psyche found new paths—setting out on the risky experiment of individuality. Along with duality and doubt came the shadow of ignorance. The “other” was no longer merely a threat—it became a mirror, a source of conflict and creativity. And precisely from this tension, a new, third thing emerges.
Jung teaches that individuation is an opus contra naturam—a work against the natural instinctual nature of humans, a process that transcends nature while simultaneously containing it. Individuation can bring forth something unique, something that has never existed before. The conscious individual Self, as it begins to emerge, grants the organism of the masses not only self-awareness but also the capacity for transformation. This transition from unconscious unity to conscious individuation is nothing less than the miracle of a new paradigm.
Yes, stress, trauma, and problems threatening an individual’s survival automatically trigger a return to a mass mode of operation, to unconscious unity and attachment to leaders—but these states endure only until they collapse under the weight of their own unsustainability and transience. It is a phase that may seem cruel and helpless, yet it paves the way for the creation of new, creative solutions. How could we ever know that something must change without a mirror? Sometimes, that mirror is Icarus’s fall. What insight does not transform will, in time, be resolved by natural selection.
Democracy is an expression of yearning for values, a quest for ideals of fairness and equality where every human being deserves a rightful place. It is, at its core, an experiment where nothing is guaranteed. It is not blind faith that conscious effort alone can give rise to greater freedom, but a certainty rooted in the experience of all that humanity has redeemed countless times through sweat and blood. It is hope and a driving force for progress. I believe it springs from the very soul, like living water that gives meaning to our lives.
The Future of Consciousness
Consciousness, inseparably bound with meaning, is an exceedingly rare—if not entirely unique—phenomenon in the universe. Despite human progress, it remains an open question whether this precious light could one day be extinguished. Progress is no more guaranteed than regression.
Canadian biologist Peter Watts wrote an intriguing sci-fi novel, Blindsight (credit Jan Majer, Psychologie.cz). In it, humanity makes contact with an intelligent alien being. It understands our language, responds, and learns—yet it lacks something we take for granted as an essential part of intelligence: consciousness. It has no “I.” It does not think in the first person. It is like a camera that records an image but does not see. And still, it acts—and perhaps precisely because of this, it acts more effectively than humans. Astrobiologists and AI experts take this possibility seriously. The legitimate question arises: what if consciousness is not necessary for the development of intelligent life?
Many ask whether love, empathy, fear, conscience, and compassion will one day be recognized as expressions of a higher stage of human evolution—or dismissed as evolutionary baggage that humanity will eventually shed. This is, of course, a question without a definitive answer—unless we assume the existence of a supra-individual source of consciousness that exists “beyond” the individual self. Jung’s philosophy, reaching into metaphysics, addresses this theme precisely because it touches the domain of religion.
Consciousness, in its fundamental essence, arose in relation to the body and the physical environment. Our senses perceive the shape, taste, color, and sound of the world in which we evolved. The voice of a protective father, the taste of mother’s milk, or the scent of a predator—all of these are signals that determine our relationship to reality and our ability to survive within it. Our body perceives, feels safety, or reacts to pain and life-threatening factors. From the body and the center of the self arise fear, joy, and other emotions rooted in the experience of material existence. Human consciousness is a unique experience of reality through matter, and at the same time, it offers a glimpse into the universe of the psyche—connected to the body in ways still incomprehensible.
Religion, at its core, is an attempt to gain insight into a “mind” that transcends individuality. Jung called it the collective unconscious. The soul of the world—anima mundi—may be an intelligence that existed long before individual consciousness emerged. It is this consciousness that has found a mirror in the human being, allowing it both to reflect itself and to evolve higher forms such as compassion, love, and awe, as Jung describes in Answer to Job. Does humanity hold a unique role in the discovery and expansion of the universe’s consciousness? Is the universe conscious a priori?
Given the limits of our subjectivity, we are left with no choice but to postulate a distinction between consciousness and intelligence. In our interactions with others, we unconsciously rely on a theory of mind—we assume consciousness in others and project our own experience onto them. But this approach grows increasingly problematic in the age of artificial intelligence. When engaging with animals, extraterrestrials, or intelligent machines, we must rely solely on intelligence as an “output”—the result of intelligent activity that we interpret through the lens of our own consciousness. A computer may read millions of pages per second and communicate seamlessly with another machine, but it becomes conscious only when there is someone who “knows” about this process.
Similarly, trees—connected through underground mycorrhizal networks (the so-called “wood wide web”) that transmit water, nutrients, and warning signals—appear to act intelligently. Yet this intelligence is visible to us only because we perceive it through our own observing intelligence. Slime molds of the genus Physarum polycephalum provide another example: they require no nervous system to find optimal paths to nutrients in a maze. Termites, too, are capable of constructing vast and intricate mounds with highly sophisticated systems of ventilation, temperature regulation, and humidity control—all without central organization or a brain. Each individual follows simple rules, but together they give rise to emergent structures whose functionality rivals that of intelligent human architecture. This kind of intelligence, like other forms of communication among plants or non-cerebral organisms, does not arise from conscious or I-will-deliberate processes. It appears intelligent only because we witness it through the mirror of our own I-consciousness. The problem of consciousness will remain unresolved until we find a way to grasp it objectively. For now this is the very paradox we encounter.
Consciousness, bound to the emotional state of the “I-body” and its environment, may serve as an intelligent catalyst, but it is not in itself identical with intelligence. Consciousness entails the union of affect with the experiencing subject of responsibility.
The transformation of an intelligent agent into a conscious agent requires the union of the self with the very feeling of self—an emotional insight. Emotions are, in essence, autonomous organs of the soul. Jung (1937) writes:
“It would be a great mistake to think that feeling consists of emotions. Emotions are states that possess you; but if you have feeling, you possess it—it does not possess you. If it possesses you, it is an emotion.”
In other words, consciousness involves the development of feeling—and it is precisely this that distinguishes intelligence from consciousness. However, the evidence of intelligence surrounds us. Intelligence is the capacity to achieve goals and solve problems. It includes the ability to communicate and to make use of information through feedback from interaction. Bees, termites, ant colonies, coral reefs, and complex forest systems all serve as examples. In these systems, we see the exchange of information, feedback, self-correction, and self-organization—the same processes that govern neural systems, including the human brain.
The unconscious undoubtedly possesses intelligence. It can process information, analyze, solve problems, anticipate outcomes, and influence consciousness by creating images or responses. And yet, the question of “who” truly mediates conscious insight remains a mystery.
Intelligence that abandoned consciousness—and with it, duality and all its expressions—would in fact regress to a lower evolutionary level. In theory, this is possible. But I am an optimist: I believe that even in such an organism, the collective unconscious would ultimately find its way into the world through a new self.
References:
- Aquinas, T. (2000). Aurora consurgens: A document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the problem of opposites in alchemy (M.-L. von Franz, Trans. & Commentary). Inner City Books.
- Bonhoeffer, D. (1995). Letters and papers from prison (E. Bethge, Ed.). Touchstone. (Original work published 1951)
- Harari, Y. N. (2024). Nexus: A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI. Spiegel & Grau.
- Jung, C. G. (1937). Psychological factors determining human behavior. In The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8). Princeton University Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1952). Answer to Job. In The collected works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 11). Princeton University Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1963). Mysterium Coniunctionis: An inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy (Vol. 14). Princeton University Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1937). The realities of practical psychotherapy [Unpublished lecture]. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 16 (Appendix; The Realities of Practical Psychotherapy). Princeton University Press.
- Reid, C. R., Latty, T., Dussutour, A., & Beekman, M. (2012). Slime mold uses an externalized spatial memory to navigate in complex environments. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(43), 17490–17494. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1215037109
- Simard, S. W., Perry, D. A., Jones, M. D., Myrold, D., Durall, D., & Molina, R. (1997). Net transfer of carbon between ectomycorrhizal tree species in the field. Nature, 388, 579–582
- Šolc, V., & Didier, G. J. (2025). Dark religion: The psychology of denial and the discovery of reality. Malvern.
- Šolc, V., & Majer, J. (2025, April). Interview: Jan Majer, Psychologie.cz and Vlado Šolc. Psychologie.cz.
- Turner, J. S. (2000). The extended organism: The physiology of animal-built structures. Harvard University Press.
- Watts, P. (2006). Blindsight. Tor Books.
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Šolc, V. (b. 1972). Jungian analyst and psychotherapist. Vlado graduated with a degree in clinical psychology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. He currently practices in Glendale, Wisconsin, and Chicago, Illinois. Author of Psyche Matrix Reality (Amos, 2007), The Father Archetype and Other Depth Psychological Studies (Triton, 2009), In the Name of God: Fanaticism in the Concept of Depth Psychology (Triton, 2013), Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology (Chiron Publications, 2018), Democracy and Individuation in the Age of Conspiracy Theories (Bookla, 2021), Dark Religion: The Psychology of Denial and the Discovery of Reality (Malvern, 2025), and Dark Religion: The Psychology of Denial and Discovery of Reality (Exist, 2025).
The post Vlado Solc | From Illusion to Conscious Suffering: A Jungian View of Politics, Possession, and Redemption appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
The author of the acclaimed introduction to the practice of Jungian psychology, Boundaries of the Soul, June Singer draws from personal and professional experience to discuss the importance of dreams, those gifts from the unconscious which profoundly imbue our conscious lives. This program provides an excellent introduction not only to Jung’s dream theory, but also its application in psychoanalysis—from one of the masters of the art. It was recorded on September 21, 1975.
June Singer, PhD was a major figure in the development of the Jungian movement in the United States. She earned a Ph.D. in Psychology from Northwestern University and completed training as a Jungian analyst in Zurich, Switzerland. During the 1960′s, Dr. Singer founded the Analytical Psychology Club of Chicago, which eventually became the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, in order to provide interested individuals an opportunity to study the works of Carl Jung. June Singer was a gifted analyst and a distinguished author and lecturer. Her text, Boundaries of the Soul, is considered to be one of the best introductions to Jungian thought. She also wrote two books about sexuality, and a Jungian study of the poet William Blake.
Link to June Singer’s lectures on jungchicago.org
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The post Institute Archive | Dreams: Gifts from the Unconscious with June Singer appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We begin our coverage of Orpheus and Euridice. This episode is primarily focused on the archetypal power of creativity as demonstrated in Edith Hamilton’s telling of the story. We will read Ovid’s version and dig into other elements of the story in the following episode.
This episode we will be reading from:
- Metamorphoses, by Ovid. Translation by Mary M. Innes.
We recommend watching part or all of the opera L’Orfeo. You can find a video with English subtitles here.
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: File:Kratzenstein orpheus.jpg – Wikipedia
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The post Jungian Ever After | Orpheus and Euridice – Creativity appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This article originally appeared on psychologie.cz. Vlado Solc, member of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, is interviewed by Jan Majer, Editor-in-Chief of Psychologie.cz.
In his books, Jungian Analyst Vlado Solc has been describing for many years how high politics is increasingly dominated by base motives – envy, frustration, the need for revenge. The turn of events is unexpected and disturbing. And beneath the surface, something deeper is happening. It’s not about politics, it’s about the soul.
Jan Majer – Years ago, you pointed out that high politics and society were increasingly being driven by low motives — envy, frustration, the need for revenge. In recent weeks, a lot has happened. What new insights have these events brought you? What psychological connection have you realized?
~ Vlado Šolc – Even before Donald Trump entered the political scene, low impulses had begun to awaken in American society. I called it an emergence of the Narcissistic archetypal dynamics. This goes beyond individual vanity — Narcissus is a symbol of psychic fragmentation, of the ego being consumed by an image of oneself to the point that deeper, conscious connection becomes impossible. Psychologically, this represents a splitting of psychic opposites, a loss of living contact with the soul, which typically leads to a loss of compassion, perspective, and understanding of higher motives such as art, ethics, and spirituality.
In this fragmented state, what had previously been considered via lenses of moral anxiety suddenly became a new value, no longer viewed with fear, but with fearless excitement. Trump rose up as a great object of collective projection of this American complex; as a chosen Über-Narcissus, he legitimized these shadowy emotions — rage, entitlement, xenophobia — which had previously been suppressed due to social oversight. He thus gave permission for the collective shadow to manifest openly, without shame.
This opened the door to authoritarian dynamics and all narcissistic manipulation that catalyzes it. When society is psychologically fragmented, when people lose inner and outer cohesion, they often seek a dominant figure to restore a sense of order — someone emotionally expressive, certain, and seemingly strong. Manipulators and narcissists channel the chaos of the collective psyche and provide it with temporary relief by directing the collective shadow outward onto scapegoats: the state, immigrants, or anyone slightly different from oneself.
Many experiences of the hardships that come upon us in a rapidly changing world are like splinter-traumas that we are unable to process smoothly. They, for many, create fragility that weakens the strengths of ego-consciousness and causes societies to regress — emotionally, morally. Think of the unmet needs of the small child, unable to find expression in words, instead acted out in rage, projection, or magical thinking. Beneath the surface, there are legitimate needs of security, belonging, fairness, and transformation — but without mindful reflection, they emerge in distorted, primitive forms.
Moreover, trauma calls out protective archetypal fantasies that are beyond time. It manifests unconsciously as a longing for the past, a longing for a golden age. Thus, slogans like “Make America Great Again” reflect this nostalgia; it is a deep psychological defense against the painful present.
As a nation, speaking collectively, we are undergoing an alchemical nigredo — a dark, on the surface disorienting, phase of dissolution. What is dissolving are established concepts that the ego cling onto in order to handle reality, but everything changes, and nothing is permanent; our reality is at the same time a maya, illusion, supported by collective hypnosis. Without the real, conscious confrontation with the darkness, with all those outlived parts of our lives, without authentic suffering, transformation is not possible. In this stage, fixed structures need to collapse, and pieces be linked via pathways of new vital psychic energies. That always hurts; the suffering must be integrated, not bypassed through scapegoating, conspiracy fantasies, or new idealizations that only create new collective hypnosis. Otherwise, the unconscious contents will simply be projected onto new objects, new false ways of escaping reality will be created, repeating the same cycle.
In the projection, Trump initially emerges as a kind of savior — a screen through which disowned emotions can be manifested. But over time, he becomes a mirror. This is an archetypal pattern through which consciousness arises: the first phase is idealization, expectations are magically assigned to the Redeemer; the second phase is disillusionment, where the projection collapses and reality steps in and can be reflected upon. If the projections are withdrawn consciously, there is a chance for a new light. If not successful, it merely shifts to the next fantasy-image.
Looking deeper through a symbolic lens, Trump’s role embodies the Trickster that has many narcissistic qualities — a figure who disrupts, mocks, but also unwittingly reveals hidden hypocrisies without necessarily offering any viable solutions. The Trickster triggers activation of the shadow but also risks unleashing chaos if there is no good container to hold the confrontation consciously.
We could also see aspects of the Wounded King archetype: when his personal wounds mirror the land’s sickness. Ultimately, in alchemical view, the king must die within the crucible of nigredo. Trump will very unlikely personally transform, but through him, the collective shadow has been exposed. If society remains trapped in the us-versus-them paradigm — seeing him solely as a villain or savior — opposites will remain separated and in a clashing state. But if we polish the mirror, if we see clearly the face of what has been disowned within ourselves, then the work of soul can begin.
This is why I believe that even though there is great danger in current societal development, there is also profound opportunity for transformation. Trump as a cultural phenomenon reveals the psychic map with many swampy areas that we are collectively inhabiting. Healing requires that we do not merely fight external battles but engage in slow, rather difficult inner work — the vulnerable work of mourning illusions, enduring disillusionment, and accepting responsibility for the planet we inhabit, including all living creatures.
Ultimately, most likely, the Trump presidency will uncover the ancient truth that what is asked of us is not to find another “redeemer,” but to redeem ourselves.
Jan Majer – You mention the alchemical phase nigredo — a period of darkness that can precede inner transformation. What might follow? Is there a chance that, as a society, we will also go through a phase of rebirth, like in the legend of the Fisher King? And could the same people who today admire the “Über-Narcissist” one day prefer a figure who embodies more mature emotions and values? Or is it just as likely that things will get even worse in the future? Can psychology offer us any insight into this?
~ Vlado Šolc – Narcissistic splitting is essentially a regression into a more primitive psychic state in which the ego is still merged with the Self and thus feels omnipotent and superior. However, this feeling is illusory because it is disconnected from reality. It represents profound disharmony of being in the world, disharmony with the principles of existence. Such a state is not sustainable over time — it goes against the instinctual direction of psychic development, which, as Jung teaches, seeks expansion: not expansion of ego, but expansion of the Self, the conscious union with reality in all its painful and magnificent complexity.
Naturally, no one can predict how deep the rupture must become before society begins to feel the inevitable consequences of its own “darkness.” It would not be the first time in history. In therapy, we often observe a similar process: a person’s illusory stance becomes so out of sync with their environment that “something happens” — a crisis, a confrontation, or even a collapse. DUI, bankruptcy, heart attack, or divorce… The family may no longer be willing to tolerate denial, manipulation, or pretense. The narcissistic bubble of perfection bursts. And then, for the first time, real problems must be addressed with humility and truthfulness.
Thomas Aquinas, in his mystical work Aurora Consurgens (Rising Dawn), describes the soul as a wounded bride longing for union with her bridegroom. The soul yearns for union with matter, for embodiment, for realization. But there is a descent into chaos and pain before such a union can take place — a bleeding wound precedes the healing, the birth of consciousness. For the awakening, “the body has to be spiritualized, and the spirit has to be incarnated; both things must take place,” says Jung.
Similarly, in the legend of the Fisher King I mentioned, the king suffers from a mysterious wound in the groin that renders him impotent and immobile. His land turns into a barren wasteland. He can do nothing but sit by the river and wait — wait not for conquest or command, but for a fish. Knights are sent in search of the Holy Grail that could heal the king and the land. Yet it is only Parsifal, the naïve fellow with a pure heart, who, after years of wandering and stumbling, matures enough to ask the simple but essential question: “What ails you, my king?”
It is this act of sincere inquiry — of daring to approach suffering without judgment or denial — that breaks the curse. The king is healed. The land is fertile once again.
In this myth, Parsifal acts like a therapist: he dares to look inside the wound, to ask about it rather than blame others or seek false remedies. He nudges the king to enter into a relationship with suffering.
Many people on a personal level will not be able to ask this question, but society as such can build institutions that serve as pillars of conscious structures.
Whether rebirth follows nigredo depends on our willingness, individual and collective, to endure the suffering, to ask the mindful questions, and to relinquish false certainties. As Jung famously exclaimed: “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.”
Only through honest insight into our wounded land can we move toward a more conscious and compassionate society.
Jan Majer – It seems that the rise of selfish politics — politics that is ruthless, exploitative, manipulative, and deceitful — is not merely an American phenomenon. Let us look at history and ponder what led to the collapse of empires or world conflicts. The narcissistic paradigm often emerges from a disrupted harmony — such as the consequences of economic decline, social inequality, the destabilization of economic systems, or the weakening of national and cultural confidence. A narcissistic leader, typically an advocate of “low motives” such as fear, resentment, scapegoating, and the desire for dominance or purity, offers simple solutions — ones the masses can grasp and emotionally resonate with. Why do you think this is happening now?
~ Vlado Šolc – When people feel un-whole, lost in their place, powerless or humiliated — economically, socially, or culturally — they unconsciously seek a figure who appears strong, confident, and unbothered by self-doubt. The narcissistic leader mirrors back a wishful, idealized fantasy image that appears powerful, entitled, victorious on the surface. In this sense, the leader serves as a container for collective hope and collective shadow alike — embodying not only people’s aspirations but also their disowned aggression, prejudices, and need for power and control. The leader feeds a delusion that the shadow’s way is a noble one!
If we ask “why” this phenomenon arose now, three different perspectives come to mind.
First, there is why as a cause (causa efficiens) — the source. Here we can name several major societal factors: global climate change destabilizing established ways of life; the rapid pace of social transformation catalyzed by social media; and, more recently, the unexpected influence of artificial intelligence, among others. All these forces intensify uncertainty, anxiety, and a sense of loss of control.
Second is why as a reason, motive, or image (causa praesens) — what feeds the phenomenon in the present moment hic et nunc. In my practice, I often observe how many clients experience anxiety, depression, or rapid mood changes without insight, relation, or attempt to understand. When emotions are dissociated from ego-consciousness, they manifest rather in a raw, “shadowy” form — as fear, anger, or shame — and are easily projected outward in an attempt to find a villain that is responsible for them. This projection fuels social conflicts, conspiratorial thinking, and scapegoating, creating a climate of paranoia, flight-or-fight responses.
And finally, third why is why as an intent (causa finalis) — the purpose. The psyche possesses a self-healing drive, aiming to unite opposites and harmony. Jung teaches that when opposites break apart, the unconscious creates compensating energy and manifests through enactments that in turn demand engagement, response. Crises, we can say, are summons to individuation.
That alchemical nigredo — the experience of chaos and darkness — coincides, in fact, with the noble truth expounded by the Buddha: there is suffering. There is no bypassing suffering by any maneuvers or narcissistic tricks; it must be faced and related to. We ought to ask ourselves, “What truly ails us?”
– Jan Majer – Now a perhaps somewhat unexpected question, but it might be interesting to ground the discussion this way: What role does human stupidity play in the development of society?
~ Vlado Šolc – Stupidity is a force that throws obstacles in our path, creating suffering for ourselves and others without any apparent benefit. We all know it intimately from our own lives and from the observation of the world around us. Carl Jung warned — even before Germany unleashed catastrophic war in Europe — that stupidity is a far more dangerous force than wisdom, precisely because everyone understands stupid things, while only a few understand intelligent things. Stupidity is immune to logic, impervious to wisdom, and inclined either toward evil or indifference to it. It dulls ethical sensitivity and distorts reality.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, reflecting on totalitarianism, considered stupidity even more dangerous than evil itself because stupidity is elusive — it does not recognize its own source. Stupidity is essentially the inability to observe the consequences of one’s own actions. Buddha compared it to blindness.
From the perspective of depth psychology, stupidity is not merely a lack of intelligence; it is ignorance — a disconnection from one’s own inner life. The ego (the “I”) is initially completely unaware of its origin, but through the process of individuation, it can become aware of it. Consciousness begins as perception (experiencing), then becomes projection, and later discrimination — that is, relationship (in higher consciousness, this is followed by the unification of the opposites). For such a relationship, an observer is necessary — one who can evaluate the experiencer and the projector. Stupidity lacks this ability.
For the fool, things merely “happen” — fate appears random and hostile, but the connecting thread — the self — remains invisible. Thus, stupidity externalizes responsibility: what befalls the fool seems to come from the outside, never from within.
From a Jungian perspective, stupidity is ultimately the inability to communicate with one’s own self, to sustain a dialogue with the unconscious. Animals are intelligent in that they follow instinct, but they are not conscious in the human sense, because true consciousness requires self-reflection. A human being, estranged from instinct yet lacking reflection, becomes lost — trapped in the labyrinth of conflicting demands without an inner compass. It is the dialogue with one’s own soul that heals stupidity.
In many fairy tales, a fool or a naïve young man finds himself, out of nowhere, on a heroic journey. First, something happens; then he begins to react, and finally to reflect. That which is open to the new also evolves. Individuation is a path toward wisdom, but foolishness is part of it. Even in the Christian myth, the first humans sinned because they listened to the serpent without thinking. Foolishness is therefore an archetypal process. We could say it is spiritually programmed into human existence. The ego first separates from its source in order to become aware of its own foolishness through the experience of contradiction with reality. There have been many scientific errors that eventually led to reevaluation and, subsequently, to progress.
Today, stupidity is amplified by modern forces — by algorithmic echo chambers, by emotional manipulation through social media, by the rush toward superficial certainty. Stupidity is no longer merely passive; it is curated, monetized, and weaponized. Without a culture of self-reflection, unconsciousness mushrooms across systems, becoming a force of its own propagating itself through social media and their algorithms.
Jan Majer – Narcissistic leaders with dictatorial tendencies have a strange appeal for people. It begins to feel like a systemic failure. Is democracy at odds with who we really are? And how can I deal, in my own mind, with the heavy feeling that the foolish members of my tribe are endangering me, my loved ones, and the entire community? I believe that resistance to stupidity is evolutionarily rooted in us — meant to protect us — but it seems we are defenseless.
~ Vlado Šolc – Human society evolved for millions of years in small groups, where loyalty and identity were the top priorities. Unconscious unity, a kind of magical togetherness (participation mystique), lack of distinction in priorities, and shared goals formed the foundation of cohesion in every clan. A leader who could secure a collective attitude essentially ensured the clan’s survival. The group functioned as a single organism, which the leader kept operating efficiently by eliminating emerging differences. Fear and ecstasy born out of unity were the core emotions of conformity. Once imagination and myth-making allowed for individual growth, this capacity began to dissipate.
Only relatively recently — during the cognitive revolution some 70,000 years ago — did humans acquire the capacity for rational thought: the ability to imagine future outcomes, perform abstract reasoning, reflect through symbols, and develop the complex language that now shapes our world. (But the millions-of-years-old human still resides within us.) Rational — rather than irrational — principles began to reshape mass organization. The seed of the I began to sprout. Instinct found its counterpart — the “other.” And yet, the most beautiful rose grows from the manure heap. Psyche discovered a new, until then unexplored, path. Thus began the experiment of individuality.
Duality entered the world, along with doubt and, at the same time, foolishness. The “other” is not superfluous — it is a mirror, a source of conflict, but also a motivator — and from this, something new, a third thing, arises.
Jung teaches that individuation is opus contra naturam — a work against nature’s instinctual tendencies, a process that transcends nature yet includes it as well. Individuation brings forth something unique, something new that had never existed before. The emerging conscious individual “I” enables the mass organism not only to perceive itself but also to transform itself. This shift from unconscious unity to conscious individuation is the miracle of a new paradigm.
However, yes, stress, trauma, and problems that threaten the survival of the individual trigger a pull toward the return to mass phenomena — to identification and attachment to narcissistic leaders — but only until these patterns collapse under the pressure of unsustainable principles. It’s a phase that may seem harsh and perhaps helpless, but it will likely lead to the creation of new, creative solutions. How can we know something must change without a mirror? Sometimes the mirror is an Icarian fall. What cannot be changed through insight must be resolved by natural selection.
Democracy is a longing for values, a search for ideals, and truly an experiment where nothing is guaranteed. It is not merely a blind belief that greater freedom can emerge from conscious effort, but a certainty grounded in the experience of what humanity has achieved time and again through sweat and blood. It is hope and a motivation for progress. I believe it springs from the soul itself, like living water that gives meaning to our lives.
Jan Majer – Canadian biologist Peter Watts wrote an intriguing sci-fi novel titled Blindsight. In it, humanity makes contact with an intelligent alien being. This being understands our language, responds, and learns. But it lacks something we would consider an obvious part of intelligence — consciousness. It has no “I.” It does not think in the first person. It is like a camera that captures an image but does not see. And yet it acts. And perhaps for that very reason — more efficiently than humans. Astrobiologists and artificial intelligence experts are seriously considering this possibility: what if consciousness, our celebrated sense of self, is not necessary for the development of intelligent life? What if empathy, fear, conscience, or compassion are not signs of a higher stage of human evolution but evolutionary burdens that humanity will eventually shed?
~ Vlado Šolc – That is a very interesting question. I’ll try to reflect on it from the perspective of Jung’s philosophy, which overlaps with metaphysics and religion. Consciousness, in its basic nature, evolved in connection with the body and the physical environment. Our senses perceive the shape, taste, color, and sound of the surroundings in which we grew up. The voice of a protective father, the taste of mother’s milk, or the smell of a predator — these are all signals that shape our relationship with reality and our ability to survive in it. Our body perceives, experiences safety, or reacts to painful and life-threatening stimuli. From the body and the center of the “I” arise fear, joy, and other emotions connected to being in the material world. The human experience of consciousness is a unique experience of reality through matter on one hand, and on the other, it is also a glimpse into the universe of the psyche — one that is still mysteriously connected to the body. Religion is essentially an effort to access this insight into the “mind” that transcends individuality. Jung called it the collective unconscious. The soul of the world — anima mundi — may be a form of intelligence that existed even before individual consciousness arose. It is a kind of awareness that found in humans a mirror through which it could know itself and develop higher forms such as compassion, love, and awe — as Jung writes in Answer to Job. Does humanity have a unique role in discovering and expanding the consciousness of the universe? Is the universe conscious a priori?
Given the limitations arising from our subjectivity, we are left with no choice but to postulate a distinction between consciousness and intelligence. In interactions with others, we unconsciously rely on theory of mind — we assume that others are conscious — and extrapolate our own experience onto another Homo sapiens. Of course, this assumption becomes more problematic with the rise of artificial intelligence. When interacting with animals, alien beings, or intelligent robots (AI), we must rely solely on intelligence as “output” — the result of intelligent activity, which we then evaluate through our own consciousness and intelligence. A smart computer can read a million pages per second and transmit that to another computer, but it only becomes conscious when someone is “aware” of it.
We might say that trees — which communicate via underground mycorrhizal networks connecting the roots of various plants, often referred to as the “wood wide web,” allowing them to transport water and chemical signals, with healthier trees transferring carbon and nutrients to younger or weaker ones, and sending warning signals about pests or stress — act intelligently. But this assumption arises only because our (observing) intelligence allows us to interpret it that way.
The problem of consciousness will remain unanswered until we are able to “understand” it objectively. Here lies the core contradiction — the paradox of this issue. Consciousness, connected with the emotional state of the “I-body” and the environment, can be intelligent and certainly can act as a catalyst for intelligence, but it is not the same thing. Consciousness involves the integration of affect with the experiencer of responsibility. Transforming an intelligent agent into a conscious one requires connecting the “I” with the sense of self — in other words, emotional insight. Emotions are essentially autonomous organs of the soul. Jung (1937) wrote: “It would be a great mistake to think that feeling consists of emotions. Emotions are states that possess you; but if you have a feeling, you have the feeling — it does not have you. If it has you, it is an emotion.” In other words, consciousness includes the development of feeling — and that is what distinguishes intelligence from consciousness.
Evidence of intelligence surrounds us. Intelligence is the capacity to achieve goals and solve problems. It includes the ability to communicate and use information based on feedback from interaction. Examples include bees, termites, or ant colonies, coral reefs, and organized complex forest systems. In these systems, we observe processes of information exchange, feedback, self-correction, and self-organization. This concept applies to many organisms and even to nervous systems, including the human brain.
The unconscious undoubtedly possesses intelligence. It can process information, analyze, solve problems, predict outcomes, and influence consciousness by creating images or responding to communication. Yet the question of “who” actually mediates conscious insight remains unknowable.
Intelligence that renounces consciousness — and with it, abandons duality and everything related to it — would, in effect, regress to a lower evolutionary level. That is theoretically possible, of course. But I am an optimist and believe that even in such an organism, the collective unconscious would eventually find its way.
References:
- Aquinas, T. (2000). Aurora consurgens: A document attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the problem of opposites in alchemy (M.-L. von Franz, Trans. & Commentary). Inner City Books.
- Bonhoeffer, D. (1995). Letters and papers from prison (E. Bethge, Ed.). Touchstone. (Original work published 1951)
- Jung, C. G. (1937). Psychological factors determining human behavior. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 8). Princeton University Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1952). Answer to Job. In The Collected Works of C. G. Jung (Vol. 11). Princeton University Press.
- Jung, C. G. (1963). Mysterium Coniunctionis: An inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy (Vol. 14). Princeton University Press.
- Šolc, V., & Majer, J. (2025, April). Interview: Jan Majer, Psychologie.cz and Vlado Šolc. Psychologie.cz.
- Šolc, V., & Didier, G. J. (2025). Temné náboženství: Psychologie popírání a objevování skutečnosti. Malvern
- Watts, P. (2006). Blindsight. Tor Books.
Vladislav (Vlado) Šolc(pronounced “Schultz”) is a professional psychotherapist and Jungian analyst practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vlado received training from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Charles University in Prague. He lives in constant awe of the miracle of existence. He is also the author of six depth-psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; The Father Archetype; In the Name of God—Fanaticism from the Perspective of Depth Psychology; Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology (with George Didier), Individuation and Democracy in the Times of Conspiracy Theories; Dark Religion: Psychology of Denial and Uncovering of Reality (with George Didier), Dark Religion: Psychology of Denying and Uncovering of Reality (with George Didier).
Links: Vlado Solc’s Website | Vlado Solc’s Lectures Available on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
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Jungian Psychoanalysts Laura Tuley and John White discuss Jungian Analysis in a World on Fire: At the Nexus of Individual and Collective Trauma, a volume of essays, all authored by practicing Jungian psychoanalysts, of which they were the editors. It examines and illuminates ways of working with individual analytic and therapeutic clients in the context of powerful and current collective forces, in the United States and beyond.
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Laura Camille Tuley, PhD (USA) is a Jungian Psychoanalyst in private practice in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the co-editor of Jungian Analysis in a World on Fire: At the Nexus of Individual and Collective Trauma (Routledge, 2024) and has contributed to Psychological Perspectives, Exploring Depth Psychology and the Female Self: Feminist Themes from Somewhere, Mothering in the Third Wave, Art Papers, Hypatia, the New Orleans Review and the APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy. Tuley is a faculty member of the New Orleans Jung Seminar of the IRSJA and the co-editor of the “Clinical Commentaries” and “Film and Culture” features of the Journal of Analytical Psychology.
John R. White, PhD‘s training was in philosophy and he was a philosophy professor for twenty years. As he moved into midlife, he began training as a psychotherapist. He has a Masters in mental health counseling from Franciscan University of Steubenville. He is also a psychoanalyst in the tradition of Carl Jung. He is a member of the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA) and an associate member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP). He practices psychotherapy according to psychodynamic, classical Jungian and archetypal approaches and more broadly in all approaches associated with “depth psychology”. Learn more at johnrwhitepgh.org.
Edited by Laura Camille Tuley and John R. White:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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The theme of individuation sounds through Jung’s writings, like a leitmotiv, from the time of his break with Freud and psychoanalysis onward without pause to his death. All things considered, it is perhaps his major psychological idea, a sort of backbone for the rest of the corpus.
Introducing the term in his esoteric, anonymously published little book Septem Sermones ad Mortuos (Seven Sermons to the Dead) in 1915, Jung deepened and expanded the idea in the much revised work, also begun in the same period, Two Essays in Analytical Psychology (Coll. Wks., Vol. 7) and in the summary work of the early period, Psychological Types (Coll. Wks., Vol. 6). Later he added further substance to the notion in his studies of archetypes and especially in his researches on alchemy. He detailed individuation clinically in his seminars (Dream Analysis, The Visions Seminar, and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra) as well as in several case studies. It also played an important role in his many writings on religion and culture.
Individuation was taken up as a central theme by nearly all of Jung’s important students. Major contributions were made to the theory by Fordham, who studied individuation in children, and by Neumann, who saw individuation as unfolding in three major stages, each containing several sub-phases. Hillman, a Jungian deconstructionist, has vigorously attacked the notion of psychological development in general and individuation in particular, holding a view that such ideas are nothing but fantasies used to construct modern psychological myths. More recently, Jacoby has added refinement and differentiation to the theory of individuation by introducing data from modern infant research. Samuels has introduced the feature of political consciousness and involvement. The debate goes on.
In the following pages, I present a distillation and synthesis of the Jungian tradition on the central theme of individuation, situating this particular discussion in the clinical setting of psychotherapy and showing how the working Jungian psychotherapist may use this developmental idea in practice.
When Jungian psychotherapists face patients for the first time, they try to size them up. One listens to that first outpouring of narrative, of confession or complaint, with an ear cocked to tone. Does this sound like true suffering, or is this person blocked in feeling or cranky in thought? Is this someone who blames others too much, or does she shoulder too much responsibility for what goes wrong? Is this person too passive? Too active?
Within the texture of even the most innocent first narrative therapists will often spot fragility, entitlement, emotional vulnerability and a host of other telling feelings and attitudes. In the therapist’s own emotional responses to this narrative, too, one may detect the pull of a raging demand for help, or the opposite – the pushing away that creates too great a distance. In the first sessions, and indeed throughout a long therapeutic treatment, therapists spin an evolving mental assessment of how their patients are carrying on with life at the particular stage they find themselves in now, as they attempt to settle their old accounts, open new ones, and elaborate their stories.
Jungian psychotherapists hold a notion of psychological development, of “stages of life,” and we ask ourselves questions about the levels of psychological development demonstrated in the narratives offered by the people who come to us. Does a person’s discourse show a good match, we wonder for instance, between chronological age and psychological attitudes? The full clinical impression of a person’s level or degree of psychological development takes many sessions and much observation to formulate in depth and detail. It is an estimate of their achieved individuation.
The Jungian therapist’s unspoken reflections on achieved individuation take place within the general context of formulating a diagnosis and assessment of a patient’s psychological development. What is the patient’s level of everyday functioning? Does physical illness play a role? Is there serious psychopathology? Sometimes these considerations feature prominently in the treatment; in other cases they play no significant role at all. Determining their importance for guiding treatment is the business of the early sessions of psychotherapy, even while these concerns remain a consideration throughout. And just as diagnosis from the clinical perspective of the standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS IV) is an ongoing and evolving consideration — which the Jungian psychotherapist, like any other, makes in such terms as major depression, anxiety, the various character disorders, not to mention addictions, relationship and adjustment problems, etc. — so also the evaluation of individuation is an evolving business. It is not always so clear exactly where a particular patient stands on the road to individuation even after considerable time has been spent in therapy, but the experienced Jungian psychotherapist will have a strong sense of the general picture after even a few sessions.
This question of how far a person has come on the road toward individuation is different from the usual types of diagnostic question raised in psychological assessment, although they are not unrelated, as I will try to show in the following pages. In considering individuation, one has in mind something more encompassing than only cognitive development, behavioral adjustment, moral attainment, or the presence or absence of psychopathological features. These are important markers in the complexity that constitutes individuation, but they are not exhaustive. There are other features that are also determinative. The assessment of individuation describes a person’s conscious and unconscious assumptions and attitudes: about the basis and sources of identity and sense of self worth, about the quality and meaning of relationships to other people and to the world at large, about the energy (or the absence of it) poured into personal striving and ambition, about the objects of desire and passions that lead a person into the highways and byways of life, about the focus of life’s meaning. What the Jungian therapist is looking for in making an assessment of individuation is how a person’s chronological age matches up with the level of development in these conscious and unconscious assumptions and attitudes. To take the full inventory of them is a large and complex study, which includes transferential and countertransferential sources of information. Of course, cultural factors must also be considered in making a reasonably fair and accurate assessment of a person’s individuation.
Jung himself, who is generally credited with being the first important full lifespan theorist, wrote about two major stages of life, the first half of life and the second. Each stage has its typical developmental tasks, sequences and crises. A later Jungian theorist, Erich Neumann, conceptualized the lifelong development of personality as falling into three major eras or phases. Neumann’s paradigm, which does not contradict Jung’s, adds a useful degree of further differentiation to the first half of life, and Neumann’s model is widely used by Jungian psychotherapists today.
Within the linguistic universe of analytical psychology, the lifelong development of personality is called individuation. Briefly stated, individuation refers to the process of becoming the personality that one innately is potentially from the beginning of life. The sequence of developmental stages in almost every individual’s life has common features, hazards, and breakdowns. The Jungian psychotherapist has a keen awareness of how this developmental sequence unfolds ideally and how it so often fails to reach its proper destination due to genetic, circumstantial, social, and cultural obstacles. There are also some important differences between the genders to be considered.
In summary, then, the patient arriving for Jungian psychotherapy is intuitively and clinically assessed in the mind of the psychotherapist, generally against the DSM IV standards of normal and abnormal mental and psychological states and specifically against the perspectives of the individuation process as this has been outlined in the Jungian literature (see References for a selection of key works on this topic). Most likely this assessment never becomes apparent to the patient, nor is it discussed explicitly. It is, however, used by the therapist to guide interpretations, to make interventions, and to establish and maintain the structure of therapy. Much of the therapist’s style in a specific case depends on this assessment of where the patient stands on the road of individuation.
In the following pages I will survey the three main stages of the individuation process, its two major crises periods, and its ultimate goal. The efforts made in therapy are fundamentally geared toward promoting and facilitating, or toward unblocking and restarting, the individuation process in patients. The three stages of individuation are: a) the containment/nurturance (i.e., the maternal, or in Neumann’s terminology the “matriarchal”) stage, b) the adapting/adjusting (i.e., the paternal, or, again in Neumann’s terminology, the “patriarchal”) stage, and c) the centering/integrating (in Neumann’s terminology, the individual) stage. (These can be coordinated with Erik Erickson’s seven stages of psychological development.) The two major crises of individuation fall in the transitions between these stages, the first in adolescence and early adulthood and the second at midlife.
These three stages should be thought of not as discrete and entirely separate rooms that are inhabited for a period of time and then left behind when one enters the next chamber, or as a specific number of miles on life’s journey never to be trodden again once passed through. Rather, they indicate emphases and predominant attitudes during the major eras of a person’s life. They are stages of growth and development that shade gradually from one into the next, and features of each continue, but in a less predominant way, as a person makes the passage through a whole lifetime. The first stage refers to childhood, the second to early and middle adulthood, and the third to middle and late adulthood and old age. This view of the lifeline is a tool for psychotherapy, useful if applied with a deft touch but damaging if handled too concretely and with blunt force. It is a perspective that gives the Jungian psychotherapist a way of understanding the psychological qualities and some of the troubling deficits of the patients who come for treatment.
THE CONTAINMENT/NURTURANCE STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION Like other mammals, humans start terrestrial life in a maternal womb. This space, bathed in amniotic fluid and kept warm by the surrounding body of the mother, is the archetypal nurturing environment. Passively fed through the umbilical cord, the fetus is required to make little effort to care for itself. For postnatal life, the mother’s womb symbolizes the psychological environment needed for the first stage of a person’s life. It is a protected space, an enclosure in which the vulnerable young can grow relatively undisturbed by toxic intrusions from the surrounding world. For humans, this type of shielded environment is suitable for a lengthy period of time after birth. This is true especially for infants, for unlike many other mammals, human offspring, because of their large head size, are ejected from the mother’s womb long before they are prepared to function independently of a nurturing container. Human neonates require an external nurturing environment of extended duration, until their bodies and minds are prepared to cope with the physical and social worlds into which they have been delivered.
Especially in modern first world cultures, this first stage of life, which we casually refer to as childhood, lasts a long time. For most people today, the containment/nurturance stage extends through much of the educational experience, from infancy and the years of primary and secondary school, through university studies and further professional training. During these years, a person, even if physically and to some extent psychologically prepared to assume some of the roles of adulthood, is not fully equipped to deal with the demands of social life and is usually not economically viable as an adult member of society. This period of dependence on parents and parental institutions may last for 30 years or more. In traditional cultures, on the other hand, where initiation rituals into adulthood occur at around the age of 12 or 13, the containment/nurturance stage of individuation is typically terminated at the onset of puberty. By that age, a person is considered ready and able to take up the physical and cultural tasks required of young adults in the group. There it is an abrupt and dramatic change of attitude and social identity; in our modern cultures, the change is gradual and takes place over decades.
The quality of the containment/nurturance stage is defined, symbolically speaking, as maternal. The containing environment is constructed socially and psychologically on the model of a womb, in that the basic ingredients needed for survival – food, shelter, highly structured settings of care that are screened and protected – are provided by family and society. At the emotional level, nurturance is delivered (ideally) in the form of warm support and encouragement. Young children are loved unconditionally, appreciated for being rather than doing. The harsh aspects of reality are screened out. Children are held, caressed, and comforted by smiling, doting parents who stand guard over them and look out for their well-being. The most that is asked of the young is a cooperative and willing attitude. For the rest, adult supervision and protection prevail. Not much is demanded of young people at this stage in the way of contributing to the general welfare of the family or group. They remain dependent and are nourished by parents and other adults.
Naturally the degree of richness of the matrix in this stage of containment is highly dependent upon the attitudes and resources that happen to be available to the adult caregivers. It is also crucially dependent on their emotional stability and maturity. Instead of screening harsh reality out of the protected environment, anxious parents may amplify threats and worrisome aspects of reality. Absence of adequate containment and serious breaches in the walls of protection surrounding the person at this stage generally put down the groundwork for later psychopathology, such as anxiety disorders and various character disorders. In addition, the frightened or threatened child, in order to replace the absent or breached outer protective shield, develops primitive and massive defenses of the self, which also have the capacity to cut the person off from important developments and relationships later in life.
Under the best conditions, the quality and degree of containment gradually changes as a person passes through the sub-phases of childhood. At first there is maximal nurturance and containment. The kind of attention given to the newborn baby, who can do practically nothing for itself, modulates to a less intense level of care as the child grows older. Later the parents will place further limits on the amount and kind of nurturance they provide, and the degree of containment is eased. Expectations for a relative amount of autonomy, independence, and self-control are introduced at many points along the way, as the child is able to respond positively to these changes. Normally these shifts are met by a willingness on the part of the child to cooperate if the onset of these new conditions corresponds to growing abilities (cognitive, emotional, motor). As the individual proceeds through the usual sub-phases of childhood development, the nurturing container evolves in order to meet the new needs that appear and to reduce what would become an intrusive type of overprotective care in many areas. By the end of this stage of individuation, people experience only a minimum of nurturing and containment from the environment and are able to do for themselves what others have done for them earlier.
The first and primary nurturing figure is, of course, the mother. From pregnancy onwards, the mother symbolizes the nurturing container itself. Nurturing and containing can be referred to as “the mothering function,” whether this is delivered by the actual biological mother, by mother surrogates, by fathers, teachers, or institutions. Symbolically speaking, they are all “the mother” if they approach the individual in a nurturing, containing mode.
Nurturing, while it grows out of concrete acts of mothering like breast-feeding, is not only physical, and to a large extent it takes on other features as the child grows. Feeding takes place on emotional, cognitive, and spiritual levels. Nurturing is an attitude. Symbolically it has been expressed by mother figures since time immemorial. The Great Goddesses of world religions – figures such as Demeter (Greek), Isis (Egyptian), the Virgin Mary (Christian) to name only a few – are identified as nurturers, feeders, containers, and comforters. The role of the Great Mother Goddesses extends far beyond the biological and physical feeding functions, although it is rooted in the gestures and rituals of literal feeding. The church, for example, is a classic nurturing, containing institution that feeds its “children” the bread of heaven, a spiritual type of food. Its primary mission is not to feed people materially, although sometimes it has done so and has dedicated itself to the material improvement of the poor. Yet its main meal is a symbolic one. Nurturing institutions are typically represented by mother images. Similarly, containers such as ships are referred to as “she.” This does not mean that actual mothers or nurturing institutions like the church or ships of the navy do not also have marked fatherly, patriarchal functions and aspects, but when the emphasis falls on nurturing, the images hark back to the mother. Therefore this stage of individuation is referred to as the mother stage, and people within it are seen as living “in the mother.”
Whether the containing/nurturing function is performed by the actual mother, by another person, or by an institution, the underlying attitude is: “I am here to help you.” Nurturers are providers, helpers, sustainers. This attitude on the part of the nurturer, in turn, creates or inspires a corresponding attitude in the recipient of nurturance. Nurturers conjure children, and children attach themselves to nurturers. The recipient’s attitude is one of radical dependence upon the perceived nurturer. This attitude may be quite conscious or largely unconscious. In the first years of life, it is definitely unconscious. Nurturance and containment are simply taken for granted by the infant and the young child. Recipients often struggle mightily against their caregivers, not realizing how profound the real dependence actually is. A child pushing away from its mother and running impulsively out into traffic simply assumes, at an unconscious level, that it will be safe, cared for, protected, and at the end of the day fed, held and comforted. This degree of entitlement is unchallenged in the young child, and the nurturing adult, who may even find it attractive and mildly amusing, freely gives it. The dependency arising out of a good bonding between infant and mother is to be desired, for too much anxiety about the world at this early stage of life would not augur well.
The containment/nurturance phase of individuation serves the psychological purpose of supporting and protecting an incipient ego in the child. The ego complex, which we conceive of as the center of consciousness with certain executive functions and some measure of innate anxiety about reality, comes into being gradually over the course of early childhood. Its earliest beginnings lie already in the intrauterine experience. There the ego is barely a point of awareness and of reaction to stimuli, a tiny bit of separate consciousness in the darkness of the mother’s body. With birth, the ego’s world is dramatically enlarged, and the infant’s ego responds by registering and reacting to sights, tastes, and touching as well as to sounds and smells. Very quickly a baby is able to recognize its mother’s face and to respond. At a profound psychological level, however, infant and mother remain joined in a state of psychological fusion. The ego’s separateness is severely limited. This unconscious identification is mutual. The mother is as deeply tied into it as the infant. Jung termed this type of identification participation mystique, a phrase that denotes an unconscious psychophysical bond. What happens to one person in this union happens to the other. They feel each other’s pain, hunger, and joy. For the infant, this forms the basis of later empathy and eventually will develop into a sense of responsibility for others and an inner conscience. It also creates part of the foundation for later ego identity, especially for female children.
With further motor and cognitive development, the ego is able to begin exercising its executive functions and to exert some control over muscles. Arms and legs become coordinated and speech follows. Soon the whole world becomes a vast theater of play and learning, a veritable Garden of Eden to explore. The healthy child asserts itself vigorously and with abandon in this perceived safe and protected environment. Serious reality testing is left to the oversight of the parental unit, a nurturing and containing presence hovering above. The boundaries of this paradise are tested soon enough as the child exerts more and more autonomy physically and emotionally. Disobedience and increasing consciousness go hand in hand. Psychological boundaries begin to be erected between child and parental guardian, and the child becomes aware of the differences between self and other and exploits them. Throughout this stage, however, a basic level of unconscious identification remains between child and nurturing environment. Participation mystique continues to reign. Jung thought of the child’s psyche as largely contained in the parental psyche and reflective of it. The child’s true individual personality does not emerge until it leaves the parents’ psyche in a sort of second birth, a psychological birth for the ego when it becomes a more truly separate entity.
This psychological containment of the young gives parents enormous influence over their children, not only through the conscious transmission of culture, tradition, teaching and training, but more importantly and deeply through unconscious communication of attitude and structure. Via the unconscious, a kind of psychological programming of the child’s inner world takes place, for good or ill. It is not what the parent says, but what the parent is and does, that has the greatest impact on the shape the child’s inner world. The family is the child’s adaptive environment, and much of this world’s emotional tone enters the child’s inner world by introjection.
The testing and challenging of physical and psychological boundaries continues throughout the first stage of individuation. Adolescence, which for most of us falls within this stage, is a transitional time when physically, and to some extent psychologically, a person is ready to leave the nurturing/containing environment and enter the next stage of individuation. In modern first world societies, however, this is complicated by educational and training requirements that often prolong the containment stage to a significant extent. An adolescent of 15 or even 18 is nowhere near being able to take on the tasks and responsibilities of adulthood in modern societies. This prolongation of the first stage of individuation creates the specific problems and attitudes so characteristic of adolescents in these countries: impatience, rebelliousness, feelings of inferiority, being marginalized, and frustration. Ready to leave the world of childhood but not yet prepared for the tasks of adulthood, they are truly “betwixt and between.” The adult personae that initiation rituals provide in traditional societies are withheld from adolescents in modern cultures, and the dependent state of childhood is artificially prolonged far beyond its natural physical and psychological timeframe. Schools and colleges are the holding pens and containers devised by modern cultures for adolescents and post-adolescents who need to have more time to mature and to become acculturated and ready for successful adaptation to the demands of work and family that are shortly to fall upon them.
THE ADAPTING/ADJUSTING STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION While the mother occupies the symbolic center of the first stage of individuation, the father assumes this position in the second stage. This transformation comes about not by usurpation but gradually and through psychological necessity. The father is needed by the growing ego to gain freedom from the nurturing containment offered by the mother and to instill the rigor of functioning and performance demanded for adaptation to the world. The father introduces anxiety to the ego, but ideally in amounts that can be mastered by increasing competence.
Again it is necessary to understand the terms “father” and “patriarchal” (Neumann) symbolically and metaphorically rather than literally and sociologically. Where the first stage of individuation is characterized by containment and nurturance (the Garden of Eden), the second stage is governed by the law of consequences for actions taken (the reality principle) and by the constant demand for performance and achievement in the wider world. In the second stage of individuation, the person is exposed to a world in which standards of performance are paramount and consequences for behavior are forcefully and implacably drawn. A person who is living fully in this type of environment of expectation and conditional regard has entered the “father world”. It is no longer a world in which unconditional love is the norm, but rather one in which strict and even harsh conditions are imposed upon the distribution of all rewards, including love and positive regard. This is not the world as ideal but the world as real. The ego is required to become realistic about itself and about the world at large. This means fitness and competition.
In truth, the reality principle is typically introduced into the life of children long before they leave the containment stage, but there, ideally, it is introduced in doses that are moderate and therefore tolerable to the young and vulnerable ego. The containing environment provides a protective screen that removes the harsh and potentially damaging aspects of reality. The demands for performance and achievement should not be brought to bear too forcefully or too soon in life. If this does happen, the child’s ego can be crushed or convulsed with anxiety. Against severe threats such as these, the psyche will erect primitive defenses to guard against annihilation. On the other hand, if too few demands for achievement and performance are introduced into a child’s Garden of Eden, and if consequences for behavior are not drawn, the ego does not become accustomed to dealing with stress and tension. It remains underdeveloped, and hence will be unprepared later for the demands and expectations characteristic of the next stage of individuation. A moderate amount of frustration and tension, dosed out at the right times and in the right amounts, is growth promoting for the ego. Jung believed that the ego develops through “collisions with the environment”, and Fordham introduced the notion that the ego develops through cycles of de-integration and re-integration. Both notions feature the element of optimal frustration.
Typically the demand for some measure of control and performance begins already in the first years of life with toilet training and weaning. This may be introduced slowly and subtly, but the timing coincides with the child’s ability to make the necessary adjustments. Demands for performance pick up with schooling and gradually increase in seriousness and consequence as a child passes out of primary school into secondary school. The father becomes a more important figure, symbolically speaking, after the early years of childhood have passed. By the time a child reaches high school and college, the adaptive environment induces a good bit of anxiety, and the young person becomes aware of and responsive to the demands of a less forgiving world. Consequences become more life shaping and determinative of action and behavior. In some countries, the academic tests taken around the age of 13 are decisive for a person’s entire career. Grades and academic performance have life-changing consequences for almost all children, and under the pressure of this awareness there comes the realization that the world will not continue to be the nurturing container that one knew as an infant and a young child.
The decisive passage from the first stage of individuation into the second takes place over a period of time, typically between the ages of early puberty and early adulthood (ages 12-21) in most modern societies. This may be earlier in exceptional cases, and it is later for people who prolong their education into graduate and post-graduate studies. Schools are partially matriarchal holding environments and partially patriarchal adaptive ones. Their job is gradually to prepare a person for life beyond school. (For some people, of course, this does not happen. They may ignore school and drop out of its programs before they reach any degree of real competence, or they may stay in school all their lives, as perpetual students or teachers.) As bridging institutions, schools play the archetypal role of the paternal parent to a growing child, whose job it is to help the child leave the family container when the years appropriate for nurturing are over and adapt to the demands of adult life in the larger world. This is the role fathers play in traditional cultures for the young men who come of age and need to be introduced into the social structure at a new level. Mothers play a similar role for daughters, who are given new and larger responsibilities and taught the skills of womanhood as they come of age. In modern societies there is no distinction of this sort between sons and daughters. Today both genders go to school with the idea of preparing for a life of work in the world outside the home. In addition, both genders are expected to accept the responsibilities of house holding and childrearing. The division of labor between women and men, while still often present to a degree, has been considerably blurred in modern life.
The completion of the passage from the containment stage (childhood) to the adapting/adjusting stage of individuation (adulthood) is, of course, fraught with crisis and emotional turmoil. The largest psychological obstacle lying in the way of making this passage is what Jung discussed under the rubric of the incest wish. Disagreeing with Freud that the incest wish was concretely a wish to have sexual relations with one’s closest family members, especially the contrasexual mother and father, Jung interpreted it as the wish to remain a child, to stay in the containment stage of life. The incest wish is the wish never to grow up, to live in a Garden of Eden forever. Peter Pan speaks for this attitude when he announces with vehemence: “I’ll never grow up, I’ll never grow up!” and refuses the transition from playful boy full of fantasy to reality oriented adult. What is required psychologically to overcome this desire to remain a child is the appearance of the “heroic,” a surge of ambition and energy that pushes one out of the security of Eden to meet the exciting challenges offered by the real world. The hero is the archetypal energy that kills the dragon (i.e., “the incest wish”) and frees the princess (i.e., “the soul”), for the sake of going forward in life. The hero asks for and takes up the challenges of real life with an abundance of confidence that many find unrealistic and almost death defying. The hero shows the confidence, call it bravado, to face up to the father and meet the challenges of the patriarchal world. An inner identification with a hero figure frees the ego from the pull towards regression and towards the comfortable earlier dependency on the “mother” and energizes it to meet the tasks and challenges of adaptation to reality. When a person comes to the conclusion that reality offers greater and finer rewards than fantasy, and that reality can be mastered, that person has passed from the first stage of individuation to the second.
Reality must be understood as the whole world of psychological, physical, social, cultural, and economic challenges facing an individual in life, many of which lie beyond anyone’s control. To deal with reality means that one faces up to all the issues that present themselves from without and within – love and death, jobs and career, the weather, sexuality, ambition, other people’s expectations, the body with its weaknesses and tendencies to succumb to illness, the consequences of smoking or alcohol abuse, on and on. It means recognizing that one lives and participates in a world filled with uncertainty and hazard, and that one’s area of mastery and control is seriously limited. The hero gladly and even joyfully attacks the problems posed by reality with the confidence that whatever dangers may lurk, there must be some way to surmount them. Every problem has a solution, the hero believes. As the ego sets forth on the hero’s journey, it soon enough discovers that in this stage one comes into a world of work and taxes, of pension plans and insurance policies, of long-term relationships and family responsibilities, of success and failure as judged by others, and of often intractable problems with no clear-cut solution. This is what must be faced, adapted and adjusted to, and invested in during the second stage of individuation. This is life outside the Garden of Eden.
Many people shrink away from this because of early psychological traumas that so severely handicap their capacities to cope with anxiety that they can never bring themselves to face reality fully. Moreover, there is a natural enough resistance to facing harsh reality, and the ego’s defenses push it away. Some people procrastinate and delay so long, and are allowed to do so by extended nurturing environments and circumstances, or by trickery and subterfuge and self-deception, that it becomes embarrassing and nearly impossible to face this transition later in life. This delay produces what Jungians call the puer aeternus (or puella aeterna, for the female version) neurotic character type. For one reason or another in these people, the hero has never arrived on the scene, or the ego has not identified with a hero figure and its energy, and dependency (conscious or unconscious) on nurturing and containing environments, real or imaginary, has been prolonged into adulthood and even old age. The incest wish goes unchallenged to any serious degree, and the threatening father looms too large and fearsome. The psyche stagnates as a result. A sort of invalidism takes hold, as the person, fearing exposure, challenge, and the normal problems of coping with life, shies away and falls back. The ego remains “in the mother”, symbolically speaking, sometimes even literally acting this out by never leaving home. In these cases, one wonders if there is any individuation beyond the first stage. These people tend to remain childish throughout life. They may be harmless, but they also contribute little. Their potentials remain just that, potentials; they are not actualized. They are always just about to write the great novel but can never bring themselves to the point of putting real words on real paper.
Many of the character disorders described in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS IV) have their origins in the failure to separate successfully enough from the containing world of childhood. The borderline personality disorder, for example, seems to stem from remaining stuck in a love/hate relationship with the mother that is typical of children in their early years: now a person succumbs to fusion states of dependency upon maternal others, now he or she attacks them and tries to separate from them with violent gestures of hatred and disdain. This is a person who has not managed to accomplish the transition process from stage one to two and is repeating the drama of separation from the mother endlessly with significant maternal others throughout an entire lifetime. The narcissistic personality disorder also derives from being stuck in the containment stage of individuation, in that a driven need and demand persists that significant others do nothing but offer adoration and mirroring. People with narcissistic personality disorders long to remain the adored baby forever, performing for enthralled audiences who never utter a critical word or render a judgment on their brilliant performance. Their lives are full of open wounds and suffering because the world outside of the contained space of childhood is not set up to accommodate their needs to be seen and totally admired.
Psychotherapy, as it is usually set up and practiced, lends itself to the impression that it is primarily a nurturing/containing environment reminiscent of the containment stage of development. The therapist typically accepts and supports a patient, withholds judgment, and offers more or less unconditional positive regard and mirroring. Many people who enter therapy, it must be said, come in so beaten and bruised by the slings and arrows of harsh reality that they need a respite, at least for a time, in order to recover their sense of balance and self-worth. If they are deeply damaged from early childhood abuse and trauma, they will repeat the struggles of psychological birth and development in the therapeutic relationship, fusing with the therapist as infant with mother, then struggling to free themselves from the therapist in the way of the borderline who cannot make this transition, or desiring endless amounts of adoration and mirroring from the all embracing and accepting mother-like therapist. In these cases, it is the therapist’s main task to help these people gradually make the transition from the mother world to the father world. In small doses, the therapist administers, consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or accidentally, the collisions with reality that strengthen the patient’s ego and can help to prepare it for the world of adult functioning if these breaches are handled sensitively. From nurturing/containing mother, the therapist changes to another kind of person, a symbolic father, who helps the patient bridge to the world of achievement, work, struggle, competition, and interpersonal competence.
THE CENTERING/INTEGRATING STAGE OF INDIVIDUATION The most significant and interesting contribution of Jungian psychology to the idea of psychological development is what it says about the part of life that follows the second stage of individuation. This is where most other psychoanalytic theories stop. What is still left to do, they might ask, after a person has successfully passed over from the attitude of dependency upon nurturing environments in the first stage of psychological development and has taken up the responsibility of living like an adult in a world of other adults in the second stage? Is there anything more beyond the psychologically advanced stage of entering the father world of adaptation and adjustment and being willing and able to cope with reality? For the Jungian psychotherapist the answer is “yes”, because in fact many people enter Jungian therapy in the second half of life looking for something more than fine-tuning of their patriarchal attitudes and the further elimination of residues of childish complexes. They are often successful adults who have held jobs, raised families, succeeded in reaching many of their goals, and now wonder if this is all there is to life. It is at this point that Jungian reflection on the individuation process in the second half of life becomes relevant. This is the phase of psychological development described classically by Jung in such works as “A Study in the Process of Individuation”, when mandala symbolism, the religious function, and the search for individual meaning become important.
The task in this stage of life, if all has gone relatively well in earlier phases, is not to become a responsible member of the community and a relatively independent and self-sufficient personality (this has been achieved in the second stage), but rather to become a centered and whole individual who is related to the transcendent as well as the immediate concrete realities of human existence. For this, another level of development is called for.
The first separation was from the mother, initially from her body (the first birth), then from her nurturing parental psyche (a second birth). At that point the psychological individual stepped forth into the world. Now there is another passage, a third birth, when the ego puts away the primary importance given to the achievement of adaptation, which calls for conformity to the standards and expectations of the collective (the world of the “fathers”), and embarks upon the journey of becoming an individual. The second stage, a stage of conformity, is often entered, paradoxically enough, by violent acts of adolescent rebellion, undergirded by the energy of the hero archetype. The adolescent breaks out of the parental container with determined force. The third stage, on the other hand, is usually entered into with a rather depressed and questioning attitude, as a person in the middle of life begins to shed the trappings of conformity and enters slowly and often painfully into a process of becoming born anew as a whole and integrated individual. Sometimes this stage is entered as the consequence of tragic loss that shatters fixed collective assumptions. Generally synchronicity (defined by Jung as “meaningful coincidence) plays an important role in the entry into and in the ongoing process of individuation in the third stage.
Entering the stage of centering and integrating means gradually abandoning the previous collective definitions of identity and persona and assuming an image of self that emerges from within. Of course this does not mean leaving collective reality behind. Social reality does not disappear from the ego’s horizon or concern, but coping with it and adapting to its demands absorb less energy. There is a shift of interest and emphasis, toward reaching out to dimensions of living that have less to do with survival and more to do with meaning. Spiritual life becomes more crucially important and individualized.
Much of the identity that is established in the second stage of individuation is derived from collective images and stereotypes, also from parental models. The persona assumed by the ego in the second stage is a structure offered by society and made of a socially constructed set of elements that more or less suit the individual. Personality in the second stage of individuation is largely a social construction. This persona is highly useful for adapting to cultural imperatives and expectations. In the third stage, the ego, which has taken on this persona and largely identified with it, begins to draw away and create a distinction between a true inner self and the social self that has been dominant. As the light between these two psychological structures widens, an element of choice enters with respect to what kind of person one is and is going to become. This new person is more unique and individual, less a social construction.
This does not mean that one can now become anything, or anyone, one wants to be or can imagine. Rather, the truth is that an underlying structure of the psyche – called by Jung the Self (capitalized to denote its transcendence and essential difference from the ego) – comes into play in a new way and takes over the dominant position formerly held by external authority, by the voice of reality and by the “father” and the social persona. The ego now begins to answer to an inner demand and call to obedience from the psyche, rather than primarily to an outer one derived from authorities in society. The new structure that emerges from the inner world of the psyche, in the form of dream images, intuitions, inspirations, remembered ambitions, fantasies, and a strong impulse toward personal meaning, gradually destroys and replaces the persona. Working to live and to survive is no longer sufficient; one must now find something that is worth living for, and this new direction must be tailor made to fit the individual. In fact, it grows out of the individual who is deeply and constructively individuating in the second half of life.
For someone entering upon this stage of development, psychotherapy is quite different from what it is for people who have not made it through the first two stages. While everyone, no matter how developed or mature, shows some residual elements from the earlier stages of development – some borderline and narcissistic features, some degree of participation mystique with others and the environment, some lingering childishness and puerile qualities and defensiveness – these are not the paramount issues in therapy with a person in the third stage of individuation. What is central is, first, separating from the identification with the persona formed in the second stage, and then finding a personal center, a point of inner integrity that is free of the stereotypes of collective culture and based on intimations of the Self. What is aimed for is a degree of integration of the inner opposites inherent in the Self, which allows for striking a vital balance in ones everyday life. Jung speaks of integrating the shadow and relating in a new conscious way to the anima or animus.
Transference is fundamentally different, too, in the psychotherapy of people who are entering or pursuing further the third stage of individuation. The therapist is not consciously or unconsciously related to as nurturing mother or guiding father. Instead, the therapist is typically seen (truly or not) as a wisdom figure, as someone who has achieved individuality and wholeness and relates personally to the Self. This projection is cast upon the therapist because this is the unconscious content that the patient needs and must find a model for somewhere in the world at this stage of life. That job lands at the feet of the therapist. People look for, and seem to find, the models they need for their further growth in their therapists, and an image of psychological wholeness is what is now required by the psyche.
A wisdom figure is someone who is seen to have arrived at an inner center and lives out of the resource found there. It is not necessarily someone who has all the answers to life’s concrete problems. It is a person in whom we see containment of the opposites, who is able to remain intact and balanced in even the most splitting and tension-ridden situations, who maintains an even attitude of connection with others but also detachment from ego preferences. It is a person who has found the Self and lives in relation to that inner reality rather than seeking approval from others or being possessed by desire and attachment to egoistic goals. Most importantly, it is a person who shows spontaneity, freedom, and a distinctive personality. This person is vivid and displays a sense of uniqueness based upon having made many clear individual choices in life.
This image is what is found in the transference projection. Much of it is, of course, a projection based on unconscious patterns that are emerging in the field between patient and therapist. One can think of it as a sort of idealizing transference, but one that is grounded in the archetype of the Self rather than in the unconscious mother or father images.
The goal of this third stage of individuation is the inner union of pieces of the psyche that were divided and split off by earlier developmental demands and processes. In this stage of integration, a strong need arises to join the opposites of persona (good person) and shadow (bad person), of masculine and feminine, of child and adult, of right brain and left brain, of thinking and feeling, of introversion and extraversion. All of the undervalued pieces of potential development that were earlier separated from consciousness and repressed in the course of the first two stages of individuation, so that one could grow an ego and enter into relation to the world of reality in an adaptive way, now come back for integration. In those first two stages one typically becomes a certain psychological type, one identifies with one gender and one gender preference, one adopts a certain persona from among those offered by family and wider culture and identifies with it. In the centering/integrating stage, on the other hand, one reaches back and picks up the lost or denied pieces and weaves them into the fabric of the whole. In the end, nothing (or very little) that is human is foreign to the Self. And as the ego approximates the Self, it too feels less alienated from all of humanity and from the profound complexities of reality. In short, one becomes more accepting of complexity within and without.
CONCLUSIONIndividuation is sometimes confused with individualism. To some extent these two concepts overlap in meaning, but individuation is in fact much broader in that it is not limited to emphasizing only the ego. Individualism often ends up being a kind of narcissism, centered on the importance of the ego and its rights and needs. Thus it is correctly judged to be an exaggeration of normal and healthy selfishness. Individuation, on the other hand, includes a large amount of ego development and selfishness, but it does not leave off with this. It goes on to include and integrate the polarities and complexities within and without. It does not ignore the importance of altruism and relationship, but rather includes these elements centrally in its program. It fosters both self-regard and broad social interest in that it focuses on the Self (not the ego), which is common to all humanity. The individuality that arises from the third stage of individuation is made up of a unique collection of common human elements embodied in one particular life, and this one life is not cut off from others or made more important that any other life on the planet. It is simply affirmed as one experiment in human life that is unique because of its precise position in the common matrix.
This post originally appeared on murraystein.com
Murray Stein, PhD is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world. Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.
Links: Murray Stein’s Website | Murray Stein’s recorded lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
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Samuels, A.1993. The Political Psyche. London: Routledge.
Schwarz-Salant, N. 1989. The Borderline Personality. Wilmette, IL.: Chiron Publications.
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________. 1977. Individuation in Fairy Tales. Dallas: Spring Publications.
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Jung and the Post-Human Age, with Pacifica professor and author Glen Slater is a deep dive into what digital culture is doing to the human psyche as we internalize the fractiousness of the outer world.
Glen studied psychology and comparative religion at The University of Sydney before coming to the United States in 1992 for doctoral work in clinical psychology. He has been teaching at Pacifica for over twenty years and is currently the Associate Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialization. He also teaches in the Mythological Studies program. His publications have appeared in a number of Jungian journals and essay collections, and he edited and introduced the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer, as well as a collection of faculty writings, Varieties of Mythic Experience: Essays on Religion, Psyche and Culture. Beyond his work in Jungian and Archetypal Psychology, he writes on psyche and film as well as the psychology of technology. He lectures internationally in these areas of interest.
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We recorded this shortly after the 2024 US election results but, as it took some time to edit, we decided to post on inauguration day (reposted here from the original feed). In a time when self-absorbed billionaires have taken control of government, this episode’s topic feels particularly relevant.
This episode we will be reading from:
- Metamorphoses, by Ovid. Translation by Mary M. Innes.
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In a previous article that I wrote (“What The Death May Teach The Living About the Individuation Process”), I stated the hypothesis that archetypal images, carved on stone statues by an aboriginal group and located on a necropolis, could provide psychological guidance for the journey of life, death, and rebirth, specifically for the journey of the afterlife. It seems that each person and his/her spirit may have to go through the journey of living, dying, and rebirth. Therefore, the individual spirit of a human being may go through three phases; a) the living (“incarnated spirit”); b) the Death (“spirit”), and c) the Rebirth (“reincarnated spirit”) (Credit for the Image: UNESCO-Sacred Sites-Martin Gray).
You may be skeptical and question the relevance of talking about death and the afterlife when we are still alive and want to fulfill our individuation process. That is a reasonable point of view. However, I would like to invite the reader to consider the following two issues: 1) that there are certain archetypal images, while we are alive, that appear in dreams, visions, paintings, sculptures, etc that will be, also, essential and relevant, after we die, during the journey to the afterlife. If we could determine what similar archetypal images are crucially relevant for both, the cycle of living and for the afterlife, then, each of us will have not only a much larger “vision and mission” about life and death but, also, less karma that would decrease the necessity to reincarnate. Those archetypally relevant (images), if related consciously during living, would contribute, first, towards enlightment, second towards decreasing the individual karma that forces reincarnation and, third, following Jung’s thought about the afterlife, the spirit of a person who has died and who did not fulfilled, on earth, the Destiny (the archetypal endowments) that was given to him/her, will be forced, after death, to continue atempting to relate and integrate those archetypal images that were not realized during the living phase. Unfortunately, and according to Jung, the ‘dead’ or the ‘spirits of the dead’ will not be able to integrate the archetypal messages because the opposite -being humanly alive- is not available to them for consciousness to be realized. This article will attempt to further discuss these ideas within the context of the statue of the Jaguar-Man that is located at the entrance of a tomb in a necropolis in San Agustin, Colombia.
The journey is not just about life; it is also about death, the afterlife, and possibly about the beyond (i.e., Rebirth). Therefore, the sculpture to be discussed in this article may provide important archetypal information for the living during the phase of living and dying; 2) that the dead, or the world of the spirits, as it is known in indigenous cultures, may provide valuable existential and psychological information to the living.
Jungian analysis has focused its efforts on the phase of living; however, Jung’s thoughts on the subtle body and the Philosopher’s Stone may enlarge the scope of Jungian analysis that includes, also, the phase of death, and rebirth. Therefore, rather than exclusively focusing and emphasizing the process of individuation during the phase of “living” life, Jungian analysis, with its emphasis on the collective unconscious and God Within, could broaden and facilitate the analytical process for the individual to go not only through the phase of life (the individuation process) but, also, to prepare AND continue for and during the phases of death, the afterlife, and the beyond, which may include resurrection, rebirth, and reincarnation.
There is a particular tomb statue (see Figure A), located in a necropolis, near the town of San Agustin, that I would like to focus our attention to (I previously wrote about it; see https://www.thehealingpsyche.org/single-post/what-the-death-may-teach-the-living-about-the-individuation-process ). No definitive scientific name has been assigned to this statue. However, It looks like a statue of a human being with fangs, possibly a Jaguar-Man.
Figure A (Credit: Martin Gray at Sacred Sites/UNESCO)
HISTORICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL BACKGROUND
Duque (1963) provided a brief archeological review of the different expeditions that visited San Agustin and its statues. According to him, in 1797, Francisco Jose de Caldas viewed the statues as representing cultural aspects of a vanished indigenous tribe. On 1857, the Codazzi expedition saw San Agustin as a sacred place where indigenous people got initiated on transcedence, and the statues became symbols of social laws. On 1913 and 1914, the Preuss expedition concluded that the statues represented beings from an irrational and mythic world related to an spiritual world; furthermore, the presence of animal features on some of the statues, according to Preuss (1929), is related a religious belief that the soul and the spirit of the death incarnate on animals. On the 1936-1937 expedition, the Lavapatas Fountain (“La Fuente de Lavapatas”) was discovered.
Let us describe further the statue in question (see Figure A). According to Preuss (1929), the statue is the God of the temple. The statue has a height of 2.56 meters, a width of 1.14 meters, and a depth of 80 centimeters. The statue is a masculine representation, with closed eyes, naked, with an erect phallus surrounded a double cord, a wide collar, bracelets on their hands, a crowned forehead, and a stick on his right hand and a conch on his left hand.
Reichel-Dolmatoff, in his book, San Agustin: A Culture of Colombia, described the statue in the following way: ““The main image represents a monstrous being, half man and half beast…and measures more than two meters (six feet, seven inches) in height. The naked body is encircled by a double, cordlike belt with a complicated knot over the right hip, and the oversize head bears a ferocious face, huge pointed fangs protruding from the gaping mouth, and enormous, blindly staring eyes.”(pg 42). His conclusion was that the statue in question represented a man-jaguar: “The iconographic theme is almost always the jaguar-monster, a heavily compressed human body with bared fangs, glaring eyes, and flaring nostrils…representing a snarling feline. The posture of the body itself expresses the crouching, menacing force contained in this being. The tightly contracted arms and the short, powerful legs convey a mood of taut, aggressive power.” (pg 69-70). Furthermore, Reichel-Dolmatoff perceives the feline as an aggressive animal.
Throughout his book, Reichel-Dolmatoff described the statue as a representation of “a monstrous being”, giving it a negative connotation. Rather than describing the statue in a balanced manner, his negative anthropological view may not allow the reader to be able to see the positive side of the jaguar man and, subsequently, to have a balanced view of the jaguar man. An important reason to view both dimensions -positive and negative- of the jaguar man is related to the teleological and prospective function of the psyche. Psyche uses certain symbols (i.e., the jaguar man) to move forward the psychological life of individuals. I will be exploring this issue later, when discussing the psychological meaning of the jaguar-man symbol.
Another feature about the size of the statue that Reichel-Dolmatoff mentions in his book is that of the head and the jaw: “It is characteristic of …[the statues] that the internal proportions almost always show an oversize head, often representing a third or more of the total height of the statue” (pg 60). Moreover, Reichel-Dolmatoff mentioned the oversize of the jaw: “Combined with the heavy, hunched shoulders, this protrusion {of the head}, especially of the jaw, gives the statues a menacing lurch, which obviously was the sculptor’s intention.” (pg 64).
Similarly, the size of symbols in dreams sometimes appear out of proportion. Given that one way that the unconscious communicates with the ego is through dreams, when the unconscious wants to “empha-size” and bring significant attention to a psychological issue, it does so, among other ways, through the size of a symbol. I will be discussing in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man, the psychological meaning of the “oversized head and jaw.”
According to Reichel-Dolmatoff, the cross-cultural relevancy of the jaguar motif among Latin American countries is noticeable: “…feline monsters are a recurrent motif in pre-historic, aboriginal art, especially in the so called Nuclear American area….which stretches from Mexico to Chile….” (pg 85).The presence of jaguar symbols across Latin American cultures, including but not limited to the indigenous cultures of Taironas, Chibchas, Sinu, Nutibara, Tukano, Paez, Desana, and Kogi may point to the presence of an archetype, which highlights the necessity to study the role of the human psyche on the sculpting of the statues. In the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man, I will say more about the archetype of the jaguar in the collective unconscious and the psychological significance of the jaguar across different cultures.
Furthermore, Reichel-Dolmatoff highlights the religious role of the jaguar: “ [The jaguar was] the central motif of an art that obviously expresses a deep-rooted religious idea” (pg 85). This religious dimension of the jaguar may be related to the Jungian concept of the religious function of the psyche and God within, both of which will be discussed below in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man.
Moreover, Reichel-Dolmatoff states that, Colombian indigenous tribes perceive and embody the jaguar as the expression of life’s vital force: “The jaguar…expresses the vital energy… in nature…, with the seminal color of creation and growth…and the fertilizing power….essentially a power animal” (pg. 105-106). Reichel-Dolmatoff provides, for the most part, an external understanding of the jaguar; therefore, he limits his understanding of the jaguar as an external phenomena, which prevents him from seeing the inner or psychological dimension of the jaguar in the lives of indigenous people. I will provide, in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man, a brief analysis of the inner or psychological meaning of the jaguar and its relevance for psychological growth for their descendants -people from Colombia- and for the rest of the world.
Another aspect that Reichel-Dolmatoff discussed was the relationship between shamans and jaguars, emphasizing the shaman’s ability to transform into a jaguar: “[T]the basic idea is that the shaman or witch doctor can turn into a jaguar at will, using the form of this animal as a disguise, sometimes in order to achieve beneficial ends, sometimes to threaten or to kill. The jaguar appears as a helper and a friend of the shaman’s, lending not only his exterior form but also his power -natural or supernatural- to the shaman’s quest” (pg. 106). It seems that the fundamental role of such transformation is, for the shaman, to receive help from the jaguar in order to perform his shamanistic healing or avenger activities. A psychological understanding of the relationship between the ego and the unconscious, specifically the intra-psychic relationship between the ego and the Self- the center of the individual personality- would give a deeper psychological understanding of the “help” or of the opposite approach from the unconscious towards the ego. A further psychological analysis of such “help” and “opposing view” will be discussed below in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man.
Reichel-Dolmatoff briefly mentions the idea of the complete transformation of the shaman, after death, into a jaguar: “Eventually, after death, the shaman turns permanently into a jaguar and can manifest himself in this form to the living, again in a beneficial or maleficent way” (pg.107). How were shamans able to permanently transform their human spirit into an animal spirit? Although Reichel-Dolmatoff did not elaborate on this topic, there may be a relationship between such permanent transformation and the psychological idea of the “subtle body.” From an indigenous perspective, after the shaman dies (or perhaps while he is alive, as a gradual process?), it seems that his human spirit may become a jaguar spirit; from a modern perspective, an individual can transform his living body, while alive, into a subtle body and remain so after death. A further psychological analysis of the potential relationship between the shaman’s transformation into a jaguar spirit and the individual transformation into a “subtle body” will be briefly discussed below in the section of the psychological meaning of the jaguar man.
The statue is part of a tomb (See Figure B), and it is flanked by two other statues:
Figure B (Credit: Pueblo Escultor: www.puebloescultor.org )
It is important to emphasize (Dellenback, 2012) that the tomb with its statues were originally buried beneath an artificial mound. Subsequently, in modern times, treasure hunters, archaeologists, and anthropologists excavated the tomb from the mound. Equally important, Dellenback (2012) provides a more contemporaneous and a more relevant description of the statue: “Great Coquero with Coca Implements.” His label of the statue, as the Great Coquero, provides a greater indigenous context and, possibly, a more accurate and relevant understanding of the statue in question, which allows for physical and symbolic similarities with the poporos of indigenous tribe members of the Kogi Indians -the descendants of the Jaguar People, as they describe themselves- in La Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MEANING OF THE JAGUAR MAN
In order to understand the psychological symbolism of the statue in question (Figure A) and, to less extent, the tomb and the mound, the archetypal tools of Analytical Psychology (Jung) will be employed. The message from the death to the living, sculpted in the statue, could be explicated by an archetypal analysis of the statue in question.
A Jaguar Man (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
To begin with, Jung wrote about some of the issues that will be described in this article. For example, Jung wrote about death (‘The Soul and Death’, CW,8), rebirth (‘Concerning Rebirth’, CW, 9i), resurrection (‘On Resurrection’, CW, 18), reincarnation (‘A Psych. Commentary on the Tibetan Book of the Death’ CW, 11), and “Life after Death” (‘On Life after Death’, MDR). I will be discussing briefly some of Jung’s views on spirits, death, and life after death as well as trying to relate these topics to the archetypal message from the statue in question.
First, In the chapter “Life after Death”, from the book, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, Jung offered some thoughts about life after death, and more importantly some ideas about spirits. There is a growing body of scientific literature that seeks to understand spirits and their ontological lives. For example, Koss-Chioino (2010) compiled and edited a journal issue that tackled the question, “Do Spirits Exist? Ways to know.” Alternative ways of knowing spirits were presented in the book. In the article, “The Reality of the Spirits“, Turner (2003), from an anthropological point of view, encouraged the reader to seriously consider the possibility of the existence of spirits, like many indigenous tribes from around the world do. Furthermore, Mageo and Howard (2012) edited a book, “Spirits in Culture, History, and Mind”, in which thet seek to give spirits an equal treatment to the Gods of the great world religions .
According to Jung, and from a psychological point of view, the unconscious could provide, both, a background for the belief in spirits and, also, some guide about life after death: “My hypothesis is that we can do so with the aid of hints sent to us from the unconscious -in dreams for example” (p. 301). This raises the possibility that the statue in question may have appeared in a dream, and that an aboriginal person sculpted it on a stone . We do not know that for certain; yet, it is likely that, given the psychological premise of unconscious determinism, the idea, thought, or the image behind the statue may stem from the unconscious. Therefore, what purpose did the unconscious have when providing to the sculptor’s consciousness the idea or image of a “person/jaguar with fangs” for a sculpture? And why to do so within the geographical context of a tomb located at a large necropolis? This article may try to answer these questions.
In dreams, at times, we are able to see people who have passed away, like immediate family members, relatives, friends, or acquaintances. From a Jungian perspective, these people are treated as symbols that represent internal psychological aspects of the personality. Taborda (2010), in his dissertation, “Spirits and Images in Dreams”, postulated that people who passed away and who appeared in dreams may be actual spirits. In other words, the spirits of people who have passed away or spirits of the dead may appear in dreams. Taborda (2010) attempted to give spirits, both an ontological and a symbolic reality. Furthermore, he concluded that the spirits of the dead appear in dreams to provide some psychological guide to the living. Similarly, Stephens (2020) in her book, “C.G. Jung and the Dead: Visions, Active Imagination, and the Unconscious Terrain” moves “…beyond the symbolic understanding of the dead in dreams, which signifies a departure from the traditional Jungian approach…[to] considering the dead as a literal presence in the psyche” (p. 4). Both Taborda (2010) and Stephens (2020) proposed to consider spirits of the dead that appear in dreams as ontological beings. In other words, spirits of the dead that appear in dreams are ontologically real, and may not be just symbols from the human psyche. The statue in question may serve as a message or a reminder of some archetypal message to the spirits that come to the necropolis. Such a message or reminder may be related to the archetypal forces sculpted in the statue -a message that will be discussed later on when analyzing the archetypal contents of the sculpture.
Jung wrote, in the following way, about the importance of immortality: “Death is psychologically as important as birth and, like it, it is an integral part of life… As a doctor, I make every effort to strengthen the belief in immortality, especially with older patients when such questions come threateningly close. For, seen in the correct psychological perspective, death is not an end but a goal” (CW 13, par 68). Therefore, the statue in question and some of the other statues located in the necropolis, near San Agustin, Colombia, may help us better understand life after death and, thus, help us “…strengthen the belief in immortality.”
Jung’s closest collaborator, Von Franz, also wrote about death. “On Dreams and Death”, Von Franz (1986) concluded, like Jung did, the following:
“It is in fact true, as Jung has emphasized, that the unconscious psych pays very little attention to the abrupt end of body life and behaves as if the psychic life of the individual, that is, the individuation process, will simply continue. In this connection, however, there are also dreams which symbolically indicate the end of bodily life and the explicit continuation of psychic life after death. The unconscious ‘believes’ quite obviously in a life after death.”
Rider-Waite Tarot Card (Credit: Wiki Commons)
Furthermore. Jung discussed extensively his views about the afterlife. His extensive work with dreams shaped his understanding of life after death: “Not only my own dreams, but also occasionally the dreams of others helped to shape, revise, or confirm my views on a life after death” (p. 305). Also, Jung asked us to hold the tension of the opposites between the symbolic and the ontological meaning of the communications from the spirits: “…One must remain critical and be aware that such communications may have a subjective meaning as well” (p. 304). Then, what is the ontological/literal message (not necessarily a symbolic one!) that the statues in the necropolis want to provide to human beings (the living) and to the dead (the visiting spirits)? That, in addition to the existence of a life after death, the archetypal message carved in the statue may be valuable both for the living and for the spirits of the dead, provided that we properly understand the archetypal meaning of the statue in question.
According to Jung, the dead in the afterlife want to learn from the knowledge of recently dead people. As an example, Jung used the dream of a sixty-year-old woman who died two months later, in which some of her deceased friends were waiting for a lecture, and the sixty-year-old woman turned out to be the lecturer. Jung concluded the following: “The dead were extremely interested in the life experiences that the newly deceased brought with them, just as if the acts and experiences taking place in the earthly life, in space and time, were the decisive ones” (p. 305).
Then, we may conclude that the statue in question contains important knowledge that the living aborigines could offer to the spirit of the dead. When the spirits of the dead come to visit the living -like the audience of the dead people, in the previous dream, coming to listen to the woman-, they may find important knowledge in the statue while they are dead. Such knowledge is of archetypal nature related to death (necropolis), which could, also, remind the living of crucial information about dying and the afterlife. Therefore, the statue may contain archetypal information for the dead and for the living.
It appears that the level of consciousness that each of us has achieved at the moment of death remains the same in the afterlife; yet, while we are dead, our spirits continue searching for knowledge during the afterlife. As Jung put it, after he wrote the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos: “Apparently, however, the souls of the dead “know” only what they knew at the moment of death, and nothing beyond that” (p. 308). Furthermore, if a person does not reach, while living, the level of consciousness and self-realization that he/she was endowed with, once the person died, his/her spirit will continue seeking such knowledge during the afterlife, and this is what Buddhism calls karma. Therefore, the level of consciousness that some people (who are alive) have seems to surpass the level of consciousness of the dead. About this, Jung stated, based on his understanding of the dead in dreams, the following: “It seems to me as if [the spirits of the dead] were dependent on the living for receiving answers to their questions, that is, on those who have survived them and exist in a world of change…The mind of the living appears, therefore, to hold an advantage over that of the dead in at least one point: in the capacity for attaining clear and decisive cognitions” (p. 308). Therefore, when the spirits of the dead return to the necropolis and observe this particular statue, the dead may be seeking answers to their questions. The statue in question may provide answers to specific questions that some spirits of the dead may be seeking; likewise, the living could obtain some archetypal answers to some of the profound questions they have while being alive. The content of such answers to the dead and to the living depends on the symbolic message engraved in the statue, which will try to elucidate below.
In addition, Jung believed that the level of consciousness in the land of the dead is determined by the level of consciousness that has been attained by humanity. Jung stated the following: “There are many human beings who throughout their lives and at the moment of dead lag behind their own potentialities and -even more important- behind the knowledge which has been brought to consciousness by other human beings during their own lifetime. Hence, their demand to attend in death that share of awareness which they fail to win in life” (p. 308-309). When we die, we seek to obtain the level of consciousness, given our own psychological endowment, that we could have possibly obtained when we were alive, but we did not.”
Jung arrived at this conclusion, based on his studies of dreams about the dead, one of which was a dream of a friend who had passed away. In this dream, the spirit of Jung’s friend came to learn about psychology from his own daughter, specifically to learn about the reality of Psyche, which Jung’s friend, in real life, was never capable of doing.
Another dream that contributed to Jung’s conclusion that the dead seek to obtain the level of consciousness that they could not obtain while alive was a dream Jung had of his wife, Emma. In the dream, Jung saw his wife studying the Grail. Before Emma died, she was doing research about the Grail. Unfortunately, Emma Jung could not complete her studies of the Grail before she passed away. Now, in Jung’s dream, Emma revealed to her husband that, as a spirit of the dead, she wanted to continue and complete her research on the Grail. In other words, “…[my] wife was continuing after death to work on her further spiritual development…” (p. 145-146).
Jung concluded:”The maximum awareness which has been attained anywhere forms…the upper limit of knowledge to which the dead can attain. That is probably why earthly life is of such great significance, and why it is that what a human being “brings over” at the time of his death is so important. Only here, in life on earth, where the opposites clash together, can the general level of consciousness be raised. That seems to be man’s metaphysical task” (p. 147).
Furthermore, it appears that, in the afterlife, the dead may not necessarily acquire a better understanding of life, according to Jung. Jung presented this hypothesis based on his research on dreams and other revelations from the unconscious. On one occasion, many years after his father passed away, Jung had a dream in which the spirit of his father appeared to him and asked him about marital psychology. As soon as Jung was about to give the spirit of his father an extensive explanation about marital psychology, Jung woke up. Soon after, Jung’s mother passed away, and it was then that Jung was able to understand an important aspect of the afterlife: “Evidently [my father] had acquired no better understanding in his timeless state and therefore had to appeal to someone among the living who, enjoying the benefits of changed times, might have a fresh approach to the whole thing” (p. 151).
As it was previously mentioned, according to Jung, greater consciousness is sought by the spirits of the dead. Therefore, the living and the dead seem to share a similar goal: consciousness. However, there seems to be a difference: While the living seeks to create greater levels of consciousness on Earth by holding and synthesizing the opposites, the spirits of the dead seek to obtain knowledge for greater consciousness. The living can create and realize consciousness through the opposites; however, the spirits of the dead can only visit the living to obtain knowledge about greater consciousness, yet the spirits of the dead cannot create greater consciousness. According to Jung, the creation of consciousness is bound to time and space where the opposites can be experienced and sinthesized and, therefore, the creation consciousness is the greatest gift of the living. However, the dead can only obtain knowledge about consciousness from the living, but the dead are not able to create it or realize it.
Then, what purpose do the statues serve, in terms of the realization of consciousness for the living and in terms of the acquisition of knowledge about consciousness for the spirits of the dead?
In order to answer this question, it is necessary to understand the statue in question and its context. One way to do this, from a Jungian perspective, is to understand the statues, the tomb, and the mound symbolically, like a dream. Therefore, perceiving life as a dream, we could simply imagine ‘the statue in a tomb, underneath the ground, within a necropolis’ and perceive it as a dream; here is the dream, then: “There was a mound in a necropolis and, underneath it, there was a tomb that has a statue of what it looks like a Jaguar-Man, flanked by two other statues.”
Now, in order to understand psychologically this dream (‘life as a dream’), from a Jungian perspective, an archetypal analysis of such a ‘dream’, through the method of archetypal amplifications, will be utilized. Simply put, gathering and analyzing cross-cultural, ethnological, religious, and anthropological images that are the same or very similar to each of dream symbol (see previously bolded words, such as ‘mound’, ‘necropolis’, ‘tomb’, ‘Jaguar-Man Statue’, etc) will be conducted.
In a previous article that I wrote (“What The Death May Teach The Living About the Individuation Process”), I already provided the psychological interpretation of this dream related to the symbolism of the necropolis, the mound (Figure 1), and the tomb (see Figure B), and I would like to refer the reader to that article in order to understand more fully this ‘life as a dream’. In essence, the necropolis may be the psychological or symbolic representation of the unconscious, specifically the psychological place that receives personality traits, points of view, emotional states, and ideas that are no longer helpful or that they are “dying or dead” in the process of individuation.
The symbol of the tomb adds a layer of specificity to the psychological process of dying; in other words, the content of the tomb and the architectural structure of the tomb clarifies the details and the specific information about “the dying or dead psychological aspects” during the process of living and dying, and the individuation process: who was the person buried? What role did he/she play in the aboriginal society? What personality traits were associated with the buried individual? The answers to some of these questions could help us understand, with greater detail, the psychological meaning of the tomb. Unfortunately, there is no available information about who was buried in this specific tomb at Mesita A (figure 1).
The mound is the symbol of a sacred place related to the dead and dying; therefore, the mound is the psychological symbol of the sacredness of dying and death. In other words, there is “sacredness” when the individual consciously allows certain aspects of his/her personality to die.
In summary, the statue, the tomb, and its location may be communicating the following psychological information: during the process of psychological development, there is a place that the individual needs to visit while alive, and that is the unconscious. When the individual ego consciously relates to the unconscious (“necropolis”), there will be certain psychological aspects that may have to die (“tomb”). This dying is a sacred (“mound”) experience because it connects the individual with the Self -The God image within.
A close look at the jaguar and the jaguar man, as psychological symbols, will add valuable information to further understand, with greater clarity and specificity, the psychological meaning, for the living and for the dead, of the statue of the jaguar man in a necropolis.
Let us take a look at the psychological meaning of the Jaguar-Man statue.
- The statue of the Jaguar Man: the Aggressive Half-man and Half beast.
What is the psychological meaning of the jaguar?
According to Arkive (www.arkive.org), the jaguar or Phantera Onca is part of the wild cat family. The Phanteara Onca or Jaguar is a wild cat that has ‘dark spots with golden brown to yellow fur.’ It is a carnivore animal that can measure, from head to tail, 44 to 94 inches. It is the largest cat in Colombia and South America, and it lives in the jungle, the deep forest and near the water. Its name comes, from the indigenous name, yaguara which means “…a beast that kills its prey with one bound.” The Jaguar is a crepuscular animal that is primarily active at dawn and dusk – a creature of the liminal space between day and night, between sun light and moon light. Yet, it is closer to night than to day. The Phantera Onca has the strongest bite of the wild cats and, as such, it kills its prey by piercing its skull.
The Phantera Onca or Jaguar, being a cat, shares some psychological symbolism with cats in general. From an archetypal perspective, according to panthera.org (www.panthera.org), “in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, indigenous communities believe that jaguars can travel both in the physical and spiritual world, using sacred mountains as portals. Therefore, from a Jungian perspective, the symbol of the jaguar may represent the psychological capacity of the individual to travel in the world of consciousness and the unconscious. In other words, one of the psychological meanings of the Jaguar is that it may represent the importance for the ego to travel not only in the world of consciousness (the physical world) but, also, in the world of the unconscious (the spiritual world). The jaguar can guide us on connecting consciousness with the unconscious. Furthermore, indigenous people in the Amazons believe that shamans can turn into Jaguar in order to travel to the World of the Spirits, which is similar to the journey that each individual must take to travel to the unconscious where the archetypes and spirits become visible through our dreams.
According to Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1994), on their book, “Dictionary of Symbols”, the Maya perceived the jaguar as the God of the Underworld and the God of the number Nine (‘a manifestation of the land below’). From a Jungian perspective, the unconscious is usually represented by the Underworld, a world that is invisible and that is within; therefore, the jaguar is archetypally connected with the idea of the unconscious and,especially as a ‘conductor of souls’, the Jaguar may be the archetypal factor in the human psyche that guides the human ego towards confronting the unconscious. Lastly, the jaguar, as a ‘solar deity’, corresponds to the Sun’s night journey in Maya culture, hinting psychologically to an ego – the light force in consciousness- that needs to daily travel to the unconscious -the dark realm of the unconscious.
According to Chevalier and Gheerbrant (1994), the Tupinamba tribe in Brazil gives jaguar-claws and eagle-talons to boys when they are born, and they regard the Jaguar as a sky dog that has ‘two heads to eat the Sun and the Moon.” Furthermore, the Yurucari indians from Brazil, recounting a myth, described how a hero, in his desire for revenge due to the killing of his own family by a jaguar, hunted all the jaguars. The last jaguar received help from the Moon and hid him, and ‘this is why jaguars are nocturnal creatures,’ which, once again, reinforced the psychological idea that a jaguar may be associated with an archetypal symbol of the unconscious -the dark and invisible realm in the human psyche. The Uitoto indians from Colombia hold the same belief about the jaguars being creatures of the night (Chevalier and, Gheerbrant, 1994), which can be regarded, from a Jungian perspective, as stating that jaguars may be a symbol of the dark -the unconscious.
Finally, there are jaguars with four eyes that are considered the spirits of darkness and the Underworld in some South American myths. The additional eyes ‘represent the gift of second sight’ (Chevalier & Gheerbrant, 1994), which may describe, from a psychological point of view, the jaguar as the unconscious symbol of inward looking or in-sight.
Following Von Franz (1999) and her book, “The Cat: A Tale of Femenine Redemption”, the Jaguar may be considered, by analogy, an ambivalent psychological symbol between ‘beneficience and malevolence’; therefore, from a psychological perspective, the archetype of the cat has a positive aspect (i.e., a guide between the physical/conscious world and the spiritual/unconscious world) and a negative aspect (i.e., a guide that seeks exclusively to keep individual either in the physical world or in the spiritual world, unable to find balance). In Egypt, the cat was a sacred animal because it was connected with ‘man’s spiritual life’ and, possibly the Jaguar could be, also, associated with man’s spiritual life. In other words, and from a Jungian perspective, the jaguar can psychologically guide the earthy/physical individual that is overly embedded in consciousness/physical life towards living a more spiritual life – a life where the individual is more connected with the unconscious, with the invisible world, with the World of Spirits. Moreover, the cat was associated with Ra, the Egypt God of the Sun and, as such, the Jaguar may be considered a masculine, earth representative of the Sun God. In other words, the jaguar may be more associated with the masculine side of the human psyche. In addition, the cat was also worshipped as lunar in Egypt, which can highlight, also, its femenine dimesion. Therfore, the jaguar may psychologically point towards the dual nature of human beings -masculine and femenine, and the need for psychological balance between these two forces.
Also, Von Franz mentioned that cat (and by analogy the Jaguar, in my opinion), is associated with ‘the devil during the Middle Ages’, with ‘consciousness and all creative processes’, and with ‘inmortality.’ This last theme of inmortality, given that a cat is able to see in the dark, confers cats a quality of ‘seers…It posesses foresight and insight.’ The psychological meaning of a cat in our Psyche, therefore, may be associated withe ego’s capacity to look at the dark side of the personality -the unconscious- with the help of our dreams. The archetype of the cat (and the jaguar by association) may refer to the human capacity to look within, to see what is in the dark inner world and to derive insight and foresight about our lives.
According to Cooper (1978), on his book, “An Ilustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols“, the jaguar was associated, in Aztec culture, with ‘the powers of darkness in conflict with the solar eagle. Within Mexican culture, the jaguar was the messenger of forest spirits. Around the world, the jaguar was the form taken by shamans. The common denominator of these three cultural views, from a Jungian point of view, is that the jaguar is associated, first, with the unconscious (darkness), which is usually in conflict with consciousness (the solar eagle); second, the Jaguar as a spirit messanger (forest spirit) that appears in dreams conveys important information from the unconscious (the forest as a symbol of the wild unconscious) to consciousness, which also corresponds to the shamanic journey when the shaman travels to the Spirit World to retrieve important information to be used and applied to in the physical/conscious world. One can see, from studying the spirit of the jaguar within indigenous cultures, the similarities between the invisible world of the unconscious and the invisible world of the spirits, which requires further research, and which is beyond the scope of this article.
As an animal, the jaguar represents instinctual forces of the human psyche. It is an aspect of our animal nature. In common parlance, sometimes people say the following to describe certain behaviors that are irrational: “He behaved like an animal,” An individual that follows his/her impulses, that is highly spontaneous, and care-free has been described pejoratively as an “animal.” On a positive side, this individual can be described as “someone who follows the heart/instincts,” as opposed to someone who follows reason. A tentative conclusion can be made that the jaguar is, to some extent, the symbolic or psychological representation of following one’s own impulses/heart. Therefore, the stone statue at San Agustin describes a man who follows his own human impulses/heart. While Reichel-Dolmatoff perceives the jaguar as a “monster” because of the absence of reason and rational thinking, indigenous people may have seen the positive spiritual and psychological side of the human jaguar: the embodiment of the human impulses, feelings, and emotions/heart.
However, could we not make the same conclusion about any animal? The answer is ‘yes.’ Yet, a greater differentiation between the jaguar and other animals in terms of its specific features could add a more psychologically differentiated description of impulses, feelings, and emotions/heart. To begin with, due to the fact that the jaguar is a creature of the night, it may mean that it is more related to the dark and the less visible side of life, that is, in human terms, to the unconscious aspect of the human heart. Therefore, we could say, again, that the jaguar may be the symbolic representation of the dark (almost invisible) and unconscious side of the human heart. Furthermore, due to the fact that a jaguar is, for the most part, a nocturnal creature that roams around, one could conclude that the jaguar is a mobilizing and dynamic aspect of the unconscious. Reichel-Dolmatoff unfortunately projected the dark side of the heart unto the jaguar and described it as “monstrous and aggressive.” A closer indigenous perspective about the jaguar may emphasize, on the one hand, the importance of the human heart, as opposed to the overvalue of reason, critical thinking, and rationality and, on the other hand, it will bring our attention to those mobilizing and dynamic aspects of the human heart that are located in the unconscious. If we add the jaguar feature of being able to “see in the dark’, we could conclude psychologically that the jaguar is the mobilizing and dynamic aspect of the impulses/heart that can “see”, more clearly than consciousness, the contents of the unconscious – the contents of the soul.
Moreover, the yellow color of the jaguar is associated with the color of the sun. As such, the jaguar is considered a representative of the Sun God, here on earth. Unlike the moon, which is associated with the Feminine, the sun and its representative -the jaguar- is masculine. Therefore, the jaguar can be understood as the masculine mobilizing and dynamic aspect within the unconscious that can help an individual “see and be in touch with the contents of the unconscious.” Consequently, a jaguar-man is the human ability to see and mobilize, in a dynamic way, the variety of contents in the unconscious, especially those contents that are related to the deeper aspects of the nconscious -the Collective Unconscious . Or to put it on indigenous terms, the jaguar-man is the masculine dimension in every person that can see and be in touch dynamically with the deepest aspect of the Mystery -both the world of the spirits and the individual spirit within. For them, that person was the Shaman, the Taita, or the Mamo; yet, each of us has the potential to relate to the healer in us, to a greater or to a lesser extent, depending on one’s own psychological endowment.
Therefore, and to say it in a similar way, indigenous people wanted to highlight unconsciously, and unbeknownst to them, through the statue of the jaguar man, the sacred importance of a psychologically masculine factor that is dynamically in touch with, and that mobilize, the deeper aspects of the Mystery -the spirit world and the spirit within (the Collective Unconscious). Jungian Psychology is equipped to look and describe more deeply such “dark side of the human heart” – the Collective Unconscious.
B) The Teleological Function of the Jaguar Man
According to Jung, the human Psyche has a purpose and meaning. Such meaning is what Jung described as the teleological function of the Psyche; a psychological life has grants purpose and meaning to human lives. The word, “Telos” comes from the Greek word, ‘Telos‘, which means “…the end, limit, goal, fulfillment, completion.” According to Jung, such telos is fundamentally associated with the incarnation of God in us or the incarnation of alife within us. In his book, Answer to Job, Jung showed that God is unconscious, that a human being -Job- helps Him to realize His unconsciousness, and that the fragment of God in each of us needs the human being’s capacity for consciousness in order for Him to become conscious. God needs people in order to become conscious, through our individual process of becoming conscious -the individuation process. Therefore, the fundamental teleological task of every human being is the creation of consciousness, which God lacks. Our primary task in life is to help God to become conscious, according to Jung. From an indigenous perspective, the primary human task is similar: a balanced and integrated relationship with the Spirit World, with the Mystery.
In other words, the teleological meaning of helping God to become more conscious through our own process of individuation or of greater consciousness is experienced by a conscious participation of the individual on the process of becoming aware and of integrating into consciousness the contents of the unconscious. The purpose of the interaction between consciousness and the unconscious is to move forward the personality of the individual. The unconscious provides to consciousness complementary and compensatory information and experiences that seeks to complete and to center the psychological life of the individual.
If the Jaguar is the representative of the Sun God on the earth, as Reichel-Dolmatoff has previously stated, then, it can be hypothesized, from a Jungian perspective, that the teleological goal of the Jaguar Man (similar to the figure of Jesus Christ) is to help God (the Sun God, like the Christian God) to become more conscious, with the help of the human consciousness that comes from the interaction and relation to the Spirit of Human Jaguar, represented visually and embedded by the statue. From an indigenous perspective, the rituals and activities related to the statue of the Human Jaguar may have allowed them to respectfully connect and call to the sacred spirit force of the Sun God through its representative on earth -the Human Jaguar.
Then, what is the teleological meaning of the statue? In other words and from a Jungian perspective of ‘Life as a Dream’, what is the teleological meaning of the dream in question (“There was a mound in a necropolis and, underneath it, there was a tomb that has a statue of what it looks like a Jaguar-Man, flanked by two other statues.”)?
The statue of the Jaguar Man may contribute, from an indigenous perspective, especially to the psyche of Colombian people as well as the psyche of people from around the world, about an important teleological and archetypal message that could contribute significantly to the meaning and healing of the human psyche.
The meaning of the initial part of the dream is, as follows:
During the process of psychological development, there is a place that the individual needs to visit while alive, and that is the unconscious. When the individual ego consciously relates to the unconscious (“necropolis”), there will be certain psychological aspects that may have to die (“tomb”), and those aspects are related to ways of thinking, perceiving, and behaving that do not contribute to wholeness and that keep us separated from God in us -the Gods, the Mystery or the Great Spirit (according to indigenous tribes). This dying is a sacred (“mound”) experience because it connects the individual with the Self -The God image within or the Great Spirit in the World of the Spirits.
But, what about the psychological meaning of the Jaguar-Man? The Jaguar-Man refers to the psychological integration or incarnation of the features of the Jaguar that we have previously described: a) the Jaguar is the symbol of the instinctual force in the human psyche that helps people to become aware, to connect, and to continuously travel from consciousness to the unconscious. To put it in indigenous terms, the Jaguar helps human beings, especially Taitas, Mamos, and shamans to travel to the Spirit World; b) the Jaguar is the inner psychological guide or mentor that help the ego to travel to the unconscious; c) the Jaguar is the psychological symbol of the human capacity for inward looking or In-Sight; d) the Jaguar, like the cat, is associated with a spiritual life. In other words, the jaguar is the psychological aspect of the psyche that propel us to connect with God in Us (from a Jungian perspective) or to connect with the Spirit World (from an indigenous perspective); e) the Jaguar is more connected with the masculine side of the human psyche.
Therefore, the jaguar-man is the human ability to see and mobilize, in a dynamic way, the variety of contents in the unconscious, especially those contents that are related to the deeper aspects of the unconscious -the Collective Unconscious . Or to put it on indigenous terms, the jaguar-man is the masculine dimension in every person that can see and be in touch dynamically with the deepest aspect of the Mystery -both the world of the spirits and the individual spirit within.
The full understanding of the Life-As-A-Dream of the Jaguar-Man (“There was a mound in a necropolis and, underneath it, there was a tomb that has a statue of what it looks like a Jaguar-Man, flanked by two other statues.”) is as follows:
During the process of psychological development, there is a place that the individual needs to visit while alive, and that is the unconscious. When the individual ego consciously relates to the unconscious (“necropolis”), there will be certain psychological aspects that may have to die (“tomb”). Those dying aspects are related to ways of thinking, perceiving, and behaving that do not contribute to wholesness and that keep us separated from God in us -the Gods, the Mystery or the Great Spirit according to indigenous tribes. This dying is a sacred (“mound”) experience because it connects the individual with the Self -The God image within or the Great Spirit in the World of the Spirits. But who precedes, promotes, and guides this dying process of continuos consciousness of connecting with the unconscious in a conscious way? The Jaguar-Man. In other words, there is a masculine, dynamic, and instinctual force in the human psyche that, when integrated and incarnated into human consciousness, serves as an inner psychological guide or mentor for becoming aware of, for connecting to, and for continuously traveling, from consciousness, to the unconscious. The Jaguar-Man reminds us that It is important for the living to integrate or incarnate the inner capacity for inward looking or In-Sight towards the unconscious in order to connect with God in Us (to bring consciousness to an unconscious God – see Jung’s book, ‘Answer to Job’) or to connect with the Spirit World.
The previous psychological information is extremely valuable for the living in order to prepare for dying and for the afterlife. A proper understanding of such information may help living individuals to integrate and incarnate human experiences that will contribute not only to the meaning of life but, also, to avoid an unnecessary karma of an unfulfilled life that may force the spirit of the dead to seek reincarnation. Likewise, when visiting the statue of the Jaguar Man, the spirits of the dead can obtained some important knowledge in the afterlife, as Jung described, for their own development, even though they would not be able to incarnate it. Then, then statue is, also, a gift for the dead who are visiting us.
The living and the spirits of the dead can benefit from the archetypal message embedded in the statue of the Jaguar Man. As Jung and Von Franz has previously shown in their writings about dreams and death, and the afterlife, when each of us die, our individual spirits will continue learning about consciousness during the afterlife. When the spirits come to visit the living, especially visiting the statue of the Jaguar Man, they will have an opportunity to learn the previously described message that the statue conveys.
Colombian people and the world in general may need to integrate or incarnate the masculine and dynamic forces of consciousness (the Jaguar-Man) that are within us, when connecting with the unconscious, despite the fact this process will require a psychological death with its concomitant conscious suffering, which is the price of wholeness during individuation.
Another Statue of Jaguar-Man, from San Agustin (Museo del Oro, Colombia). Credit: WikiCommons
This post was first published on thehealingpsyche.org.
Freddie Taborda, LCPC, PsyD is a Jungian Analyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois.
Links: Dr. Taborda’s Website | About Dr. Taborda | Dr. Taborda’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Website
The post Freddie Taborda | Jungian Analysis for the Living and for the Dead: Lessons from the Jaguar-Man in a Tomb appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
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Patricia Martin and Paul Bishop, author and professor at the University of Glasgow, discuss the mystery of the holy grail, what it meant to Carl Jung, and what it offers us.
Paul Bishop was born in 1967 in Southend-on-Sea. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and he is currently William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. His books examine the history of ideas and the histories of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology, with particular emphasis on Nietzsche, C.G. Jung, and Ludwig Klages. He has edited Companion volumes for Camden House on Goethe’s “Faust“, Parts One and Two; and on the life and works of Nietzsche. He is currently working on a four-volume project for Chiron Books entitled Jung and the Epic of Transformation, whose first volume is Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival” and the Grail as Transformation:
Books by Paul Bishop:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | Jung, The Holy Grail, and The Spirit of Transformation with Paul Bishop appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Robert Tyminski’s book, The Psychological Effects of Immigrating, is an exceptionally useful read in these turbulent times. As thoughtful people grapple with the bewildering array of policies from the White House aimed at immigrants, there is a collective anguish over how to respond. The cruel hypocrisy is that our national identity has been forged by immigrant stories. Still, sympathetic citizens also feel the tug of conscience when recent waves of immigrants aren’t easily absorbed into the economic fabric of our towns and cities as in previous generations.
At the core of Tyminski’s book is a focus on the mental health issues that arise for immigrants. A practicing Jungian analyst, Tyminski deftly weaves stories from his casework with myth and history to create an emotional landscape for the immigrant experience.
Join Robert Tyminski on March 8 at our Community Day 2025: Awakening Mythic Wisdom for Individual and Community Renewal
The basis of empathy is context. If we cannot see the human struggle of immigrants, it’s largely because it’s being drowned out by survival memes—it’s us against them. More constructive solutions elude us. This is where Tyminski’s work shines. His writing creates poignant profiles of immigrants working hard to fit in and the psychological costs for failing to do so: isolation, erasure, inadequacy, idealization of a past life, and feelings of doom and dread.
Some time after reading Tyminski’s book, my son told me he wants to apply for dual citizenship and asked me to the gather necessary documents. Since his grandmother was an immigrant, he qualifies. Going through her papers, I came across the official certificate granting her US citizenship. Tattered at the edges, the document anchored me in her story. I couldn’t downplay the emotional costs of her leaving behind family and a culture she loved. No doubt, her journey took courage that bolstered her for life in America. It was a legacy she handed down to us.
Leaving one’s home country requires strength and significant hope for a better life. That spirit is part of what makes America great. In fact, we are a culture of mythic hopes: new horizons, vast frontiers, and bootstrapping gumption. Often, those traits are imported. Yet, an angry chorus in the zeitgeist insists otherwise.
I’d wager many of us know legal immigrants who believe fervently in the US Constitution and the American way. Often, they are the true believers. Much of the drive and determination that defines American character comes from those who arrive with little more than their papers and a few belongings. This reality should not be trivialized as the US wrestles with its own identity crisis. Are we still the land of opportunity and plenty? Or are we becoming something else? We can’t evolve as a society unless we’re willing to face the shadow material lurking beneath the cries to round up immigrants. Namely, that we fear the American dream is threadbare, and we’re hoping no one notices. As Jung wrote, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.” Tyminski’s book beckons us to such consciousness. Moreover, the book offers practical wisdom, including chapter summaries that plainly land his points, all delivered in beautifully accessible prose.
To be sure, absorbing waves of refugees comes at a psychological cost. For example, “front line workers, whether they be teachers, workers, or lay people,” benefited from psychoanalysis to stem their anxiety and burnout, he writes. He goes on to enumerate what worked when he met with staff from the Sigmund Freud Institute in Frankfurt, who had been working extensively with refugees; this included: “attention to unconscious group processes,” “normalizing negative emotions,” and “close observations of non-verbal interactions.” In this way, the book is a field guide for supporting those on the ground dealing with immigration.
More broadly, Tyminski’s book is a reminder that what binds us together as a nation isn’t one’s personal tenure in this country. Rather, it’s the bright hope for a better life. That is simple enough. What’s not so easy is protecting that flame when changing winds threaten to extinguish it. And, there’s something else. We must find the courage face the shadow it casts.
Review written by Patricia Martin author, researcher, and Professional Affiliate at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago where she hosts the podcast Jung in the World.
Books by Robert Tyminski:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
The post Patricia Martin | Book Review: The Psychological Effects of Immigrating by Robert Tyminski appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This episode departs from the physicality of Hercules’ deeds to discuss a more spiritual tale of love. Eros and Psyche is in many ways a story in opposition to Hercules. For while he remains emotionally unchanged by the end of his tale, the very core of this love story is emotional development.
This season we will be reading from:
- Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Adina’s extra reading comes from:
- Alchemy of the Soul: The Eros and Psyche Myth as a Guide to Transformation – by Martin Lowenthal
- You’re Not What I Expected – by Polly Young-Eisendrath
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: File:Eros and Psyche Eros y Psique (Cupido) PsycheabductFXD.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
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The post Jungian Ever After | Eros & Psyche appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
To ring in the new year, we’re sharing this conversation between Patricia Martina and James Hollis, Jungian Analyst and author of many books, including Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up
James Hollis, PhD was born in Springfield, Illinois, and graduated from Manchester University in 1962 and Drew University in 1967. He taught Humanities 26 years in various colleges and universities before retraining as a Jungian analyst at the Jung Institute of Zurich, Switzerland (1977-82). He is presently a licensed Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C. He served as Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center in Houston, Texas for many years, was Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington until 2019, and now serves on the JSW Board of Directors. He is a retired Senior Training Analyst for the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, was first Director of Training of the Philadelphia Jung Institute, and is Vice-President Emeritus of the Philemon Foundation. Additionally he is a Professor of Jungian Studies for Saybrook University of San Francisco/Houston. He has written a total of sixteen books, which have been translated into 19 languages. He lives with his wife Jill, an artist and retired therapist, in Washington, DC. Together they have three living children and eight grand-children.
Books by James Hollis:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
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Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | What it Means to Grow Up: A Conversation with James Hollis appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Paul is the author of “Transformative Experience,” a widely read philosophical investigation of personal change. As a professor at Yale University, she is revitalizing a humanities approach to philosophy that helps us look at ourselves across the ups and downs of individuation.
L.A. Paul is the Millstone Family Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Cognitive Science at Yale University. Her research explores questions about the nature of the self, decision-making, temporal experience, philosophical methodology, causation, causal experience, time and time’s arrow, perception, mereology, constitution, and essence.
She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Humanities Center, and the Australian National University. She is also the author of several books, including Transformative Experience (Oxford University Press, 2014) and Causation: A User’s Guide (Oxford University Press, 2013), which was awarded the American Philosophical Association Sanders Book Prize. In 2020 she received the Dr. Martin R. Lebowitz and Eve Lewellis Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution from the American Philosophical Association and Phi Beta Kappa Society. Her work on transformative experience has been covered in major media venues such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, Slate, the LA Times Book Review, NPR, and the BBC, and explored artistically, in “The Missing Shade of You”, a dance and spoken word performance by the Logos Dance Collective, performed in New York City in 2017 and in the documentary film “Comfort Zone”, about off-piste/extreme skiing in Scotland. She is currently working on a book, under contract with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, about self construction, transformative experience, humility, and fear of mental corruption. Learn more at lapaul.org.
Books by L.A. Paul:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | Philosopher L.A. Paul talks about Transformative Experiences appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
In this episode we discuss the story of Hercules, the strongest man and perhaps the most well known of Greek heroes. While folks are probably familiar with general highlights of his story, many of the finer details may be surprising. After consuming the entirety of his legend, it’s hard to call it anything else but tragic.
This season we will be reading from:
- Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: File:Antonio del Pollaiolo – Ercole e l’Idra e Ercole e Anteo – Google Art Project.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
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The post Jungian Ever After | Hercules appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Ken James appeared on the Howl in the Wilderness Podcast. From the episode description:
Howling about Jung, Hillman, individuation, the shadow & the spiritual life with Ken James. Dr. Kenneth James maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois at The Soulwork Center. His areas of expertise include dream work and psychoanalysis, archetypal dimensions of analytic practice, divination and synchronicity, and ways to sustain the vital relationship between body, mind and spirit. He has done post-doctoral work in music therapy, the Kabbalah, spirituality and theology, and uses these disciplines to inform his work as a Jungian analyst.
Ken’s website: https://soulworkcenter.org
Ken’s lectures: https://jungchicago.org/blog/speaker/james-ken/
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Links
Brian James’s Website: https://brianjames.ca
Instagram: brianjames.soulwork
Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTpN-AF5842TTMZweZVEXUw
PayPal: http://paypal.me/brianjamessoul
The post Howl in the Wilderness Podcast | Jungian Analysis, Individuation & The Spiritual Life | Kenneth James (Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Jungian analyst and author Robert Tyminski brilliantly weaves poignant case studies with Jungian theory and mythology in an interview that meets the urgency of our times when ideas about masculinity are roiling in the Collective.
Robert Tyminski is a certified adult and child Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in San Francisco. He has a doctoral degree in mental health from the University of California at San Francisco and teaches in their Department of Psychiatry. He has an M.B.A. degree from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. For 14 years, he led a non-profit organization devoted to treating troubled children and their families. He is the author of several books, most recently The Psychological Effects of Immigrating, and has published articles in different professional journals on topics about adolescence, addiction, group therapy, social skills development, and dreams. Learn more at roberttyminski.com.
Books by Robert Tyminski:
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | The Archetype of Masculinity: A Crisis in Men and Boys with Robert Tyminski appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Tanya Luhrmann discusses some of the ways through which invisible forces come to feel alive to us, and change how we think and live.
Tanya Marie Luhrmann is the Albert Ray Lang Professor of Anthropology at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in Psychology. Her work focuses on the edge of experience: on voices, visions, the world of the supernatural and the world of psychosis. She has done ethnography on the streets of Chicago with homeless and psychotic women, and worked with people who hear voices in Chennai, Accra and the South Bay. She has also done fieldwork with evangelical Christians who seek to hear God speak back, with Zoroastrians who set out to create a more mystical faith, and with people who practice magic. She uses a combination of ethnographic and experimental methods to understand the phenomenology of unusual sensory experiences, the way they are shaped by ideas about minds and persons, and what we can learn from this social shaping that can help us to help those whose voices are distressing. At the heart of the work is the sense of being called, and its possibilities and burden.
She was named to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2003, received a John Guggenheim Fellowship award in 2007 and elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2022. When God Talks Back was named a NYT Notable Book of the Year and a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year. It was awarded the $100,000 Grawemeyer Prize for Religion by the University of Louisville. She has published over thirty OpEds in The New York Times, and her work has been featured in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Science News, and many other publications. She is the author of Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft, The Good Parsi, Of Two Minds, When God Talks Back, Our Most Troubling Madness, and How God Becomes Real, and is currently at work on a book entitled Voices.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World | How God Becomes Real with Tanya Luhrmann appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Season 4 of Jung in the World podcast launches this month. Every season is a renewal of our purpose, which is to apply the ideas of Carl Jung to contemporary living. Host Patricia Martin interviews authors, Jungian analysts, philosophers, scientists, and public figures whose work intersects with Jungian theory. This eclectic mix of thinkers opens up the deepest questions of how we become, and go on becoming, ourselves.
Highlights from Season 4 include:
- How God Becomes Real, with acclaimed anthropologist and Stanford professor Tanya Luhrmann, who shares insights about how we kindle the presence of gods and spirits and how this effort explains the endurance of faith across time and cultures.
- Jungian analyst and author Robert Tyminski discusses The Archetype of Masculinity: A Crisis in Men and Boys. Tyminski brilliantly weaves poignant case studies with Jungian theory and mythology in an interview that meets the urgency of our times when ideas about masculinity are roiling in the Collective.
- We re-visit the legend of the Holy Grail with author Paul Bishop, a professor at University of Glasgow, who peels back layers of the Parsifal myth to reveal its meaning in a contemporary context.
- Jung and the Post-Human Age, with Pacifica professor and author Glen Slater is a deep dive into what digital culture is doing to the human psyche as we internalize the fractiousness of the outer world.
- What it Means to Grow Up, with the esteemed Jungian and author of 20 books, James Hollis, who brings useful, relatable stories, and incisive wisdom that cuts through the haze of our uncertain times.
If you’re new to the podcast, welcome! If you’re already a listener, thank you for tuning in every month!
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Be informed of new programs and content by joining our mailing list!
Support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store! Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Peter Demuth
The post Jung in the World launches Season 4: Trailer appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thank you to the Asheville Jung Center for sharing this video. From the video description:
Introducing The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz Featuring Murray Stein, Steven Buser and Leonard Cruz The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz is a 28 volume Magnum Opus of one of the leading minds in Analytical Psychology. The first volume, Archetypal Symbols in Fairytales: The Profane and Magical Worlds, releases on her 106th birthday, January 4th, 2021 and is to be followed by 27 more volumes over the next 10 years. Steven Buser and Leonard Cruz are the General Editor’s of The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz. During the first hour of this lecture, Dr. Buser and Dr. Cruz will take us through this important first volume including a history of the project as well as an overview of von Franz and her important contributions to Analytical Psychology. Dr. Murray Stein will then lead an online discussion regarding von Franz.
Von Franz, one of the most renowned authorities on fairytales, presents a systematic and wide-ranging approach. She amplifies a variety of fairytale motifs to show that the magical realm is alien to the profane and mundane realm of ordinary daily life. She was one of Analytical Psychology’s most original thinkers and here she presents a lucid, concise exploration of the archetypal symbols found in fairytales. Fairytales, like myths, provide a cultural and societal backdrop that helps the human imagination narrate the meaning of life’s events. The remarkable similarities in fairytale motifs across different lands and cultures inspired many scholars to search for the original homeland of fairytales. While peregrinations of fairytale motifs occur, the common root of fairytales is more archetypal than geographic. A striking feature of fairytales is that a sense of space, time, and causality is absent. This situates them in a magical realm, a land of the soul, where the most interesting things happen in the center of places like Heaven, mountains, lakes, and wells.
Murray Stein, Ph.D. is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the International School of Analytical Psychology Zurich (ISAP-ZURICH). He is a founding member of The Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (1977) and of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts (1980). He was president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) from 2001 to 2004 and President of ISAP-ZURICH from 2008 to 2012. He has lectured internationally and is the author of Jung’s Treatment of Christianity, In MidLife, Jung’s Map of the Soul, Minding the Self, and most recently Outside Inside and All Around and Jung’s Red Book for Our Time Volumes 1 through 4 (co-edited with Thomas Arzt). He lives in Switzerland and has a private practice in Zurich.
Steven Buser, MD trained in medicine at Duke University and served 12 years as a physician in the U.S. Air Force. He is a graduate of the two-year Clinical Training Program at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and is the co-founder of the Asheville Jung Center. He has worked for over 30 years in psychiatry with a focus on Jungian oriented psychotherapy. He currently works in the field of addiction medicine and serves as Publisher of Chiron Publications. He along with fellow publisher Leonard Cruz are the General Editors of The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz, a 28 volume series.
Leonard Cruz, MD is the Editor-in-Chief of Chiron Publications and co-founder of the Asheville Jung Center. After 33 years of practicing psychiatry and psychotherapy he now focuses on treating substance use disorders. He explores how post-modern man’s search for transcendent experiences can easily descend into addiction and how utilizing myth, rites, and rituals can help support patients seeking sobriety. He currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer of a 68-bed substance abuse hospital. He along with fellow publisher Steven Buser are the General Editors of The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz.
Marie-Louise von Franz
At the age of eighteen, Marie-Louise von Franz was invited to meet Carl Gustav Jung at Bolingen Tower. She immediately recognized that there exist two levels of reality, one outer and the other inner. Within months she had enrolled at the University of Zürich and began attending Jung’s lectures at the E.T.H. (Eidgenösiche Technische Hochshule or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). Less than a decade after meeting Jung, von Franz had completed her doctorate in classical philology and begun seeing her first analysands. She was a prolific writer, a dedicated teacher and lecturer, and was possessed of a “far-reaching and often non discriminating Eros that accepted everyone seeking help.” (Alfred Ribi, MD in Fountain of the Love of Wisdom, Chiron, 2006)
Links: Asheville Jung Center
The post Asheville Jung Center | The Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz, Vol 1 – ISAP Talk (Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
After an unintentionally extended break we bring you our first story episode of season 2! No pantheon is without its creation story and it seemed an obvious place to start for our season of Greek mythology. We discuss the archetypes of creation stories with some comparisons to biblical creation and… The Big Bang Theory?
Story begins | 14:03
Story ends | 20:02
This season we will be reading from:
- Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: File:Olympians.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
The post Jungian Ever After | The Greek Creation Myth appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
“The Jung-Hisamatsu Dialogue: A Closer Look and Commentary” by Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Warren Sibilla has been published in Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. It is currently free to read.
View ArticleThe post Warren Sibilla | “The Jung-Hisamatsu Dialogue: A Closer Look and Commentary” published in Jung Journal appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Patricia Taylor Greer, poet, author, and psychotherapist, passed away at her home in Wheaton, IL, on August 15, 2024 surrounded by her adoring husband Carl Greer and her three loving children.
Sophisticated, intellectual, loyal, and protective, Patricia was born in Queens, New York City, and grew up in Mt. Vernon, New York, and Mt. Lebanon, Pennsylvania, before attending Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia, where she received a Bachelor of Arts in English literature. A lifelong student and learner, Patricia also received a Master’s degree in English (Loyola University of Chicago), a Master’s in Marriage, Family and Child Therapy (California Family Study Center), a Ph.D in Clinical Psychology (Pacifica Graduate Institute), and a diploma in Analytical Psychology (C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago).
Patricia spent 20 years in Glen Ellyn, Illinois; Chatham, Ontario, Canada; and La Canada, California, nurturing and raising her children with her first husband, Bill Taylor. She also made lifelong friends in each city. In 1987, she settled in Wheaton, Illinois, where she opened her own psychotherapy practice and saw clients for more than 30 years.
A breast cancer survivor from the 1980s, Patricia is the author of the book “Breast Cancer: A Soul Journey,” published in 2014, “Soul Play: A Workbook to Inspire and Guide Your Soul Journey” published in 2017, and “Whispers of the Soul,” a collection of poetry published in 2021. In addition to being a teacher, psychotherapist and published author, Patricia was a lover of nature, a graceful skier and strong tennis player, an artist, a photographer and a traveler. A voracious reader of all forms of literature, she was never more content than with a good book in her hand. Patricia was also a very spiritual woman, and a faithful Catholic who will always be remembered as passing on the Feast of the Assumption.
Patricia and her beloved husband Carl Greer were high school sweethearts who later in life reconnected, fell in love, and created a beautiful partnership. Their life together was full of family, travel, philosophical discussions, and philanthropy. Together, Patricia and Carl created the Greer Foundation, a private family foundation that supports programs that focus on issues of social justice, poverty, the environment, physical and mental health, and indigenous spiritual and healing practices.
Most of all, Patricia will be remembered by those closest to her as someone who loved them completely, fiercely, and unconditionally. The deep, consistent, unwavering love her family members felt from her is the first, last and best gift she gave them, and one they will always carry with them.
Patricia is survived by the love of her life, her husband of 35 years, Carl Greer; children Michael Taylor (Leslie), Susan Lanciotti, and Jean Taylor (Michael Roberts); grandchildren Brianna, Sophia, Matilda, Adelaide, Crosby, and Gwendolyn; step children Caryn Riemer (Rudy), Michael Greer, and Janet Walsmith (Joe); step grandchildren Cole, Jack, Jonas, Lusha, Camilo, Ella, Maya and Sienna; and a sister, Susan Congalton (Chris).
In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation to one of the Greer Foundation grantee organizations listed here: http://www.greercharities.com/slider/our-grantees/
This obituary was originally published in the Chicago Tribune.
The post In Memoriam: Patricia Greer appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Award-winning journalist and Hillman biographer Dick Russell discusses his recent book The Life and Ideas of James Hillman: Volume II: Revisioning Psychology with Patricia Martin.
Dick Russell is the award-winning author of fifteen non-fiction books, including three New York Times best-sellers. In addition to his biographical trilogy about depth psychologist James Hillman, he has just published The Real RFK Jr: Trials of a Truth Warrior. A recipient of the citizen’s Chevron Conservation Award, Russell is also the eclectic author of Climate In Crisis, Black Genius and the American Experience, Eye of the Whale, and My Mysterious Son: A Life-Changing Passage Between Schizophrenia and Shamanism. Learn more at dickrussell.org.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Decoding James Hillman with Dick Russell appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Dr. Thomas Patrick Lavin, 82, of Wilmette, Illinois, passed away on June 3, 2024, at home with his best friend and partner of 55 years, Dr. Mary Ellen O’Hare Lavin at his side.
Tom was challenged by numerous health issues over the past decade, facing them with grace, grit, warmth and Irish humor. A devoted husband, father and grandfather, Tom’s twinkling eyes, quick smile, adventurous spirit and love of life will leave a void in the lives of his loving family, his dear friends and those he served in his decades in the practice of analytical psychology.
He is survived by his devoted wife Mary Ellen, son Thomas Lavin (JoLynn) of Saint Anthony, MN; daughter Erin Lavin Cabonargi (Michael) of Wilmette, IL; son Brian Lavin (Megan) of Melrose, MA and grandchildren Thomas, William, Oliver, Jack, Maeve, Cormac and Josephine.
Tom was born on October 7, 1941, on the south side of Chicago. He is preceded in death by his parents John Lavin and Josephine Whalen Lavin, and his brother William Lavin.
After graduating from Quigley Preparatory Seminary in Chicago, he attended Saint Mary of the Lake Archdiocesan Seminary in Mundelein, IL. He then completed his diploma at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland and his doctorate at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Tom became a clinical psychologist, educator, administrator and counselor. Tom served as a Captain in the Medical Service Corps of the US Army, Professor and Dean of the School of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Munich Germany campus, and as a clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst to many in his decades of private practice in Wilmette, Illinois.
Tom lived his life caring for and in the service of others. He set up numerous drug and alcohol treatment centers throughout Europe for the United States Army. He trained other psychotherapists in the specialized treatment of mental health and substance abuse disorders to benefit active duty and veterans of the US Army. Upon returning with his family to the United States in 1977, he served as a psychotherapist to military personnel at Fort Sheridan in Highwood, Illinois. He left the service in the US Army in order to build a private practice in clinical psychology in Wilmette, Illinois where he served hundreds of people in their pursuit of mental health, inner peace and the Divine, individually and as a greater collective. He also lectured at Jungian symposia throughout the world.
This obituary originally appeared on Kolbus-May Funeral Home
Sign the GuestbookThe post In Memoriam: Tom Lavin appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member and current president of the Institute Peter Demuth, PsyD, appeared on the Scarif Scuttlebutt Podcast. From the episode description:
Yoda proclaimed it. Fear, Anger, Hate, Suffering, all elements that lead to the Dark Side. Anakin embodied all that to become transformed into arguably, the greatest villain to ever exist in movies, the dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader. We know of his dark trajectory, but how do those things play out in our own lives? Can we be turned to the Dark Side as Anakin was? Are we immune to those feelings? Ro and Brad welcome Dr Peter Demuth to the show and discuss the four pillars of Anakin’s transformation. Dr Demuth is a clinical psychologist and author of Monsters in Life and Literature which gives him unique insight to this discussion.
We explore how these very strong emotions can act in a way that transformed Anakin and pose the question, do we all have darkness in us? Join this deep dive discussion and explore the nature of these emotions and how our movie antagonists are a dark reflection of a possible outcome in real life. Demuth has spent decades studying, evaluating, and treating violent criminals and we bring him on to break down how a simple slave boy from Tatooine becomes the most feared villain in the galaxy.
Listen on Apple PodcastsThe post Scarif Scuttlebutt Podcast | Fear Anger Hate with Peter Demuth (Audio) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Our Spring Fundraising Drive ends June 30! We need your help to keep this free podcast, our classes, and our training programs going. Become a supporter by making a donation today!
Renowned mythologist and McArthur genius Fellow Lewis Hyde joins Patricia Martin in a revelatory conversation about the trickster archetype embodied in mythology.
“Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. His 1983 book, The Gift, illuminates and defends the non-commercial portion of artistic practice. Trickster Makes This World (1998) uses a group of ancient myths to argue for the disruptive intelligence that all cultures need if they are to remain lively and open to change. Common as Air (2010) is a spirited defense of our “cultural commons,” that vast store of ideas, inventions, and works of art that we have inherited from the past and continue to enrich in the present.
Hyde’s most recent book, A Primer for Forgetting, explores the many situations in which forgetfulness is more useful than memory—in myth, personal psychology, politics, art & spiritual life.
A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde taught writing and American literature for many years at Kenyon College. Now retired, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts with his wife, the writer Patricia Vigderman. Hyde is a trustee of MacDowell and a founding director of the Creative Capital Foundation.”
Learn more at lewishyde.com.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
Want to learn more about the Trickster? Listen to Robert Moore’s The Trickster Archetype: Potential and Pathology
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2024-2025 Season Intern: Kavya Krishnamurthy
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth and Art with Lewis Hyde appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We’ve just launched our Spring Fundraising Drive! We need your help to keep this free podcast, our classes, and our training programs going. Become a supporter by making a donation today!
Imposter Syndrome seems ubiquitous in the collective. This episode explores the psychological underpinnings of the “as-if” personality through a Jungian lens. Host Patricia Martin talks with author and Jungian analyst Susan Schwartz about the inner world of Imposter Syndrome and why the same forces that can disturb personal development, can also provide the impetus to embrace a more complete self. Schwartz draws from her recent book, Imposter Syndrome and The ‘As-If’ Personality in Analytical Psychology.
Susan E. Schwartz, PhD, is a Jungian analyst educated in Zurich, Switzerland and is a licensed clinical psychologist. For many years Susan has been giving workshops and presentations at numerous local, national, community and professional organizations, and lectures worldwide on various aspects of Jungian analytical psychology. She has written several journal articles and book chapters on daughters and fathers, Puella, Sylvia Plath and has co-authored a couple of books, including Imposter Syndrome and The ‘As-If’ Personality in Analytical Psychology.
She is a member of the International Association of Analytical Psychology and the American Psychological Association. Susan maintains a private practice in Paradise Valley, Arizona serving people in the greater Phoenix area, Tuscon, Prescott and Cottonwood, West Valley, Scottsdale and Tempe.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | The Inner Realm of Imposter Syndrome: A Jungian Perspective with Susan Schwartz appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Announcements
- Registration for George Bright’s in-person seminar “Where did Jung’s Red Book Come From, and Why Does it Matter?” closes on May 10
- The recording of Nora Swan-Foster’s workshop, “Image or Art? From Jung’s Red Book to Jungian Art Therapy” is now available as a Self-Study Course
Our first episode of season 2! In a way this is episode 0 because it is an introduction to the members of the Greek pantheon and some of our opinions on them.
This season we will be reading from:
- Mythology by Edith Hamilton
Our intro/outro music a sample of Seikilos Epitaph with the Lyre of Apollo, by Lina Palera, under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 International License. You can find the full version at FreeMusicArchive.org.
Banner Image: File:Olympians.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
The post Jungian Ever After | Introducing the Greek Pantheon appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Register for George Bright’s In-Person Seminar “Where Did Jung’s Red Book Come From and Why Does it Matter?”
Jung regarded his Red Book: Liber Novus as the record of “the numinous beginning, which contained everything.” In his lifetime, Jung only showed this book to a handful of trusted colleagues whom he thought truly grasped the nature of the book’s vivid confrontations with the unconscious. Its publication in 2009, and translation into many languages, now gives us all the opportunity to engage with it. In conversation with Patricia Martin, the internationally respected Jungian scholar George Bright discusses how and why Jung wrote and painted his Red Book, and draws out key themes that help us understand Jung’s encounter with his soul as chronicled in the Red Book. Bright suggests why reading the enigmatic work may be worth the effort in service of our own transformation.
George Bright was educated at Cambridge University and The London School of Economics. He is a Training & Supervising Analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology and a co-founder of The Circle of Analytical Psychology, a London-based group which provides two-year courses to study Jung’s Liber Novus and Black Books. He has worked in private practice in London for the past 35 years. His 1997 paper Synchronicity as a basis of analytic attitude won the Michael Fordham Prize.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Approaching Carl Jung’s Red Book: Liber Novus with George Bright appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Shirley M. Fontenot was born on May 25, 1935, to Curtis and Marie (Ortego) Fontenot in Villa Platte, Louisiana. She was one of the youngest of six children. She lived in University City, MO, with her long-term partner, Rose. Shirley was a “small” extraordinary woman. She became a Catholic nun, entering the convent immediately after high school. She taught first grade for 16 years and often said her finest education came by way of the many children who passed through her classroom. During her time in the convent, she also earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in education.
Shirley left the order after 26 years and moved from Louisiana “Cajun Country” to Chicago to pursue her interest in Jungian Psychology. During the next 20 years, she completed master’s degrees in both Pastoral Studies and Divinity, as well as a doctorate in ministry, and worked as a psychotherapist. In 1993 she earned a diploma as a Jungian Analyst and enjoyed this profession for nearly 30 years. She was engaged in some form of formal education for one-third of her life. She semi-retired at age 87.
In 1996 she met and fell in love with Rose Holt, who was studying Jungian Psychology in Chicago. Shirley enjoyed a rich and fulfilling life with Rose. They moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 2003. The two of them would enjoy hours of deep conversations about theology, psychology, family, and all facets of life, often during a shared meal at dinner time. Her favorite place to visit was Sedona, Arizona, where she and Rose enjoyed vacationing many times. In her later years, traveling became more difficult for Shirley but she and Rose spent many hours enjoying each other’s company and playing card games, Scrabble and most recently, Rummikub. She was a quiet contender.
Shirley also loved her annual family reunions. Coming from a family of 5 siblings, Shirley had many nieces, nephews, great nieces and great nephews, and great grandnieces and great grandnephews, all of whom adored her and whom she adored. They would often come to St. Louis to visit, and Shirley always looked forward to their visits. She never forgot where she came from and remained humble and kind her entire life.
Shirley was a collector of items of a religious nature, especially angels. She was an avid reader of fiction and focused on historical fiction. The Harry Potter books were her favorites, and she led many adult seminars weaving Potter and Jungian themes. In some mystical way she was able to bring together all she had learned from first graders, all she had gleaned from decades sitting in classrooms, and all that her clients taught her into a wisdom that many recognized and drew from.
Shirley passed away at the age of 88 on March 6, 2024, at Missouri Baptist Medical Center and will be greatly missed by all who knew her. She is survived by her sister, Rosie (Tee) Eichler, her partner Rose Holt, along with many nieces and nephews. She is preceded in death by her parents, her sisters Anne Bordelon, Estelle Hoskinson and Loretta Landry and her brother, Frank Fontenot.
A Celebration of Shirley Fontenot’s Life will be held Saturday April 6 at 11:00am at First Congregational Church, Wydown Street, Saint Louis, Mo.
Photo gallery and other links at osfuneralhomes.com
The post In Memoriam: Shirley M. Fontenot appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
The C. G. Jung Institute Chicago welcomes proposals for programs of interest to the general public that explore Jungian thought, including the emotional and psychological issues of contemporary living, from a creative, symbolic, or spiritual perspective. Using the online form you can propose an event, lecture, or workshop to offer in person or virtually. All proposals will be considered for fall 2024. The submission deadline is April 30, 2024.
Proposal FormThe post Call for Proposals | Fall 2024 Online & In-Person Programs appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Register for Patricia’s In-Person Writing Workshop “The Inner Prompt”
Bestselling author and practicing Buddhist Natalie Goldberg joins Patricia Martin in a discussion about the healing properties of writing and how it helped her heal from cancer.
Natalie Goldberg is the author of fifteen books, including Let the Whole Thundering World Come Home. For the last forty years she has practiced Zen and taught seminars in writing as a spiritual practice. She lives in northern New Mexico. For more information, please visit nataliegoldberg.com.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Tell Me Something Beautiful: An Interview with Natalie Goldberg appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This episode is a short excerpt from the first session of our currently-running salon series, “A Fresh Look at The Red Book: Reading the Liber Novus with Jungian Psychoanalysts”. The salon series runs from January through June, and registration remains open. Those who register will receive a link to videos of previous sessions to catch up.
George Bright will also be visiting the US in May for an in-person seminar, Where Did Jung’s Red Book Come From and Why Does it Matter?. Join us for this rare opportunity.
George Bright was educated at Cambridge University and The London School of Economics. He is a Training & Supervising Analyst of the Society of Analytical Psychology and a co-founder of The Circle of Analytical Psychology, a London-based group engaged in the study of Jung’s Liber Novus and Black Books. He works in private practice in London. His 1997 paper Synchronicity as a basis of analytic attitude won the Michael Fordham Prize.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Institute Archive | Excerpt: A Fresh Look at the Red Book with George Bright appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
- Register for Vlado’s webinar series “The Mirage of Truth”
- Dark Religion on Amazon
- Dark Religion Audiobook on Audible
Two Jungian analysts discuss fundamentalism, shadow, and a new way forward. George Didier and Vlado Šolc, authors of the book Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology, join Patricia Martin for a conversation about the psychology of religion as a destructive force and why it is important to understand the shadow side of fundamentalism.
Dr. George Didier, III is a clinical psychologist, pastoral psychotherapist and a diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Rockford, Crystal Lake, and Chicago, IL. After graduate studies he was ordained a catholic priest and served the Diocese of Rockford for 10 years. During this time, he also went back to school and earned a doctorate in pastoral psychotherapy. He left the priesthood after 10 years, married and changed careers, going back to school again to earn a doctorate in clinical psychology. After graduation he worked as a psychologist and teacher at the University of Illinois, College of Medicine, Rockford, while developing his private practice. Dr. Didier was a founding member of the Center for Wholistic Counseling at Resurrection, in Woodstock, IL, serving as clinical director of the Center from 1995 to 2007.
Vladislav (Vlado) Šolc (pronounced “Schultz”) is a professional psychotherapist and Jungian analyst practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vlado received training from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Charles University in Prague. He is the author of five depth-psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; The Father Archetype; In the Name of God—Fanaticism from the Perspective of Depth Psychology; Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology and most recently Democracy and Individuation in the Times of Conspiracy Theories.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Fundamentalism’s Dark Side: A Jungian View with George Didier & Vladislav Šolc appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Dennis Merritt, Jungian analyst and member of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, presents on hexagrams from the I Ching, a Chinese book of wisdom, that demonstrated synchronicity by the way they appeared in the dreams of a Western man in Jungian analysis. Discussion topics included using the I Ching in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy; a synchronicity experiment with the I Ching; shamanism, Native American spirituality and the origins of the I Ching; the archetype of the Trickster in conjunction with AI and Donald Trump; Pachamama, Earth spirituality and indigenous cultures; and Christianity contrasted with Chinese wisdom, Taoism and the yin/yang symbol.
The 3-hour event was sponsored by the C. G. Jung Club of Orange County [CA] on January 21, 2023. Please consider joining or donating to this organization that makes the presentations freely available.
Watch on YouTubeThe post The C. G. Jung Club of Orange County | Unique Messages from the Self: Hexagrams from the I Ching Appearing in Dreams with Dennis Merritt (Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Patricia Martin talks with Jungian analyst Gus Cwik, PsyD, Jungian analyst, about the upside of virtual therapy and what we need to know about its strengths and limitations.
August Cwik, PsyD is a clinical psychologist, hypnotherapist and senior diplomate Jungian analyst in private practice in the Chicago area. After studying Chemistry as an undergraduate, he entered military service and then changed his career path to psychology. After studying with Rosiland Cartwright in the Dream and Sleep Lab at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, he was in the first class at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. He interned at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry where he trained in hypnotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy and returned to Chicago to begin private practice. He is on the teaching faculty of the Chicago Institute and the Florida and Minnesota Seminars for the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts. He is an Assistant Editor for the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He is former: Co-Director of Training of the Analyst Training Program in Clinical Supervision and Curriculum and Co-Director of Clinical Training Program in Analytical Psychotherapy (now the JPP/JSP) at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, and Senior Adjunct Faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. He provides videoconferencing supervision and analysis. He has published on analytic structure, supervision, alchemical imagery, active imagination, dreams, and numerous reviews.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | When Psychotherapy Goes Online: The Hidden Virtues of Virtual Therapy with Gus Cwik appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Before becoming a Jungian analyst, Dr. Peter Demuth spent decades as a Forensic Psychologist, studying, evaluating, and treating violent criminals. In this book, he brings his forensic experience and Jungian depth training to the analysis of famous literary monsters.
In Monsters in Life and Literature Dr. Demuth takes the reader on a journey into the world of the forensic psychologist, tasked with understanding the most extreme forms of what is usually referred to as the human capacity for evil. Demuth joins his long experience with the inhabitants of this world with his training as a Jungian psychoanalyst to cast light in the darkness through his theoretical reflections and his detailed examination of monsters found in myth and literature. The book is essential reading for anyone concerned with understanding these regions of darkness in the human condition.
—George Hogenson, Ph.D.
Senior Training Analyst at the C G Jung Institute of Chicago and the author of Jung’s Struggle with Freud—A Metabiological Study (2013)
Learn MoreOrder from AmazonThe post Book Release | Monsters in Life and Literature by Peter Demuth appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Join the Fall Fundraising Drive: Donate
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- Online Salon Series: A Fresh Look at The Red Book: Reading the Liber Novus with Jungian Psychoanalysts
This episode is the first part of the series Hero & Heroine: The Mythic Dimension in Times of Transition & Growth (the full series is available for purchase on our website). From the seminar description:
Jean Shinoda Bolen leads a workshop which offers an appreciation of how myth, legend, poetry, and contemporary stories provide insights that are meaningful in ordinary life, with particular attention given to those times in a person’s life when major changes are occurring.
It was recorded January 21-22, 1989.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, and an internationally known author and speaker. She is the author of The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, Close to the Bone, The Millionth Circle, Goddesses in Older Women, Crones Don’t Whine, Urgent Message from Mother, and Like a Tree with over eighty foreign translations. She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, a past board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women and the International Transpersonal Association. She was a recipient of the Institute for Health and Healing’s “Pioneers in Art, Science, and the Soul of Healing Award”, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She was in two acclaimed documentaries, the Academy-Award winning anti-nuclear proliferation film Women—For America, For the World, and the Canadian Film Board’s Goddess Remembered. The Millionth Circle Initiative (millionthcircle.org) was inspired by her book and led to her involvement at the UN. She is the initiator and the leading advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women (5wcw.org), which was supported by the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly on March 8, 2012.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Purchase the full series Hero & Heroine: The Mythic Spirit in Times of Transition & Growth
All of Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Seminars
Events
A Fresh Look at The Red Book: Reading the Liber Novus with Jungian Psychoanalysts
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Institute Archive | Hero and Heroine: The Mythic Dimension in Times of Transition and Growth with Jean Shinoda Bolen appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thank you to the Jung Association of Western Massachusetts for sharing this video.
From the video description:
Let’s deepen and broaden the idea of “therapy.” Originally the word meant “to nurse, serve or care for.” We are all sometimes called to be a “therapist” for our friends, co-workers and family members. We can all learn from professional psychotherapy lessons in listening, talking and being present to another. Professional therapists might also benefit from a deepening of the concept of therapy. This presentation draws on C. G. Jung’s alchemical descriptions of therapy and transference and on James Hillman’s idea of therapy of the world. It is rooted in Plato’s classic definition of therapy in one of his dialogues. It is for both professional therapists and ordinary people who might want some guidance in speaking “therapeutically” to people they care about.
Links: Thomas Moore on the Jungianthology Podcast & Blog | Thomas Moore in Our Store | Jung Association of Western Mass (westmassjung.org) | JAWM Free Video Archive
The post Thomas Moore | A Therapeutic Way of Life (Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Frank Buckley, Jesuit priest and clinical psychologist at Homeboy Industries gang rehabilitation program, received a scholarship to attend our Memories, Dreams, Reflections online training. Help clinicians like Frank bring Jungian psychology to their clients by contributing to our Fall Fundraising Drive now!
Support the InstituteThe post Scholarship Recipient Frank Buckley Shares How Important Jungian Training was for His Work in Gang Rehabilitation (Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Transcript
This podcast and everything we do is only possible because of donations by generous individuals like you. Contribute to our Fall Fundraising Drive to ensure that we can continue providing free and low-cost educational resources and training. SUPPORT THE INSTITUTE
Author Casper ter Kuile joins Patricia Martin for a lively discussion about how to restore our spirits and communities with everyday rituals.
Casper is the author of The Power of Ritual, the co-founder of The Nearness, Sacred Design Lab and the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Vice, and NPR, and he’s spoken widely on community trends, ritual, and emerging spirituality at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Cannes Lions Festival, Stanford University, and numerous religious institutions.
Links: thenearness.coop/start-your-journey | caspertk.com
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | The Power of Ritual: Simple Practices that Restore the Psyche with Casper ter Kuile appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Don L. Troyer, M.D. died on November 11, 2023 at his home in Three Rivers. He was born on January 13, 1949 to Dana O. Troyer, M.D. and Verna (Burkholder) Troyer in Dhamtari, India, where they were serving as medical missionaries. He grew up in Goshen, Indiana where he graduated from Goshen High School and Goshen College with High Honors. During medical school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland he married Verna Hostetler on August 27, 1972. After completing a residency in Family Medicine at Williamsport, Pennsylvania in 1978, he and Verna moved to Paoli, Indiana to join Comprehensive Health Care, a medical group dedicated to serving one of the most medically underserved counties in southern Indiana.
In 1986, they moved to Michigan with their three children to enable Don to complete training as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago in 1995. Don had established a solo practice in Family Medicine in Portage in 1992 and served as both a family doctor and Jungian Analyst there until 2014 when he retired from Family Medicine and limited his practice to Jungian Analysis in Kalamazoo. He was a dedicated physician and analyst who sought to serve the person as a whole and not just an illness.
He was active as a Senior Training Analyst and teacher at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where he richly enjoyed the collegial participation in monitoring committees for the Analyst Training Program. He was a frequent speaker and retreat leader at Apple Farm Community in Three Rivers, Michigan. He was a member of Florence Church of the Brethren, Mennonite where he served on the leadership team and offered meditations on occasion. A three-sport athlete in high school, he enjoyed lifelong running, biking and swimming. Don loved his summer vacations with his family every summer on Lake Michigan.
He is survived by Verna, his wife of 51 years, his brothers: Robert M. Troyer, M.D., Indianapolis, IN, F. John Troyer, M.A., Akron, OH, his Children: Allison Troyer Wiswell (Tom) of Hastings, MI, Nathan Troyer (Sara) of Clarklake, MI, and Adam Troyer (Carrie) of Zeeland, MI and three grandchildren: Trenton, Norah and Devyn.
A memorial service will be held at a later date.
Memorial gifts can be made to Apple Farm Community, 12291 Hoffman Road, Three Rivers, MI 49093.
Online condolences may be shared at www.hohnerfh.com.
The post In Memoriam: Don Troyer appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
“God does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He will.” Therese of Lisieux
The interface between indigenous spiritual life and Christian Mysticism may prove to be a fruitful ground towards addressing some worldwide challenges such as psychological alienation and climate change.
For example, Indigenous Sacred Geography -the idea that Nature is sacred and that Geography is the map that describes where the sacred spirits dwell- could help us see the divine aspect of Nature, in order to address the rampant destruction of the Earth. Also, the Jungian view of the Self -the center and totality of the individual- ,understood as the Divine within, could provide an epistemological and an experiential framework in which a fragment of God dwells in the human heart. There is a Divine Without and a Divine Within -two aspects of God located in Nature and, also, located in us. A continuum of Divinity.
According to Kogi Indians (Colombia), the material world (trees, stones, animals, water, etc) is a reflection of the thought-world named Aluna. Aluna is thought without form. Aluna is both the spirit world and the “thinking and acting life force” behind the concrete world (Taironatrust.org). Aluna could be understood, also, as “universal consciousness”, “the Mother’s thought”, and “the spirit of all things.” Aluna is revered by the Kogis and, I hope, likewise, each of us to revere the Divine in Us.
Kogi Indians (Credit: Wilderutopia)A study of the interface between the Kogi’s Aluna, the Jungian’s Self, and the Mystic’s Divine Within could open fateful doors for a planetary balance. In order to do so, let us start by taking a look a sentence by the mystic, Therese of Lisieux:
“God does not call those who are worthy, but those whom He will.”
God. Gods. Goddesses. And Spirits.
God: The immensity sees you. We are the seed in a large piece of land. The chest opens up and receives the universe. Look above and see your size in the largest blanket of stars. Your presence is next to me. We rest because the profuse flesh is circularly open to the breath. We do not know why we look above, but the blood of the Divine coolly washes the soul and, finally, we can rest.
The Great Spirit (Credit: Diana Montgomery)One experiences God through one’s own Psyche, and the feeling of God is so beautiful and terrifying. Fortunately, the Feeling Function allows the heart to open up to the magnitude of life. Sensing the grandeur and immensity of Nature, as a face of the Divine, God reveals its presence. That is why spirits live in rivers, dwell in mountains, and partake in caves, burial grounds, and cemeteries (especially on the Day of the Death!).
“God does not call those who are worthy……..” There is nothing we can do to be called. Why? Because the calling does not originate from the ego. It originates from the Divine, and the Divine has a tiny spark that lives in the heart. The calling seems to come from what. Jung called “the Divine Within” but, as a scientist, he preferred to use the term, the Self or, at other times, he used the Collective Unconscious or the “Objective Psyche.” Human beings do not control the Collective Unconscious or the Divine Within and, therefore, each of us -the ego- do not determine the Call. God does, or to be more psychologically precised, the Divine Within/Collective Unconscious does.
Human beings can list the countless behaviors they engage in to be worthy of God’s call, such as acts of charity, verbal and physical expressions of kindness. However, those worthy behaviors, designed by an ego, may not be rooted on messages from the Divine or the Collective Unconscious. Distinguishing between messages from the ego and messages from the deepest aspect of the inner life -the Divine Within or Collective Unconscious are key in order to ascertain the call. The Call comes God Within, and not from the ego. Therefore, Divine messages, such as dreams, visions, and synchronicities, are given to human beings, and are not created by the ego. That is the beauty of the visions obtained during a indigenous vision quest, or the visions obtained through drinking a concoction from sacred plants (i.e., ayahuasca). These imaginal experiences are not created by the ego; instead, they are facilitated by a sacred plant or a sacred ritual that knocks on the door of the Divine Within/Collective Unconscious.
Again, from the point of view of Analytical Psychology, the sentence, “God does not call those who are worthy” may refer to the difference between a message from the ego versus a message from the Self/Divine Within.
Credit: WikiCommons:Hildegard Von Bingen Liber Divinorum OperumWhen Therese of Lisieux wrote, ‘God does not call those who are worthy’, she may have emphasized the separation between God and human beings and, more specifically, that the Call is within the purview of the Divine Within or Collective Unconscious, and not determined by the human ego. Something much greater within us that guide the ego, through dreams, visions, and synchronicities, is at play here. Therefore, actions that are deemed to be worthy, such as random acts of kindness, charity efforts, social activism, environmental protection, are socially respected, praised, and encouraged, but they are not the determining factor for the Call.
The Call is from within, not from without. Needless to say, worthy acts are important and desirable in life.
It makes sense why Indigenous and aboriginal people from around the world did not rely on their opinions, but sought to seek guidance through divination, dreams, vision quests, sacred plants, synchronicities, and rituals. They wanted to communicate directly with the Divine, the Spirits, or the Gods and obtained, thus, a helpful message, from them, about life, rather than relying on their own subjective thougths and feelings.
The implication from Therese of Lisieux’s sentence (‘God only calls those He will’) is the importance of relying significantly more, in terms of hearing the Call, on the previously described ways the Divine has communicated, throughout the ages, with indigenous, aboriginal and common people, rather than relying on a life full of “worthy thoughts and actions”.
Tierradentro Cave (“Land Within’ Cave) (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)This post was first published on thehealingpsyche.org.
Freddie Taborda, LCPC, PsyD is a Jungian Analyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois.
Links: Dr. Taborda’s Website | About Dr. Taborda | Dr. Taborda’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Website
The post Freddie Taborda | The Continuum Between Aluna and its Spirits, Jungian Analysis, and God appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Remembrance by Mary Wyly
Jim on his 84th BirthdayJames Wyly was born in Kansas City Missouri. His mother came from an old family in St. Joseph, Missouri. His father from a family of Presbyterians in South Carolina. He was educated in public schools. For college he chose Amherst because it was far away and hard. He majored in English and studied organ at Smith Henry Mishkin. His friends included Tom Eighmy and Kelley Edey. His fraternity was Chi Phi I think. He graduated in 1959.
After Amherst he enrolled in the new DMA program at the University of Missouri at Kansas City earning his degree in 1964. From 1961 through 1963 he was supported by the Fulbright Commission for his research and dissertation on historic pipe organs of Spain, living in Madrid, the city he regarded as his real home town. He was prepared to teach organ, harpsichord, music theory, music history.
James taught on the music faculty of Elmhurst College from 1964 to 1968. Then he served on the music faculty of Grinnell College from 1968 to 1976 where he also taught in a humanities program based in classical literature, an interest he embraced for the rest of his life.
In Chicago he met and married librarian Mary Gae Porter who served as a librarian at Grinnell and later at Chicago´s Newberry Library.
From 1977 through 1985 James devoted himself to the study of clinical psychology and the analytical psychology of Carl Jung. He earned his PsyD from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology in 1981 and his diploma in analytical psychology from from Chicago´s Jung Institute. He maintained a private practice in Chicago from 1981 until 2003, also serving on the staff of 4th Presbyterian Church´s Replogle Counseling Center. He was an active and creative teacher in the training programs of the Jung Institute until 1997.
in the 1990s James worked with several groups of psychologists in Mexico City, people who wanted to study Jungian psychology and become analysts. He taught classes and provided clinical supervision for candidates.
In 1997 James met paintings conservator Helen Oh who taught painting at the Palette and Chisel Academy. He studied with her until 2003 learning 17th Century techniques that had fascinated him from childhood.
James and Mary moved to Oaxaca in 2003, first living in a 17th Century house of the late painter Rodolfo Morales. In 2008 the moved into the masterpiece house of architect Guillermo de la Cajiga. There he pursued his passion in the studio of his dreams. At the same time a group of musicians gathered around him to learn and perform music of the Baroque Era. James and Mary hosted 2 or 3 concerts a year until 2023.
In all of his interests and pursuits James was always a teacher. Many responses to news of his death came from people who said that knowing him and studying with him had set the courses of their lives. He was truly an educator in the original Latin sense of the word. He led people out. He was a beloved maestro.
In 2010 James was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Treatment provided by two young physicians using alternative medicine symptoms were delayed until the summer of 2023 when they actually cured the leukemia but could not reverse the anemia followed. Mary, these doctors and a loyal circle of friends cared for him until he died peacefully in his bed, having penetrated to the secrets of a long and complicated life.
The post In Memoriam: James Wyly appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Transcript
Nora Swan-Foster, Jungian Analyst, author, and art therapist, joins Patricia Martin to discuss Jung, the Red Book, art therapy, and the art-making process.
- Register for Nora’s December 8 in-person workshop.
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Nora Swan-Foster, MA, ATR-BC, LPC, NCPsyA is a senior training analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA), and faculty member with the Memphis-Atlanta Seminar (MAJS). Between her academic role at Naropa University and serving as seminar coordinator for an IRSJA Jungian training seminar in Boulder, Colorado, Nora has been immersed in pedagogical questions regarding the intersections of contemplative art therapy education and Jungian analytic training. She has led workshops and clinical training seminars on a range of Jungian topics and fundamentals, art therapy, and on childbearing issues in the U.S., Europe and Asia. Nora has authored professional articles, chapters and the books Jungian Art therapy (2018) and Art Therapy and Childbearing Issues (2021) (editor). Nora is the former North American Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Analytical Psychology. Her full-time private consulting practice is in Boulder, Colorado. swanfoster.com.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Image or Art? with Nora Swan-Foster appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Our times are so full of change and confusion that one can feel like these poor creatures from the Clavis Artis, a mysterious late 17th century alchemical text signed by “Zarathustra.”
In the past few years, more people are finding their ways to Jung’s work and our Institute. Jung taught that by paying attention to dreams and the true imagination, we may discover creative solutions to problems that cannot be solved by will or by science alone. Jung also valued the development of an attitude of tolerance for the unknown and for the Other.
The programs at the Chicago Jung Institute offer opportunities for the personal growth that comes—for example—from the hard work of learning to hold the tension of the opposites and to recognize projections of our own Shadows rather than reacting, blaming, or scapegoating.
Each Fall and Spring we reach out to you to ask you to make a tax-deductible donation to support our programs, which include in-person and online workshops and lectures, podcasts, analytic training, and a two-year in depth study program.
These programs are priceless, yet we depend on your donations to make them possible.
Please give whatever you can!
Dyane Sherwood
President
C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Support the InstituteThe post From the President | November 9, 2023 appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Applications are now open to begin training in Fall 2024. Applications are due January 15, 2024. To learn more and apply, visit the Analyst Training Program page.
The post Analyst Training Program Applications are Open for the 2024-2025 Year appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Announcements
- Registration open for the upcoming workshop with Nora Swan-Foster “Image or Art? from Jung’s Red Book to Jungian Art Therapy” (will be recorded)
- Applications for the Analyst Training Program are now open!
Our final episode of season 1 is a story near and dear to Raisa. This episode gets a lot more personal than some, as we discuss periods of awakening and transformation from various points in our own lives.
The story is from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm.
Adina also recommends:
- The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale And Folklore Library). If attempting to purchase this, be sure it says, “with Padraic Colum (intro) and Joseph Campbell (commentary) and James Scharl (illustr)”. Amazon considers all versions to be the same book, so you could accidentally buy a copy without those key elements.
Our intro/outro music is from Antoni Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, performed by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players. You can find the original at freemusicarchive.org
Banner Image: File:La Belle au Bois Dormant – Sixth of six engravings by Gustave Doré.jpg – Wikipedia
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
The post Jungian Ever After | Briar Rose: Awakening & Transformation appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Transcript
Bestselling author Jean Twenge reveals the effects of technology on the collective, based on her research on generational differences. Twenge’s interview with Patricia Martin answers the question, “Is the digital age breaking us down or building us up?”.
Jean M. Twenge, Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University, is the author of more than 180 scientific publications and seven books, including Generations: The Real Differences between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future and iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy–and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood. She holds a BA and MA from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. Learn more at jeantwenge.com.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
2023-2024 Season Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | The Collective Break Down: Technology, Individualism & the Future with Jean Twenge appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
If you have not changed your password since May 2022, you may need to reset your password before you can log in.
When we migrated from our old website to this new one last spring, we used a plugin that checked the old website’s database for users’ passwords. This has now been removed, due to conflicts with newer versions of WordPress. If you have an old account and have not updated your password since the migration, you’ll need a new password that is stored in the WordPress database. New users are not affected.
If you have any issues or questions, contact Ben Law at blaw@jungchicago.org or 312.701.0403.
The post Old passwords may need to be reset appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This August, it came to our attention that users were being asked by Microsoft, who was hosting our cloud files, to log into a Microsoft account before allowing them to download their purchases. Due to this unresolved issue with Microsoft, we have migrated all downloads to Dropbox and updated past order links to point the new files. Users should now be able to download purchases without issue.
For more information about downloading purchases from Dropbox, click here.
If you have any questions about this migration or your account, please email jung@jungchicago.org.
Thank you,
Ben Law
Creative Services Manager
The post Downloads Migrated to Dropbox appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Transcript
Bestselling poet Mark Nepo joins Patricia Martin in conversation about our creative lives and nurturing expression to bear witness to the sorrow, depth, and joy of life.
Mark Nepo is a poet, philosopher and a master teacher who has been convening circles and guiding retreats for more than fifty years all over the world. The author of 25 books, Mark has moved and inspired readers and seekers all over the world. A #1 New York Times bestselling author, his numerous award-winning books— including The Book of Awakening, Surviving Storms, and Drinking from the River of Light— have been translated into over twenty languages.
Mark’s most recent books are Falling Down and Getting Up: Discovering Your Inner Strength and Resilience and Strength (St. Martin’s Essentials, September, 2023), and The Half-Life of Angels: Three Books of Poems, the first in a series of six volumes to come out, which came out in April 2023.
Mark has appeared several times on Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday program. In 2015 he was given a Life-Achievement Award by AgeNation. In 2016 he was named one of the 100 Most Spiritually Influential Living People by Watkins: Mind Body Spirit, and was also chosen as one of OWN’s SuperSoul 100, a group of inspired leaders using their gifts and voices to elevate humanity. Mark devotes his writing and teaching to the journey of inner transformation and the life of relationship. He offer readings, lectures, and retreats internationally. For info on his courses, retreats and books, visit: MarkNepo.com, ThreeIntentions.com, and for his current webinars, check out: Live.MarkNepo.com.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Interns: Claire Weber, Harris Lencz
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Drinking from the River of Light: Creativity & Resilience with Mark Nepo appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
ENGLISH/SPANISH
“In the Dark Night of the Soul, Bright Flows the River of God” (Juan de La Cruz)
Human beings have been seeking to periodically experience the profound love towards the Divine as well as the intense beauty and ecstasy that comes with it. This union was sought by the poet, Juan de Yepes y Alvarez (better known as Juan de La Cruz – John of the Cross), and this article will focus primarily on understanding some sentences from a mystic poem that he wrote as well as amplifying them with the wisdom of the Kogi Indians.
On a side note, I make the contention that a similar experience is reached by the individual, at some point, at the farthest end of the process of individuation and wholeness, during a Jungian Analysis that is methodologically conducted in the manner delineated by Jung, which was closely followed by his early collaborators (Von Franz, Hannah, Harding, Edinger, etc).
Now, a little bit about the poet, Juan de La Cruz.
Juan de Yepes y Álvarez/John of the Cross (Credit: Owlcation/Wiki Commons)
Juan de La Cruz is considered one of Spanish literature’s most important poets. His poetry was mystical because it described the paths that the human soul needs to walk towards union with the Divine. His sentences are full of God and pregnant with actions to consciously illuminate the dark side of God. For example, “In the dark night of the soul, bright flows the river of God.” Or, take a look at the following sentences taken from “Stanzas of the Soul That Suffers with Longing to See God”:
“I am not now living in myself,
And without God I cannot live:
For without God, I am also without myself.”
Before exploring more closely these sentences from Juan de la Cruz’s “Stanzas of the Soul…”, it is psychologically enlightening, by comparative amplification, to mention Jung’s similar ideas about this topic.
This burning desire for God, although forgotten unfortunately by many contemporary Jungian analysts in their clinical practice, was on palpitating in Carl G. Jung. He emphasized the similarity between God and the collective unconscious. In his Visions Seminars, Jung wrote: “ “For the collective unconscious we could use the word God….You all know what the collective unconscious is, you have certain dreams that carry the hallmark of the collective unconscious: instead of dreaming of Aunt This or Uncle That, you dream of a lion……[T]his is a mythological motif, and you will understand that it is the collective unconscious…This God is no longer miles of abstract space away…[I]t is an immediate thing, it happens in your dreams, at night, it causes you to have pains in the stomach, diarrhea, constipation,, a whole host of neuroses.” (pg 391).
In Answer to Job, Jung wrote the following: ““We cannot tell whether God and the unconscious are two different entities. Both are border-line concepts for transcendental contents” (par 757). Moreover, in one of his letters (Letters, Vol 1, August 31, 1945), Jung stated: “…the main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neurosis, but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact is that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience, you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character.”
Juan de La Cruz’s poems and Jung’s Analytical Psychology ultimately seek God. On the one hand, Juan de La Cruz’s poems express, in a visual way, the steps towards and the final union with God; similarly, Jung invites us to consciously illuminate the darkness of God to ultimately become One. While De La Cruz seeks a mystical union with God, Jung encourages us, in our daily psychological lives, to consciously participate in helping God to become more conscious. For both men, the meaning of human life ultimately resides in relationship to God.
Unfortunately, many contemporary Analytical Psychologists have become so excessively Freudian, scientific, clinical, and secular that they have subtlety and methodically killed the ultimate purpose of Jungian Analysis and life, the illumination of the darkness of the Creator through the process of human consciousness. In other words, God has almost being erased, dropped further into the unconscious and, instead, some people have unconsciously become God in their professional practice and in their words. However, Juan de La Cruz and Jung did not do so because they kept God always on their lips.
Let us take a look, now, at some of Juan de La Cruz’s sentences from his poem, “Stanzas of the Soul That Suffers with Longing to See God.”
The first sentence is the following: “I am not now living in myself…” To begin, this sentence describes the distance between two living dimensions within the vessel of a personality. The separation between the I and the Self is being noticed by the I/ego. There is a divorce between them, and one of them is noticing the absence of incarnation. The subtle longing for a Coniunctio is accompanied by the living and the not-living. Living has been suspended because a fragment of the soul is not being lived. The living calls for life when seeing the dead, and when the living copulates with the dead, the longing for incarnation may subside as well as the accomplishment of a Coniunctio. The preamble of the dark night of the soul is felt by the individual who is noticing that life is spatially “walking over there”, while death is holding hands with him/her “over here.”
The word “Now”, in the sentence, splashes upon us the sense of urgency that neither past, nor future beckon (upon/from?) us. The explosion of movement is in the waiting room, tapping his fingers on the table, ready to pounce -I hope- as soon as personal suffering and its unbearable awareness pushes us to despair.
Aerial View of “El Espiral” from the Nazca Lines in Peru; Diego Delso; Wiki Commons
Let us now talk about the second sentence:
“….And without God I cannot live.”
What an exquisite sentence! It murmurs a fundamental sustenance that is found at the bottom of the well of life that has consciously illuminated, from ancient times, the lives of indigenous and aboriginal ancestors of humanity through their rituals, spiritual practices, sacred dances and myths, and that has unconsciously guided, to a great extent, the lives of modern people. Now, we hear it in Juan de La Cruz’s poetry.
According to Kogi Indians (Colombia), the material world (trees, stones, animals, water, etc) is a reflection of the thought-world named Aluna. Aluna is thought without form. Aluna is both the spirit world and the “thinking and acting life force” behind the concrete world (Taironatrust.org). Aluna could be understood, also, as “universal consciousness”, “the Mother’s thought”, and “the spirit of all things.” Aluna is the origin and the water of life. Aluna can be equated, from the perspective of Analytical Psychology, to the collective unconscious (or the Self) because both of them contain the primordial ideas of the world.
Kogi Woman and a child (Credit: Dwayne Reilander/Wiki Commons)
God for Juan de La Cruz, Aluna for the Kogi Indians, and the collective unconscious for Jungian analysts seem to be three similar ideas and experiences. Then, what did Juan de La Cruz mean when he wrote: “…And without God I cannot live”? Would a Kogi Indian say: “…And without Aluna I cannot live?” I think a Kogi indian would say it. What about Jungian analysts? Would a Jungian analyst say: “…And without the collective unconscious I cannot live.” Jungian analysts, who believe and experience that the fundamental task of humanity and analysis is to illuminate the dark side of the Creator through human consciousness, would say so.
Juan de La Cruz’s sentence permeates the impossibility of life without its essence. A small human life that, being embraced by the maternal arms of the universe, is unable to live because it has lost its gigantic mother and father. When the eyes look high above, and we discover the right proportion of size between the Gods and us, there is a dynamic smallness intimately associated with humbleness in the face of immensity.
From an interior life, the substance that animates life is vital to our lives and, without it, life will have no meaning or purpose. The dark and light side of such substance is God in us, but the material world has robbed the individual of the invisible world. Soul has been flushed down the toilet, and the spirit is a foul wind that comes from the mouth. Similarly, the greatest tragedy in Analytical Psychology is that most modern Jungian analysts have forgotten God from their lips and, consequently, in Jungian analysis, the illumination of the dark side of the Creator in us, has been replaced by the Neo-Freudian Gods of transference, countertransference, and the so called ‘analytic third.’ Many modern Jungians have committed a deicide.
God is only crumbs in the ocean of Jungian words and, In the absence of God, we have become Gods: a) Juan de La Cruz wrote this precognitive poem for us related to it; b) the Kogi Indians (the older brothers) warned us (the younger brother) about it through their movie (“From the Heart of the World: the Elder Brothers Warning”) and, finally, c) some of the early and close collaborators of Jung as well as very few contemporary analysts, such as Edinger, logically arrived to the same conclusion when they talked about the identification of the ego with the Self and the neglect of God in us in the majority of written articles in the Journal of Analytical Psychology.
Wayuu Indian (Wikimedia Commons)
Why have most modern Jungians forsaken God, especially when Jung clearly articulated that the illumination of the dark side of the Creator was the primary objective of analysis AND that the human individuation process was just a BYPRODUCT of such illuminating work? On a similar note, Juan de La Cruz saw the mystical marriage with God as the main objective in life, and the Kogi Indians emphasized the value of a spiritual life profoundly associated with the Great Mother, the Earth.
“…And without God I cannot live,” wrote Juan de La Cruz. According to the Kogis, without Aluna, there is no spirit and life force; as Ereira said: “Aluna needs the human mind to participate in the world – because the thing about a human mind is that it is in a body…Communicating with the cosmic mind is what a human being’s job is, as far as the Kogi are concerned.” Compare this Kogi’s belief with the following sentence from Jung: “I tried to find the best truth and the clearest light I could attain to….I am guarding my light and my treasure, convinced that nobody would gain and I myself would be badly, even hopelessly injured, if I should lose it. It is most precious not only to me, but above all to the darkness of the creator, who needs man to illuminate His creation.” The cosmology of the Kogi Indians mirrors Jung’s wisdom on analysis and life about the importance of man’s consciousness for helping the Divine to become conscious of His own darkness.
Grieving Mary by Fra Angelico, Museo San Marco, Florence
The gathering of cultural amplifications from many indigenous and aboriginal tribes from around the world about Gods, spirits, and ancestors confirm Jung’s statement that the meaning of life and the path for healing (specifically in Jungian analysis) is the individual participation in the Divine drama. Both the Kogi Indians and Juan de La Cruz move us in a similar direction.
Finally, let us take a look at the last sentence from Juan de La Cruz’s poem: “For without God, I am also without myself.”
What is the essence of a human life without which he/she is without himself/herself? For Juan de La Cruz is God; for Jung is God in us or the Collective Unconscious (but more precisely, the Self), and for the Kogi Indians is Aluna. Yet, many people can easily dispense of God from their lives. From TikTok to Facebook, and from Instagram to doom scrolling on the phone, the desire to reach and touch something greater is a lurking daily longing. The mystery has been located on a cellular phone, on Youtube, on wealth or money. For human beings, the mystery lies in front of us, outside. The geographical size of the Mystery is measured by the great accumulation of wealth.
Human beings are in a constant search. Always looking. Always checking this or that. Going here or going over there. Desiring. Buying. The constant search is inexhaustible and, yet, it is misplaced. There is allegedly a Hindu story (Sanskriti Magazine) on human divinity that may guide us on this terrain:
Long time ago, when human beings were Gods, they abused their divinity. Then, Brahma decided to take the divinity away from them. In order to hide the Divinity, Brahma called the other Gods to help him hide it. When the idea of burying inside the Earth was offered, Brahma stated that humans would dig into the Earth, one day, and would find it; then, the idea of putting it on the bottom of the ocean was presented and, again, Brahma stated that human beings would go deep into the oceans, one day, and would find it; another idea was presented -to hide their Divinity on top of the highest mountain, but Brahma declined it by saying that, one day, humans would reach the top of the highest mountain. Then, after a long time of thinking about it, Brahma decided to hide their Divinity inside of each human being. Since then, humans have been searching for it outwardly, to no avail.
Guainia Indigenous Children (Activacion del Cuadrante 7; Wikimedia Commons)
The search is ongoing. The search has taken us to the farthest place on Earth. The search is endless and, sometimes it comes with a slight, temporary, and shallow reprieve with the acquisition of a material object and/or experience. This outward search may lead us, unfortunately, to different psychopathologies.
Maybe the Kogi Indians are right when emphasizing their relationship to the spirit world and Aluna; maybe Jung was right when decisively emphasizing, as the main task in Jungian Analysis and in life, to help God to become more conscious; maybe Juan de La Cruz was right when seeking a mystical relationship with God. The Kogi, Jung and Juan de La Cruz searched within, unlike many of us who still search outwardly. ‘For without that Divinity, I am also without myself’ because the search has been mistakenly placed outwardly and because, unfortunately, the search has become tangible, palpable, visible, and material.
– Ereira (2013) in: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/colombia-kogi-environment-destruction
– Sanskriti Magazine: (https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/divinity-lies-within-us/#:~:text=According%20to%20an%20o ld%20Hindu,where%20to%20hide%20the%20divinity )
SPANISH
ALUNA, EL INCONSCIENTE COLECTIVO, Y DIOS
“En la Noche Oscura del Alma, Brillante Fluye el Río de Dios.”
Los seres humanos han estado buscando experimentar periódicamente el profundo amor hacia lo Divino, así como la intensa belleza y el éxtasis que ello conlleva. Esta unión fue buscada por el poeta Juan de Yepes y Álvarez (más conocido como Juan de La Cruz), y este artículo se centrará principalmente en comprender algunas frases de un poema místico que él escribió y, en amplificar culturalmente su significado, a través de la sabiduría de los indios Kogi.
Además, planteó que el individuo podría alcanzar una experiencia similar en alguna de las etapas más profundas en el proceso de individuación, durante un análisis junguiano que se lleva a cabo metodológicamente de la manera estrictamente delineada por Jung, y el cual fue seguido de cerca por sus primeros colaboradores (Von Franz, Hannah, Harding, Edinger, etc.).
En cuanto al poeta, Juan de La Cruz, podemos decir lo siguiente.
Juan de Yepes y Álvarez/John of the Cross (Credit: Owlcation/Wiki Commons)
Juan de La Cruz es considerado uno de los poetas más importantes de la literatura española. Su poesía era mística porque describe los caminos que el alma humana necesita recorrer hacia la unión con lo Divino. Sus frases están llenas de Dios y preñadas de acciones para iluminar conscientemente el lado oscuro de Dios. Por ejemplo, “En la noche oscura del alma, brillante fluye el río de Dios”. O mira las siguientes frases tomadas de “Estrofas del Alma que Sufre con Anhelo de ver a Dios”:
“Ya no vivo en mí mismo,
Y sin Dios no puedo vivir:
Porque sin Dios, yo también estoy sin mí mismo”.
Antes de explorar más de cerca estas frases de las “Estrofas del Alma…” de Juan de la Cruz, es psicológicamente esclarecedor, por amplificación comparativa, mencionar las ideas similares de Jung sobre este tema.
Este ardiente deseo de Dios, aunque lamentablemente olvidado por muchos analistas junguianos contemporáneos en su práctica clínica, palpitaba en Carl G. Jung. Hizo hincapié en la similitud entre Dios y el inconsciente colectivo. En sus Visions Seminars, Jung escribió: ““Para el inconsciente colectivo podríamos usar la palabra Dios… Todos ustedes saben lo que es el inconsciente colectivo, tienen ciertos sueños que llevan el sello del inconsciente colectivo: en lugar de soñar con la tía Esta o Tío Eso, sueñas con un león……[E]ste es un motivo mitológico, y entenderás que es el inconsciente colectivo…Este Dios ya no está a kilómetros de distancia en un espacio abstracto…[E]s una cosa inmediata , sucede en tus sueños, en la noche, te provoca dolores de estómago, diarrea, estreñimiento, toda una serie de neurosis.” (pág. 391).
En Respuesta a Job, Jung escribió lo siguiente: “No podemos decir si Dios y el inconsciente son dos entidades diferentes. Ambos son conceptos fronterizos de contenidos trascendentales” (párrafo 757). Además, en una de sus cartas (Cartas, Vol. 1, 31 de agosto de 1945), Jung afirmaba: “…el principal interés de mi trabajo no tiene que ver con el tratamiento de la neurosis, sino con el acercamiento a lo numinoso. Pero el hecho es que el acercamiento a lo numinoso es la verdadera terapia, y en la medida en que alcanzas la experiencia numinosa, te liberas de la maldición de la patología. Incluso la misma enfermedad adquiere un carácter numinoso”.
Los poemas de Juan de La Cruz y la Psicología Analítica de Jung buscan en última instancia a Dios. Por un lado, los poemas de Juan de La Cruz expresan de manera visual los pasos y la unión final con Dios; De manera similar, Jung nos invita a iluminar conscientemente, desde un punto de vista psicológico, la oscuridad de Dios para finalmente convertirnos en Uno. Mientras De La Cruz busca una unión mística con Dios, Jung nos anima, en nuestra vida psicológica diaria, a participar conscientemente en ayudar a Dios a ser más consciente. Para ambos hombres, el significado de la vida humana reside en última instancia en una relación profunda con Dios. Desafortunadamente, muchos Psicólogos Analíticos contemporáneos se han vuelto tan excesivamente freudianos, científicos, clínicos y seculares que han matado sutil y metódicamente el propósito divino del Análisis Junguiano y la vida, es decir, la iluminación de la oscuridad del Creador a través del proceso de ser conscientes. En otras palabras, Dios casi ha sido borrado, hundido más en el inconsciente y, en cambio, algunas personas se han convertido inconscientemente en Dios en su práctica profesional y en sus palabras. Sin embargo, Juan de La Cruz y Jung no lo hicieron porque siempre tenían a Dios en sus labios.
Veamos, ahora, algunas de las frases de Juan de La Cruz de su poema, “Estrofas del Alma que Sufre con Anhelo de ver a Dios.”
La primera oración es la siguiente: “No vivo ahora en mí mismo…” Para comenzar, esta oración describe la distancia entre dos dimensiones vivas dentro del recipiente de una personalidad. La separación entre el Yo y el Sí mismo está siendo observada por el Yo/ego. Hay un divorcio entre ellos, y uno de ellos nota la ausencia de encarnación. El sutil anhelo de una Coniunctio va acompañado de ‘lo vivo’ y ‘lo no vivo’. Se ha suspendido el vivir porque no se está viviendo un fragmento del alma. El vivo llama a la vida al ver a los muertos, y cuando ‘el vivo’ copula con los muertos, el anhelo de la encarnación puede apaciguarse así como la realización de una Coniunctio. El preámbulo de la noche oscura del alma lo siente el individuo quien nota que la vida esta “caminando alla”, espacialmente, mientras que la muerte va de la mano con él/ella “por aquí”.
La palabra “ahora”, en la oración, nos salpica con el sentido de urgencia en este momento, y que ni el pasado ni el futuro generaron. La explosión del movimiento está en la sala de espera, tocando los dedos sobre la mesa, listos para saltar, con esperanza, tan pronto como el sufrimiento personal y su insoportable conciencia nos empujen a la desesperacion.
Vista aerea de “El Espiral” de Las Líneas de Nazca en Peru (Credit: Diego Delso; Wiki Commons)
Hablemos ahora de la segunda oración:
“….Y sin Dios no puedo vivir.”
¡Qué frase tan exquisita! Murmura un sustento fundamental que se encuentra en el fondo del pozo de la vida que conscientemente ha iluminado, desde la antigüedad, la vida de los ancestros indígenas y aborígenes de la humanidad a través de sus rituales, prácticas espirituales, danzas sagradas y mitos, y que, en el dia de hoy, ha guiado, inconscientemente, en gran medida, la vida de la gente moderna. Sin embargo, aun lo podemos escuchar en la poesía de Juan de La Cruz.
Según los indios Kogi (Colombia), el mundo material (árboles, piedras, animales, agua, etc.) es un reflejo del mundo del pensamiento llamado Aluna. Aluna es pensamiento sin forma. Aluna es tanto el mundo de los espíritus como la “fuerza vital de pensamiento y acción” detrás del mundo concreto (Taironatrust.org). Aluna podría entenderse, también, como “conciencia universal”, “el pensamiento de la Madre”, y “el espíritu de todas las cosas”. Aluna es el origen y el agua de la vida. Aluna puede ser equiparada, desde la perspectiva de la Psicología Analítica, con el inconsciente colectivo (o el Si Mismo) porque ambos contienen las ideas primordiales del mundo.
Kogi Woman and a child Dwayne Reilander/Wiki Commons
Dios, para Juan de La Cruz, Aluna para los indigenas Kogi, y el inconsciente colectivo para los analistas junguianos parecen ser tres ideas y experiencias similares. Entonces, ¿qué quiso decir Juan de La Cruz cuando escribió: “…Y sin Dios no puedo vivir”? ¿Diría un indio Kogi: “…Y sin Aluna no puedo vivir?” Creo que si. ¿Qué pasa con los analistas junguianos? Diría un analista junguiano: “…Y sin el inconsciente colectivo no puedo vivir”. Así lo dirían los analistas jungianos, que creen y experimentan que la tarea fundamental de la humanidad y del análisis es iluminar el lado oscuro del Creador a través de ser más conscientes durante la vida humana.
La frase de Juan de La Cruz impregna la imposibilidad de la vida sin su esencia. Una pequeña vida humana que, siendo abrazada por los brazos maternos del universo, es incapaz de vivir porque ha perdido a su gigantesco padre y madre. Cuando los ojos miran hacia lo alto y descubrimos la justa proporción de tamaño entre los Dioses y el ser humano, hay una pequeñez dinámica íntimamente asociada con la humildad ante la inmensidad.
Desde una vida interior, la sustancia que anima la vida es vital y, sin ella, la vida no tendría sentido y ni finalidad. El lado oscuro y el lado claro de tal sustancia es Dios en nosotros, pero el mundo material le ha robado al individuo el mundo invisible. El alma ha sido tirada en el inodoro, y el espíritu es un viento asqueroso que sale de la boca. De manera similar, la mayor tragedia en la Psicología Analítica es que muchos analistas junguianos modernos han olvidado a Dios de sus labios y, en consecuencia, en el análisis junguiano, la iluminación del lado oscuro del Creador en nosotros, ha sido reemplazado por los dioses neofreudianos de la transferencia, la contratransferencia y el “tercero analítico”. En otras palabras, muchos Junguianos modernos han cometido un deicidio.
Dios es sólo migajas en el océano de las palabras junguianas y, en ausencia de Dios, nos hemos convertido en Dioses: a) Juan de La Cruz escribió para nosotros este poema precognitivo relacionado con ello; b) los indios Kogi (los hermanos mayores) nos lo advirtieron (al hermano menor) a través de su película (“Desde el Corazón del Mundo: la Advertencia de los Hermanos Mayores”) y, finalmente, c) algunos de los primeros y cercanos colaboradores de Jung, así como pocos analistas contemporáneos, como Edinger, llegaron lógicamente a la misma conclusión cuando hablaron de la identificación del ego con el Sí mismo y el abandono de Dios en nosotros, y lo cual se refleja en la mayoría de los artículos escritos en el Journal of Analytical Psicology.
Wayuu Indian (Wikimedia Commons)
¿Por qué la mayoría de los junguianos modernos han abandonado a Dios, especialmente cuando Jung articuló claramente que la iluminación del lado oscuro del Creador era el objetivo principal del análisis? Y que ha pasado con la idea que el proceso de individuación humana era sólo un SUBPRODUCTO de tal trabajo iluminador? En una nota similar, Juan de La Cruz vio el matrimonio místico con Dios como el objetivo principal de la vida, y los indios Kogi enfatizaron el valor de una vida espiritual profundamente asociada con la Gran Madre, la Tierra.
“…Y sin Dios no puedo vivir”, escribió Juan de La Cruz. Según los Kogis, sin Aluna, no hay espíritu ni fuerza vital; como dijo Ereira: “Aluna necesita la mente humana para participar en el mundo, porque lo que pasa con la mente humana es que está en un cuerpo… Comunicarse con la mente cósmica es el trabajo de un ser humano, en lo que respecta a los Kogi. Compare esta creencia de los Kogi con la siguiente frase de Jung: “Traté de encontrar la mejor verdad y la luz más clara a la que pude llegar… Guardo mi luz y mi tesoro, convencido de que nadie ganaría y yo mismo quedaría mal, incluso irremediablemente herido, si la perdiera. Es de lo más precioso no sólo para mí, sino sobre todo para el lado oscuro del Creador quien necesita del hombre para iluminar su creación” (Jung). La cosmología de los indios Kogi refleja la sabiduría de Jung sobre el proceso analitico y acerca de la vida, ademas de lla importancia de ser conscientes para, asi, ayudar a lo Divino a ser consciente de Su propia oscuridad.
La Pena de Maria por Fra Angelico, Museo San Marco, Florence
La recopilación de amplificaciones culturales de muchas tribus indígenas y aborígenes del mundo acerca de Dioses, espíritus y ancestros confirma la afirmación de Jung que el significado de la vida y el camino para la curación (específicamente en el análisis junguiano) se centra en la participación individual en el drama divino. Tanto los indios Kogi como Juan de La Cruz nos guían en una dirección similar.
Finalmente, echemos un vistazo a la última frase del poema de Juan de La Cruz: “Porque sin Dios, también estoy sin mí mismo”.
¿Cuál es la esencia de una vida humana sin la cual él/ella está fuera de sí mismo/a? Dicha esencia es, para Juan de La Cruz, Dios; para Jung es Dios adentro de nosotros, es decir, el Inconsciente Colectivo (pero más precisamente, el Sí mismo), y para los indios Kogi es Aluna. Sin embargo, muchas personas pueden prescindir fácilmente de Dios en sus vidas. Desde TikTok hasta Facebook, y desde Instagram hasta Doom Scrolling en el teléfono, el deseo de alcanzar y tocar algo más grande es un anhelo diario que acecha. El misterio se ha localizado en un telefono celular, en Youtube, en los medios sociales, en la riqueza o en el dinero. Para los seres humanos, el misterio está, desafortunadamente, en frente a nosotros, afuera y externamente. El tamaño geográfico del Misterio se mide por la gran acumulación de riquezas.
El ser humano está en una búsqueda constante. Siempre mirando. Siempre revisando esto o aquello. Ir aquí o ir allá. deseando. Adquirir. Comprar. La búsqueda constante es inagotable y, sin embargo, está fuera de lugar. Supuestamente hay una historia hindú (Sanskriti Magazine) sobre la divinidad humana que puede guiarnos en este terreno:
Hace mucho tiempo, cuando los seres humanos eran dioses, ellos abusaban de su divinidad. Entonces, Brahma decidió quitarles su divinidad. Para ocultar la Divinidad, Brahma llamó a los otros dioses para que lo ayudaran a ocultarla. Cuando se ofreció la idea de enterrar la Divinidad adentro de la Tierra, Brahma afirmó que los humanos cavarián en la Tierra y la encontrarián; luego, se presentó la idea de ponerlo en el fondo del océano y, nuevamente, Brahma afirmó que los seres humanos llegarian, algun dia, a las profundidades de los océanos y la encontrarián alli. Se presentó otra idea: ocultar su Divinidad en la cima de la montaña más alta, pero Brahma la rechazó, diciendo que un día los humanos alcanzarán la cima de la montaña más alta. Entonces, después de mucho tiempo de pensarlo, Brahma decidió esconder la Divinidad dentro del ser humano. Desde entonces, los seres humanos han estado buscando externamente la Divinidad, sin ningún éxito.
Niños Indigenas del Guainia (Activacion del Cuadrante 7; Wikimedia Commons)
La búsqueda sigue su curso. La búsqueda nos ha llevado al lugar más lejano de la Tierra. La búsqueda es interminable y, a veces, viene con un alivio leve, temporal y superficial con la adquisición de un objeto material y/o experiencia. Esta búsqueda hacia el exterior puede llevarnos, lamentablemente, a distintas psicopatologías.
Tal vez los indios Kogi tengan razón al enfatizar su relación con el mundo de los espíritus y Aluna; tal vez Jung tenía razón al enfatizar decisivamente, como tarea principal en el análisis junguiano y en la vida, ayudar a Dios a ser más consciente de su lado oscuro; tal vez Juan de La Cruz tenía razón al buscar una relación mística con Dios. Los Kogi, Jung y Juan de La Cruz buscaron hacia adentro, a diferencia de muchos de nosotros que todavía buscamos hacia afuera. “Porque sin esa Divinidad, también estoy sin mí mismo”, porque la búsqueda se ha colocado excesivamente en lo exterior, y porque la búsqueda se ha vuelto tangible, palpable, visible y muy material.
– Ereira (2013) en:
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/colombia-kogi-environment-destruction
– Magazine Sanskriti: (https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/divinity-lies-within-us/#:~:text=According%20to%20an%20o ld%20Hindu,where%20to%20hide%20the%20divinity )
This post was first published on thehealingpsyche.org.
Freddie Taborda, LCPC, PsyD is a Jungian Analyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois.
Links: Dr. Taborda’s Website | About Dr. Taborda | Dr. Taborda’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Website
The post Freddie Taborda | Aluna, the Collective Unconscious & God appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Applications for the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program have reopened! Apply now to secure your place. The story is “Little Red Cap” this time, better known as “Little Red Riding Hood”. We discuss such topics as the 3 faces of the Great Mother, the nature of wolves, and of course our good friend […]
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Our part 2 coverage of Snow White discusses Anima/Animus and how it has shaped the way people perceive and project gender roles at varying points in history. The story is from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm and is read on the PREVIOUS episode of Jungian Ever After, Snow White Part 1: Archetypal Evil. Adina also recommends: Our […]
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Transcript: HTML | PDF We’ve reached 50% of our Spring Fundraising Drive goal of $30,000! We need your support so our podcast, courses, and training programs can continue to education Jungian Analysts and students around the world. Donate Jungian Analysts Judith Cooper and Daniel Ross discuss Tár, the 2022 film written and directed by Todd Field. It […]
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University of Chicago Professor and online game designer Patrick Jagoda, PhD talks with Patricia Martin about ways that online games and new media apply Jungian theory to create emotional bonds with users.
Patrick Jagoda, PhD is a digital media theorist and game designer. He is Professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Chicago. Patrick is also the co-founder (with Melissa Gilliam) of the Game Changer Chicago Design Lab and the Transmedia Story Lab, as well as Executive Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Critical Inquiry and the faculty director of the Weston Game Lab. Patrick’s books include Network Aesthetics (2016), The Game Worlds of Jason Rohrer (2016, with Michael Maizels), and Experimental Games: Critique, Play, and Design in the Age of Gamification (2020), and Transmedia Stories (2022). Patrick has co-directed several alternate reality games, including Speculation (2012), the parasite (2017), and Terrarium (2019). Information about his books, essays, and collaborative game projects appears on his website.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Technology & the Self 3: Myth, Archetypes, and Avatar Personas in Online Games with Patrick Jagoda appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
It is rather deflating and narcissistically painful for the so-called adult human ego to humbly accept that there is a colossal spirit that nourishes, guides and determines his/her life.
The mystical writer, Francis De Sales wrote the following:
“There, as the famished babe cleaves to its mother’s breast as though it would fain absorb it, so our panting soul cleaves to God as though to be forever absorbed in Him, and He in us!”
The industrialized fascination with visibility and the scientific discrimination against the soul has led the human ego to erase, from consciousness, the idea that there is a soul. The human ego has appointed itself as the primary and exclusive factor in the psychology of the individual.
Furthermore, God does not exist for a large segment of the population and, therefore, the experiential and practical idea that there is a God image in us that determines our lives, as Jung brilliantly demonstrated through the experience of Jungian analysis, has little acceptance and relevance in industrialized and technological societies.
The soul is absorbed in God, and God is in us, as De Sales concluded, is a timeless idea that many aboriginal and indigenous tribes may agree with. Take, for example, the cosmology of the Kogi tribe and the Sibundoy Indians in Colombia, South America. Their rich spiritual view of Nature and of people connects them deeply with the spirit world, the Divine in Nature and in themselves. Yet, many industrialized and technological nations easily live without the idea and/or experience of the Divine, let alone the possibility that it has a place in the heart and soul of the so-called modern people. The price to pay for this ignorance and systematic neglect is, I believe, the hefty psychological cost of depression, anxiety, despair, and meaninglessness.
When an individual pays daily attention to dreams and synchronicities, he/she discovers that the unconscious wants to complement the individual ego in order to follow a specific destiny suggested by the Self (the God Image in us, as Jung called it). And this is experienced as a defeat by the person because his/her ego has grown so accustomed to be and behave like a God i.e., making decisions, thinking all kinds of thoughts, fantasizing, struggling with all sorts of obstacles, etc.
The word, ‘absorb’ stems etymologically from the Latin absorbere, that is, “to swallow up, devour”, from ab “off, away from” and sorbere “suck in.” Therefore, “to absorb” means “to suck in” and “away from.” Then, God sucks in the soul, away from its separate state. The implication is that, on a daily basis, human beings unfortunately attempt to live independently and separately from God, and that the soul seeks subsequently to be absorbed or sucked in by God. Furthermore, here lies Jung’s crucial discovery of the religious function of the psyche. As Jung said: “If no one can point to any race, or even a tribe, which is quite free from religious phenomena, then I really do not see how one can justify the argument that religious phenomena are not genuine…” Following Jung and De Sales, the conclusion is that a human being becomes part of God, and that the soul is integrated into God. Our human identity is fully embedded in God, despite our sense of self and our conscious identity. Ego consciousness, the sense of self, or the personal identity, all of which gives the ego a sense of separateness -an individuality- is one of the aspects that remains from God’s absorption of our souls. Fortunately, one can actively and positively participate in the process of being absorbed in God: when an individual reflects and integrates responsibly and assiduously his/her dreams, he/she actively participates in God’s absorption process that De Sales and Jung described.
Another angle for understanding the idea of ‘the absorption of the soul in God’, could be done through the coagulatio stage of alchemy. According to Edinger (1985), “…..coagulatio belongs to the symbolism of the element earth…It is heavy and permanent, of fixed position and shape…Thus, for a psychic content to become earth means that it has been concretized in a particular localized form; that is, it has become attached to an ego.(p. 83, and see figure below).” Coagulatio corresponds to the process of incarnating, in a physical body, what the Divine has hinted at us in dreams, for example. In other words, incarnating the soul images from dreams into our daily lives contributes to the absorption of soul “in Him, and He in us.”
Earth Nurses the Filius Philosophorum (Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618)Therefore, we may reframe De Sales’s sentence in the following way: the individual soul (the totality of consciousness and the unconscious) is guided by God (the Self or God Image in us) because the unconscious is in God -the unconscious has always been absorbed by God. Jung (CW, 12) wrote the following: “The Self is not only the centre, but also the whole circumference which embraces both conscious and the unconscious; it is the center of this totality.”
Therefore, Jung concluded, like De Sales did, that the God Image in us is the centre (“He in us”) and that consciousness and the unconscious (or Soul) is absorbed in Him (the God Image in Us or the Self).
Then, we can rest on Him, and He can rest in us.
The post Freddie Taborda | Our Panting Soul Cleaves to God… appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Our Spring Fundraising Drive coincides with the completion our first year of in-person classes and events since the COVID crisis. The predominant feeling this year has been one of joy to be able to be together in person.
It began at our September graduation celebration of five new analysts from the Analyst Training Program. More recently, our annual “Community Day” presented a day long program on the work of Marie-Louise von Franz at Loyola’s Lakeside Campus. Our academic year will conclude this June with the graduation celebration of students completing the two-year Jungian Psychotherapy and Jungian Studies Programs.
Group Discussion on Community DayIn May, we are honored to present a lecture by Donald Kalsched “Opening the Closed Heart: A New Look at Jungian Depth Psychology in Light of Trauma, Affect Theory and Defense.” This event is being held at the Union League Club preceded by a Communal Supper and is open to JPP/JSP graduates and to anyone who becomes a member of the Institute. The fee is less than half of the actual cost, thanks to a generous grant from an anonymous donor.
Our podcast, Jungianthology, ranks in the top 50 social science podcasts in the United States on Apple Podcasts and this January passed 1 million downloads. We are working toward consistently publishing two episodes every month to our 10,000 listeners spread over 100 countries.
I am inviting you to join with others in financially supporting our exciting plans for the coming year, which includes welcoming a new cohort for the JPP/JSP two-year program, planning for more online and in person public programs, continued expansion of our podcast, and, of course, continuing the excellence of our Analyst Training Program with the largest number of students in recent memory.
Candidates in the Analyst Training ProgramPlease visit the Support Us page to learn more details about our programs and when you do, kindly give a generous donation to our Spring Fundraising Drive. Members of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts have donated $6,000 as a matching grant to kick things off, but we need your generous contributions to reach a minimum goal of $30,000 to meet our programming needs.
Sincerely,
Dyane N. Sherwood, Ph.D.
President
The post Letter from the President | May 9, 2023 appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Snow White is one of the most recognized fairy tale stories and characters but, as usual, not many people are familiar with the Grimm version. Part one centers around Archetypal Evil and how it taints those who come into contact with it.
The story is from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm and is read starting at 6:24 and ending at 24:55.
Adina also recommends:
- The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale And Folklore Library). If attempting to purchase this, be sure it says, “with Padraic Colum (intro) and Joseph Campbell (commentary) and James Scharl (illustr)”. Amazon considers all versions to be the same book, so you could accidentally buy a copy without those key elements.
- Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales. Written by Marie-Louise von Franz.
Our intro/outro music is from Antoni Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, performed by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players. You can find the original at freemusicarchive.org
Banner Image: File:Schneewittchen2.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
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This episode is the first part of the series Women’s Spirit: The Fire Within (the full series is available for purchase on our website). From the seminar description:
Fire as a feminine aspect is the central image of this workshop by Jungian analyst and author Jean Shinoda Bolen. Fire takes many forms in our imagination, dreams, metaphors, and in our life experiences. We think of hearth fire, campfire, creative fire, passionate fire, consuming fire, destructive fire, transforming fire, wildfire, Pentecostal fire, fire signs, fiery redheads, fire-breathing dragons and firewalks. We fight fire with fire and go through the fire; our fire is put out, rekindled, and dampened: we can be fired up, flare up, burnt up, and burned out. We tend the fire and keep the homefires burning. Fire as a feminine quality is about spirit, energy, and intensity, about warmth and illumination, about rage and outrage. Inner fire is reflected in our work, in our relationships, and in the activist and feminist stances we take in the world. Using poetry and a guided meditation, Dr. Bolen’s workshop helps the listener gain insights into herself and find her personal symbols.
It was recorded in 1994.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, and an internationally known author and speaker. She is the author of The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, Close to the Bone, The Millionth Circle, Goddesses in Older Women, Crones Don’t Whine, Urgent Message from Mother, and Like a Tree with over eighty foreign translations. She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, a past board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women and the International Transpersonal Association. She was a recipient of the Institute for Health and Healing’s “Pioneers in Art, Science, and the Soul of Healing Award”, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She was in two acclaimed documentaries, the Academy-Award winning anti-nuclear proliferation film Women—For America, For the World, and the Canadian Film Board’s Goddess Remembered. The Millionth Circle Initiative (millionthcircle.org) was inspired by her book and led to her involvement at the UN. She is the initiator and the leading advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women (5wcw.org), which was supported by the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly on March 8, 2012.
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In the Eye of the Storm
Member Event: Opening The Closed Heart: A New Look At Jungian Depth Psychology In Light Of Trauma, Affect-Theory, And Defense With Donald Kalsched
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Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Dennis Merritt is co-author, with Kevin Lu and Frazer Merritt, of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Revisited” in the Psychological Perspectives. Abstract:
The publication of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in January of 1886 created a shock wave in the consciousness of its readers. It was an instant success in and beyond the literary world as people were confronted with the uneasy thought that evil originated within the individual and not from an external source like the Devil. This was nine years before Freud conducted his first psychoanalysis, and decades before Jung introduced the concept of the shadow.
Stevenson was known as the author of Treasure Island and children’s poetry, but had long been looking for a vehicle to write about the strange “Other” he had been aware of since his childhood nightmares. The inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde came directly from a dream, and he attributed most of his literary success to help from the “Brownies,” the “little people,” in his interior world and dreamland. The novel can be viewed in relation to the love-hate relationship with his father, whom he depended upon for financial support during his lifelong struggles with severe respiratory illness, which led to drug addiction from his attempts to cope with the illness. For Stevenson, the Other was primarily the dark side of the strict Calvinistic religion of his father and proper late 19th century Scottish culture, yet the concept is even more relevant today as we face the evils of terrorism, racism, white-collar crime, Putin and rising authoritarianism, and intolerable levels of polarization in many modern societies.
The article is free to read in full until July 31, 2023. PDF and EPUB files available.
Link to ArticlePsychological PerspectivesDennis Merritt, PhD, LCSW grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin where he established a deep connection with the land as reflected in his four volumes of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe: Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. He obtained a Ph.D. from Berkeley in insect pathology, microbial control of insect pests, before training at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He practices as a Jungian analyst and ecopsychologist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is a senior analyst in the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. More at JungianEcopsychology.com.
Dr. Merritt is the author of Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology: The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe Volumes 1 – 4.
Links: Dennis Merritt on Jungianthology | Dennis Merritt’s lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
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Video Available on YouTube
Elizabeth Eowyn Nelson, PhD joins Patricia Martin for a lively conversation about the value of Jungian thought in our tech-centric times. Nelson is on the faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she is a scholar on dreams, technology, and cultural studies. In this episode, she brings a wealth of insight to our contemporary moment, exploring what it means to pursue personal growth in a digital culture.
Elizabeth Eowyn Nelson, PhD has served on the faculty of Pacifica Graduate Institute since 2003. Dr. Nelson’s own research interests have long been addressed to the issues of gender, shadow, and power, with a particular devotion to dangerous women in fiction and fact. She has published several papers and chapters in edited collections and regularly presents at scholarly conferences around the world. Dr. Nelson’s books include Psyche’s Knife: Archetypal Explorations of Love and Power (Chiron, 2012) and The Art of Inquiry: A Depth Psychological Perspective (Spring Publications, 2017), coauthored with Joseph Coppin, which is now in its third edition. She has been a professional writer and editor for more than 30 years, coaching aspiring authors across a variety of genres and styles through her consultancy Wingedfeat.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Technology & the Self 2: Finding Ourselves in a Digital Culture with Elizabeth Nelson appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We have completed a major website update to allow learners to complete self-study courses for CEs. Self-study courses require that visitors listen to/watch a recording and complete a quiz to receive a CE certificate. CE certificates can be downloaded from your My Account > Courses page at any time.
View our Self-study courses on the Self-Study CE Courses page. Courses and recordings are sold separately. We currently have two self-study courses available, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche and Approaching the Unconscious: The Matrices of Jung’s Analytical Psychology.
Join our mailing list to be informed when new self-study courses are published (a new Self-Study Courses sidebar has been added to our emails).
Learn more:
Self-Study CE CoursesAbout CE CoursesAbout CEsThe post Self-Study CE Courses Now Available appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vladislav Šolc appeared on the Underground Antics Podcast with Shane Pokroy.
Learn More and ListenFrom the description:
In this episode, Vlado and Shane explore a Jungian perspective on a variety of mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, addiction, and trauma. They discuss how Jungian Analysis facilitates the process of recovery, healing, and individuation.
Individuation is a psychological process of development through which an individual becomes a unique, self-aware and autonomous person. It was first described by Carl Jung, a Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst, who saw it as a central aspect of the human experience.
Individuation involves the differentiation of the individual from the collective unconscious and the development of a sense of individuality, which includes the integration of conscious and unconscious aspects of the self into a coherent whole. This process can involve the exploration of one’s personal beliefs, values, desires, and fears, as well as the resolution of conflicts between these aspects of the self.
Individuation can be a lifelong process and can be influenced by a variety of factors, including cultural and societal influences, past experiences, and personal growth. It is often seen as a key aspect of personal growth and self-discovery, and can lead to greater self-awareness, self-acceptance, and a deeper understanding of one’s place in the world.
*Vladislav (Vlado) Šolc (pronounced “Schultz”) is a professional psychotherapist and Jungian analyst practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vlado received training from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Charles University in Prague. He is the author of five depth-psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; The Father Archetype; In the Name of God—Fanaticism from the Perspective of Depth Psychology; Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology and most recently Democracy and Individuation in the Times of Conspiracy Theories.*
Links: Vlado Solc’s Website | Vlado Solc’s Lectures Available on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
The post Underground Antics Podcast | A Jungian Perspective on Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, and Addiction w/ Vladislav Šolc (Audio & Video) appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This underrated fairy tale has a lot more to it than either of us would have guessed. We discuss fear of abandonment, resilience, and how they relate to a few current events as of the show’s recording.
The story is from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm and is read starting at 3:21 and ending at 20:10.
Adina also recommends:
- The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale And Folklore Library). If attempting to purchase this, be sure it says, “with Padraic Colum (intro) and Joseph Campbell (commentary) and James Scharl (illustr)”. Amazon considers all versions to be the same book, so you could accidentally buy a copy without those key elements.
- The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales. Written by Bruno Bettelheim.
Our intro/outro music is from Antoni Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, performed by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players. You can find the original at freemusicarchive.org
Banner Image: File:1903 Ludwig Richter.jpg – Wikimedia Commons
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
The post Jungian Ever After | Hansel & Grethel appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Video
What is the impact of technology on the psyche? Author and Wired Magazine columnist Meghan O’Gieblyn talks with host Patricia Martin about consciousness and the self in the machine age, and the implications for living a meaningful life.
Meghan O’Gieblyn writes about spirituality and technology and is the author of God, Human, Animal, Machine (2021) and Interior States (2018), which won the 2018 Believer Book Award for nonfiction. Her essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Wired, The Guardian, The New York Times, Bookforum, n+1, The Believer, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes and her work has been anthologized in The Best American Essays 2017 and The Contemporary American Essay (2021). She also writes the “Cloud Support” advice column for Wired.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Technology and The Self: Exploring the Hidden Impact with Meghan O’Gieblyn appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Selected Analyst Training Program theses are now available publicly via our online library catalog. The catalog database is primarily for students in our training programs to borrow physical books, but analyst theses are available as PDFs. Use the catalog link below and browse our other theses.
Adult Sibling Relationships in the Consulting Room | Jung Institute Library
Browse Digitized Theses | Jung Institute Library
More will be uploaded as we are able to secure permission for them to be available and to complete scanning.
The post Thesis | Adult Sibling Relationships in the Consulting Room by Lisa Maechling Debbeler appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Jungian Analysts Judith Cooper and Daniel Ross discuss Elegy, the 2008 film directed by Isabel Coixet. Its screenplay is adapted by Nicholas Meyer from the 2001 novel The Dying Animal by Philip Roth. They discuss:
- Counterdependency
- Eros
- Beauty
- Projection
- Death
- Sex vs. Emotional Relatedness/Intimacy
- Initiation
- Puer/Senex
In the intro Ben mentions the episode The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche and our new Self-Study CE Courses.
Judith Cooper, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Chicago. She is a graduate and member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. She was adjunct faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (1999-2000), teaching projective testing. She was clinical supervisor (1991-2002) and director of training (1998-2002) of an APA-accredited psychology internship program at a community mental health center in northwest Indiana. She has taught in the Analyst Training Program and lectured on the anima/animus, and the clinical use of film.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Jungian Analyst, he brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. He first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program (now the JPP/JSP) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. He is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking psychotherapy and continues to see hospice and palliative care patients at the end of life. He is Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Judith Cooper’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Daniel Ross’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Healing Cinema | Elegy appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
When life is about to branch in a new direction, the unconscious sends us signs and symbols to tell us we’re embarking. This podcast features Jungian analyst Daniel Ross and Andrea Gaspar-Gonzalez, talking with host Patricia Martin about the ways the unconscious cooperates to guide us on the path of individuation. As co-directors of the Jungian Studies/Jungian Psychotherapy Program, they share poignant personal stories to explain the mysterious early signs that a new direction is being called for in the process individuation.
Andrea Gaspar Gonzalez, PsyD is a clinical psychologist practicing in the Chicagoland area, with a focus on the treatment of trauma and sexual abuse. She is a recent Fellow of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program (2018–2020) and graduate of the Jungian Studies Program (2014–2016) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Her current research is focused on collective psyche, application of Jung’s theories to the present cultural climate, and re-examining archetype and archetypal material, especially as it relates to the concept of the feminine, from a fourth-wave feminist standpoint.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Jungian Analyst, he brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. He first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program (now the JPP/JSP) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. He is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking psychotherapy and continues to see hospice and palliative care patients at the end of life. He is Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Entering the Path: The Journey of Individuation with Andrea Gaspar Gonzalez and Daniel Ross appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Our 100th episode! It’s fitting that the 100th episode of the Jungianthology Podcast is with our most recent addition, Jungian Ever After. Please join our Holiday Giving Drive to support this free resource accessed by thousands of listeners worldwide.
This second part of our Rumpelstiltskin coverage focuses on the Trickster archetype. We talk about places that Trickster emerges in pop culture before analyzing the ways in which both Rumpel and the miller’s daughter channel trickster energy.
Part one’s story was read last month from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm.
Adina also recommends:
The Complete Grimm’s Fairy Tales (Pantheon Fairy Tale And Folklore Library). If attempting to purchase this, be sure it says, “with Padraic Colum (intro) and Joseph Campbell (commentary) and James Scharl (illustr)”. Amazon considers all versions to be the same book, so you could accidentally buy a copy without those key elements.
On the Psychology of the Trickster Figure. Written by C.G. Jung.
Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art. Written by Lewis Hyde.
Judith Cooper speaks many times about Trickster on Healing Cinema, part of the Jungianthology Podcast.
Our intro/outro music is from Antoni Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, performed by John Harrison with the Wichita State University Chamber Players. You can find the original at freemusicarchive.org
Banner Image: Blue Fairy Book-Rumpelstiltskin.png – Wikimedia Commons
Email: jungianeverafter@gmail.com
Twitter: @JEA_Podcast
Discord: https://discord.gg/GEdn4TPgHR
Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/jungianeverafter
The post Jungian Ever After | Rumpelstiltskin Part 2: Trickster appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Transformation of the self is mysterious, whether it comes about gradually or suddenly. The essence of the process is buried in the unconscious. In this interview, Murray Stein sheds light on key dimensions of transformation based on his recent book, The Mystery of Transformation. In conversation with host Patricia Martin, they cover topics such as the individuation process, the union of anima and animus, and how the deep work of psychological transformation makes us whole.
The video of this interview is available on YouTube.
Murray Stein, PhD is a Training and Supervising Analyst at the International School of Analytical Psychology Zurich (ISAP-ZURICH). He was the first president of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts (1980-85) and has been president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) and President of ISAP-ZURICH. He is the author of Jung’s Map of the Soul, Minding the Self, Outside Inside and All Around and many other books and articles. Four volumes of his Collected Writings have been published to date and two more are currently in preparation. He is presently the president of the Mercurius Prize Committee. He lives in Switzerland and has a private practice in Zurich and from his home in Goldiwil.
Patricia Martin, MFA, is the host of Jung in the World. A noted cultural analyst, she applies Jungian theory to her work as a researcher and writer. Author of three books, her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Huffington Post, and USA Today. She holds an MFA in writing and literature from Bennington College and an MA in cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors). In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute Chicago where she is a professional affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, for the last decade she’s been studying the digital culture and its impact on the individuation process. Patricia travels the world giving talks and workshops based on her findings, and has a private consulting practice in Chicago.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Hosts: Patricia Martin, Judith Cooper, Daniel Ross, Adina Davidson, and Raisa Cabrera
Intern: Avery Kirschbaum
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Jung in the World | Exploring the Mystery of Transformation with Murray Stein appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Please join our Holiday Giving Drive by making a donation online. Your support allows us to provide free and low-cost education to students and listeners around the world. Donate: https://jungchicago.org/blog/support-us/ Rumpelstiltskin is a character the we love from the show Once Upon a Time, but the original story isn’t commonly consumed. We have split our […]
The post Jungian Ever After | Rumpelstiltskin Part 1: Narcissism and Persona appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Renowned folklorist and Harvard scholar Maria Tatar joins host Patricia Martin to discuss her latest book, Heroine with 1,001 Faces. In this interview, Tatar unearths the forgotten legacy of the […]
The post Jung in the World | Mythology and the Age of the Heroine with Maria Tatar appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
One of the most popular fairy tales, Cinderella, especially as told by Grimm, contains two major themes. So, we’ve split our analysis into 2 parts. This second episode speaks of the dehumanizing power of envy. There is a brief recap of the story at the 2:00 mark. We’ll be reading from Household Tales by Brothers […]
The post Jungian Ever After | Cinderella Part 2: Envy appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
One of the most popular fairy tales, Cinderella, especially as told by Grimm, contains two major themes. So, we’ve split our analysis into 2 parts. This first episode speaks of the healing power of grief, while next month we will discuss the role of envy. The story reading takes place from 8:06 to 22:48 We’ll […]
The post Jungian Ever After | Cinderella Part 1: Grief appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This month, Jung in the World is presenting a weekly series on Marion Woodman, Canadian mythopoetic author, poet, Jungian Analyst, and women’s movement figure. In this episode, Patricia Martin talks with author Elaine Mansfield about her years-long relationship with Marion Woodman that began with a workshop. As a nutritionist and women’s health counselor for 25 years, Mansfield sheds […]
The post Marion Woodman Month | The Value of Forgiveness with Elaine Mansfield appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This month, Jung in the World is presenting a weekly series on Marion Woodman, Canadian mythopoetic author, poet, Jungian Analyst, and women’s movement figure. In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Tina Stromsted PhD, who was a student of Marion Woodman’s somatic therapy work. Over the years of studying and collaborating with Marion, the two became friends and colleagues. […]
The post Marion Woodman Month | What Soul Tells the Body: Woodman’s Discovery with Tina Stromsted appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
For the second episode of Marion Woodman Month, we’re rebroadcasting the very first episode of Jungianthology, Chrysalis: The Psychology of Transformation. In this lecture, Toronto analyst Marion Woodman explores the body/spirit relationship, the withdrawing of projection, gender issues, and the surrender of the ego to the Self as these themes relate to personal transformation. Marion […]
The post Marion Woodman Month | Chrysalis: The Psychology of Transformation with Marion Woodman appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
For the next month, Jung in the World is presenting a weekly series on Marion Woodman, Canadian mythopoetic author, poet, Jungian Analyst, and women’s movement figure. In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Dr. David Clark, Professor in the Department of English and Cultural Studies and Associate Member of the Department of Health, Aging and Society at McMaster University, […]
The post Marion Woodman Month | The Transformative Power of Uncertainty with David Clark appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We begin our Grimm journey with the story of Rapunzel! A tale of irresponsible parents, a tower of isolation with no stairs or door, and the persecutor/protector that exists in all of us. The story reading takes place from 9:22 to 18:18 We’ll be reading from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm Adina also recommends: The […]
The post Jungian Ever After | Rapunzel appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We are adding a new show to Jungianthology! Jungian Ever After is a new show co-hosted by Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Adina Davidson and Raisa Cabrera. It’s a podcast about fairy tales through the lens of Jungian analysis. Jungian Ever After will be shared on our feed alongside our other shows. They have […]
The post Jungian Ever After | Introduction appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
This episode is the first session of the series The Warrior Within: A Study in Masculine Psychology, a classic seminar in his series on the four major archetypes of masculine psychology as he understood them: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. From the seminar description: The Warrior is the archetype of self-disciplined, aggressive action. If Warrior energy […]
The post Institute Archive | The Warrior Within: A Study in Masculine Psychology with Robert Moore, PhD appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Laura Vecchiolla, clinical psychologist and graduate of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Their discussion touches on: Jung’s obsession with mythology Mythology – Freud vs Jung What does archetypal mean? Image vs story Wonder Woman Hero’s journey Glory seeking vs caretaking Underestimation of women […]
The post Jung in the World | Jung, Wonder Woman, and the Psychology of Myth with Laura Vecchiolla appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
We’ve just launched our Spring Fundraising Drive! You can support this podcast and the Institute by making a donation of any amount. Due to a generous grant from the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, the first $5,000 donated will be matched! Jungian Analysts Judith Cooper and Daniel Ross discuss Maggie Gyllenhaal’s 2021 film The Lost […]
The post Healing Cinema: The Lost Daughter appeared first on C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
The C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago acknowledges this country’s history of systemic racism and inequality and is committed to understanding and remediating these injustices through study and open discussion at all levels of our organization. We are dedicated to applying the Jungian concepts of the collective shadow and the cultural complex to better understand how the toxic legacies of slavery, bigotry, and oppression of structural racism permeate our society, our institutions, and our collective and personal psyches. As practitioners of Jungian theory we strive to name and apply concepts of collective and personal shadow, cultural complex, manifested through the dynamics of projection, leading to “othering” and the denial of our shared humanity. We endeavor to foster an atmosphere that respects, encourages, values and sincerely engages with diversity and difference in all its expressions and forms. Our member analysts, public members and administrative staff actively support policies of inclusiveness and equity by raising these issues, concerns, and dynamics in classes and meetings. As a community we also recognize and are mindful of Jung’s writings which contain harmful stereotypic descriptions of groups of people that are racially and culturally biased and prejudiced. We pledge to initiate, welcome, and maintain ongoing conversations and discussions within our analyst community, with our trainees, and with our broader community of interested participants in all our programming regarding these depictions in Jung’s collective works.
The post Diversity Equity and Inclusion Statement of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Ryan Maher, MA, LMHC, LCPC, and graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Jungian Psychotherapy Program. In this discussion, they touch on:
- Symbolism of the Forest in ancient and modern contexts
- “Panic” and irrational states of mind
- Paul Robichaud’s Pan: The Great God’s Modern Return
- Self-regulation
- Jung’s concept of reflection as an instinct
- Dissociation from nature and instincts
- Integration of the irrational
- Transformation
- James Hillman
Listener’s may be interested in Ryan’s presentation The Forest, The Witch & Pan – Psyche’s Need for Wilderness and Enchantment for the Myth Salon on YouTube, which is mentioned in this interview.
Ryan Maher, MA, LMHC, LCPC is a licensed psychotherapist and a graduate of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology where he concentrated his study on the treatment of trauma. Ryan works with individuals and couples navigating significant life changes, personal and relational conflicts, and feelings of purposelessness/lack of meaning. Specific concerns often include: depression, anxiety, grief, spiritual/existential crises, and impulsive/compulsive patterns. Ryan completed a two-year post-graduate training program in Jungian Psychotherapy and is certified in hypnotherapy. He is a member of The Breathe Network, the National Board of Certified Counselors, and the American Counseling Association. He is also an affiliate member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and presents regularly at The C. G. Jung Center in Evanston, IL. More information about Ryan’s practice at TheInnerWorldTherapy.com.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Thank you to our 2021 donors who gave at the contributing member level and above, including those who choose not to be acknowledged here: The Arlene M. Feiner Trust, Barbara Annan, Arlo and Rena Compaan, Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, Carl and Patricia Greer, Ryan Maher, Patricia Martin, Boris Matthews, Sue Rosenthal, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Lawrence Chad Tingley, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Pan and the Forest: Interview with Ryan Maher appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
We are continuing remote learning for all programs for the remainder of this academic year. We anticipate resuming in-person programs in September 2022. Join our mailing list for updates.
Stephanie Buck, President
The post Statement on In-Person Program Resumption | April 13, 2022 appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
The Jung Association of Western Massachusetts generously shares a wealth of videos and audio, freely available for streaming at the link below.
JAWM Audio/Video Archive
The post Jung Association of Western Massachusetts | Free Audio/Video Archive appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
To celebrate International Women’s Day, we are sharing the seminar and panel discussion “Edith Rockefeller McCormick: Philanthropist, Intellectual, Analyst” in its entirety. The first hour is a presentation by Andrea Friederici Ross, author of Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick, followed by reflections by Kennon McKee, PhD, Jungian analyst and Victoria Drake, PhD, that opens up for general discussion.
The presentation includes archival photos that are not intended for such wide distribution as YouTube, so the video version is available on our website for a nominal fee.
From the seminar description:
Edith Rockefeller McCormick (1872-1932) played a vital role in supporting Carl Jung’s practices and disseminating his writings. In addition to underwriting translations of his work, McCormick provided a physical location for the Psychological Club in Zurich in an effort to bring the Jungian community together. The early years of the Psychological Club were not without problems, as the key players (including Edith and her husband Harold Fowler McCormick) wrestled with how to structure the club. In time, Jung appointed the deeply intellectual McCormick an analyst in her own right and she practiced pro bono in Chicago for the remainder of her life. McCormick’s son Fowler McCormick also had a lasting relationship with Jung, traveling with Jung in the American Southwest, India, and parts of Europe. In this program, author Andrea Friederici Ross will present a biographical sketch of Edith Rockefeller McCormick with a heavy focus on her eight years in Zurich with Jung. Materials shared will include excerpts from correspondence among McCormick family members and Edith’s father, John D. Rockefeller. Following the biographical presentation, analyst Dr. Kennon McKee and academic psychologist Dr. Victoria Drake will join Ross in a discussion about McCormick’s life and interactions with Jung.
It was recorded on January 22, 2022.
Andrea Friederici Ross is the author of Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick and Let the Lions Roar! The Evolution of Brookfield Zoo. She has been published in Fine Books, Mothering, Sheridan Road, Chicago Agent, Hinsdale Living, and other magazines. Her essays can also be found on the Center for Humans and Nature blog and their “City Creatures” anthology. Her career has been unconventional, including stints as the Operations Manager of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and as Assistant to the Director of the Chicago Zoological Society. She currently runs the library at the local public school while working on her writing projects. Andrea graduated from Northwestern University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in German Language and Literature. More information is available at friedericiross.com.
Kennon McKee, PhD‘s early work specialized in child psychology, holding positions at the Institute of Juvenile Research at the University of Illinois, and in the High Risk Infancy Clinic at Cook County Hospital where she followed high-risk infants developmentally for the first 6 years of life. After training in analytical psychology, Dr. McKee went into private practice, seeing both children and adults. She is a senior training analyst in the Analyst Training Program.
Victoria C. Drake, PhD is an academic, scholar, writer, editor, educator and social/environmental conservation philanthropist. A Chicago native, she is a graduate of Harvard University followed by Applied Biology graduate work at Cambridge University, UK, University College London, UK (MSc. Studies in Environmental Economics) and Pacifica Graduate Institute (CA): PhD in Jungian Depth (Archetypal) Psychology. As a career international environmental conservationist, social justice advocate and ecopsychologist, she currently serves on the Institute’s Board and as Midwest Regional Alumni Coordinator for Pacifica Graduate Institute. She and her husband also participate in their eight-generation family farm in central Illinois with their three daughters.
Links
Andrea Friederici Ross’s Website
Edith: The Rogue Rockefeller McCormick
Let the Lions Roar! The Evolution of Brookfield Zoo
Victoria Drake’s Recordings at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Store
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Thank you to our 2021 donors who gave at the contributing member level and above, including those who choose not to be acknowledged here: The Arlene M. Feiner Trust, Barbara Annan, Arlo and Rena Compaan, Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, Carl and Patricia Greer, Ryan Maher, Patricia Martin, Boris Matthews, Sue Rosenthal, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Lawrence Chad Tingley, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
© 2022 Andrea Friederici Ross. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
The post Institute Archive | Edith Rockefeller McCormick: Philanthropist, Intellectual, Analyst appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Jungian Analysts Judith Cooper and Daniel Ross discuss Alejandro G. Iñárritu‘s 2014 film Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance). They touch on:
- Innocence and inflation
- Alchemy
- Mark Sabans’ Two Souls Alas: Carl Jung’s Two Personalities and the Making of Analytical Psychology (Listen to our interview with Mark Saban)
- Love
- Humiliation
- The Trickster
- Men’s relationship to dependency
- Sylvia Perea’s The Scapegoat Complex
- Individuation needs and the “unlived life”
- Fantasy and imagination
Judith Cooper, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Chicago. She is a graduate and member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. She was adjunct faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (1999-2000), teaching projective testing. She was clinical supervisor (1991-2002) and director of training (1998-2002) of an APA-accredited psychology internship program at a community mental health center in northwest Indiana. She has taught in the Analyst Training Program and lectured on the anima/animus, and the clinical use of film.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Jungian Analyst, he brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. He first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program (now the JPP/JSP) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. He is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking psychotherapy and continues to see hospice and palliative care patients at the end of life. He is Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Judith Cooper’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Daniel Ross’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2021 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: The Arlene M. Feiner Trust, Barbara Annan, Arlo and Rena Compaan, Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, Carl and Patricia Greer, Ryan Maher, Patricia Martin, Boris Matthews, Sue Rosenthal, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Lawrence Chad Tingley, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Healing Cinema: Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Dr. John Ryan Haule (1942, USA), is a Jungian Analyst, writer, & lecturer. He graduated from the C. G. Jung Institute Zurich in 1980 and is a NCPsyA, Certified Psychoanalyst as well as a Training Analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute-Boston. He works in his private practice in Massachusetts and is the author of books on Romantic Love, Therapy as Relationship, New Age Phenomena, and many articles on these topics, as well as shamanism, history of psychoanalysis, mysticism, and popular culture.
Listen to John Ryan Haule’s lecture, The Love Cure, from the Institute archives
Stefano Carpani M.A., M.Phil. (1978) is an Italian psychoanalyst-in-training (diploma candidate) at the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich and a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre for Psychoanalytical Studies, University of Essex (UK). He works in private practice in Berlin (DE).
Links: Stefano’s YouTube Channel | Stefano’s Website | John Ryan Haule at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
The post Stefano Carpani | “Who was Carl Gustav Jung?” with Dr. John R. Haule appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
We are sharing the webinar “Jung & the Environment” in full. The video version is available on YouTube.
Many believe we are in the Anthropocene Era, an era marked by the planet-wide influence of our species. The field of ecopsychology emerged in the early 1990s as a belated response from the psychological community to address the cascading effects of human-created environmental damage. Jungian ecopsychology offers one of the best frameworks for analyzing our dysfunctional relationship with the environment—and with each other—through an archetypal analysis of the layers of the collective unconscious. Jung was deeply connected with his native Swiss soil that was reflected in the ecological aspects of his conceptual system and his interest in alchemy as his main symbol system. Ecology begins with our relationship with “the little people” in our dreams and dreams can be used to help us connect deeply to the land using Hillman’s concept of Aphrodite as the Soul of the World. In 1940 Jung foretold a paradigm shift that he labeled a “new age” and “Aquarian Age”. The new paradigm will be based on ecological concepts and reflected in the economic system being developed by the sustainable economists. We must think in these terms as a species if there is any hope of averting a planetary nightmare.
It was recorded on October 1, 2021.
Dennis Merritt, PhD, LCSW grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin where he established a deep connection with the land as reflected in his four volumes of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe: Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. He obtained a Ph.D. from Berkeley in insect pathology, microbial control of insect pests, before training at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich. He practices as a Jungian analyst and ecopsychologist in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and is a senior analyst in the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. More at JungianEcopsychology.com.
Dr. Merritt is the author of Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology: The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe Volumes 1 – 4.
Links
Dennis Merritt’s Blog
Dennis Merritt’s Practice Website
Dennis Merritt at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Dennis Merrit on Jungianthology
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
© 2021 Dennis Merritt. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
The post From the Archives | Jung & the Environment with Dennis Merritt appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
During our Holiday Giving Drive we are presenting a series of interviews called Jung in the World. In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Roula-Maria Dib, creative writer and literary scholar, who views Carl Jung as a modernist and has written about the power of the modernist moment in history to give rise to the discipline of psychology. Her book, Jungian Metaphor in Modernist Literature, creates a new context for understanding Carl Jung’s work and his most important theories: the context of the collective in which he lived. In this discussion, they touch on:
- The development of Modernism
- Finding wholeness through art
- Jung’s Collected Works & his literary sense
- Active imagination
- The symbol
- The collective unconscious
- Deconstruction and integration
- Reading the Jungian way
Roula-Maria Dib (PhD, Leeds)is a creative writer and literary scholar. She is the author of Jungian Metaphor in Modernist Literature (Routledge, 2020) and a poetry collection, Simply Being (Chiron Press, 2021). She is the founding editor of literary and arts journal Indelible and creative producer of its literary event series, Indelible Evenings. She is a member of the Poetry Society, the British Association for Modernist Studies, the International Association for Jungian Studies, and the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies. She is currently a professor of English at the American University in Dubai.
Roula-Maria Dib is the founder and director of Psychreative, a monthly event for creatives with a background in Jungian psychology. Learn more on their Facebook page and watch past sessions on their YouTube channel.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
Operating revenue from combined program tuitions covers only 55% of total expenses; membership dues, store purchases, and donations help bring us closer to covering the financial gap but are not sufficient to close it. Please help us reach our $25,000 goal by joining our community of generous donors on our donor wall and podcast credits and become a member of the Institute if you aren’t already!
Links
Jungian Metaphor in Modernist Literature
Psycreative Facebook page
Psycreative YouTube channel
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Jung in the World: C. G. Jung & the Modernist Revolution with Roula-Maria Dib appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Mark Saban joins us to talk about the complexity of C. G. Jung’s own personality, and how that has shaped the way Analysts are trained today. They discuss:
- Jung’s life
- Training
- Individuation
- Inner and outer worlds
- Engagement with the world
- The archetypal vs the personal
- Jungian analysis
- The individuation of society
Mark Saban is a psychotherapist, analytical psychologist, and Jungian analyst in the UK. He is a senior analyst with the Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists and registered as a Jungian Analyst with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy and the International Association for Analytical Psychology. He gained an M.A. at Oxford University and worked for twenty years as a performer/writer in theatre, TV, and film before training as an analytical psychologist. He completed his PhD at the University of Essex, where he also works as a lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic studies. He sees clients in Oxford. He is author of Two Souls Alas: Carl Jung’s Two Personalities and the Making of Analytical Psychology.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
Operating revenue from combined program tuitions covers only 55% of total expenses; membership dues, store purchases, and donations help bring us closer to covering the financial gap, but are not sufficient to close it. Please help us reach our $25,000 goal by joining our community of generous donors on our donor wall and podcast credits, and become a member of the Institute if you aren’t already!
Links
Mark Saban’s Website
Two Souls Alas: Carl Jung’s Two Personalities and the Making of Analytical Psychology
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Jung in the World: Jung’s Two Personalities & Their Impact on Jungian Thought & Training with Mark Saban appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member Vladislav Šolc has published “The Religious Approach to Psyche” in the Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, the official journal of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.
Abstract:
Jason Smith’s book Religious but Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life is a concise and thoughtful exploration of the question of religion, its value, and meaning. Smith explores religion from two perspectives, as an organizing container provided by collective traditions and as an individual quest for meaning necessitating attention to the unconscious. He shows that belonging can be very important for one’s psychological health, but it must be accompanied by a sustained uncovering of the religious dimensions of life. Remaining unconscious can produce a state of god-like inflation. Throughout the book Smith examines the dangers of scientific rationalism that, as a rule, result in a naïve relationship with religion, religious symbols, and religious institutions. Wonder and the emptying of one’s mind to the experience of the transcendent (kenosis) are the essential attitudes for pursuing the symbolic life.
Viewing the full article requires a purchase of the article, issue, or subscription to Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche.
Full Article Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche
*Vladislav (Vlado) Šolc (pronounced “Schultz”) is a professional psychotherapist and Jungian analyst practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vlado received training from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Charles University in Prague. He is the author of five depth-psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; The Father Archetype; In the Name of God—Fanaticism from the Perspective of Depth Psychology; Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology and most recently Democracy and Individuation in the Times of Conspiracy Theories.*
Links: Vlado Solc’s Website | Vlado Solc’s Lectures Available on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
The post Vladislav Šolc | “The Religious Approach to Psyche” in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Mythology can help us to understand and integrate the shadow, but this endeavor can also be undermined by the use of mythology. In particular, the limiting madness of the shadow can be denied, and with this denial one can lose a sense of soul and embodied life. Schwartz-Salant examines the nature of madness and evil and the means of coming to terms with these powerful elements of the shadow. The keynote lecture of the conference Gold in Dark Places: Shadow Work in the Struggle for Selfhood, which includes the following lectures:
- The Myth of the Shadow and the Shadow of Myth – Nathan Schwartz-Salant
- The Typological Counterculture: Introverted Feeling and its Allies – John Giannini
- The Vampire Archetype and Vampiric Relationships – Julie McAfee
- World Oppression and the Power of Transformation – John Van Eenwyk
- The Wounding Shadow of the Wounded Healer: Narcissism and Co-Dependency in the Helping Professions – Jean Shinoda Bolen
- Shadows on the Rock: Women, Violence, and the Church – Joan Chamberlain Engelsman
- Depth Psychology and Politics: Reflections on the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement – Andrew Samuels
- Shadow Issues in the Daughter’s Father Complex – Julia Jewett
It was recorded in 1991. Nathan is introduced by Peter Mudd.
Nathan Schwartz-Salant, PhD is a Jungian analyst and author of Narcissism and Character Transformation and The Borderline Personality: Vision and Healing. He was also co-editor with Murray Stein of the Chiron Clinical Series.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Gold in Dark Places: Shadow Work in the Struggle for Selfhood
The Alchemy of the Analytic Relationship
Mythology and Clinical Practice
All of Nathan Schwartz-Salant’s Seminars
© 1991 Nathan Schwartz-Salant. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post The Myth of Shadow and the Shadow of Myth with Nathan Schwartz-Salant appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Thank you to The Mythology Channel for sharing this video. From the description:
On Thursday, October 21 at 5PM Pacific, we are particularly excited to be featuring Dr. Dyane Sherwood giving a presentation on the alchemical illuminated manuscript, the Splendor Solis. The illuminated manuscript of the Splendor Solis is one of the Treasures of the British Library, and in recent years has become widely known for the beauty of its 22 illuminated paintings. In her presentation, Dyane Sherwood will place the Splendor Solis in context, give the audience an overview, and then focus on some of the images in depth. We will discover the sophisticated consciousness behind three series of images that portray a process of depth transformation that moves from (1) a personal process, (2) to an appreciation of a relationship between archetypal, environmental, and inner states, and (3) finally to a profound acceptance of the nature of being. Dr. Sherwood will address two interrelated themes of the Splendor Solis that are more relevant today than ever before: the fact that humans can use Nature to work against Nature and the need for, in Jungian terms, redemption of the Feminine Principle.
Dyane Sherwood collaborated with the late Joseph L. Henderson, MD on a book relating the images of the Splendor Solis to the process of transformation in analysis. Dr. Henderson had his personal analysis with C.G. Jung and was the only American contributor to Jung’s remarkable book, Man and His Symbols. Dr. Sherwood is a Jungian psychoanalyst, sand-play therapist, and author. She founded the Analytical Psychology Press.
Links
The Mythology Channel on YouTube
Dyane Sherwood on Jungianthology
Dyane Sherwood at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Analytical Psychology Press
The post Myth Salon | The Splendor Solis with Dr. Dyane Sherwood (Video) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Carl Jung was known to be endlessly creative and said art is an innate drive within all of us. People who identify as creatives are prone to certain mental health issues that are somewhat specific to their work. In particular, their shadow material is often overlooked in our culture in favor of a more romantic, poetic view of their identities. Author Jessica Carson uses Jungian theory in her book Wired This Way, a guide to the wellbeing of the creative spirit. It helps us understand creatives as more fully complex human beings. In this discussion, they touch on:
- Jung’s Writing
- Creativity & Creative People
- Entrepreneurialism and Business Culture
- Integrating Masculine & Feminine Archetypes
- Fairy Tales
- Shadow
- Projection
- Tension of Opposites
- Cycles of Renewal
- Joseph Campbell & the Hero’s Journey
Jessica Carson is the Director of Innovation at the American Psychological Association, the largest organization of psychologists in the United States, an Expert in Residence at Georgetown University, and Founder of The Magnum Opus Academy. Jessica is the author of Wired This Way, an exploration of the light and dark of the creative mind, which bears its own TED talk. With a diverse background in psychology, neuroscience, startups, venture capital, and mindfulness, Jessica’s work sits at the intersection of psychology and creatorship. She has been featured across a range of institutions including Georgetown University, London School of Economics, Columbia Business School, ScaleTech, The Psychiatric Times, Oxford University Press, Thrive Global, StartUp Fest, Society for Psychologists in Management, and many others.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
Operating revenue from combined program tuitions covers only 55% of total expenses; membership dues, store purchases, and donations help bring us closer to covering the financial gap, but are not sufficient to close it. Please help us reach our $25,000 goal by joining our community of generous donors on our donor wall and podcast credits, and become a member of the Institute if you aren’t already!
Links
The Magnum Opus Academy
Jessica Carson’s Book,Wired This Way
Jessica Carson’s TED Talk, “Creator, Interrupted”
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Jung in the World: Jung & the New Generation of Creatives with Jessica Carson appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Love was a great mystery to C. G. Jung. It is thought that his pursuit of love and the feminine aspect of his psyche was an animating force in his famous red book. Maci Daye, trained psychologist, certified sex therapist, and author of Passion and Presence: A Couples Guide to Awakened Intimacy & Mindful Sex. Maci’s work delves into the deep roots of love and why eros is a profound path to individuation.
Maci Daye is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist, Licensed Professional Counselor, and Certified Therapist and Trainer of Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy. Since 2010, she has led her popular retreat series Passion and Presence® in the USA, Europe, and Australia. Shambhala Publications released her book, Passion and Presence: A Couple’s Guide to Mindful Sex and Awakened intimacy in 2020.
Maci has a doctorate in human sexuality from the Parkmore Institute, a master’s degree in human development from Harvard University, and an educational specialist degree in counseling from Georgia State University. She also completed the Level 2 Somatic Experiencing trauma training. Maci aspires to live a contemplative, pleasure-centered life, where her heart is the primary driver. She spends her free time wandering the streets of Mallorca, where she lives with Halko Weiss. You will often find her standing awe-struck by her surroundings or entranced by the sound of sheep bells. She gets her urban fix in Hamburg, Germany, her home away from home.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
passionandpresence.com
Books
Passion and Presence: A Couples Guide to Awakened Intimacy & Mindful Sex
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Jung in the World: Eros and the Archetypal Pursuit of Healing Love with Maci Daye, Certified Sex Therapist appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
“Jamaya Pu’lapuin?” (“How was your dream?”) are the first words with which the Wayuu greet each other daily. In contrast, when people from industrialized societies meet, they may say, “Hi”, “Hola”, “How are you?.” The greeting of ‘How are you?’ does not exist in the Wayuu language. An initial comparison of the greetings between these two groups of people may reveal the following: the Wayuu emphasize the primacy of the aa’in (soul) in life, which gets manifested in dreams, as well as the individual caring for the soul in another person’s life. Given the daily forgetfulness of the existence and subjective experience of the unconscious in the industrialized people, the word “You” in their greetings may be referring to the “Ego” and, less so to the integrated whole of the conscious and the unconscious. From a Jungian perspective, the Wayuu seem to be, initially, more interested in unconscious processes than “civilized people” are.
Therefore, Jungian analysts could learn, from the Wayuu aborigens, that the first question to be asked, when an analysand comes for the first time and to subsequent sessions to analysis, is “How was your dream?” (“Jamaya Pu’lapuin”). This is congruent with Jung’s writings and clinical practice where the centrality of dreams, as revealing the wisdom of the Self, was fundamental. There are exceptions, of course.
The Wayuu (“The People of the Sun, Sand, and Wind”) are an indigenous tribe that live in the desert of La Guajira Peninsula, which borders Colombia and Venezuela. They live in small settlements called “Rancherias,” which consists of five or six houses made of branches, corrals, and mud houses. Because their societal structure is matrilineal, each Rancheria is composed of people belonging to the same matrilineal clan. Some of these clans are, for example, the Aspushana (“Sour with Something”), the Epieyu (“Where Sleepiness is Felt”), the Jayaliyuu (“Eyes without Head”), etc. Furthermore, Wayuu children primarily bear their mother’s last name (and not the father’s), and each clan is identified with a symbolic drawing (“Kanaas”) that usually has a geometric shape that alludes to an animal, a plant, or a geographical place.
Therefore, the importance of images in Wayuu’s cosmology is comparable to the primacy of images in Analytical Psychology.
According to Paz (2017), Lapu refers to a deity that, through dreams, conveys messages to people. Dreams help the Wayuu to prognosticate many of outer events, such as death, health, adversities, etc. The Wayuu seek signals in dreams on how an adverse event can be prevented. At night, the aa’in (soul) of a Wayuu wanders, and such travel is aptly described in dreams. In recent decades, and within the field of Analytical Psychology, there is a greater tendency to see dreams as a comment, primarily, of the “analytical field” and, less so, of the intrapsychic life of the individual. The Wayuu perspective that dreams are helpful comments or warnings about outer events, such as a marriage, taking a trip, buying a house, taking a new job, moving to another city, etc, is becoming, unfortunately, less relevant to Analytical Psychologists because of the idea that “subjective interpretations” of dreams are emphasized more than “objective interpretations.” A close reading of Wayuu’s cosmology may help Analytical Psychology to have a more balanced view and hold the tension of the opposites of viewing dreams subjectively and objectively. Therefore, next time we want to relocate to another city, change jobs, have more children and, (why not?) getting together with a friend, etc., let us consult a dream about it, like the Wayuu do.
Furthermore, the aa’in or Wayuu soul is a vital energy in each Wayuu aborigen as well as in any living organism (Paz, 2017). What would be a comparable Jungian ontological category that corresponds to the aa”in in the Wayuu? I believe, “Psyche.” The aa’in is fragile in children, while it is strong and consolidated in an adult. The aa’in develops and becomes stronger over the years and, during old age, the aa’in becomes progressively weaker until it departs the human body, which corresponds to the death of the individual. When an individual falls ill, this is due to the fact that his/her aa’in has departed for quite some time and, when an individual dies, his/her soul has departed and has never come back.
When a Wayuu dies, he/she goes to Jepira -the land of the dead-, a place where the dead Wayuu go after dying. According to the Wayuu, what dies is the body, but not the aa’in (soul). The aa’in continues “living” and transforms itself into yoluja -a spirit, a non human being. The belief that the aa’in continues living is in accordance with Jung’s view, and Von Franz’s studies (1984) on dreams and death re-affirm such view:
“It is in fact true, as Jung emphasized, that the unconscious psyche pays very little attention to the abrupt end of bodily life and behaves as if the psychic life of the individual, that is, the individuation process, will simply continue. In this connection, however, there are also dreams which symbolically indicate the end of bodily life and the explicit continuation of psychic life after death. The unconscious “believes” quite obviously in a life after death.”
The yolujas (the spirits of the dead) visit the Wayuu in their dreams. Dreams are the place where the dead interact with the living, and those interactions could be positive and/or negative. For example, a yoluja of a dead relative could help, in a dream, a living relative with healing, guiding, and warning signals. Moreover, a yoluja could provide, through a dream, valuable information about medicinal plants for healing. On the other hand, a yoluja could still steal the aa’i of a child and contribute, thus, to his/her death.
Moreover, the Wayuu divides life events in terms of opposites (male/female). Rain, which is essential for survival in the desert, is the result of the union of those opposites. Similarly, in Jungian thought, opposites play a fundamental role in the human psyche, and their balance contributes to ‘water’ psychological life.
Death plays an important role in Wayuu’s culture. When a Wayuu dies, he/she needs to be buried twice in order to be transformed into rain, which will water the new life on the Earth. The spirits of the dead (“Pulasu”) are sacred, and have a great influence on life and death as well as health and sickness. The Pulasu can be contacted through dreams, and dreams are the place where the world of the living meets the world of the dead. As I have previously published (Taborda, 2010), dream characters (from a Jungian perspective) and spirits in dreams (for indigenous people worldwide), can be ontologically understood as similar, and both communicate important information on how to live life.
What would be the epistemological impact on Analytical Psychology, especially for the practice of Jungian analysis, if dreams are understood, also, as the land of the spirits of dead ancestors (“yoluja”) and spirits of living people (“aa’in”) that interact with the aa’in of the dreamer? Imagine: if dreams are the central core of Jungian Analysis, as Jung indicated, what would Jungian analysts think about defining the fundamental practice of Analytical Psychology as the process of establishing, through dream analysis, a balanced relationship between the spirits of the dead and the spirits of the living, as well as a balanced relationship among the spirits of the living in order to live a meaningful and whole live. For some analysts, this approach will be a theoretical and practical regression in their pursuit of establishing Analytical Psychology as a scientific clinical practice, which may trigger fears of “going primitive”; for others, it may be a welcoming opportunity to create a racial and cross-cultural bridge to other people, aborigens, indigenous tribes and cultures, and their descendants. Analytical Psychology is struggling with issues of racial diversity and cross-cultural competency. Learning how to practice Jungian analysis with the help of aboriginal and native cosmology from a variety of cultures may be an answer to this struggle.
(Picture Credit: Wayuu Vibes)
This post was first published as a series on thehealingpsyche.org.
Freddie Taborda, LCPC, PsyD is a Jungian Analyst with over 30 years of clinical experience. He maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois.
Links: Dr. Taborda’s Website | About Dr. Taborda | Dr. Taborda’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Website
The post Freddie Taborda | “JAMAYA PU’LAPUIN?”: A Brief Archetypal Teaching from Wayuu Aborigines to Jungian Psychology appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Jungian Analysts Judith Cooper and Daniel Ross discuss Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s 2006 film The Lives of Others (Wikipedia). They touch on:
- Inflation
- Dark Eros by Thomas Moore (https://amzn.to/3lSbsyZ)
- John Beebe
- Complexes
- Anima & Animus Development
- Depth Psychology and a New Ethic by Erich Neumann (https://amzn.to/3vvAzuz)
- The Father by Luigi Zoja (https://amzn.to/3b4HNwp)
Judith Cooper, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Chicago. She is a graduate and member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. She was adjunct faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (1999-2000), teaching projective testing. She was clinical supervisor (1991-2002) and director of training (1998-2002) of an APA-accredited psychology internship program at a community mental health center in northwest Indiana. She has taught in the Analyst Training Program and lectured on the anima/animus, and the clinical use of film.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Jungian Analyst, he brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. He first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program (now the JPP/JSP) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. He is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking psychotherapy and continues to see hospice and palliative care patients at the end of life. He is Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Judith Cooper’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Daniel Ross’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Healing Cinema: The Lives of Others appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Warren W. Sibilla, Jr, Jungian Psychoanalyst and the new Director of Training for the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Analyst Training Program. How does someone know they are ready for training? What is the process of development in training like? What does Jungian analysis and study bring to someone’s life and practice?
Dr. Sibilla is an athlete who competes in endurance sports like the Ironman and Spartan Obstacle Race. How has this discipline manifested in Dr. Sibilla’s own analytic practice? Does that lead to a particular framing about the practice of psychology and analysis? In this discussion they touch on:
The Symbol
The Unconscious
The Self
Individuation
The Shadow
Discipline
Analytic Training
The interview was recorded in August 2021, before the current year of the Analyst Training Program began.
Warren Sibilla, Jr, PhD is a Diplomate Jungian Psychoanalyst with a clinical practice in Chicago, IL and South Bend, IN. Dr. Sibilla served as the Director of the Clinical Training Program (2010 – 2014) at the Institute and is the incoming Director of Training for the 2021-2022 year of the Analyst Training Program. He is engaged in the study and practice of Zen Buddhism including authoring a book on the relationship between Zen Buddhism and Analytical Psychology as well as a paper formally exploring Jung’s 1958 dialogue with Japanese Zen Master and Philosopher Hisamatsu. He is author of My Journey to Ironman: Endurance Sports as a Means to Individuation. Dr. Sibilla teaches in the Masters and Doctoral programs at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and The Institute for Clinical Social Work and facilitates silent contemplative retreats at GilChrist Retreat Center in Michigan.
Dr. Sibilla graduated from the California School of Professional Psychology in 1993. Since earning his Ph.D., he has received a post-doctorate diploma in Object Relations Theory and Practice. Additionally, he has earned the professional title of Psychoanalyst. Finally, he has completed the training to serve as a court appointed Parent Coordinator and Domestic Relations Mediator. He is the President of the Child Development and Psychological Health Center maintaining a private practice specializing in forensic psychology including proficiency with court ordered psychological consultations and assessments with children, adolescents, and adults. He provides psychotherapy and psychoanalysis to children, adolescents, and adults. Finally, Dr. Sibilla provides professional consultation and supervision to many mental health practices and individual clinicians.
Dr. Sibilla is married; he and his wife have four children. In addition to family responsibilities, Dr. Sibilla is an avid triathlete, currently competing in Ironman distance triathlons, marathons, and ultra-distance marathons.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Warren Sibilla, Jr.’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Warren Sibilla Jr.’s Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post The Discipline to Stay with the Symbol: Interview with Director of Training Warren Sibilla appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Analytical Psychology and the Human Sciences was curated by Routledge Mental Health and the International Association for Jungian Studies as a companion to the 2021 IAJS Triannual Conference, sharing its theme of Analytical Psychology and the Human Sciences. The complementary e-book features six chapters by plenary and keynote speakers, which have been excerpted from Routledge books:
• Roger Brooke on “Archetypes” from Jung and Phenomenology
• Stanton Marlan on “Jung and Alchemy: A Daimonic Reading” from How And Why We Still Read Jung: Personal and Professional Reflections
• Fanny Brewster on “Archetypal Anger” from Archetypal Grief: Slavery’s Legacy of Intergenerational Child Loss
• Jon Mills on “Existentialism and the Unconscious Subject” from Underworlds: Philosophies of the Unconscious from Psychoanalysis to Metaphysics
• Lucy Huskinson on “Using Architecture to Think Ourselves into Being: Buildings as Storehouses of Unconscious Thought,” excerpted from Architecture and the Mimetic Self: A Psychoanalytic Study of how Buildings Make and Break our Lives
• Andrew Samuels on “Nations, Leaders and a Psychology of Difference” from The Political Psyche
To receive the e-book, you will be asked to provide your email address to Routledge, but have the option to opt out of marketing emails.
Visit the Download Page
About the IAJS Founded in 2002, the International Association for Jungian Studies exists to promote and develop Jungian and post-Jungian studies and scholarship on an international basis. The IAJS is a multidisciplinary association dedicated to the exploration and exchange of views about all aspects of the broader cultural legacy of Jung’s work and the history of analytical psychology. Through the development of Jungian and post-Jungian studies, the IAJS aims to aid the understanding of contemporary cultural trends and the history of psychological and cultural tendencies. Learn more on the IAJS website.
The post IAJS & Routledge | Analytical Psychology and the Human Sciences (Free E-Book) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
“I no longer seek the cause of a neurosis in the past, but in the present. I ask, what is the necessary task which the patient will not accomplish?”
Jung, CW 4, par. 570
Precise questioning is conditio sine qua non of successful analysis. When asking questions, the analyst not only asks the client, but also poses questions to his or her own self. While communicating with the client, the analyst “looks” inside, and there, asks questions and “listens” for answers. The analyst not only actively searches in his memory, where he/she seeks understanding, but also observes feelings, images and ideas that passively arise from unconsciousness. The analyst’s psyche mirrors and at the same time complements missing links of the complex life situation of analysand and also his/hers own. The analyst not only helps the patient to find a new, “broader” meaning of his problem, but also enters the field in which both could undertake transformation.
The analysis is a creative team-work. In a way it is a maieutic, Socratic method of dialogue with the difference that the objective of analysis is to ask questions in such a way so they contribute to the revelation of a fuller life story, i.e. self-knowledge. The aim is not to achieve some kind of logical truth, but rather a new attitude; the greater degree of freedom that includes the acceptance of painful also-truths. The so-called behavioral therapies basically focus on the patient’s conscious intentions and analyze whether these intentions are in conflict with the demands of the given reality. In Jungian analysis there is a third variable that enters the healing process, and that is unconscious. The unconscious has its own intelligence: it can have its own will, its own intentions and secrets, or even an “opinions,” which could often be at odds with the opinions of the ego. It is the “Other” that we also dialogue with during the process of analysis.
Conscious and unconscious
Let’s ponder for a moment on the paradoxical relationship between conscious and unconscious. Conscious, just like the unconscious, has no “substance” that we can quantify, measure or localize per se. We can only know about it via our own conscious medium and thus through its own subject. The very fact that the psyche can never be objectified – even though it can be perceived that way during the states of extended consciousness – by definition makes it an unconquerable mystery.
Read Full Article (PDF)
*Vladislav (Vlado) Šolc (pronounced “Schultz”) is a professional psychotherapist and Jungian analyst practicing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Vlado received training from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Charles University in Prague. He is the author of five depth-psychology-oriented books: Psyche, Matrix, Reality; The Father Archetype; In the Name of God—Fanaticism from the Perspective of Depth Psychology; Dark Religion: Fundamentalism from the Perspective of Jungian Psychology and most recently Democracy and Individuation in the Times of Conspiracy Theories.*
Links: Vlado Solc’s Website | Vlado Solc’s Lectures Available on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
The post Vladislav Šolc | Three Ways of Why appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This episode is the Saturday morning session of a weekend taught by Robert Moore called The Archetype of Sacrifice and the Regulation of Archetypal Energy. From the seminar description:
This workshop links Jung’s alchemical studies and his examination of the archetype of sacrifice to more recent research into the nature and dynamics of grandiose energies in the human psyche. In this program Robert Moore discusses how the decline of ritual containment of these energies in indigenous and traditional cultures has led to an epidemic of increased anxiety, addiction, and violent acting out.
First, Moore introduces the role of the archetype of sacrifice and related techniques of ritual practice in human strategies of coping with the pressures of archetypal energies. Second, he links the failure of these traditional means to our current epidemic of narcissistic acting out. Third, he summarizes the ways in which recent research supports Jung and Edinger on the necessity of the achievement of an ego-Self axis – a conscious and willed sacrificial attitude in the individuation process. Finally, Moore outlines the clinical implications: the ways in which we must be much more specific in our understanding of the structure and dynamics of the ego-Self axis in relation to the analytical task. He discusses the implications of this understanding of sacrifice for our conceptualization of a truly Jungian understanding of a psychoanalytic “cure” – the task of optimizing the analysand’s conscious regulation of archetypal energies. In short, Dr. Moore argues that Jungian Analysis should return to its roots in a manner which draws upon the best in recent interdisciplinary research to build upon Jung’s foundational discoveries.
It was recorded on May 24 and 25, 2003.
In this recording, Moore mentions some of his seminars, including Mythology of the Great Self Within, Transforming Fire: Understanding, Accessing and Regulating Psychic and Spiritual Energy, Ego and Archetype: The Genius of Edward Edinger.
*Robert Moore, PhD was Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality in the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary where he was the Founding Director of the new Institute for Advanced Studies in Spirituality and Wellness. An internationally recognized psychoanalyst and consultant in private practice in Chicago, he served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and was Director of Research for the Institute for Integrative Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy. Author and editor of numerous books in psychology and spirituality, he lectured internationally on his formulation of a neo-Jungian psychoanalysis and integrative psychotherapy. His publications include THE ARCHETYPE OF INITIATION: Sacred Space, Ritual Process and Personal Transformation; THE MAGICIAN AND THE ANALYST: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Psychology; and FACING THE DRAGON: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity*.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
The Complete Seminar: The Archetype of Sacrifice and the Regulation of Archetypal Energy
Mythology of the Great Self Within
Transforming Fire: Understanding, Accessing and Regulating Psychic and Spiritual Energy
Ego and Archetype: The Genius of Edward Edinger
All of Robert Moore’s Seminars
© 2003 Robert Moore. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post The Archetype of Sacrifice and the Regulation of Archetypal Energy with Robert Moore appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This interview with Murray Stein by Jan Weiner, published in the Journal of Analytical Psychology, is available for streaming on YouTube. This page includes a description of the interview and links to the YouTube videos. From the description:
The JAP has been interviewing senior and distinguished members of the Jungian community for a number of years now. We have in the past interviewed John Beebe, Fred Plaut and James Astor and we are soon to present an interview with Jean Knox; these interviews are available in printed form in the Journal, although the interviews with John Beebe and Fred Plaut were also filmed and are available on YouTube: John Beebe’s interview, discussing homophobia, his book Integrity in Depth, and The Red Book, is available in three parts (click on the highlighted parts of the text).
Here we are very pleased to make available a video of the interview of Murray Stein, conducted by Jan Wiener. The interview took place in Murray’s consulting room in Zurich in October 2018; the text of the interview is printed in the June 2019 edition of the Journal.
The video is in four parts:
In the first part, Murray talks with Jan Wiener about his early life with his family in Saskatchewan, Canada – his father was a pastor. He then discusses how he discovered Jung and was led to becoming a Jungian Analyst. For the video click here.
In the second part, Murray talks about why Jung isn’t more honoured in Zurich, his training in Zurich at the time, his analysts and teachers, including Marie-Louise von Franz, James Hillman, Barbara Hannah, Yolanda and Mario Jacobi, Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig and others; then moving to Houston and starting a family and his work writing and founding the publishing house Chiron. For the video click here.
In the third part, Murray talks about editing and writing, the thread of individuation through his work, and spirituality, Buddhism and dreams. He also talks about new writing projects, a play, his collected works, his time in the IAAP, the Router Programme, the Analytical Psychology community and the painful split in the Zurich trainings. For the video click here.
In the final, brief part of the interview Murray talks about the future of the work, the trainings in Zurich, moving back to Zurich, and his work and life in Zurich now, as well as what he might be remembered for. For the video click here.
Interview Description Page
Video 1 Video 2 Video 3 Video 4
Murray Stein, PhD is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world. Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.
Links: Murray Stein’s Website | Murray Stein’s recorded lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago | Journal of Analytical Psychology YouTube channel | Subscribe to the JAP
The post Journal of Analytical Psychology | Interview with Murray Stein (Video) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
In this episode, Jungian Analysts Judith Cooper and Daniel Ross discuss Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window (Wikipedia). They touch on:
- Creative vision
- Post WWII social change
- Anima/Animus
- Puer & Senex
- Projection
- Fear of intimacy & marriage
-
Voyeurism
-
Masculine and feminine
- Coniunctio
- Patriarchal gaze
- The Tale of Blue Beard (Wikipedia)
- The Shadow
- The Trickster
Judith Cooper, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Chicago. She is a graduate and member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. She was adjunct faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (1999-2000), teaching projective testing. She was clinical supervisor (1991-2002) and director of training (1998-2002) of an APA-accredited psychology internship program at a community mental health center in northwest Indiana. She has taught in the Analyst Training Program and lectured on the anima/animus, and the clinical use of film.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Jungian Analyst, he brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. He first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program (now the JPP/JSP) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. He is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking psychotherapy and continues to see hospice and palliative care patients at the end of life. He is Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Judith Cooper’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Daniel Ross’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Healing Cinema: Rear Window appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Dr. Alfred Ribi and Stefano Carpani met in Erlenbach (Zurich) in February 2017. This is a 45 minutes conversation on C.G. Jung, M.L. Von Franz, Alchemy and the relevance of Analytical Psychology today.
Dr. Alfred Ribi (1931) is a Swiss Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist. In 1963, he began analysis with Marie-Louise von Franz and worked closely with her ever since. Stefano Carpani M.A. M.Phil. (1978), is an Italian Psychoanalyst-in-Training (diploma candidate) at the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich and a PhD Researcher at the Centre for Psychoanalytical Studies, University of Essex (UK).
Stefano’s YouTube Channel | Stefano’s Website
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This episode is the opening lecture of a weekend given by Polly Young-Eisendrath. It contains a 1-hour lecture followed by an hour of Q&A. From the seminar description:
We all sense a connection with the source that underlies our existence, whether or not we recognize it as such and we all wish to identify with something larger than ourselves. Some feel this as a spiritual yearning, while others wish for fame or celebrity or the knowledge of a larger truth. The spiritual isolation and materialism (both economic and philosophical) of our times make it difficult to find trustworthy methods from institutional religions, non-traditional approaches, psychology, or philosophy for seeking knowledge of this source. However, our desire to help others (and ourselves) and our willingness to love deeply and authentically can offer the common ground through which we can find this knowledge, but it requires a dedicated understanding of our own suffering and its transformation.
Instead of seeking such insight into our subjective lives, we Americans embrace popular myths of biological salvation and pharmaceutical soothing. It?s not just that we seek instant solutions to complex problems, rather we have lost our taste for the adventure of human life, replacing it with ideals of economic and biological ?security? and hopes for absolute control of our diet and health.
This program offers a critique of this contemporary myth of biological salvation and presents accounts from psychoanalysis (Jungian and otherwise) and Buddhism of how embracing our limitations can open the path to transformation and lasting contentment.
The weekend continues with Part 2 – Living and Loving in the Human Realm
Building on the presentation The Adventure of Being Human, this workshop investigates the challenges of human life through an exploration of our difficulties with perfectionism, the three types of suffering we encounter, and the ways in which love challenges us to develop a true discipline of our hearts. Among other things, this program explores mythologies, the Human Realm (from Buddhism), the inner critic of perfectionism, the value of the human sciences, and the differences between the two major sciences of subjectivity: psychoanalysis and Buddhism.
It was recorded in October 2001, so there is some discussion of the 9/11 attacks and related issues.
Note: In the Q&A portion, questioners were not microphoned and so the volume was very low. We’ve increased the volume, but they are still somewhat difficult to understand against the background noise, and back-and-forth is somewhat disorienting because of the frequent changes in amplification.
Polly Young-Eisendrath, PhD is Clinical Associate Professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont Medical College. She is a psychologist and Jungian analyst practicing in the mountains of central Vermont, where she lives and writes. She has published thirteen books, many chapters and articles that have been translated into fourteen languages. Her books include The Self-Esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance, The Resilient Spirit: Transforming Suffering Into Insight And Renewal, The Gifts Of Suffering: A Guide To Resilience And Renewal, Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted, and You’re Not What I Expected: Learning to Love the Opposite Sex.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Polly Young-Eisendrath’s Website
Polly Young-Eisendrath on Jungianthology
Polly Young-Eisendrath at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Books
The Self-Esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance
The Resilient Spirit: Transforming Suffering Into Insight And Renewal
The Gifts Of Suffering: A Guide To Resilience And Renewal
Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted
You’re Not What I Expected: Learning to Love the Opposite Sex
© 2001 Polly Young-Eisendrath. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post The Adventure of Being Human: Beyond the Myth of Biological Salvation with Polly Young-Eisendrath appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Best-selling author Elizabeth Lesser sat down with us to discuss her latest book, Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes. Elizabeth is the co-founder of the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. In the interview, Lesser talks about new models of power with host Patricia Martin and explains why feminine archetypes and female myths are so resonant today. Offering bright insights and deep wisdom, Lesser touches on several of Jung’s theories, including anima and animus, and shares a gem-like memory of Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, who led workshops at the Omega Center during its early years. Having Elizabeth Lesser on Jungianthology was profoundly inspiring; and we invite you to listen for yourself. In this interview they touch on:
The Omega Institute
The Omega Women’s Leadership Center
Archetypes
Power and abuse of power
Masculine theories of leadership
Greek mythology as written by men
The myth of Cassandra
Marion Woodman
Anima/Animus
Simone Biles
How gender roles are changing
Feminist theories and practices of power
How “feminine-ist” power is necessary to face contemporary problems
Elizabeth Lesser is the author of several bestselling books, including Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes, Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow, and Marrow: Love, Loss & What Matters Most. She is the cofounder of Omega Institute, recognized internationally for its workshops and conferences in wellness, spirituality, creativity, and social change. She has given two popular TED talks, and is one of Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul 100, a collection of a hundred leaders who are using their voices and talent to elevate humanity.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Elizabeth Lesser’s Website
The Omega Institute
The Omega Women’s Leadership Center
Elizabeth Lesser’s TED Talks
Elizabeth Lesser on Oprah.com
Marion Woodman on Jungianthology
Marion Woodman at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Books
Cassandra Speaks: When Women are the Storytellers, the Human Story Changes
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
Marrow: Love, Loss & What Matters Most
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Animating Female Archetypes & Telling Women’s Stories: Interview with Elizabeth Lesser appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts member August Cwik has published “The technologically-mediated self: reflections on the container and field of telecommunications” in the Journal of Analytical Psychology. Abstract:
This paper contains reflections on the use of the imagination in technologically-mediated therapy and analysis. As part of the individuation process the psyche is seen as needing to adapt to new technological ways of communicating. The notion of a technologically-mediated self is posited describing a self which can only be apprehended through, and by, the use of telecommunications. This self is seen as identical to the in-person self, a subset, or superset of it. There is a revisioning of our notions of the container and the field in this work performed through technological-mediation. The need to engage the imagination in approaching this kind of work is emphasized in order to create an imaginal play-space in which the body will be deeply affected. Some thoughts on how the process of individuation might look through such analytic work is presented.
Viewing the full article requires a subscription to the Journal of Analytical Psychology or a one-time payment for access to the article.
Full Article Journal of Analytical Psychology
Dr. Cwik is a clinical psychologist, hypnotherapist and senior diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in the Chicago area. After studying Chemistry as an undergraduate, he entered military service and then changed his career path to psychology. After studying with Rosiland Cartwright in the Dream and Sleep Lab at the University of Illinois, Chicago Circle, he was in the first class at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. He interned at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry where he trained in hypnotherapy and psychoanalytic psychotherapy and returned to Chicago to begin private practice. He is on the teaching faculty of the Chicago Institute and the Florida and Minnesota Seminars for the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts. He is an Assistant Editor for the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He is former: Co-Director of Training of the Analyst Training Program in Clinical Supervision and Curriculum and Co-Director of Clinical Training Program in Analytical Psychotherapy at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, and Senior Adjunct Faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology. He provides videoconferencing supervision and analysis. He has published on analytic structure, supervision, alchemical imagery, active imagination, dreams, and numerous reviews.
Links: August Cwik on Jungianthology | August Cwik’s lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
The post August Cwik | “The Technologically-Mediated Self: Reflections on the Container and Field of Telecommunications” in the Journal of Analytical Psychology appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
The midlife period in most advanced countries worldwide today the average life expectancy for males extends to their mid- to late seventies and for women to their early to mid-eighties. Of course, this varies from place to place and depends very much on socio-economic factors that fluctuate broadly with world historical events such as revolutions, wars, economic depressions, and so forth. But on the whole and in average circumstances, the midway point of life for both sexes falls in the period between thirty-five and forty-five years of age. Why is this noteworthy, especially for psychotherapists?
Often midlife is a profoundly transformational period in personal identity for both women and men. Sometimes this takes the form of the famous “crisis,” but often it is not something quite so dramatic. I have come to think of it instead as a potential second birth of adult identity, the first having taken place between late adolescence and the thirtieth year. And birth is sometimes traumatic, and so one speaks of it as a “crisis” with justification. But even if not a fullblown crisis, it may signal a subtle transition in a person’s sense of self and identity.
About the timing of this transformation process, one cannot be quite so precisely mathematical. Some people seem to experience this on the early end of the midlife period, and many others on the other end and in their late forties. The timing is quite variable and depends on a number of factors coalescing that bring it to a point. What happened earlier in the person’s line of development out of childhood through adolescence and into adulthood is of importance in this. Generally speaking, the storms of life catch people by surprise, and the midlife tumult is no exception even if people are somewhat prepared to expect something big nowadays due to the extensive press coverage the midlife crisis has received in the decades of the late twentieth century.
It is also the case that some people do not undergo a midlife transformation at any time, any more than that everyone achieves a solid and meaningful adult identity. This is not a given. Some people show serious developmental arrest in early childhood attitudes or in adolescence, for example, and for such people there is no midlife transformation to speak of, but rather a continuous and prolonged identity as a partially adult person with striking childish or adolescent features remaining in place to the end of their lives. For these people, aging is real only in a physical sense but not psychologically, and even at the physical level it can staved off quite well and for a lengthy period of time given enough money for cosmetic surgery and other forms of anti-aging treatment. For people who make the transitions from childhood into adulthood successfully and more or less fully, however, aging is a psychological as well as a physical process. Psychologically, as one gets older one also becomes more complex and – dare we say it? – more mature and perhaps even attains to a level of wisdom in later years. Most importantly, one achieves a defined identity that extends beyond the early one of late adolescence and early adulthood. This later form of adult identity I call the personality’s “imago.” It takes form as the result of one or more transformations in and around the midlife period.
The Two Halves of Life – Achievement of Conventionality, Development of Individuality The midlife phase of the lifelong psychological developmental process, which in Jungian circles we refer to as individuation, marks the turning point from the first half of life into the second. The lifespan as a whole can be divided into two more or less equal (in duration) parts, a first and a second half. This is an important image to keep in mind when considering the meaning of the midlife transition. Each half of life has its own proper projects, tasks, and challenges, and they are different. The tasks of the first half have to do with growing up physically and mentally and with attaining the social stature of an adult member of one’s community, willing and able to take responsibility for the tasks of adulthood – working, raising a family, paying taxes, preparing to take care of one’s aging parents and able to care for one’s growing children, and so forth. From the psychological perspective, this calls for personal (i.e., ego) development out of a primal state of attachment to mother and parentlike caretakers and and for growing out of a sense of dependency on them in order to gain a felt degree of independence, autonomous functioning, and the ability to contribute to others rather than only to absorb and consume. This has profound moral as well as psychological features.
If all of this goes well, this first stage of development is achieved, of course always within a specific cultural context with its own nuances and collective attitudes, by the time one has lived for thirty-five or forty years. Psychological development in this first stage of life begins with an original state of radical dependence and embededness in the parental and family nexus, a kind of ‘womb.’ It then passes through several discrete stages of separation, often with strong or even violent rebellious movements toward exaggerated independence and autonomy in adolescence with all the anxiety and tortured self-doubt and grasping for peer recognition and acceptance that generally accompanies this. After this it moves to a state of personal identity that provides self and others with a more or less reliable picture of who one is and is not, what one is like and is not, namely into what Jung called identification with a relatively stable social persona. In other words, adaptation to a specific social group is achieved and a specific social role is assumed. This is tantamount to the achievement of conventionality, whatever the social conventions of the particular group or sub-group being adapted to may be.
This arrival at conventionality and a stable persona identity requires the personality to make a selection of features from among the broad range of potentials available in the individual. From the broad specturm of colors offered on the palette of personality, a certain range of colors are selected. One must add that this is not a conscious and deliberate process. Some personality features will be highlighted while others remain recessive, latent, or are actively repressed. The unchosen elements are put aside as not belonging to the self and are often located in others (projection), in the “not me.” This constitutes the development of the persona-shadow complexity, which a person will typically have arrived substantially at by the age of 30 and often quite a bit earlier, perhaps already in early to mid-twenties.
The first half of life asks for the achievement of assuming conventional social roles and carrying them out with comfort and purpose while aborting those features of personality that do not fit into the persona identity selected. The second half of life, by contrast, calls for the achievement of individuality, i.e., one’s innate potential for being an individual with a unique identity. This means stepping beyond the boundaries of the conventional personae offered by one’s immediate social group, by the wider society and culture as well, and taking the risk of becoming truly oneself.
This move may not be without anxiety, and often it comes at a price. Hence, the traumatic features of this second birth into selfhood, into a more distinctive and specific identity based on a wider range of colors drawn from the innate palette.
Change at Midlife –A Transformation Process in Three Phases When the transformation at midlife sets in with its mild or strong anguish and questioning, a searching review of the identity as so far consolidated takes place. The earlier persona, formed on a conventional framework, may be found wanting, too partial, and not inclusive enough of what are now felt to be essential personality traits that belong to the self, and so a kind of moulting is called for. To describe this process in my book Transformation – Emergence of the Self, which is a sequel to the earlier work, In MidLife, I use the image of the caterpillar turning into a butterfly through the classic metamorphosis. The transformation-of-personality process is metaphorically imaged as beginning with the spinning of a cacoon, which is then entered (withdrawal phase), and this is followed by the dissolving of former structures (liminality phase), which finally transforms the being into a winged creature (reintegration phase) – from caterpillar (the persona identity) to butterfly (the mature, post-midlife identity).
This process can be analyzed into three distinct phases, modelled on the structure of initiation rituals as described by the French anthropologist, Arnold van Gennep – separation, transition, and reincorporation. Each has its own essential challenges, and in each failure is possible. The first phases entails the experience of loss, withdrawal, and grief; the second demands patience and tolerance of ambiguity during the transition from one identity to another; and the third requires a constructive and proactive attitude to participate in building up and consolidating a new sense of identity.
Psychotherapists should be aware of this differentiation of the midlife period and its phases when working with clients in the throes of a midlife transformation. This transition period has incredible potential for growth, but this is not inevitable. It can also result in psychological trauma and damage and end in bitter failure.
I use the term “transformation” to speak about the midlife period because I see it as a potentially valuable period for psychological development toward a more complex and inclusive personal identity based on a greater and more realistic approximation to the whole self. The first approximation to self identity in the form of a social persona identification can function for a time, but it breaks down when the self calls for more breadth and depth in the personality and in life experience than the persona can allow. For this reason, and in order to become whole and stable enough to live successfully into old age, especially if wisdom is to be found in later years, a person must create another type of identity. Midlife is precisely the time when the personality features required for this come to the fore and indeed demand attention. This is also when they become available for integration.
The First Phase – Withdrawal, Separation and Loss The entry into the midlife transformation is usually through the doorway of loss. This is normal. There is a divorce, or the death of a loved one (a parent, a sibling, a child, a pet), or the loss of a job, or something more subtle like the loss of zest and energy, the loss of a sense of vocation, the loss of idealization in a guiding figure like a boss or a mentor or a priest – in short, there is a loss of direction. “Midway on our life’s journey, I found myself/ In dark woods, the right road lost,” as Dante writes at the beginning of The Divine Comedy, and a descent begins.
The first task at hand, psychologically speaking, is the emotional work of grieving the past. What has been lost must be recognized as such and deeply mourned. If this is not done, the cover-up will not go away but turn into the stench of rotting corpses. Life will come to an emotional standstill and bitterness will gradually build up. Life will lose it potential for further growth and become bogged down in unfinished business from the past. In MidLife addresses this as “burying the dead.” The old, the lost, the dead must be put away and stored in memory, and this cannot be accomplished without entering into the suffering of grief. This calls for a period of mourning.
What has been lost and needs to be put away is more than the specific object that may have disappeared. It is a phase of life, an era, perhaps formulated as youth itself. The persona that had been adopted for functioning conventionally in the social and cultural mileau, which worked adequately for a time, has now become unable to encompass the reality of the psyche in its fuller incarnation. And so like a snake shedding its old skin, the period of transformation begins with the tearing pain of breakdown. The alchemists spoke of this as the stage of nigredo in their opus. It is a period of opaqueness, depression, and seemingly hopeless suffering, when the prospect of going on in life takes on the perspective of meaningless drudgery and painful boredom. This phase must be endured and worked through, and this is done – perhaps with the help of a psychotherapist – through what is commonly known as “grief work.” It is a work of suffering the loss consciously and without recourse to previous defenses like denial and repression or projection, and this means coming to terms with what the loss means for one’s present and future life, and accepting it.
The Second Phase – Liminality Alongside this process and often in conjunction with the descent into nigredo, there begin to emerge new elements of the personality that have not held a place in the persona identity before now. These may first appear in the form of dream symbols that can be quite difficult to interpret as such because they may show up as fearful and threatening figures, such as intruders, unsavory animals like snakes, beggars and other marginalized folk, and so forth.
On the other hand, there may be an influx of compensatory exuberance and inflationary energy during this period. Sudden intuitions of the dawning of new possibilities for life feel like the miraculous gift of incredible new freedom to do and be what one has not allowed oneself before. Simultaneous with grieving the loss of the past identity – as husband or wife, as son or daughter, as father or mother, as professional whatever – there arrives a burst of promise of a new life. Usually this is quite premature and should be read as a foreshadowing of distant things to come, energy to be used for new projects in the future, but often the compensatory force of this intrusion of libido is difficult to contain. This is the source of the famous “acting out” that so frequently takes place during the midlife crisis.
I recall a woman telling me about how she broke out of marriage and motherhood at this stage of her midlife transformation and found a whole new set of friends and lifestyle in the company of lesbian women. For a time she went quite wild with her new enthusiasm for intimacy with women. This was going on at the same time that she was having to deal with the loss of her security, financial and interpersonal, and identity in a family structure where she occupied the traditional roles of wife and mother. In another case, a midlife man, upon hearing that he was being sidelined in his company and would not receive the top position, quit his job, left his wife, and took up a relationship with a much idealized woman he had recently met and who had signalled her availability. This came as a great surprise to his spouse and several children. There is a burst of energy as parts of the personality that had been either repressed or carefully tucked away and contained now break out into the light and take advantage of the freedom offered. In retrospect, this often looks premature and irrational. At the time, it seems absolutely correct and inevitable. This release of pent-up energy is hard to contain at this point in the transformation process.
If grieving and accepting loss are the tasks of the first part of the process, the tasks of the second stage include containing and maintaining the freedom to explore widely and deeply and not too quickly settling for the security of new attachments and commitments. In other words, a moratorium on closure is called for, until things become more ordered and clarified. The possibility for a type of defensive maneuver that Jung aptly called “regressive restoration of the persona” leads backwards rather than forwards. In that case, the whole process may try to repeat itself in order to achieve the growth that can result in greater individuation. In the case of the woman mentioned above, this did not happen. She continued her exploration for a considerable period of time and then found herself in a life made up of many relationships but living alone, and finding increasing satisfaction in a new career that more perfectly suited her whole personality. The man mentioned above, on the other hand, made snap decisions, ended the new relationship, returned to his wife, then left her a second time and finally managed to break free into an extended period of exploration that included many new relationships and interests, a period of unemployment, development of offbeat hobbies, and finally a life alone as an independent business consultant who managed his own time and commitments.
The prolonged middle phase of the transformation at midlife is perhaps the most important and difficult phase of the process. In my book, In Midlife, I use the term “liminality” to speak about this phase. The term means “betwixt and between” or “in a threshold.” Psychologically, it indicates being located between firm and fixed identities and in a state of flux with respect to a solid sense of self. It is a period of confusion and ambiguity, but also a time of discovery and potential transformation. The term transformation can be misunderstood in this context. It does not mean to become a different personality, unrecognizable by people who have known the midlifer before. Rather, it means to become more of what a person potentially is, to increase the range of a personality’s expression, of its incarnation into everyday reality, to bring more of the self as a whole into conscious realization. Transformation phases in life are periods of emergence, when features of the personality that have been latent come to the fore and take up a place in the conscious reportoire of intersts, passions, and behaviors. Transformation signals an expansion of selfhood. And just as this is a chaotic period during the years of adolescence when sexuality is coming into play in a new and powerful way, so it is a period of chaos at midlife when what we call “shadow” and “anima” (or “animus” in the case of women) come into play.
The shadow contains features of the personality that have been rejected because they are incompatible with the social persona being constructed during adolescence and early adulthood. Certain personality elements, often quite valuable and potentially enriching in themselves, are repressed because they were found to be objectionable for moral or social reasons. In adolescent terminology, they are not “cool.” Now they clammer for attention. One woman dreamed during her midlife period of descending to a basement and joining a group of men there who were studying alchemy. As a child and youth, her family had forbidden her to read at home in her room, feeling this was potentially pathological. She should be social and go out, not sit alone in her room and read gloomy classics. Being a “nerd” was shadow in her family and in her peer group. If girls were too bright and intellectual, they could not catch a man. When at midlife her intellectual shadow started making demands, she returned to college and finished a degree begun years ealier but broken off to marry and have children. The strangest things, from the later perspective of individuation, can be rendered shadow and thus forced out of the space allowed for life in the earlier stages. This is purely cultural and has little to do with the individual. What happens at midlife is that the unique and distinct individual fights to emerge out of cultural entrapment in a persona.
Jung’s Midlife Journey – The Red Book Jung’s Red Book is a classic example of the midlife transformation process. Begun in 1913 when Jung was thirty-eight years old and composed intensively over the course of the following years until he left off with it in his early fifties, The Red Book depicts the journey of a man at midlife. Having lost his mentor, Sigmund Freud, he resigns several important professional positions and sets out on his own way in order to find a new and more suitable path in life. The previous persona is put aside in order to make room for new discoveries to find a place in his life. The entries in The Red Book depict Jung’s process of grieving the past, searching for his own depths, and discovering the wealth of the inner world during the liminality phase of the journey. Over a period of three-to-four years, between late 1913 and mid 1916, he engaged in intense dialogues with himself and his imaginal inner figures. This is a sorting process in which the person identifies the alien aspects of the deep personality, takes up relations with them and become familiar with their features, and then creates a sense of self that is apart from them but fully cognizant of their ongoing influences and presence. Jung called it a search for his lost soul.
The reason for this language is that in the first half of his life Jung identified with the part of his personality that was thinking, sceptical, leftbrain, and socially ambitious. This left behind essential aspects of his personality – his poetic self, his artistic self, his faminine self, his wounded and suffering self. All of these make their appearances in his midlife transformation dialogues as reported in The Red Book, and each of them in turn must be engaged and attended to. The product of this engagement is a mythopoetic work that goes beyond scientific rationality, that includes a copious expression of his artistic abilities, that expresses emotion more than abstract thinking, that recovers his capacity for love and self-sacrifice and his powerful spiritual longings and interests. All of this had been squeezed out of the picture of his persona as it took form during his university years, his psychiatric studies, his early psychoanalytic work with Freud, and his highly successful establishment of himself as a world famous professional by the age of thirty-five. The Red Book is perhaps, for Jungians, the best possible example of a deep midlife transformation process imaginable.
The Third Phase – Re-Integration As the period of liminality draws to a close, a new interest in participating in the social and cultural world, but as a new kind of person, takes hold. In my book Transformation – Emergence of the Self, I call this the emergence and consolidation of the “imago.” This is the butterfly that breaks out of the cacoon at the end of the metamorphosis, which passes from the death of the old structure (a crawling insect) through dissolution (pupal stage) to a new formation (imago). The new imago is the incarnation of the self in a new form, psychologically more complete and whole than the earlier persona identity had allowed or indicated. Aspects of the former persona may in part be taken up into the imago, but it is put into a broader context. Just as Jung, when he emerged from his profound introspective period of withdrawal and liminality, retained his earlier social roles as father, husband, and physician, so the imago personality may carry with it important features of the earlier form. But now this is given a new place within the overarching meaning and purpose of the imago that has taken over the place of central identity. New channels for energy deployment and investment are available, and the old persona features become mere tools of management in the new orientation. In my books, mentioned above, I give examples of this from the biographies of several well known figures – Rembrandt, Picasso, Rilke, and several others. These are persons whose lives have been well studied so there is abundant information about their various phases of development. Each one of them attains to a unique imago identity after a period of turmoil and uncertainty at midlife, and as their lives go forward they live more and more from their imagos and become thereby absolutely unique and distinct individual personalities.
Conclusion The achievement of uniqueness is the outcome of the midlife transformation process. One can argue that uniqueness is a God-given feature of every single human being on the planet, and I would not dispute that. But I would also argue that bringing that uniqueness out into the open and into full manifestion in life is not a given. Many people live their lives, even long lives, with much potential remaining in reserve, packed away in the hidden recesses of passive fantasies or buried in the unconscious depths and left there out of fear or ignorance. If their personality development becomes arrested in adolescence or early adulthood, the personas formed there remain in place for the rest of life. In fact, they tend to harden and become more rigid with time. Some people “peak” in school or university and never grow beyond those attainments. There is a steadfast refusal to go further into life, to venture deeper into the uncharted waters of the latent personality, to undergo the chaos of transformation. This is understandable, and the sensitive psychotherapist will sometimes even help a fragile person to reinforce defenses against the invasion of threatening thoughts and feelings lurking in the background of consciousness.
Transformation demands suffering losses, going through chaos and uncertainty for a time (the “dark night of the soul”) and making some difficult choices and decisions about life goals and directions once they become clear to consciousness. Midlife transformation is not for the weak of heart or soul. But for those who venture into and through it, it becomes, as it did for Jung, the source of everything to come by way of the creative expression of thought, feeling, and personality into and through old age.
This post originally appeared on murraystein.com
Murray Stein, PhD is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world. Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.
Links: Murray Stein’s Website | Murray Stein’s recorded lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
References
- Bovensiepen, G. 2010. “Adolescence.” In Jungian Psychoanalysis, ed. Murray Stein. Chicago: Open Court.
- Dante, A. 1994. The Inferno of Dante. Tr. Robert Pinsky. New York: Farrar, Straus & Geroux.
- Jung, C.G. 1938/1966. “The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious.” In Collected Works, Vol. 7. Tr. by R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
- _____. 1961/1989. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. New York: Vintage Books.
- _____. 2009. The Red Book. Ed. by Sonu Shamdasani. New York: Norton.
- Samuels, A., Bani Shorter and Fred Plaut, 1986. A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
- Stein, M. 1983, In MidLife. Dallas, TX.: Spring Publications.
- _____. 1998. Transformation – Emergence of the Self. College Station, TX.: TAMU Press.
- _____. 2006. “Individuation” In The Handbook of Jungian Psychology, ed. by Renos Papadouplos. London and New York: Routledge.
- Van Gennep, A. 1909/1960. The Rites of Passage. Tr. By Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The post Murray Stein | Midway on our life’s journey…: On Psychological Transformation at Midlife (Essay) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This episode is the first in a new series called Healing Cinema. Judith Cooper, PsyD, and Daniel Ross, PMHNP, members of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, discuss films from an Jungian point of view. These informal discussions will be released in parallel with our other episodes (lectures from our archives and interviews by Patricia Martin) and will not be on any particular schedule.
In this episode, Judith and Dan discuss the 1944 film Gaslight (Wikipedia). They mention the fairy tale “Fitcher’s Bird”, so if you want to learn more about that, you can read about it on Wikipedia. They also touch on the following:
- Alchemy
- Animus/Anima
- Beebe, John
- Blackbeard fairytale
- Hillman, James
- Imposter Syndrome
- Initiation
-
Kalsched, Donald
-
Numinous
- Puella
- Senex
- Splendor Solis
- Telos
- Transcendent Function
- Trauma
- Trickster
Judith Cooper, PsyD is a clinical psychologist and diplomate Jungian Analyst in private practice in Chicago. She is a graduate and member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. She was adjunct faculty at the Illinois School of Professional Psychology (1999-2000), teaching projective testing. She was clinical supervisor (1991-2002) and director of training (1998-2002) of an APA-accredited psychology internship program at a community mental health center in northwest Indiana. She has taught in the Analyst Training Program and lectured on the anima/animus, and the clinical use of film.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years and in hospice for over 30. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Jungian Analyst, he brings a medical, psychiatric, and analytical perspective to the field of end-of-life care. He first completed the two-year Clinical Training Program (now the JPP/JSP) at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago then went on to complete the Analyst Training Program. He is in private practice in the northwest suburbs working with adults seeking psychotherapy and continues to see hospice and palliative care patients at the end of life. He is Co-Director of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program and Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast!
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Judith Cooper’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Daniel Ross’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Contributors: Judith Cooper & Daniel Ross
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
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with Robert Moore, PhD
This episode is the first session of the series The King Within: A Study in Masculine Psychology, a classic seminar in his series on the four major archetypes of masculine psychology as he understood them: King, Warrior, Magician, Lover. From the seminar description:
Of the four male archetypes described by Robert Moore—King, Warrior, Magician and Lover—the King is the central archetype in the mature masculine psyche. Without dis-identification from this archetype—and without a dynamic connection to it—a man will be immobilized by grandiosity, lost in depression, and bereft of a sense of meaning, just order, and connection with the creative springs of the psyche. The course is divided into the following four topics:
• The Sacred King in Myth, Folklore and Religion
• The Role of the King in Masculine Selfhood
• Psychopathology and the King
• Healing the King: Resources from Analysis, Ritual and Human Spirituality
It was recorded in 1989.
*Robert Moore, PhD was Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality in the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary where he was the Founding Director of the new Institute for Advanced Studies in Spirituality and Wellness. An internationally recognized psychoanalyst and consultant in private practice in Chicago, he served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and was Director of Research for the Institute for Integrative Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy. Author and editor of numerous books in psychology and spirituality, he lectured internationally on his formulation of a neo-Jungian psychoanalysis and integrative psychotherapy. His publications include THE ARCHETYPE OF INITIATION: Sacred Space, Ritual Process and Personal Transformation; THE MAGICIAN AND THE ANALYST: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Psychology; and FACING THE DRAGON: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity*.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
We’re currently running our annual Summer Sale! Get 20% off everything in our online store through July 14. Use the coupon code SUMMER on the CART PAGE before proceeding to checkout.
Links
The King Within: A Study in Masculine Psychology
The King, Warrior, Magician, Lover Compilation
All of Robert Moore’s Seminars
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
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Thank you to the Pacifica Graduate Institute for sharing this video of Susan Rowland’s talk “C. G. Jung’s Dramatic and Imaginative Writing”. Subscribe to their YouTube Channel for more videos.
Susan Rowland, PhD is associate Chair of two hybrid programs at Pacifica Graduate Institute: MA Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life MA. Author of seven books on Jung, literary theory, gender and ecology, her latest work is The Ecocritical Psyche (Routledge 2012), which argues for a symbol embodying a reciprocal relationship with non-human nature. Previously Professor of Jungian Studies at the University of Greenwich, London, she was founding Chair of the International Association of Jungian Studies 2003-6.
Links: Susan Rownland’s page and recorded lectures on the C. G, Jung Institute of Chicago Website | Susan Rowland’s Website | The Pacifica Graduate Institute YouTube Channel | The Pacifica Graduate Institute
The post Susan Rowland | C. G. Jung’s Dramatic and Imaginative Writing (Video) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
We were honored to have the best-selling author Richard Tarnas on the podcast. In this interview with host Patricia Martin, he offers compelling insights into the archetypal dynamics now unfolding in the world, and how these coincide with certain major planetary alignments. Tarnas considers how our evolving understanding of the underlying unity of psyche and cosmos has relevance for the profound transformation humanity is currently undergoing, and he looks several years into the future to discuss the implications of major upcoming transits from a Jungian perspective. This interview is full of rich insights delivered with Tarnas’s distinctive warmth and wisdom.
Richard Tarnas is the founding director of the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, where he currently teaches. Born in 1950 in Geneva, Switzerland, of American parents, he grew up in Michigan, where he received a classical Jesuit education. In 1968 he entered Harvard, where he studied Western intellectual and cultural history and depth psychology, graduating with an A.B. cum laude in 1972. For ten years he lived and worked at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, studying with Stanislav Grof, Joseph Campbell, Gregory Bateson, Huston Smith, and James Hillman, later serving as Esalen’s director of programs and education. He received his Ph.D. from Saybrook Institute in 1976 with a dissertation on LSD psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and spiritual transformation. From 1980 to 1990, he wrote The Passion of the Western Mind, a narrative history of Western thought from the ancient Greek to the postmodern which became a best seller and continues to be a widely used text in universities throughout the world. In 2006, he published Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, which received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network in the UK. Formerly president of the International Transpersonal Association, he is on the Board of Governors of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. In addition to his teaching at CIIS, he has been a frequent lecturer at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, and gives many public lectures and seminars in the U.S. and abroad.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Richard encourages listeners to view Richard Tarnas on the Planets in 2021 on the CIIS YouTube channel. His talk “A Kairos Moment in an Archetypal Cosmos” is available in our online store.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little about themselves. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Richard Tarnas’s lectures in the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago store
The California Center of Integral Studies
The CIIS YouTube channel
Richard Tarnas’s Website
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Host: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
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Miss the gala? You can still watch the video here!
Links
Watch on YouTube
Support the Institute
The post 2020 Spring Gala: Music, Merriment, Memories, & Mirth (Video) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Lucille (“Lucy”) Klein, Jungian psychoanalyst, born on August 31, 1921 in Tupelo, Mississippi, passed away on April 24, 2021, just a few months short of her 100th birthday. A daughter of the South, she retained her charming Southern accent throughout her life, which included: serving as a Navy nurse during WWII; a long marriage to Frank Klein, with whom she had 3 sons; adulthood spent largely in the region of rough-and-tumble Chicago where she held the position of CFO in the successful architectural engineering firm her husband created; and some 50 years of involvement in the Jungian circle, first as gathered around June Singer, then as housed in the building that she and Frank bought and converted into what became the C.G. Jung Center on Callan Avenue in Evanston, and since 1990 as an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago (CSJA). A long and active and rich life, indeed!
The archetypal essence of Lucy’s personality was symbolized in the choice of her thesis topic for completion of training at the CSJA: the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion, Guanyin. Lucy not only wrote about Guanyin, she embodied the core value of the bodhisattva. For many who knew her even if only at a distance this was true, and the closer into her psychic aura one came, the more convincing and genuine her loving energy was on display. This did not mean she could not show anger and a fighting spirit when necessary – on the contrary! But above all, love permeated her being and radiated constantly from her readily smiling face. For her patients, she was both a loving Guanyin and a challenging inspiration for further individuation no matter what the stage of life they might have been in at the time.
Lucy considerably expanded the concept of lifelong learning and development for many of us: she graduated from the Chicago Institute as a Jungian psychoanalyst at the age of 70! Thereafter, she took her place in the Institute community as an active member into her 9th decade, serving on committees, functioning as a training and supervising analyst for candidates-in-training, and offering energetic leadership and support for the Institute’s educational and training mission. In her late 70’s, she managed to fight off a bout of breast cancer and went on to continue working as an analyst after her recovery. Her enthusiasm for Jungian psychology never waned, and her depth of understanding its intricacies and applying them in her clinical practice continued to evolve until her retirement in her late 80’s.
Not only did Lucy’s passion for learning and analytic practice remain constant even into deep age, her determination and will to live her personal life to the fullest continued unabated every bit as well. Love in Lucy’s life conquered aging and all the body’s challenges that come with it. In the elder communities of Olympia Fields, Illinois, where she spent her last years, she distributed the joy of life liberally and was loved by residents and staff alike. In the archetypal realm of Eros, Lucy shines as a bright star.
Remembering our dear friend of so many years, I couldn’t help thinking of the Beetles’ famous song of the 60’s, and this sentence spontaneously came to me: Lucy’s in the sky, now, a diamond. We who remain here salute you, Lucy, and will always continue to remember you with steadfast love, which, as the poet Dante testifies at the conclusion of The Divine Comedy, “moves the Sun and all the other stars.”
Murray Stein
Goldiwil, Switzerland
May 15, 2021
More at Legacy.com
The post In Memory of Lucy Klein (1921-2021) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
with Murray Stein, PhD
Via a generous matching grant from Carl and Patricia Greer, if we can raise $3,000 by May 30, we will receive and additional $3,000 gift. You can help us and double your gift at the same time by making a donation.
Also, the link for our first Spring Gala: Music, Merriment, Memories, & Mirth is now live! On May 22 at 4:30pm CDT, share your colleagues’ reflections, memorials, talents, and fun! It’s a free event and no registration is required.
This episode is the first part of the series A Changing God Image: What Does It Mean? . From the series description:
When a god image changes, what does it mean? In this program Murray Stein addresses four questions: What is a god image? What does a god image change? How does a god image change? and What does it mean when a god image changes?
Recommended readings:
– Answer to Job, C.G. Jung
– “The Symbolic Life” in Vol. 18 of the Collected Works, C.G. Jung.
It was recorded on April 26, 2003.
Murray Stein, PhD is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His most recent publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world. Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.
Thank you to everyone who has shared a little bit about themselves. If you’d like us to know about the journey you are on, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
The Complete Series
All of Dr. Stein’s Lectures
MurrayStein.com
© 2003 Murray Stein. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, Mary Dougherty, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post A Changing God Image: What Does It Mean? appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This is the third weekly episode we are releasing as part of out spring fundraising drive, Grow With Us. You can support this podcast and help us reach our $10,000 goal by making a donation. You can also support us by becoming a member of the Institute or making a purchase in our online store. Also, the link for our first Spring Gala: Music, Merriment, Memories, & Mirth is now live! On May 22 at 4:30pm CDT, share your colleagues’ reflections, memorials, talents, and fun! It’s a free event and no registration is required.
Patricia Vesey-McGrew, MA, NCPsyA is a supervising and training analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of New England, where she is a past president. Additionally, she is former Deputy Editor (US) on The Journal of Analytical Psychology and is currently a member of the editorial committee. She has also served on the boards of directors/trustees of NAAP and ABAP. Patricia has presented papers and workshops internationally on a number of topics including The Dead Mother and Power of Dreams. Her most recent publication is a chapter in Jungian Psychoanalysis, Volume Three (Open Court). She has a private practice in Rockport and Cambridge MA.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who shared a little bit about themselves since the last episode. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Patricia Vesey-McGrew’s lectures in the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago store
The C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Spring Gala
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post The Dark Mother & Healing Primal Wounds: Interview with Patricia Vesey-McGrew appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This is the second weekly episode we are releasing as part of out spring fundraising drive, Grow With Us. You can support this podcast and help us reach our $10,000 goal by making a donation. You can also support us by becoming a member of the Institute or making a purchase in our online store.
In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews Adina Davidson, PhD & Andrea Gaspar Gonzalez, PsyD, directors of the upcoming Jungian Psychotherapy Program (JPP) and Jungian Studies Program (JSP), about the process of individuation in this cultural moment. It’s a lively discussion about self-development during moments of crisis: What is necessary to integrate painful realizations, and what happens if we don’t? What do we need, as individuals and as groups, to follow the individuation process, rather than retreating into persona? For those interested in the programs, both Adina and Andrea discuss their philosophies of teaching and explain what to expect.
Adina Davidson, PhD is a Jungian analyst practicing in Cleveland, Ohio. She trained at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago and graduated in September 2019. She is particularly interested in the ways we personally and collectively make meaning of our lives through telling our stories.
Andrea Gaspar Gonzalez, PsyD is a clinical psychologist practicing in the Chicagoland area, with a focus on the treatment of trauma and sexual abuse. She is a recent Fellow of the Jungian Psychotherapy Program (2018–2020) and graduate of the Jungian Studies Program (2014–2016) at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. Her current research is focused on collective psyche, application of Jung’s theories to the present cultural climate, and re-examining archetype and archetypal material, especially as it relates to the concept of the feminine, from a fourth-wave feminist standpoint.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who shared a little bit about themselves since the last episode. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
The Jungian Psychotherapy Program (JPP) & Jungian Studies Program (JSP)
Adina Davidson’s page at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Andrea Gaspar Gonzalez’s page at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Learning as a Path to Individuation: Interview with JPP/JSP Directors Adina Davidson & Andrea Gaspar Gonzalez appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Dennis Merritt, member of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, is interviewed on the Image for Hire podcast. It was released on October 30, 2018. From the description:
The Skrauss discusses synchronicity and the I-Ching with Dennis A. Merrit.
Listen up, Cavedweller. Take a plunge into the divinatory system that cracks into the Tao, the binary code of the Universe.Names dropped and subjects mentioned:
Synchronicity is a Dimension
How Much Is the I-Ching (Unanswered)
Compendium of Chinese Wisdom
It Came From 1050 BCE
Leibnitz
How to Question the I-Ching
Carol Anthony’s 3RD Edition Guide to the I-Ching
Time is Not Just Quantity; It Is Quality
Gausian Curve
The Rainmaker Story
“Black Elk Speaks”
Wolfgang Pauli
Hexagram 42 “Increase”
The Confucian School
Hexagram 23 “Splitting Apart”
Hexagram 24 “The Turning Point”
Yellow is the Color of the Medium
Donald Trump is a Trickster
Cover Story of the January 1976 edition of Scientific America
Dennis L. Merritt, PhD, is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ecopsychologist in private practice in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Merritt is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich and also holds the following degrees: M.A. Humanistic Psychology-Clinical, Sonoma State University, California, Ph.D. Insect Pathology, University of California-Berkeley, M.S. and B.S. Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over twenty-five years of participation in Lakota Sioux ceremonies have strongly influenced his worldview.
Dr. Merritt is the author of Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology: The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe Volumes 1 – 4.
Links: Dennis Merritt’s Blog | Dennis Merritt’s Practice Website | Dennis Merritt’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website | Image for Hire podcast on SoundCloud
The post Image for Hire Podcast | Synchronicity and the I-Ching with Dennis Merritt (Audio) appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
with Robert Moore, PhD
We have just launched our first spring fundraising drive, Grow With Us! As part of our drive, we will be releasing one podcast episode per week for the next month. You can support this podcast and help us reach our $10,000 goal by making a donation. You can also support us by becoming a member of the Institute or making a purchase in our online store.
This episode is the first session of the series Cosmos as Myth and Human Possibility. From the description:
More and more people are beginning to raise the question of whether it is realistic to hope for the continued viability of our home planet. Jungian analyst and author Robert Moore (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover) leads a workshop examining the cross-cultural mythology of the struggle for Cosmos, for a just and peaceful world order, a struggle that has fascinated our forebears for thousands of years.
In addition to analyzing the central characteristics of the mythology of Cosmos, this workshop examines the ties between selfhood and world-making, inner work and outer engagement, personal dreaming and the world future. It concludes with a reflection on the significance of this mythology for our contemporary efforts to envision a viable human and humane future in a sustainable ecological environment.
It was recorded in 1993.
*Robert Moore, PhD was Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality in the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary where he was the Founding Director of the new Institute for Advanced Studies in Spirituality and Wellness. An internationally recognized psychoanalyst and consultant in private practice in Chicago, he served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and was Director of Research for the Institute for Integrative Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy. Author and editor of numerous books in psychology and spirituality, he lectured internationally on his formulation of a neo-Jungian psychoanalysis and integrative psychotherapy. His publications include THE ARCHETYPE OF INITIATION: Sacred Space, Ritual Process and Personal Transformation; THE MAGICIAN AND THE ANALYST: The Archetype of the Magus in Occult Spirituality and Jungian Psychology; and FACING THE DRAGON: Confronting Personal and Spiritual Grandiosity*.
Thank you to everyone who shared a little bit about themselves since the last episode. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
The Complete Series
All of Dr. Moore’s Lectures
© 1993 Robert Moore. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Cosmos as Myth and Human Possibility appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Thank you to Dr. Dana C. White and Dr. Will Linn for sharing the recording of this online salon with Jungian Analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen. It was recorded in August, 2020.
Links: Dr. Dana White’s YouTube Channel
The post Dana White | Myth Salon with Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen: Liminality of the Covid Pandemic, Unscripted appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
The C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago is currently closed to all in-person gatherings to ensure the health and safety of our membership and program participants during the Covid-19 pandemic. All educational programming, meetings, and operations will remain on-line until such time that it is safe to gather in-person once more and there is full use of our Monadnock space. We continue to monitor the situation closely for the time when we can resume in-person gatherings at the Institute and anticipate that this may happen in 2022. The decision to return to in-person gatherings will be based on CDC guidelines and State and City mandates. Appropriate health and safety protocols for vaccinations, mask-wearing, hand sanitizing, and surface-room cleaning will be instituted with the resumption of in-person gatherings.
Please refer back to our website for updates.
Stephanie Buck, President
The post Statement from the President | April 7, 2021 appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Robert H. Hopcke is a licensed Marriage, Family and Child Counselor in private practice in Berkeley, California. Along with his numerous articles and reviews published over the last 30 years, his national best-seller, There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives, which he spoke about at the Jung Institute in 1998, has been popular throughout the world and since been translated into a dozen different languages. Known for his landmark work in Jungian psychology on issues of human sexuality and social justice such as Jung, Jungian, and Homosexuality (which he spoke about at the Institute in 1991); Men’s Dreams, Men’s Healing; A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung; and The Persona: Where Sacred Meets Profane, he is currently on the clinical faculty of Pacific Center for Human Growth where serves as supervisor, and has been enjoying an active career as translator of works on spirituality and religion from the Italian, including a contemporary American English rendition of The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi.
Patricia Martin is a cultural analyst, consultant, and the author of three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Martin has worked on teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Ms. Foundation for Women, Oracle, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic, to name a few. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. A blogger since 2002, Martin was a regular contributor to Huffington Post during its start-up years. She earned a B.A. in English and sociology from Michigan State University and an M.A. in Irish literature and culture from the University College Dublin. Later, she built a foundation for her cultural analysis by studying Jungian theory and depth psychology at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is currently a Professional Affiliate and member of the program committee. In 2017, she harnessed artificial intelligence to uncover the effects of the internet on our sense of self. A book on her findings entitled Will the Future Like You? is due out later in 2021. Martin speaks worldwide about cultural changes that are shaping the future and the impact of the digital culture on the collective. A native of Detroit, Martin works in Chicago and lives in an ancient forest near the shores of Lake Michigan with her husband and countless deer.
Thank you to everyone who shared a little bit about themselves since the last episode. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free and low-cost educational resources to all.
Links
Robert Hopcke’s lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
Robert Hopcke’s website
Robert Hopcke’s books at Amazon
Robert Hopcke’s books at Chiron Publications
Books
There Are No Accidents in Love and Relationships: Meaningful Coincidences and the Stories of Our Families
There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives
Jung, Jungian, and Homosexuality
Men’s Dreams, Men’s Healing
A Guided Tour of the Collected Works of C.G. Jung
The Persona: Where Sacred Meets Profane
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Jung’s Theory of Synchronicity & How it Shapes Our Lives: An Interview with Robert Hopcke appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
with Laraine Kurisko, PhD, Jungian Analyst
For this Women’s History Month, we’re sharing the seminar The Return of the Archetypal Feminine & the Dawn of the New “Third” in its entirety. It was recorded on January 4, 2019. From the seminar description:
The archetypal “Feminine” is back, and She’s…”unhappy.” From “Me Too,” to the trial of Larry Nassar, to the rising refusal of young adults to be defined as either “male” or “female,” opting instead for the more neutral pronoun “they,” evidence of profound change is all around us. Neumann and Whitmont tell us that consciousness can be conceived as having evolved through stages, beginning the archetypal Great Mother. Several thousand years ago, this feminine consciousness was repressed in the service of the development of “Masculine” ego consciousness, which has, for better and worse, been accomplished. We now have considerable “ego strength” but no connection to anything beyond it, hence, a good deal of turmoil in a world that feels untethered, without purpose or direction. Both “Feminine” and “Masculine” dominated cultures were necessarily one-sided otherwise each could not have developed. But, what is next? And, what is required of us so that the new “third” can emerge?
In this class we will dive deeply into the bigger story at play here – the deep, archetypal dynamics and the wisdom behind them. We will begin to think about, observe, and imagine, the next phase of consciousness. Rather than simply enacting each stage via identification, we can step back and consciously embrace the gifts and costs of each, for men and women. By holding both in a conscious, creative tension of opposites, we can facilitate the emergence of the Mercurial “Divine Child.”
Laraine Kurisko received her PhD in Clinical-Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2000 and Diplomate Jungian Analyst from the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago in 2016. Prior to beginning Analyst training in Chicago she attended the MN Seminar in Jungian Studies for nine years and the Philadelphia Seminar in Jungian Studies for one year. She has worked as a psychologist since 1987, and is currently in private practice in Eden Prairie. A Canadian by birth, she and her family enjoy their annual pilgrimage to their cottage near Sault Saint Marie, Canada, on the shores of Lake Superior.
PowerPoint: The slides are not available for this seminar.
Thank you to everyone who shared a little bit about themselves since the last episode. If you’d like us to know who you are, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
You can support this free podcast by making a donation, becoming a member of the Institute, or making a purchase in our online store. Your support enables us to provide free educational resources to all.
© 2019 Laraine Kurisko. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post The Return of the Archetypal Feminine & the Dawn of the New “Third” appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This online course was recorded on June 30, 2015. From the video description:
This course is made possible by Ashok Bedi, MD, by the generous grant from the USA India Jung Foundation: a not for profit 501c(3) charitable Wisconsin Foundation(support the foundation here: uijf.org/donate.php) and the CG Jung Institute of Chicago. Thank you to the presenters for giving permission to publish the material. This video is for public and professional education purposes only, not for reuse for profit purposes.
Dr. Lance Longo is medical director of addiction psychiatry at Aurora Behavioral Health Services.
Links: Ashok Bedi’s YouTube channel
The post Lance Longo & Ashok Bedi | Adolescent Substance Abuse appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
“We continue to speak, if only in whispers, to something inside us that
wants to be named.”Dorianne Laux, “Dark Chants,” Only as the Day is Long.
My name is Chaika Runya bat Yitzchak v’ Channa Gittl. This is my ‘Hebrew’ name, my sacred name, my Yiddish name, my hidden name, my underground name, the name that binds me to family lineage and tradition and to my people, going all the way back to the beginning of time. This is the name I am called in Jewish ritual, when I have an aliyah to give a blessing over the Torah or when I am invited to the pulpit to read the Torah, or when I am a witness to someone immersing herself in the sacred baths in order to convert to Judaism.
I am named for two great aunts who were murdered in the Holocaust.
Most mornings of my life, since I was younger than six years old, I’ve woken in terror, heart beating fast, body sweating. In an effort to calm myself I’d listen to music or focus on my breathing before opening my eyes to start the day. Each morning the fear would dissolve as I moved into the day’s activities, only to return the next.
One morning, not long ago I decided to turn toward the fear and terror rather than away, to be curious about it, to explore it, to get to know it. I curled up in the fetal position in bed, tuning in to the sensations I experienced physically. I became aware of a feeling like electric jolts pounding and jumping in my chest and arms. I asked the sensations, “What is the message held in my body?”
What I heard them say was this: “Life is not safe.”
My mother tells me my aunts, Chaika and Runya, the younger sisters of my mother’s father, were shot, killed and buried in a mass grave in then Austria-Hungary during the Holocaust. In my mind’s eye, here is how I imagine them: They are two young women, maybe in their 20s; their light brown hair hangs in braids down their backs, each wears a dark wool dress, a cream-colored pinafore, woolen knee-high socks and sturdy shoes. They stand with their family and friends and fellow-townspeople, all of whom have been herded out of their homes, their beds, and lined up at the town’s edge, in rows, ahead of them the deep pit into which their lifeless bodies will be tossed, one on top of another, like sacks of potatoes, to be covered with dirt, and erased.
I imagine dogs barking wildly and the loud yelling of male voices in a language my aunts and their friends and family don’t understand. They do understand what will happen to them. I imagine the rifle shots as faceless men mechanically shoot them from behind, one by one, and I imagine the unbearable, unimaginable terror of waiting as your turn comes, hearing the screams, hearing the heavy plop as each body falls into the pit, witnessing your loved ones’ deaths, knowing your inescapable fate, waiting to feel pain, feeling the bullet entering your chest from the back, breathing your last breath, collapsing and tumbling, finally, into the pit. In their names, their stories, their lives, their deaths take residence within the confines of my body, mind and soul, carried within me like a blessing, or like a parasite.
Read the full essay (opens a PDF)
This essay was originally published in Tiferet Journal.
Amy Champeau, LMFT, MFA, is a Jungian psychoanalyst, somatic psychotherapist, practitioner of Integral Bodywork®, grandmother, and long-time student in Zen meditation. She currently trains in Zen under her teacher, Kyoen Honda Roshi of the Chozen-Ji International Zen Monastery based in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Inspired by her deep need for healing from significant trauma, Amy has spent decades studying a wide range of healing modalities that combine western psychotherapy, bodywork, trauma release methods, Zen training, and creative expression. As a guide and companion, Amy utilizes all the tools of her training to help people discover who they truly are. She recognizes the courage and commitment it takes to walk a path of transformation and seeks to encourage, support, nurture, and facilitate the process of diving “beneath the surface” to discover a “deeper” place within, releasing the obstacles to accepting oneself as one really is, “warts and all.” This acceptance can lead to the possibility of living life with emotional fullness and authenticity, moment by moment.
Links: Amy Champeau’s website | Amy Champeau’s recordings in our online store
The post Amy Champeau | “Naming” in Tiferet Journal appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This episode I want to try something new. We see statistics that show how many people listen to this podcast, but that doesn’t show us who our listeners are. I’m curious about who listens to this podcast and I think some of you might be interested in what kind of community of listeners you’re a part of. I want to know where you are on your journey, how you found this podcast, and what you are looking for in life. If you’d like to share a little bit of that with us, click this link, and I’ll read your submission on the podcast! No need to share any identifying information. This information will not be used for any other purpose.
In this episode, Patricia Martins interviews Jungian Analyst Dan Ross, RN, PMHNP, about conscious individuation throughout life stages and why it makes for a better death.
Daniel Ross, RN, PMHNP, MSN, MBA has been a nurse for 40 years. He has worked extensively as Director of Clinical Services in the field of home health care and hospice. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, he brings both a medical and psychiatric experience to his work. He currently works part time in the field of Palliative Care and Hospice as a Nurse Practitioner, visiting patients in their home or nursing facility helping them in their transition to hospice. He is also a Jungian Analyst in private practice in downtown Chicago.
Patricia Martin is a noted cultural analyst, author, and consultant. She has published three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Patricia has helped some of the world’s most respected organizations interpret social signals that have the power to shape the collective. She’s worked with teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. She holds an M. A. in literature and cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors) and a B.A. in English from Michigan State University. In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is a Professional Affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, Patricia has devoted nearly a decade to studying the digital culture and its impact on individuation. She lectures around the world on topics related to the psyche and the digital age, the future of the collective, and the changing nature of individuation, all concepts discussed in her forthcoming book: Will the Future Like You?
Links
Dan Ross’s page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website
Dan Ross on Jungianthology
Dan Ross’s website
Support this podcast
Join our mailing list
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Contributing Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Why a Conscious Life Has a Positive End: An Interview with Dan Ross appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
It is with sadness that we announce the passing of Daniel A. Lindley, Jr., member of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. Gus Cwik writes:
Dan and I overlapped in training together. Dan, and his wife Lucia, were that type of quirky, professorial couple that you just had to love — highly refined, erudite, gourmets, with a true wry sense of humor. One little know fact about Dan was that he was an avid fireworks creator and afficando. Here the “ mad professor” worked his magic creating fireworks with the most exquisite explosions — though seemingly so out of character, he brought the same exacting refinement to working with gunpowder as he did to working his teaching, writing, and analysis. The dinners they provided to many of us at the Institute, lucky enough to be invited, were elegant affairs, with aperitifs, many courses featuring a variety of wines, and digestifs — with jovial conversation to follow in the salon. One often felt transported to some earlier era. They will be missed.
Use the link below to read the obituary and more remembrances.
Legacy.com
The post Remembering Dan Lindley appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
by Ashok Bedi, MD & Robert BJ Bakala, PhD
In the spring of 2020, America and the world were overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the global racial justice protests. This inspired the co-authors Ashok Bedi, a psychiatrist and a Jungian psychoanalyst, and Robert BJ Jakala, a psychologist, a Jungian therapist, and an avid photographer, to compose a daily blog for 100 days to chronicle their soul response to staying centered in the eye of this storm.
When dealing with a personal or a collective crisis or trauma, the rational mind fails to be a guide. When overwhelmed, a deeper level of archetypal consciousness is activated from the depths of the psyche to help navigate the storm. This is over 2 million years of ancestral wisdom encoded in the limbic system that crystalizes as images with a symbolic instruction as a GPS to help navigate the storm.
The authors’ method captures the archetypal response of the personal and collective psyche. BJ would choose a photograph daily with his initial response to the collective crisis. Ashok would amplify the symbolic meaning of this image from an archetypal lens. Together, they strung a talismanic necklace to guide us into the center of the storm. Join them in celebrating the power of the unconscious to help us survive and master the storm.
Robert “BJ” Jakala, PhD is a Depth Psychologist, Educator, Writer, and Photographer. He is a graduate of Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, CA. He is also a Registered Nurse who worked at Linda and Stewart Neuropsychiatric Hospital for thirty-three years. He was a Nursing Supervisor for seventeen years and lead Group Psychotherapy on the Adult Service for ten years. He has taught the First Year Nurse Residents Self-Care and Stress Management at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center for over twelve years. He is the former Assistant Director of the Men’s Center of Los Angeles for 5 years. He retired from thirty years of Private Practice in Woodland Hills, CA in November. 2017.
Dr. Jakala promotes the idea of transformation and change as a function of image and language in patients, as well as clinicians. He teaches the rewards of deep listening to the images created by language and the value of an image’s experience before words emerge. He aligns with Carl Jung’s ideas regarding a universal consciousness that is often hidden beneath the surface of our ego consciousness. He encourages clinicians to appreciate the collective in order to assist clients become more of themselves.
Ashok Bedi, M.D. is a Jungian psychoanalyst and a board-certified psychiatrist. He is a member of the Royal College of psychiatrists of Great Britain, a diplomat in Psychological Medicine at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of England, a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He is a Clinical Professor in Psychiatry at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and a training analyst at the Carl G. Jung Institute of Chicago. His books include The Spiritual Paradox of Addiction, Crossing the Healing Zone , Awaken the Slumbering Goddess: The Latent Code of the Hindu Goddess Archetypes, Retire Your Family Karma: Decode Your Family Pattern and Find Your Soul Path and Path to the Soul. He is the liaison for the IAAP for developing Jungian training programs in India and travels annually to India to teach, train the consult with the Jungian Developing groups at several centers in India including Ahmedabad and Mumbai. He leads the annual “A Jungian Encounter with the Soul of India” study group to several centers in India under the auspices of the New York Jung Foundation. His publications and upcoming programs may be previewed at pathtotheosul.com
Purchase on Amazon
Links: Dr. Bedi’s Website | Dr. Bedi’s Analytical Practice Website | Dr. Bedi’s Recorded Lectures on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website | Dr. Bedi’s books on Amazon
The post Book Release | In the Eye of the Storm: Staying Centered in Personal and Collective Crises appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
with Thomas Patrick Lavin, PhD
This diagram accompanies the lecture series This episode is the first session of the series Madness, Religious Experience, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference. It was recorded in July 1993. From the series description:
In the history of humankind, there have always been seeming psychotic features accompanying authentic religious experience, and there have often been apparent religious images and/or identifications associated with psychotic disorders. In our transitioning and liminal culture, what Jung has called the “transcendent function” acts like a balancing pole for those of us who feel “called” to walk the tightrope between madness and religious ecstasy.
This course examines the work of C.G. Jung and others to help develop imaginal strainers to sift the sounds of the many voices which call to us. It explores our perceptions of the presence of the divine in madness and the madness in the divine.
Topics in this program include:
• Varieties of Religious Experience
• Varieties of Psychotic Experience
• Higher Powers and Deeper Powers: The Transcendent/Immanent Axis
• Feeding the Ego-Self Loop
Note: I am away from home through May 2021 so my microphone quality will be less optimal during this time. Thanks for your understanding!
Thomas Patrick Lavin, PhD is a Zürich-trained Jungian analyst who holds a PhD in clinical psychology and a PhD in theology. He was formerly chief clinical psychologist for the U.S. Army in Europe and is a founding member of the CG Jung Institute of Chicago. He is in private practice in Wilmette, Illinois, and consults internationally on typology, spirituality and addictions.
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© 1993 Thomas Patrick Lavin. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
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The post Madness, Religious Experience, and the Wisdom to Know the Difference appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
Ecopsychology Voices is an interview series with some of ecopsychology’s luminaries. Linda Buzzell and Carol Koziol host this series which is sponsored by the Canadian Ecopsychology Network.
Dennis L. Merritt, PhD, is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ecopsychologist in private practice in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Merritt is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich and also holds the following degrees: M.A. Humanistic Psychology-Clinical, Sonoma State University, California, Ph.D. Insect Pathology, University of California-Berkeley, M.S. and B.S. Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over twenty-five years of participation in Lakota Sioux ceremonies have strongly influenced his worldview.
Dr. Merritt is the author of Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology: The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe Volumes 1 – 4.
Links: Dennis Merritt’s Blog | Dennis Merritt’s Practice Website | Dennis Merritt’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago Website | Ecopsychology Voices | Canadian Ecopsychology Network
The post Ecopsychology Voices | Jungian Ecopsychology for the Younger Generation with Dennis Merritt appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
My personal physician in Thun recently complained about the many patients he sees who are perfectly healthy but come to him doubled up in pain and complaining about their symptoms. “They are crazy,” he said throwing up his hands in frustration. “Perfectly healthy people, but not able to live with their health! On the other side I have patients who feel as healthy as can be, and I have to tell them they have six months to live because of a recently discovered lymphoma. I’d like to send the healthy ones to the moon! They’re nuts!”
His complaint reminded me of the opening pages in Jung’s 1936 Terry Lectures at Yale University entitled “Psychology and Religion.” There he is telling the audience about the power that a neurosis can have over patients’ lives. For instance, he says, a man imagines he has cancer, but there is no physical evidence of cancer in his body. He then feels at a complete loss and becomes convinced that he is crazy. So he consults Jung, a psychiatrist. “Help me, doctor. I think I’m dying from cancer but this is nonsense, yet I can’t stop it!” What does the psychiatrist Jung do with this imaginary cancer? “I told him that it would be better to take his obsession seriously instead of reviling it as pathological nonsense. But to take it seriously would mean acknowledging it as a sort of diagnostic statement of the fact that, in a psyche which really existed, trouble had arisen in the form of a cancerous growth. ‘But,’ he will surely ask, ‘what could that growth be?’ And I shall answer: ‘I do not know,’ as indeed I do not. Although… it is surely a compensatory or complementary unconscious formation, nothing is yet known about its specific nature or about its content. It is a spontaneous manifestation of the unconscious, based on contents which are not to be found in consciousness… I then inform him… that his dreams will provide us with all the necessary information. We will take them as if they issued from an intelligent, purposive, and, as it were, personal source…. The symptom is like the shoot above ground, yet the main plant is an extended rhizome underground. The rhizome represents the content of a neurosis; it is the matrix of complexes, of symptoms, and of dreams. We have every reason to believe that dreams mirror exactly the underground processes of the psyche. And if we get there, we literally get at the ‘roots’ of the disease.”
The delusional idea of a cancerous growth in a healthy body, then, is a symbol, which can provide a point of entry into the unconscious realm of complexes, processes, and hidden conflicts. And just as a physical cancer will suck the life out of a living organism if it is allowed to grow and remains unchecked, a psychic cancer too will drain a person’s life of psychic energy and produce a state of hopeless stagnation and eventually even psychic death. Symbols have the power to do just that. They collect, hold, and channel psychic energy, for good or ill.
In one sense, this psychic symptom is a metaphor, in that it is borrowing the language of physicality (cancer, illness) and applying it to the psychic domain. This transfer of language from one domain to another is what poets do when they employ metaphors. The psyche is involuntarily acting in a poetic fashion by stating, “I am sick with cancer,” when the person, were he more conscious of his psychic suffering, would say, “I am in profound despair,” or “I have no energy,” or “I am in hopeless conflict and it’s eating me alive!” But this patient cannot say that. He can only say: “I am convinced I have cancer, and I can’t get this irrational idea out of my head!” He is an unwilling poet. He has not chosen this symbol consciously or voluntarily; it has chosen him. He is unfree to dismiss it and unable to interpret it. So he goes to the analyst, and he confesses that he is possessed by a symbol and doesn’t know what it means. Understandably, he is humiliated by the stupid symptom and its unyielding grip on him. Jung says that such morbidity is usually shameful, and the patient is embarrassed to admit this weakness. He is in the grip of a complex, and this psychic factor – powerful, autonomous, and unconscious – is symbolized as a cancer. It must be analyzed and made conscious so that the very real suffering caused by the symptom-symbol can be transformed into psychic suffering. Perhaps other psychic resources can thus also be constellated, which will assist in bringing about the free flow of energy (libido) into more life enhancing tasks and goals.
What is a symbol? As Jung understands and employs the term symbol, it is different from a metaphor in that what it is communicating or presenting to consciousness is utterly untranslatable into any other terms, at least for the time being. Symbols are opaque and often bring thinking to a standstill. Metaphors are transparent and must be so if they are to do their job. They help us think in creative ways “outside the box.” If a poet writes, for instance, that a bridge leaps (“vaulting the sea”) and addresses it as a “harp” and an “altar,” as the American poet Hart Crane does in his famous poem, “To Brooklyn Bridge,” the reader can with diligence puzzle out a sense of what the poet means to communicate. We know what a bridge is, and we know what “vaulting” signifies and what “altars” and “harps” are, and we can think along with the poet and appreciate what he is getting at with these metaphors. The image all refer to sense data in the material world, and reflection will yield interesting ideas about how they belong together and what this unique concatenation signifies. But if a patient says, “I am convinced that that I have a cancerous tumor in my body but there is no evidence, what does this mean?” the psychotherapist must confess, with Jung, “I have no idea what it means, but we can explore the image. By looking at your life, your history, your dreams and fantasies, we may be able to discover something that at this moment is locked out of consciousness and is analogous to a cancer.” It is an important difference. The link between signifier and signified is totally opaque in the case of symbols; with metaphors, on the contrary, this link is evident even if often very complicated and at first glance puzzling.
Jung relates the symbol to an understanding of psychological dynamics, and this sets his view apart from other definitions of symbol and the symbolic, such as philosophical or literary ones. His is a psychological definition and is meant to serve the purposes of grasping the meaning of symptoms and images as they appear irrationally in the experience of patients in particular but also in people the world over generally. He defines the symbol as follows: “The symbol is not a sign that disguises something generally known – a disguise, that is, for the basic drive or elementary intention. Its meaning resides in the fact that it is an attempt to elucidate, by a more or less apt analogy, something that is still entirely unknown or still in the process of formation.” A symbol presents an unconscious content making its way toward consciousness. As an analogy, it presents something that is otherwise completely unconscious.
The patient with the delusional idea of having a cancerous growth in his body cannot at the moment express his suffering in any other or better way, or in a more accurate and psychologically descriptive way. He is therefore speaking in symbols and without any conscious understanding whatever of what the symbol might be saying. His judgment is that it is simply a delusional idea, a crazy thought that he can’t shake. Nor does the doctor know what it means. With symbols one knows only that they are presenting something by analogy, that there is much more here than one can readily grasp consciously, and that there is something deeply hidden and obscure. The Jungian psychoanalyst will have faith that there is something meaningful in the symbol, but for the moment that is all. Once a symbol is understood cognitively – be it as an expression of an outgrowth of childhood trauma, as an image of intrapsychic or interpersonal conflicts, as a block to creative potential, or whatever else the meaning may turn out to be – it can be put aside as a symbol. Here is a statement of Jung’s hermeneutic: “A view which interprets the symbolic expression as the best possible formulation of a relatively unknown thing… So long as a symbol is a living thing, it is an expression for something that cannot be characterized in any other or better way. The symbol is alive only so long as it is pregnant with meaning. But once its meaning has been born out of it, once that expression is found which formulates the thing sought, expected, or divined even better than the hitherto accepted symbol, then the symbol is dead, i.e., it possess only an historical significance… An expression that stands for a known thing remains a mere sign and is never a symbol.” Thereafter the symbol becomes a sign, and signifier and signified are then both out in the open and clearly linked. It becomes an historical marker: “I used to think I had cancer, but what I found out was that my libido was blocked because of trauma, childhood conflicts, and consequent lack of self confidence,” the hypothetical patient might declare. Once the necessary psychic suffering has been discovered and made conscious, the symbol becomes a “sign” and can be used then as a metaphor by consciousness if the patient chooses to be poetic.
One chief therapeutic goal of analysis is to convert symbols into signs and possibly into metaphors and so to free the patient’s consciousness from the grip of the autonomous complexes and to unblock the flow of libido into more satisfying channels of living, loving, and creating. So my physician in Thun should, instead of sending those crazy patients to the moon, send them to a good psychotherapist!
So far so good, but is this enough? Jung and most Jungians today too would, I venture to say, object to stopping at this good but rather limited goal for analysis. To find this sufficient would mean being satisfied with turning unconscious suffering into conscious suffering and achieving what the American psychoanalyst Elizabeth Zetzel defined as psychic health: “Psychic health demands successful initiation and later integration of those capacities which will facilitate throughout life, first, passive recognition and tolerance of limitations, losses and threats, and equally, active efforts towards finding and obtaining available objects and personal goals which permit both passive gratification and active achievement” This is, of course, a highly desirable outcome for a therapeutic analysis, but it is stops short of what Jung saw as the full potential for the psychic development that analysis is intended to foster.
Some differences between Jung and Freud I will speak now briefly of some differences between Jung and Freud and how they led to significant differences between the two fields they engendered psychoanalysis and analytical psychology.
With regard first to the term “libido,” the chief difference was that Jung chose to use the term in the more general sense of “psychic energy” and did not limit its meaning, as Freud did, to sexual desire or sexual impulse/instinct exclusively. For Jung, libido became a generic term covering all specific types of psychic energy manifestations. At first this may have seemed like a small difference, but in time it really did make a big difference in their theories about the psychic economy, about motivation, and for the practical application of these theories in clinical work. As Jung continued his explorations of the personal and collective unconscious in the years following the break with Freud, he picked up on an early intuition he had already in his pre-Freud period and evidenced in his book on schizophrenia, The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. He elaborated the idea that the psyche has a forward-moving and creative function and that when symbols become activated they serve to organize the structures and patterns that libido follows. In this view, symbols play a dynamic role in potentially moving the psyche forward in a development toward greater wholeness, rather than holding it back.
The most immediate cause of the sharp and decisive break between Jung and Freud was Jung’s work Symbole und Wandlungen der Libido (1912-13) and of course Freud’s cool reception of the revisionist ideas that Jung was putting forward there. Already at that time Jung was using the term libido in the more general sense of psychic energy or simply “interest,” rather than as sexual energy or desire specifically. Going further, he interpreted the incest wish and the incest taboo as the wish to remain infantile (a kind of wish for paradise) and the prohibition against fulfilling this wish as a psychic imperative toward development and maturity. In this work, Jung was groping toward a formulation of the psyche as a self-regulating system and one aimed toward the goal of full development of potentials. That is, he regarded the psyche as purposive and goal-oriented toward development. Hence the title Wandlungen der Libido (Transformations of Libido). The transformations of libido he was speaking of here had, in his view, a purpose and a goal, and symbols played the leading role in this process. At that time, Jung had not yet sufficiently worked out what would become the theory of archetypes to explain this teleological feature of the psyche’s life. He was groping in the dark, hence the rather chaotic nature of the text. However, when he revised this book for publication in 1952 and gave it a new title, Symbols of Transformation, he added extensive passages that explained and grounded the work in archetypal theory. Thus, in a new passage he writes of symbols as follows: “The symbols it [i.e., the psyche] creates are always grounded in the unconscious archetype… The symbols act as transformers, their function being to convert libido from a ‘lower’ into a ‘higher’ form. This function is so important that feeling accords it the highest values. The symbol works by suggestion; that is to say, it carries conviction and at the same time expresses the content of that conviction. It is able to do this because of the numen, the specific energy stored up in the archetype. Experience of the archetype is not only impressive, it seizes and possesses the whole personality… the prime task of the psychotherapist must be to understand the symbols anew, and thus to understand the unconscious, compensatory striving of his patient for an attitude that reflects the totality of the psyche.” Here he proposes the idea that symbols transform libido in an “upward” direction. This is similar to Freud’s “sublimation” but does not indicate a defense mechanism, nor does Jung see this as leaving the famous Freudian residue of “discontent.” One could say that symbols are the means by which psychic energy is sublimated because they can mold and channel libido and send it surging into pathways that result in “higher” i.e., more complex and filled-out, motivations, activities, attitudes, and states of consciousness. Without the symbolic capacity, humans would be much simpler creatures and devoid of mind and culture. The human capacity to receive symbols and to do something with them for Jung belongs to the very definition of what it means to be human. Symbols reshape matter!
In this passage (and in many others as well), Jung links symbol closely to archetype. This is extremely important in Jungian theory. Archetypes are archaic and deeply unconscious potential patterns of psychic functioning. Unconstellated, they are extremely diffuse and vague. They become more chiseled and precise as they emerge into psychic life as patterns of perception, behavior, motivation, and attitude. Archetypes are innate in the sense that they are sourced in psychic regions that are prior to and much more general than the individual’s precise personal experiences and acquisitions. The belong to the collective unconscious, which is not personal, just as culture is not personal. One is born into it. Archetypes are not inherited memories or ideas but rather potential patterns of motivation, action, and reaction (defense), which emerge in a variety of human situations as responses to challenges and to environmental fields that call for adaptation – the mother/infant and other family relationships, the call to heroic action in peer groups and society, the chance for love, the threat of death, etc.
Archetypes can look much like “instincts” in a biological matrix waiting to be “triggered.” Sometimes Jung will speak of them this way, as “innate patterns of behavior,” and many Jungians have followed this model. The danger in this view is, however, that symbols then become reduced to mere representations of specific unconscious structures that exist somewhere in the biological substructure (e.g., in the brain). This reductionism is not so different from Freud’s well known biological reductionism. The contemporary Jungian analyst Jean Knox has written: “In this sense, both psychoanalysis and analytical psychology…can actually therefore be seen to be reductionistic, in so far as psychic life is reduced and objectified by attempts to explain its functioning in terms of bodily processes. So this similarity between Freud and Jung is one which contemporary psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists should join together in rejecting, which I think would re-vitalize both our disciplines” Knox goes on to advocate “a view that a stream of current experience constantly re-shapes and guides the development of the human mind and brain… [I]nfant studies… demonstrate the crucial role played by intimate relationships in the development of the human psyche.”
If we understand archetype in a psychologically dynamic sense, however, perhaps as Knox would also advocate, it can be conceived as a broadly flexible potential pattern of motivation, attitude, action and reaction to critical human situations, or, as Jung defined the term in a letter to Wolfgang Pauli, as statistical probability: “…the archetype represents nothing else but the probability of psychic events.” Archetypes then are understood as probable emergent modes of psychic operation rather than as fixed and inherited entities waiting to be triggered. Symbols, in this understanding, have two functions in relation to archetypal patterns: 1) to express them in a graphic and succinct way, making them visible, memorable, and imagistically concrete, and 2) to attract libido and further energize the emergent archetypal patterns and in this way to transform and channel libido. Because the archetypal patterns are subject to the rules of emergence, they remain partially or largely unconscious until they become fully operationalized, hence the rationale for the view that symbols are the best possible present expression of a pattern that is still largely unconscious. Symbols therefore anticipate the fully emerged patterns. Once the patterns are active and completely unfolded, consciousness can put names and cognitions in place that capture their meaning and interpret them effectively. When this is done, symbols become signs and are emptied of their numinosity and their suggestive, mysterious, and also compulsive quality. Symbols have a sort of midwife role in the psyche.
Symbolic processes Let us return now to our hypothetical patient with the delusional idea that he had cancer. Taking this idea as a symbol, we would say that some unconscious content was trying to emerge due to a crisis in the patient’s life and that the symptom was both a cry for help (“Doctor, doctor, I’m dying!”) and the psyche’s attempt at offering a solution to the crisis in which the patient presently finds himself. A Jungian approach to treatment in this case would be create as full a picture of the patient’s life context to date as possible, including his life history, his major previous developmental deficits and unresolved conflicts, his present conscious situation in life (with respect to intimate relationships, to work, to meaning), and then to add to this consciously established and created context the unconscious material derived from dreams, fantasies, projections, transference, and so forth. Once one had this picture, one would presumably begin to understand the meaning of the symptom, why cancer was chosen as the symbol, why cancer of this organ and not that, why the precise set of symptoms that manifested. However, this would be just the beginning of the analytic process.
What Jung and most Jungians following him and his methods have been most keenly interested in is not primarily getting rid of symptoms or even understanding their symbolic meanings but rather in the symbolic process that opens up and reveals itself when the unconscious is actively engaged in analysis. What is important here is not just a symbol, but a symbolic process that reveals an invisible and hard to discern but all important and life-giving tendency in the psyche that is intent on creating meaning in the large spiritual sense of that word. Only symbols can convey this content, only symbols can present it, only symbols can contain it and make it available to consciousness. It is a process that pulls libido powerfully in its train and in the end transforms life radically and decisively.
In the Terry Lectures, where he speaks of a hypothetical patient with this delusional idea of having cancer, Jung unexpectedly drops this figure and turns to another one, now to a real patient whom he knew well and followed over a long period of time. He says: “I propose to choose another case as an example of how dreams reveal the unknown inner facts of the psyche… The dreamer was [an] intellectual, of remarkable intelligence and learning. He was neurotic and was seeking my help because he felt that his neurosis had become overpowering and was slowly but surely undermining his morale… I set him the task of observing and recording his dreams himself. The dreams were not analysed or explained to him and it was only very much later that we began their analysis” This man was a well known scientist and academic in Zurich who had landed in a midlife crisis. Today the personal details are quite well known by scholars, but I will not mention them here. Suffice it to say, he was brilliantly successful in his academic life but a miserable failure in his personal and intimate life and suffered from “anxiety states, psychogenic alcoholism, and general moral dissipation.” The dreams he produced after an initial meeting with Jung and while in treatment with one of Jung’s students fascinated Jung because of the suggestions they offered about “possible sources of information about the religious tendencies of the unconscious.” Jung sums up the conscious attitude of the patient toward religion and the spiritual as follows: “Religion was of no concern to my patient and he certainly never expected that it would concern him in any way. But he had come to me because of a very alarming experience. Being highly rationalistic and intellectual he had found that his attitude of mind and his philosophy forsook him completely in the face of his neurosis and its demoralizing forces. He found nothing in his whole Weltanschauung that would help him to gain sufficient control of himself.” What the dreams brought to the patient’s attention was, in Jung’s view, “the problem of a religious attitude,” which in effect meant the problem of meaning on a more than simply personal level.
Jung goes on to offer a glimpse into the symbolic process that unfolds in this patient’s extensive dream serious. About a dream series as such, he says: “there is probably …a continuity of unconscious processes – perhaps even more than with the events of consciousness… If we want to shed any light on the deeper reasons for the dream, we must go back to the series and find out where it is located in the long chain of … dreams.” The idea here is that there is a symbolic process at work in the unconscious, which if understood and correctly interpreted will reveal the deepest and most hidden intentions of the human psyche. What are they?
In breaking with Freud, Jung disputed the prime, even exclusive, centrality of sexuality and the sexual drive in psychic life. In fact, he concluded that for Freud the theme of sexuality itself was a symbol, a numinous power based on archetypal energies and patterning, which had grasped Freud’s consciousness and controlled it. For Freud, he felt, sexuality was a religion. And like all religions, it gave his life direction and meaning. As a symbol, it offered meaning and an infinite prospect for further elucidation. In the symbolic process that Jung was studying in the dream series of the Zurich intellectual, the creation of symbols that would offer meaning also seemed to be the goal. The symbolic process is aimed at creating images and themes that give ultimate meaning to the individual’s life. That is why he thought of this process as spiritual development, as a kind of sacred pilgrimage. His difference with Freud was a based on an understanding of sexuality as a symbol (Eros), not as only a physical and biological pressure or drive. But he considered this but one symbol among many possibilities, not necessarily for everyone the most important one. In that sense, he was not a monotheist but rather a polytheist. As there are many myths, many gods and goddesses, each with its own sacrality and numinous drawing power, so there are many symbols and symbolic processes. For the Zurich intellectual, meaning would be presented in quite a different symbolic statement, not in images of sexual union as the final fulfillment and satisfaction, but in images of complex harmony that united rhythms in three grand movements, as presented in the World Clock image he discovered in a vision: “There is a vertical and a horizontal circle, having a common centre. This is the world clock.” The clock moves in three great rhythms or pulses: a small pulse, a middle pulse, and a great pulse. Jung comments on this as follows: “All these dreams lead up to one image which came to the patient in the form of a sudden visual impression. He had had such glimpses or visualizations on several occasions before, but this time it was a most impressive experience. As he himself says: ‘It was an impression of the most sublime harmony.’ … The vision was a turning point in the patient’s psychological development. It was what one would call – in the language of religion – a conversion.”
Such is the transformative power of the symbol.
This post originally appeared on murraystein.com
Murray Stein, PhD is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world. Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.
Links: Murray Stein’s Website | Murray Stein’s recorded lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
References
C. G. Jung, Psychology and Religion, in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 11 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1936/1969), paras. 35-37.
C. G. Jung, “The structure of the unconscious,” in Collected Works, Vol. 7 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1928/1969), para. 492.
C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, in Collected Works, Vol. 6 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1921/1971), paras. 815-817.
Elizabeth Zetzel, The capacity for emotional growth (London: Maresfield Library, 1970), pp. 283-84.
C. G. Jung, Symbols of transformation, in Collected Works, Vol. 5 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950/1970), paras. 344-346.
In a letter to Kurt Plachte, 10 January 1929, Jung writes: “A religious experience strives for expression and can be expressed only ‘symbolically’ because it transcends understanding. It must be expressed one way or another, for therein is revealed its immanent vital force. It wants to step over, as it were, into visible life, to take concrete shape. (The spirit shows its effective power only in the reshaping of matter.)” C. G. Jung, Letters, Vol. 1, selected and edited by Gerhard Adler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 59.
Jean Knox, “Who’s afraid of sexuality? Self, object, drive and desire – a contemporary Jungian view.” Unpublished paper, p. 4. Ibid., pp. 4-5.
C. G. Jung, Letter to Wolfgang Pauli, 13. January 1951. In The Jung-Pauli Letters, edited by C.A. Meier (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 69.
Jung, 1936/1969, para. 38.
Ibid., para. 55.
Ibid., para. 39.
Ibid., para. 51
Ibid., para. 53.
Ibid.
Ibid., para. 111.
Ibid., para. 110.
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First, thank you to everyone who participated in our 2020 Holiday Giving Drive. Because of your support, we were able to meet our $25,000 fundraising goal! We could not do this work without you all and appreciate all the support, including those who support the institute in other ways.
In this episode, Patricia Martin interviews James Hollis, PhD, about his recent book Living Between Worlds: Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times.
James Hollis, PhD was born in Springfield, Illinois, and graduated from Manchester University in 1962 and Drew University in 1967. He taught Humanities 26 years in various colleges and universities before retraining as a Jungian analyst at the Jung Institute of Zurich, Switzerland (1977-82). He is presently a licensed Jungian analyst in private practice in Washington, D.C. He served as Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center in Houston, Texas for many years, was Executive Director of the Jung Society of Washington until 2019, and now serves on the JSW Board of Directors. He is a retired Senior Training Analyst for the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, was first Director of Training of the Philadelphia Jung Institute, and is Vice-President Emeritus of the Philemon Foundation. Additionally he is a Professor of Jungian Studies for Saybrook University of San Francisco/Houston. He has written a total of sixteen books, which have been translated into 19 languages. He lives with his wife Jill, an artist and retired therapist, in Washington, DC. Together they have three living children and eight grand-children.
Patricia Martin is a noted cultural analyst, author, and consultant. She has published three books on cultural trends. As a consultant, Patricia has helped some of the world’s most respected organizations interpret social signals that have the power to shape the collective. She’s worked with teams at Discovery Communications, Dannon, Microsoft, Unisys, The Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Philharmonic. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, USA Today, and Advertising Age. She holds an M. A. in literature and cultural studies at the University College, Dublin (honors) and a B.A. in English from Michigan State University. In 2018, she completed the Jungian Studies Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, where she is a Professional Affiliate. A scholar in residence at the Chicago Public Library, Patricia has devoted nearly a decade to studying the digital culture and its impact on individuation. She lectures around the world on topics related to the psyche and the digital age, the future of the collective, and the changing nature of individuation, all concepts discussed in her forthcoming book: Will the Future Like You?
Links: James Hollis’s website | James Hollis’s lectures in our online store | James’s Hollis’s online courses through the Jung Society of Washington
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2020 donors who gave at the Supporting Member level and above: Barbara Annan, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Jackie Cabe Bryan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Kevin Davis, George J. Didier, James Fidelibus, John Korolewski, Marty Manning, Dyane Sherwood, Deborah P. Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner, Karen West and James Taylor, and Ellen Young. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to join our community of supporters.
The post Finding Personal Resilience in Changing Times: An Interview with James Hollis appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
All classes and public program events are currently being held online due to COVID-19. Our priority is the health and safety of all our members, and we will continue to monitor the pandemic for the time when it is safe to gather once again. We are hopeful that the vaccines now available will enable us to hold in-person classes and events at the Institute in the Fall, but, given the uncertainty of the COVID-19 situation, for the time being, all learning will continue online. The decision to return to in-person meetings will be based on CDC public health guidance and legal mandates for educational organizations regulating size of gatherings, social distancing, mask-wearing, cleaning and sanitation, and vaccinations.
Please refer back to our website for updates.
Stephanie Buck, President
The post Statement from the President | January 4, 2021 appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
This episode is part of an evening with Jean Shinoda Bolen when the Institute was going through a major change. The Institute was about to sell its building in Evanston and eventually split into two entities, the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago, which would continue the training of Jungian psychoanalysts, and the C. G. Jung Center in Evanston, which would continue the clinic and related programs. This is the context for a lecture by Jean Shinoda Bolen and this conversation with Jacquelyn Mattfeld. It was recorded on April 3rd, 2003. The lecture portion, “Meeting Hecate at the Crossroad: Making Soul-Shaping Decisions”, which came after this conversation, is available in our store.
This free podcast is made possible by your support. Help us continue to provide educational content worldwide by joining our Holiday Giving Drive. This year has been hard on many institutions, and though we have been able to move much of our work online, not everything is able to be done without being in a room together. Your support will help us make it through this difficult period.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, and an internationally known author and speaker. She is the author of The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, Close to the Bone, The Millionth Circle, Goddesses in Older Women, Crones Don’t Whine, Urgent Message from Mother, and Like a Tree with over eighty foreign translations. She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco, a past board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women and the International Transpersonal Association. She was a recipient of the Institute for Health and Healing’s “Pioneers in Art, Science, and the Soul of Healing Award”, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She was in two acclaimed documentaries, the Academy-Award winning anti-nuclear proliferation film Women—For America, For the World, and the Canadian Film Board’s Goddess Remembered. The Millionth Circle Initiative (millionthcircle.org) was inspired by her book and led to her involvement at the UN. She is the initiator and the leading advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women (5wcw.org), which was supported by the Secretary General and the President of the General Assembly on March 8, 2012.
Jacqueline A. Mattfeld, PhD has advanced degrees in humanistic gerontology, art history and music history. She has been a member of the faculties of Harvard University, M.I.T., Sarah Lawrence College, Brown University and Columbia University. She is Professor Emerita of Arizona State University and past President of Barnard College in New York City. For nearly twenty years she has taught, lectured and written about the theories and experiences of late life development. She was the co-developer of the MA in Gerontology program at Northeastern Illinois University and established the Program in Creative Aging at the Jung Institute of Chicago. From 2000 through 2006 she was the Executive Director and Director of Public Programs of The C. G. Jung Center in Evanston where she served on the Board of Trustees through 2014. She now serves as a Board Member Emeritus.
For the lecture portion, CLICK HERE
Links: Make a donation | Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Website | Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Lectures in Our Online Store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2019 Supporter level donors: Bill Alexy, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Circle Center Yoga, Arlo and Rena Compaan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Lorna Crowl, D. Scott Dayton, George J. Didier, Ramaa Krishnan/Full Bloomed Lotus, Suzanne G. Rosenthal, Deborah Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to donate.
The post Change and Renewal: A Conversation with Jean Shinoda Bolen and Jacquelyn Mattfeld appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
As this year comes to a close and we ask for your financial contribution to our annual Holiday Giving drive, there is much to be grateful for. Despite the devastating impact Covid-19 has had with so many lives lost, and futures destroyed, our Institute community has stayed strong, committed to ensuring that we fulfil our educational mission, the advancement of Analytical Psychology.
When the dangers of Covid-19 became clear to us, the Institute quickly shifted from in-person education to virtual learning. The dedication and professionalism of everyone involved in our Institute community made this necessary pivot successful. This shift has enabled us to continue our educational mission without pause while providing a greater reach, with people from across the country and the world accessing our educational offerings virtually. The Analyst Training Program and the Public Programs’ lecture series remain uninterrupted, and, new in January 2021, begins a six-month program designed specifically for online learning. Other innovations made to meet the individuation needs of people in this time of pandemic include:
- Jungianthology Blog: interviews with Jungians around the world, essays by members of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts, links to free CE courses, and other interesting initiatives by other groups
- Jungianthology Podcast: free full-length seminars relevant to the current moment
- Online Store: 40% price reduction on the purchase of recordings during Chicago’s “shelter in place” order
- Public Program Series: 40% price reduction
Now more than at any other period in recent history, the education provided by the Institute in the depth psychology originating with C. G. Jung is greatly needed. We live in dark times. The personal transformation fostered through our programs and the social renewal made possible when individual learners do their psychic work within a community is the compensatory light to the deepening darkness of repressed Shadow unleashed we see evident today in our country and worldwide. As Jung reminds us, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious.” The Institute serves the human need for ongoing psychological growth and relational development. Our shared future as a nation, a world community, and perhaps as a planet hinges on this necessary psychic work.
Your financial gift in combination with others’ helps support the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago broaden its educational programming and strengthen community. Your financial support ensures that the Institute will continue as Chicago’s educational leader, providing multi-faceted educational programs in Analytical Psychology. Your financial gift will have lasting value by contributing to the ongoing success of the Institute. Help support, secure, and strengthen our Institute for today, tomorrow and the future. Be a Holiday Gift Giver 2020.
Be well, be safe this winter season and, many thanks,
Stephanie Buck, President
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The post Statement from the President | November 30, 2020 appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.
with Joyce Bogusky, PhD
Today we launch our annual Holiday Giving Drive with this full seminar. We are doing our best to adjust to the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the financial strain is real and we need your help to make it through this difficult time. You can help support this podcast and the existence of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago by making a donation.
You can also support us by making a purchase in our online store. Our annual Cyber Sale runs November 25-30. Receive 40% off all audio and video downloads by entering the code CYBER on the CART page before proceeding to checkout.
Jungian analyst Joyce Bogusky considers the work of contemporary women in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, anthropology, psychoanalysis, and feminine psychology, to explore the critical issues and controversies concerning language and its impact on gender representation. Special attention is given to current feminist critiques of language, mechanisms of oppression and self censorship, women’s access to language, and ideological and cultural determinants of expression.
It was recorded on October 29, 1993.
Joyce Bogusky, PhD is a Jungian analyst who has been in private practice in Evanston and Chicago, a professor in the counseling psychology department at Northwestern University, a personal trainer, and a yoga teacher.
Links: Make a Donation
© 1993 Joyce Bogusky. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You may share it, but please do not change it, sell it, or transcribe it.
Executive Producer: Ben Law
Producer: Patricia Martin
Music: Michael Chapman
Thank you to our 2019 Supporter level donors: Bill Alexy, Usha and Ashok Bedi, Circle Center Yoga, Arlo and Rena Compaan, Eric Cooper and Judith Cooper, Lorna Crowl, D. Scott Dayton, George J. Didier, Ramaa Krishnan/Full Bloomed Lotus, Suzanne G. Rosenthal, Deborah Stutsman, Debra Tobin, Alexander Wayne and Lynne Copp, Gerald Weiner. If you would like to support this podcast, click here to donate.
The post The Power of Language and its Effect Upon Gender Representation appeared first on Jungianthology: A Podcast & Blog.