Antioch University Seattle Jungian Discussion Blog

Jung on the cover of TIME Magazine, February 14, 1955

2012-02-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

Freud, Adler and Jung—these names personify, above all others,modern man's restless exploration of his own mind, his struggles forself-knowledge and for control of his darkest drives. In the 20th century,impelled by the detailed theory and dogma of the Big Three, psychology hasburst out of consulting room and clinic, spreading all through life and leavingnothing untouched—neither love nor the machine, war nor politics, neither artnor morals nor God. Of the three pioneers who built this Age of Psychology,Freud and Adler are dead. The third, Carl Gustav Jung, is still at 79tirelessly adventuring through the vast reaches of the psyche. Last week,wreathed by pipe smoke that swirled through his thinning white hair and gavehim the aspect of a medieval alchemist, Jung was busy in the study of hisold-fashioned, high-ceilinged house at Küsnacht on Lake Zurich. Thethree-volume work on which he was dotting the last "i" seemed strangefor a modern psychiatrist: Representation of the Problems of Opposites inMedieval Natural Philosophy. "Pretty abstruse, huh?" said Jung to avisitor. Then laughter rocked his heavy shoulders. "I must laugh! I havesuch a hell of a trouble to make people see what I mean."

For a man who has added such words as introvert, extravert andcomplex (in its psychological meaning) to the party patter of millions, Junghas indeed great difficulty in making people see what he means. That is partlybecause he has explored yoga, alchemy, fairy tales, the tribal rites of thePueblo Indians, German romantic philosophers, Zen Buddhism, extrasensoryperception and the cave drawings of prehistoric man, along with an estimated100,000 dreams. But when Dr. Jung is accused of having left medicine formysticism, he replies that psychiatry must take into account all of man'sexperience, from the most intensely practical to the most tenuously mystical.

If the details of his work are sometimes foggy, his overallpurpose is clear: to help man live at peace with his unconscious. That is theaim also of the other "depth psychologists," but Jung significantlydiffers from the others. He is a constant challenge to the legacy of his oldmaster, Sigmund Freud, whose teachings have affected man's view of himself moredeeply than anything since Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

The Freudian View. Through most of the Christian era, the healingof the mind was considered part of the realm of the soul. The Enlightenmentabolished the soul. Its place was taken, in the minds of millions, by reason,which stood atop a quaking pile of instincts. When Freud was a young man,scientific inquiry and materialism ruled even in psychiatry. Research was aimedat finding physiological causes for psychic effects. Freud's great contributionwas his discovery of the unconscious mind, the source of human drives that didnot fit into this narrow system. But Freud still clung to the mechanical andmaterial scientism of his age. He constructed a new, detailed, machinelikescheme of the mind. The steam that made the machine run was sexual energy orlibido. In Freud's view, the unconscious was cluttered with emotional material,commonly thought of as forgotten but actually repressed because of a conflictbetween sex-powered drives and personal or social standards of what isacceptable. Freud concluded that to rid patients of their neuroses, he had todredge up the repressed material and expose it to the cleansing processes ofthe conscious mind. The Freudian concept of libido was eventually broadened toinclude love, friendship, even devotion to abstract ideas. But Freud narrowlyinsisted that the infantile parricide-and incest wish which he called theOedipus Complex was crucially important in all human beings. As Jung bitinglyput it: "The brain is viewed as an appendage of the genital glands."

Vienna's Alfred Adler, an early disciple of Freud, soon rejectedthis sex-is- everything view, and formulated his theory that human beings arepropelled more by drives for power because of inherent feelings of inferiority.But in the Freudian world, the human being stands alone, without a will to makefree moral choices, conditioned by mysterious urges and traumas over which hehas no control. Creative work, good deeds, ambition are only "sublimation."Religion is usually a form of neurosis; God is a projection of the Fatherimage. It is against this view of life, this "psychology without apsyche." that Jung protests in all his work.

The Jungian Answer. Man's unconscious, argues Jung, is not merelya trash basket for disagreeable experiences thrown away by the conscious mind,but a vast subterranean storehouse full of both good and evil. For the mostpart the eternal human affections, aspirations and fears are just what theyseem to be. Religion is not a neurosis, in Jung's view; it is a deeply anduniversally felt human need. Jung concedes great merit to Freud, believes hismethods work with some patients, notably younger ones with real sexualproblems. But, says Jung, both Freud and Adler say to everything. " 'Youare nothing but . . .' They explain to the sufferer that his symptoms come fromhere or there and are 'nothing but' this or that . . . Sexuality, it is true,is always and everywhere present; the instinct for power certainly doespenetrate the heights and the depths of the soul; but the soul itself is notsolely either the one or the other, or even both together ... A person is onlyhalf understood when one knows how everything in him came about. Only a deadman can be explained in terms of the past . . . Life is not made up ofyesterdays only . . ." Jung'sview is gaining increasing respect among intellectuals, clergyman, ordinarylaymen. It is also reflected among analysts.* Most analysts are dedicatedFreudians who run their profession as a kind of closed shop and dismiss Jung asan escapist from life's harsh realities. But there is a constant splintering:besides the Jungians and Adlerians. There is a whole spectrum ofdeviationists—followers of Karen Horney, Otto Rank, Erich Fromm, Harry Stack Sullivan,Franz Alexander, Melanie Klein. There are also more and more eclectics whoderive most of their theory from Freud but add a little of Jung or Adler or adash of Horney and Sullivan. Many of them nowadays admit that Freudian analysismay have been too narrowly based on sexual drives, and that other matters—evenreligion—ought perhaps to be considered. Writes Milton Sapirstein, an analystof the Freudian school: "More and more, psychiatrists seem prepared toaccept the dependencies of religion, social causes and group movements ashealthy and needful, without labeling them 'sublimated homosexuality' to afather figure, or a desire to return to the mother's womb."

Freud was the Columbus who discovered the hemisphere of theunconscious. Jung may well be the Magellan to circumscribe the whole sphere ofthe psyche.

Double Unconscious. In the Jungian hypothesis, the mind has threelayers: 1) the conscious, which is just about what everybody thinks it is; 2)the personal unconscious (corresponding, but only approximately, to Freud'sunconscious), into which go forgotten facts and repressed emotional material;and 3) the collective unconscious, which is part of the heritage of the entirehuman race, and therefore a sort of common pool containing the instincts andsome patterns for mental behavior.

What drives the psychic machine? Libido, says Jung, but he usesthe word differently from Freud: Jung's libido includes all psychic energy. Itcan flow, says Jung, in either of two directions, in either of two dimensions.When it is flowing forward, from the unconscious to the conscious, a man feelsthat life is running smoothly as he goes about his business. Psychic energymust also flow in reverse, from the conscious to the unconscious, as when a manrelaxes from an active to a pensive or dreamy state. But if this backward flowlasts too long, the libido is being attracted to something in the unconsciousthat is stirring toward consciousness. If this is not made conscious, it willattract around it similar material which then forms a knot or complex. Psychicenergy may also flow inward or outward. If in an individual it usually goesoutward, he is an extravert. When he perceives an object or situation, hisfirst reaction is to project his energy onto the object and away from himself.But if it flows inward, he is an introvert, and his first reaction is along thelines of "What will this do to me?" Jung then breaks down personalitytypes into four classes, depending on which of the major psychic functions theyrely on most heavily: sensation, thinking, feeling or intuition. Since anybodycan be either extraverted or introverted in combination with any of the fourmain functions, Jung recognizes eight basic personality types. But he has saidrepeatedly —unfortunately for the thick-tongued dogmatism of cocktail-partyconversation —that everybody is enough of a mixture so that the labels are onlya rough guide. In fact, there are some rare souls who defy classification atall.

Archetypes for All. Things are not so simple in the Jungianunconscious. There, Jung sees a host of symbols which represent the archetypes.In writing of them, Jung, who has a vivid style and imagination, sometimessounds almost as if he were writing about living beings. But the Jungarchetypes are simply ancient patterns of human experience and feeling,repeated over and over in all ages and cultures. They occur in two principalforms: 1) in individual thoughts, dreams and visions; 2) projected as myths,customs or faiths. When Jung started out as a practicing analyst, he foundagain and again that ancient symbols and rituals were repeated in the dreams of20th century patients who could not possibly have heard or read of them. Heconcluded that mankind's collective unconscious 1) far predates the evolutionof the conscious part of the mind, and 2) forms the same basic patternsrepeatedly. In each individual, of course, the patterns are differentlyarranged. (Jung compares this to the body, which is composed of the same organsin all human beings, but with significant individual variations.) Usuallyclassified as the most obvious archetype — although it belongs largely to theconscious — is the persona. This was the Roman actor's word for the mask hewore to indicate his assumed character, and Jung uses it in much the samesense: the face which each individual presents to his surroundings. It involvesa certain amount of necessary and healthy play acting, easing the relationsbetween a man's inner world and the world around him. The persona is injuriousonly when it dominates the true personality beneath.

One danger then is that the persona will blind a man to theexistence of his own shadow. This shadow, part of the personal unconscious, isthe Mr. Hyde in every Dr. Jekyll, the inferior or evil element that wants to dowhat the conscious or the conscience forbids. It is necessary to control theshadow, but there is danger: the more firmly it is stamped upon, the greaterthe force with which it will eventually erupt.

Anima, Earth-Mother & Self. Deeper in the collectiveunconscious, Jung sees the anima, an embodiment of the "femaleprinciple" in man. By this Jung means all the traits in man conventionallyconsidered female, e.g., gentleness and appreciation of the finer things, butalso pettiness and rage. More importantly, the anima also enables man to"apprehend the nature of women" — it is the unconscious image of whata woman ought to be. This may range from Helen of Troy to Rider Haggard's Sheto the 20-yearold red-haired actress with whom an elderly university professorruns off. The anima, explains a Jung disciple, "has at tributes thatappear and reappear through the ages . . .She always looks young, though thereis often a suggestion of years of experience . . .She is wise, but notformidably so; it is rather that 'something strangely meaningful — somethinglike secret knowledge . . . clings to her.' " When this image is projectedon a flesh-and-blood woman, a man falls in love, but trouble arises when shefails to fit his unconscious prefab design.

Corresponding to the anima in the female is the animus, theembodiment of all male characteristics in a woman, and her collective,inherited image of man.

Next most importantamong the archetypes are the old wise man and the earth-mother. The old wiseman may appear in dreams or fantasies as a king or hero, medicine man, magicianor savior (to Dr. Jung's patients, he often appears as Dr. Jung). A little ofthis, Jung holds, is good: every man has in him the seeds of greatness; and itis well for him to be aware of it. But a man abnormally receptive to the ideamay turn into the leader of a wild-eyed revivalist sect, with messianicdelusions, or a Hitler, or simply a madhouse Napoleon.

The corresponding feminine archetype is the earth-mother—the verysource of life. But if a woman becomes "inflated" with the idea, andsees herself endowed with an unmatched capacity for understanding the problemsof others, she may become a super-do-gooder, or tighten her circle of motheringinfluence until it strangles the objects of her devotion.

Finally, towering over a host of lesser archetypes, is thetranscendent Self. This embodies elements from both conscious and unconscious,from all the archetypes, good and evil. It is a symbol of oneness such as isfound in many religions, e.g., the Hindu atman. Jung's concept of the Selfleads into the all-important process which he calls individuation. This is thesort of wholeness which Jung found many of his patients pursuing unconsciouslyafter they had actually been cured of neurosis. Individuation may be a lifetimetask ("Usually the analyst dies before the patient," says one Jungiananalyst). By getting to know more and more aspects of his unconscious, thesubject can give proper values to what were once half-sensed and disturbing urges.Individuation is "finding the God within."

The Need for Symbols. In this process, symbols help. One whichparticularly fascinates Jung is the mandala,** a square and-wheel patternembodying the number four or a multiple of it. A precious stone, often equatedwith the philosopher's stone of the alchemists, can symbolize the Self. Theinterlaced, banyan-like Tree of Life is often seen to bear a single luminousblossom—perhaps the Orient's Golden Flower, or a Christmas-tree star—whichsignifies the way of life that is life itself. What place have such symbols inmodern psychology? Says Jung: they are facts. They appear day after day in thedreams and doodlings of patients. If, for instance, a patient dreams of a snakeheld skyward, a Freudian analyst will automatically call it a phallic symbol.Jung concedes that it may mean that. But it is also a fact that the serpent hasa much broader significance. For instance, to the Ophite Gnostics (2nd centuryA.D.) the serpent symbolized the redeeming principle of the world. It canstand, says Jung, for the recognition of the shadow side of life, the bringingout of evil into the open. Argues Jung: Why not test the hypothesis that it mayrepresent the same urge in a modern patient? Moreover, says Jung, patients whoare often shocked by the appearance of such symbols in their minds, fearingthem to be signs of near insanity, are reassured when they find that they areonly repeating ancient human patterns.

In a religious age, according to Jung, man would not need to getconsciously acquainted with his archetypes, because religion provides its ownsymbols. But Christianity has become so weakened in this respect — largelythrough the Protestant Reformation, says Protestant Jung —that to millions itssymbols now mean nothing. For this reason, says Jung, Roman Catholicism isgenerally more effective today than other churches, and he rarely findsCatholics in need of individuation. Says Jung: "[Catholicism] is afull-fledged religion. Protestantism is not. Religions consist of a doctrineand a rite. The ritual does not exist in Protestantism : it has only one leg tostand on — justification through faith alone. The Catholic Church has the ritetoo, with all its magic effects." Jung himself has not been to church foryears, but when asked if he believes in God, he says: "I could not say Ibelieve. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something thatis stronger than myself, something that people call God." Unconsciously atleast, says Jung, many a modern man seeks the comfort and security of religioussymbols. That is why many try to import strange Eastern religions ; others turnto demagogues and isms (which Jung regards as volcanic eruptions of theunconscious), and still others go to the analyst. "Our heart glows, andsecret unrest gnaws at the roots of our being . . . Dealing with theunconscious has become a question of life for us." Hence the man whocannot find religious symbols must be helped by the analyst to understand thesymbols in his own unconscious. "I have treated many hundreds of patients. . . Among [those] in the second half of life — that is to say, over 35 —there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of findinga religious outlook on life . . ."

Dream of a Hayride. The practical differences between the methodsof Freud and Jung show up clearly in the case of a successful businessman whowent to a Jungian analyst for help. At 51 he had developed a phobia againsttrain or air trips, expressed in uncontrollable anxiety and attacks ofgiddiness. Despite the patient's age, the orthodox Freudian psychoanalyst wouldhave set him on a couch and invited him to talk on in "freeassociation," especially about his earliest childhood. Purpose: to findeither a specific shock related to his giddiness, or some emotional repressedstress. The Jungian analyst uses no couch, but has the patient seated in achair and facing him. This setup represents a meeting of equals: unlike Freud,who wanted the analyst to keep in the background, Jung believes the doctor mustfully share the emotional experience of analysis. The Jungian analyst isconcerned primarily with the present and the future. This businessman hadcarried too heavy a load of work for years. Now, from his unconscious, comesymptoms which force him to cut down his activities. Unconsciously, he mustwant to slow down. To help the analyst find possible unconscious motives, thebusinessman is asked to talk about his work and travel (this is not freeassociation, which, Jung argues, tends to lead away from the focus ofinterest). After several sessions the businessman tells of a dream: "I amsitting on a large wagon, laden with hay, which I am driving back to the barn,but the load of hay is so high that the lintel of the door into the barn knocksme on the head, so that I fall off my seat and I wake up terrified in the actof falling." For the Freudian, the barn is a symbol of the femalegenitalia; the dream represents a tendency to return to the womb, but becausethis has undertones of incestuous desire, it would be followed by punishment(castration). An Adlerian would interpret the overloaded wagon as anexaggerated will to power, in compensation for an inferiority complex. TheJungian analyst takes the dream more literally. After examining and reexaminingit in the context of the patient's life (Jung distrusts all set dreamtheories), the analyst suggests this meaning: the patient has overloaded hiswagon beyond its capacity; as a result, his conscious intentions receive ablow. The dream is an attempt by the unconscious to redress the balance of anexaggerated extraverted attitude which is becoming less and less appropriate asthe businessman grows older. This interpretation denies the patient the easyFreudian way out—a childhood trauma to use as a scapegoat. He faces theresponsibility of revising his goals in life. In this case, the businessmanrealized that he had lived a one-sided life. Not only did he slow down, but hewas satisfied to do so—and could take trips without anxiety or giddiness.

Jungians often say that after a patient has been cured of aneurosis in Freudian analysis, his "soul has been sterilized." SaysJung: "The neurosis contains the soul of the sick person, or at least aconsiderable part of it, and if the neurosis could be taken out like a decayedtooth, in the rationalistic way, then the patient would have gained nothing andlost something very important, much as a thinker who loses his doubt of thetruth of his conclusions, or a moral man who loses his temptations . . . Theindividual [must] choose his own way consciously and with conscious moraldecision."

Fathers & Sons. One of modern man's troubles, according toJung, is that he has lost touch with his roots. Americans, for instance, hethinks are not yet at home in their unconscious on a continent wrested sorecently from nature; this produces tension and helps account for America'sgo-getting energy. Carl Jung himself is not troubled by lack of roots. He comesfrom a long line of pastors of the Swiss Reformed Church. Though he hastraveled all over the world, from India (where he lectured) to Kenya (where helived with a primitive tribe near Mount Elgon), Jung's home is the same househe and his wife Emma built in 1908. He had a lonely boyhood in Basel, startedto learn Latin at six, and grew into what he was later to classify as "anintrovert type with the dominant function of thinking." His first ambitionwas to become an archaeologist or paleontologist. "He's still thrilled atnews of an excavation," says a disciple. "But we carry history insideus, too, and he's dug it up there." Largely to please his father, Jungchose medicine. He soon became fascinated with psychiatry. In 1900, newlygraduated Dr. Jung went to Zurich as an assistant in the famed old universitymental clinic. After he discovered the writings of Freud, Jung devisedword-association tests which were hailed as proof of Freud's basic theory of repression.Jung and his chief, Dr. Eugen Bleuler, gave Freudian theories a longed-foraccolade of respectability through the prestigious Zurich clinic. In 1907 Jungwent to Vienna to spend two weeks with the master. "The first day wetalked for 13 hours," he recalls. "We talked about everything. But Icould not swallow his so-called science positivism, his merely rational view ofthe psyche and his materialistic point of view." Later, crossing theAtlantic together on their way to give addresses at Clark University inWorcester. Mass., Freud and Jung debated endlessly on psychological problemsand analyzed each other's dreams. Freud cast Jung in the role of hisintellectual son and heir. But the halcyon days were over. At Munich in 1912,Freud upbraided Jung for writing about psychoanalysis without mentioning thefounder's name. The talk turned to Egypt's King Amenhotep IV as founder of areligion. "He is the one who scratched out his father's name on themonuments," said Freud. "Yes." Jung

replied, "but withthat you cannot dismiss Amenhotep. He was the first monotheist among theEgyptians. He was a great genius, very human, very individual. That hescratched out his father's name is not the main thing at all." WhereuponFreud fainted dead away. Jung's explanation: "Indirectly, he wascontinuing his reproach that I had scratched out the father's name—that is, hisname."

When Jung denied the predominantly sexual nature of the libido,Freud saw it as open rebellion. By 1913 the break was final: Jung wrote Freud"that I could do no further work with him if he would not give up thatdogmatic attitude." Said Freud: "We took leave from one anotherwithout feeling the need to meet again!"

The Alchemist. One of the most controversial issues aboutJung—outside psychiatry—concerns Nazi Germany. Some of his writings about racehave been abused by others for racist propaganda. Chiefly because he held theeditorship of a German psychoanalytic journal during the Nazi regime (hisco-editor at one time was a relative of Hermann Göring), Jung has sometimesbeen accused of Nazi sympathies. Jung's position: as a foreigner of renown, hemerely took the job to safeguard what he could of German psychiatry. Since thewar, Jung has lived by the banks of Lake Zurich, treating a few patients andkeeping a keen eye on the most difficult patient of all—the world at large. Hehas never stopped writing, revising his concepts, or enlarging the scope of hisinquiries. He has explored medieval alchemy, not because he has any interest inits pseudo-chemical aspects, but because he considers it interestingpsychologically: for the most part, he sees the alchemists as seekers afteroriginal religious experience outside the permissible limits of the medievalchurch.

The majority of Jung's patients have been women, and he has hadsome down-to-earth things to say about the status of woman in the modern world.She has, he thinks, lost the old ideal of marriage ("He shall be thymaster"). The tradition that it is the man who generally breaks up amarriage is no longer true: "Today life makes such demands on man that thenoble hidalgo Don Juan is to be seen nowhere save in the theater. More thanever, man loves his comfort . . . There is no longer a surplus of energy forwindow-climbing and duellos." Woman, meanwhile, will go to greater lengthsthan ever to find a husband, "by that quiet and obstinate wish that works. . . magically, like the fixed eye of the snake." As men and women adoptmore of the roles and interests traditionally attributed to the other sex, Jungthinks a new relationship between them is developing, based on equalpartnership.

Most recently, in Answer to Job (just published in England, notyet in the U.S.), he suddenly tackled the 1950 papal proclamation of the dogmaof the Assumption of the Virgin, which he considers the greatest religiousevent since the Reformation. His explanation of the dogma: it was, he contends,historically and psychologically necessary, because the mass of Roman Catholicwomen (at least unconsciously) demanded it, to give them a symbol ofidentification in heaven.

Freudian Doubts. How big is Jung's influence today? The Freudians,confident that they are the possessors of revealed psychiatric truth, havecrusaded for their own dogma and sought converts with evangelical zeal. Jung,by contrast, for a long time would not even bother to set up a formal trainingschool for analysts who wanted to follow him, and he still refuses to seekconverts. Proselytizing, in his book, is merely a reflection of unconsciousdoubts. Not until 1948 was a C. G. Jung Institute established in Zurich, andJung has given it little more support than his name. It now has about 100students from

14 countries, includingthe U.S., Denmark, India. London, New York. San Francisco and Los Angeles arethe next major centers of Jungian influence; in each there is a handful ofanalysts trained by Jung himself or his earliest disciples. San Francisco has asmall training institute, and one is being set up in Los Angeles. The BollingenFoundation is currently bringing out his collected works (four volumespublished, 14 to go).

Jung's influence in psychiatric practice, though oftenunacknowledged, has been conceded by the late A. A. Brill, leading U.S.Freudian, who called him "the pioneer psychoanalyst in psychiatry."Freud thought that analysis was useful only in the milder forms of emotionalillness (neurosis). Jung was among the first to use it to interpretschizophrenia, commonest of the most serious psychoses (which fills 300,000hospital beds in the U.S.). Results of early treatment by analysis were onlytentative. But then came insulin and metrazol, and now, in the last two years,have come two new drugs, chlorpromazine and reserpine, which are makingthousands of supposedly hopeless cases of schizophrenia accessible to analytictechniques.

The Natural Face. The ultimate value of Jung's ideas cannot yet bemeasured by practical standards. His great achievement is that he has shownpsychology a new direction: he has constructed a psychology for human beingswho reach out toward the unknown, the intangible, the spiritual. He hasattacked the goal of psychological adjustment, which is fine "for theunsuccessful, for all those who have not yet found an adaptation," butwhich for others means only "restriction to the bed of Procrustes,unbearable boredom, infernal sterility, and hopelessness." Even if he isonly half right, Jung has suggested to mankind a way of adjustment" notmerely to his animal instincts and social pressures but to his great paradoxesand his eternal religious needs. Living happily in his old house, surrounded by19 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, the old man seems to many of hisfollowers the most convincing case history in support of Jungian theories. HasJung himself achieved individuation? Says he: "Individuation means tobecome what one is really meant to be. In Zen Buddhism they have a saying:'Show your natural face.' I think I have shown my natural face, often to thebewilderment of my time. Yes, I've attained individuation—thank heavens!Otherwise I would be very neurotic, you know."

Freud and his followers have always insisted that the name"psychoanalysis" belongs properly only to their theory and method.Adler called his "individual psychology"; Jung's is "analyticalpsychology."

The mandala, meaning magic circle in Sanskrit, is most familiar asan aid to contemplation among Buddhist and other Oriental sects. A medievalChristian mandala shows Christ at the center, with the four evangelists at thecardinal points. Said he: "I cannot let myself be stared at for eighthours daily." Once a Zurich analyst had to deal with a new patient sotense that it seemed she had no mere neurosis but a beginning psychosis.Alarmed—because analysis at this stage may touch off a psychotic crisis theanalyst went to Jung for advice. The master listened to the symptoms, thenasked: "American? From the Middle West?" The analyst nodded. "Well then, I thinkyou're pretty safe," said Jung, "but I would worry if it were aEuropean."

Set up by his U.S.admirer Paul Mellon of the Pittsburgh Mellons, and named for the little town ofBollingen.

Photo Credit: Time Magazine

Michael Meade Presentation

2012-02-16T20:57:00.001-08:00

“Our genius calls to us at critical junctures and whenever change is required. Whether younger or older our job is to answer the call. For, enduring happiness can be found more in satisfying one’s inner spirit than in simply finding fame or acquiring a fortune.”

Finding Genius In Your LifeAn evening presentation with author, mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade
Wednesday, March 28th - 7pmIsland Center Hall-Bainbridge Island, WA
Order Tickets <http://www.mosaicvoices.org/>
The original idea of genius refers to the natural spirit and inner qualities of a person; this includes their god-given talents as well as the way they are aimed at life. In that sense, everyone has a genius nature and something essential to give to the world. However, when neglected or rejected our natural genius can incite our worst inner demons.
Join us for an evening of stories and poems and discussion of the many ways that the genius in us keeps finding meaningful ways for us to change and to grow.
We appreciate your support and would like to ask you to help us by forwarding this email to any groups or individuals who might benefit from this event.
For more information and registration visit the Mosaic website at: www.mosaicvoices.org <http://www.mosaicvoices.org/> or contact the Mosaic office at: 206-935-3665.
Mosaic Multicultural Foundation4218 1/2 SW Alaska, Suite H, Seattle, WA 98116
(206) 935-3665 (voice) / (206) 935-3612 (fax)
info@mosaicvoices.org <mailto:info@mosaicvoices.org> / www.mosaicvoices.org <http://www.mosaicvoices.org> Join Mosaic on Facebook: www.facebook.com/MichaelMeadeMosaic <http://www.facebook.com/MichaelMeadeMosaic>

The Future of Analytical Psychology and the Future of the World

2012-02-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

From the Asheville Jung Center:

It is reasonable to wonder about the future of analytical psychology. Will it remain relevant in the coming decades? In this workshop we will reframe the question and ask, what is the future of the world, and what role might analytical psychology play in that future?These questions are vitally important for all clinicians who make Depth Psychology a part of their practice, and for all individuals who view our human environment through an analytical lens.

Don't miss this extraordinary collaboration in which Craig San Roque, PHD and Thomas Singer, MD question and discuss whether Analytical Psychology should be confined to the consulting room, a balm only for individuals in distress? Or ought Analytical Psychology be concerned with more than the psychological depth of the individuation process? What is the applicability of analytical theory and practice today...and tomorrow? Please follow the link below for more information about this event:
http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?llr=6w6vwddab&v=001e5WobZtxxKQmuBNUc2iBfaS0jrYwOz3hQDg3H8X8k-JHYGLeo2OeeNollCTbk75ohbpTXJoT06m4OdKhkJRGidb8DnJVA6HqJhmZsa2MKUy2RykY0qHA9Q%3D%3D

AUS Jungian Discussion Group Febuary 15, 2012

2012-02-15T17:45:00.000-08:00

Five students and faculty members participated in this discussion group meeting. The discussion focused on educational resources and on working with dreams (dream images, dream process; dream processing).

The following is an informal list of Analytical Psychology resources:
Landau's Tragic Beauty
Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Theater of the Imagination
Clarissa Pinkola Estes' Untie the Strong Woman
Clarissa Pinkola Estes' webinar: Late Bloomer
Robert Johnson's Inner Work
Peter O'Connor's chapter on dream work
Eisenstadt's Dream Tending
Allan Watt's books
Csikszentmihali's Flow
Upcoming Asheville Jungian Institute's webinar: Future of Analytical Psychology

Website for discounted CDs, etc.: Sounds True
Soul Surfer film: Bethany Hamilton's true story of losing an arm to a shark bite--and continuing to compete in surfing contests

Ideas about working with dreams: explore archetypal and mythological themes; sketch/draw dream characters; sculpt dream characters; form a Dream Council for a time-limited conversation/discussion (Eisenstadt); use Active Imagination to move the dream forward (Jung); note patterns over time re themes; explore images of wounding and of healing--look for the medicine in dream images (Eisenstadt).

The Mysterium: Psychology...In the Truest Sense of the Word"

2012-02-10T12:56:00.000-08:00

Dear Seattle Jungians,

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés,is teaching a class for helping professionals, "The Mysterium:Psychology...in the Truest Sense of the Word" this summer in Colorado on June 5 - 10.

I learned from Dr. Estés'sevent organizer there are still some spaces and I wanted to share thisopportunity with our Seattle Jungian Community. I was at this event last yearand it was beyond phenomenal.

You may be familiar with Dr.Estés is an author, poet, activist, senior Jungian Analyst, andgreat soul. Her books include "Women Who Run With theWolves" and "Untie the Strong Woman," plus 20 audio booksthrough Sounds True Recordings. See the full listing here: http://www.soundstrue.com/authors/Clarissa_Pinkola_Estes/

This is a rare opportunity tolearn from a legendary teacher and I wholeheartedly recommend this event. I'llbe there and I'm bringing four of my friends.

From the website for thisevent:

OVERVIEW

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estésis an elder of psychology whose offerings have transformed and greatly enhancedour collective wisdom. In this one-of-a-kind training, she invites you to learnnew and old methods for healing the psyche and spirit—in ways that fullyembrace our innate giftedness, individual wisdom, and the treasure of our humanimperfections.

The Mysterium: Psychology…in the Truest Sense of the Word is a rare opportunity to learn directly fromthis living resource as she offers core tools for expanding your dailypractice—“For mending up the part of the world soul within your reach,” and forenriching your own life.  

The psyche is like a lushand mysterious collection of gardens and wild fields. Though we cannot controlall the weathers that nurture or batter us as we grow in the life-death-lifecycles during “life in the field,” we can map and find treasure in the infinitecomplexity of the roots that twine beneath the fertile soil in the vastcollective unconscious. Thus, by seeing “from the aerial view” as Dr. Estéscoined the term, and “by also inquiring up close and ‘down to the bone’ we cantap into the rhizome, the force of energy at the center of the psyche that – asin the great trees and flowering and fruiting plants—remains glowing and aliveeven under the snowy ground.” We can learn the unique tools and powers totend to our soul’s fullest flowerings and wildest twinings.

As teachers, therapists,healers, and helping professionals, we take the role of gardeners and tendersto the fields of the psyche, nurturing those who seek our guidance so they maythrive in any season of life … with heightened vision, intuition,creativity, love and insight. With The Mysterium: Psychology… in the TruestSense of the Word, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés offers you a special training inthe use of her invaluable insights and methods she has used for four decades tohelp others cultivate and nourish the fertile psyche deeply planted with allmanner of amazing gifts and life stories.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this five-day intensivetraining, Dr. Estés will immerse you in analytical techniques that can beintegrated into any form of healing—including developmental, depth, analytical,cognitive, behavioral psychology, and the expressive arts.

Drawn from depth psychologyprinciples and enriched with Dr. Estés’ rich ethnic background of healingpractices from her refugee and immigrant elders, plus her 40 years ofexperience as a psychoanalyst, poet, cantadora (keeper of theold stories), and keen explorer of visible and invisible aspects of life… herperceptions and time honored techniques give a map to The Mysterium.

As she sees it, TheMysterium is “a living paradigm in which biology, psyche, spirit, soul,heart and mind and body all have their own fertile ground, their ownintertwined root system wherein one affects the other …with strong potentialfor each aspect separately and together to be nurtured into greater being, thatis… to be burnt away into greater being, to be cleaned out and mended intogreater being, to be loved by oneself into greater blossoming of consciousnessand individuation… thereby becoming, as one gathers more years and keeps one’sheart, mind and hands to the work, ser humano, a venerable, humble,and fiercely full… what the old believers call, ‘a true human being.’” Througha variety of approaches including dialog, story and commentary, Q & A andpracticums, we will explore:

• ShadowWork— Working with the aspects of the psyche

• Interpretationof Fairy Tales—How archetypes in fairy tales influence us psychologically

• DreamAnalysis— The mirror of the psyche that reflects, guides and warns

 “Psychology in the TruestSense of the Word”— means to Dr. Estés’s understanding, this: Psyche: soul.Logos: knowledge of. Psychology: The knowledge of the true journey of theSoul.” Thus we gather over how to cultivate a larger viewpoint and develop a‘far-farther’ understanding of the psyche that encompasses our relationshipsand family dynamics, the over-culture and its forces that influence us, thestories that resonate with us, and our individual ways through, down, andupward across more than one world.

Learn more about the June 5 -10 event here: http://mavenproductions.com/index.php/events/mysterium/ andplease feel free to pass this along to anyone whom you think will want to know.

You are also welcome tocontact me if you have any questions about this.

Regards,

Lindagail

Lindagail Campbell

NLP Pacific

Trainings andSeminars in Seattle, Portland,and on Maui

425-896-8523

http://nlppacific.com

Seattle C. G. Jung Society Lecture/Workshop

2012-02-08T17:19:00.001-08:00

Bette Joram, Ph.D.

The Uroboros: Nature and Human Nature

Lecture: Friday, February 10, 2012, 7 to 9 p.m.

Good Shepherd Center, Room 202, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. North, Seattle 98103 (driving directions <http://www.jungseattle.org/directns.html> )

$15 members, $25 nonmembers

Workshop: Saturday, February 11, 2012, 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Good Shepherd Center, Room 202, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. North, Seattle 98103

$50 members, $70 nonmembers

Advance registration for workshops is encouraged. You can mail your registration and payment to our office using this registration form <http://www.jungseattle.org/preform.html> or buy tickets for the lecture <http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/218834> and workshop <http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/218845> in advance at brownpapertickets.com.

In the Friday evening lecture there will be an overview of this historical and universal symbol. We will enquire into its presence in ancient cultures as well as in western alchemy.

Uroboric questioning: What meaning does the Uroboros have for us in these times? The Uroboros, depicted as a dragon or a serpent devouring its own tail, stands for the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end of all things. Spirit and matter, masculine and feminine, poison and panacea—the opposites unite in this ancient symbol of the opus circulatorium.

In the Saturday workshop we will look in greater depth at the developmental psychological implications of the Uroboros. We will address it from the perspective of other theoretical orientations as a significant state in the narcissistic personality when it is arrested and again when the uoroboric state is essential in the process of transformation and individuation.

We will explore the permutations of the Uroboros: its dreams of omnipotence; the levels of differentiation of the ego’s emergence from the unconscious; its outward relationship to others and to the collective; thence to the self and the collective unconscious. While each aspect has relevance to the development of the individual, parallels exist between individuation and the maturation process of society, culture, and the state of our civilization as we grapple collectively with the developmental crises of our era. The Uroboros provides a mythological connection to the natural world, and allows us to bring scientific and imaginal perspectives together, drawing upon the strengths of depth psychology and clinical practice. The alchemical world view allows us to see and experience theinterconnectedness of conscious spirit, unconscious spirit, unconscious matter, and conscious matter, through which we recognize the presence of the anima mundi.

Learning Objectives:

1. To learn about the archetypal and alchemical symbolism of the Uroboros.

2. Compare and contrast the developmental stages of the self according to C. G. Jung and developmental theorists.

3. To look at processes of self-assimilation and self-generation from a teleological perspective distinct from pathological narcissism or self-absorption.

4. To understand how the alchemical world view, which includes Conscious Spirit, Unconscious Spirit, Unconscious Matter, and Conscious Matter assists us in coping with the changes in our times.

Bette R. Joram is a psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle, Washington, and an adjunct faculty member of Antioch University Seattle. She received her Ph.D. from Pacifica Graduate Institute in 2005. This subject matter is drawn from her doctoral dissertation, Experientia Testi Est, a hermeneutic study of transformation and change based on the illumined alchemical manuscript, Les Vaisseaux D’Hermes. The image of the Uroboros figures significantly in this work.

=======================================================================

For more recorded information, call (206) 547-3956.

The C.G. Jung Society, Seattle Web site is at

http://www.jungseattle.org/.

This event is on the Web at http://www.jungseattle.org/w12/w12joram.html

The Jung Society's office/library is at:

C.G. Jung Society Seattle, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Room 222, Seattle, WA

98103.

Feel free to forward this email to those who may be interested.

To be added to or deleted from this distribution list, send e-mail to:

webmaster@jungseattle.org. Members receive regular email reminders

of Jung Society events by default.

2012-01-13T12:37:00.001-08:00

http://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2012-01-13/letters-at-3am-james-hillman-1926-2011/

Letters at 3AM: James Hillman (1926-2011)

By Michael Ventura, January 13, 2012, Columns

Santa Barbara is acity on the Californiacoast that teeters over the sea and will one day be submerged. What makes California Californiais that one lives in cities that know they are destined to die – a JamesHillmanesque thought if ever there was one.

I'd ducked out of a conference in Santa Barbara to quaff abeer at a nearby bar. In walked Hillman. Never had I expected Hillman, with allhis exquisite erudition, to step into a bar in the middle of the afternoon.Without a hello or a nod, he sat on the stool next to mine.

We had each spoken at the conference and had metbefore, but not one-on-one. I'd read lots of his stuff; he'd read a little ofmine. He ordered his drink. I lit a cigarette. (You could still do that in abar in the Eighties, even in California.)I waited for him to speak because I didn't know what to say to a man who couldwrite that incredible book, The Dream and the Underworld, and conceiveits central sentence: "Soul is made in the rout of the world."

"You and I," he finally said, "arevery different, but we have the same enemy: monotheism."

I knew what he meant, and he knew I knew. He'dattacked monotheism using his exhaustive knowledge of the gods of ancient Greece; I'dattacked it from my study of vodun (commonly called voodoo).

In general terms, he meant this: Monotheismposits an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good god. So how does monotheismaccount for what it calls "evil"? An all-powerful capital-G God whois good cannot be responsible for evil, so evil must arise from a counterforce,a Satan who is God's enemy, or from human beings infected by Satan. God's handsstay clean. This construct sets up an either-or world of opposites and viewslife through a dynamic of opposites: us vs. them.

Polytheism is labyrinthine. Zeus or Damballah,Aphrodite or Erzulie may do you good on one day and do you harm the next.Opposites blend in the same iconic figure, in the same force, in the sameinstant. In the polytheist and pantheist constructs, every force contains andwill sooner or later exhibit its opposite.

Monotheism is an either-or, us-vs.-them trap.Polytheism is a this 'n' that, here 'n' there moment.

That was our common intellectual ground. On thatground, our friendship began.

Flash forward a few years. LA WeeklyEditor Kit Rachlis asked his star writers to list the most important thinkersof our time. First on my list was James Hillman. No one else at LA Weeklyknew the name. Rachlis said: "Ventura,write a cover story on Hillman. Tell us what he's about."

I would not dare generalize Hillman's denselyconceptual, beautifully written works – The Dream and the Underworld,Re-Visioning Psychology, Suicide and the Soul, and The Myth of Analysis (toname just a few). The only way was to let Hillman speak for himself. I did theinterview, and on July 1, 1990, LA Weekly ran his photo on the coverwith this headline: "We've Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy – and theWorld's Getting Worse."

That issue was a hit – one of the Weekly'smost discussed, controversial stories. The interview began with this:

James Hillman: "We've had a hundred years ofanalysis, and people are getting more and more sensitive, and the world isgetting worse and worse. Maybe it's time to look at that. We still locate thepsyche inside the skin. You go inside to locate the psyche, you examine yourfeelings and your dreams, they belong to you. Or it's interrrelations,interpsyche, between your psyche and mine. That's been extended a little bitinto family systems and office groups – but the psyche, the soul, is still onlywithin and between people. We're working on our relationshipsconstantly, and our feelings and reflections, but look what's left out of that.

"What's left out is a deteriorating world.

"So why hasn't therapy noticed that? Becausepsychotherapy is only working on that 'inside' soul. By removing the soul fromthe world and not recognizing that the soul is also in the world,psychotherapy can't do its job anymore. The buildings are sick, theinstitutions are sick, the banking system's sick, the schools, the streets –the sickness is out there. ... The world has become toxic. ... There isa decline in political sense. No sensitivity to the real issues. Why are theintelligent people – at least among the white middle class – so passive now?Why? Because the sensitive, intelligent people are in therapy! They've been intherapy in the United Statesfor thirty, forty years, and during that time there's been a tremendouspolitical decline in this country. ... Every time we try to deal with ouroutrage ... by going to therapy with our rage and fear, we're depriving thepolitical world of something. And therapy, in its crazy way, by emphasizing theinner soul and ignoring the outer soul, supports the decline of the actualworld."

Hillman's thought covers a far greater range, butthat was what he was thinking about at the time of our interview. It was such ahot topic it became a book, still in print: We've Had a Hundred Years ofPsychotherapy and the World's Getting Worse (1992). Technically, Ico-authored the book, but only technically. We had many conversations, he andI, and recorded them. I edited the recordings into a book, but he was its forceand fountain.

He died this past October. I don't know how toconvey such a man. What do you say about an intellectual genius who learned totap dance in his 60s? He fixed his attention upon you with piercing eyes thatwere severe yet kindly. His knowledge was vast, his laughter infectious, hisintegrity absolute. Passionate thought, thoughtful passion – these concepts heembodied.

Will psychology produce another thinker of hisstature? Since American therapists succumbed to so-called "managedcare," no such figure has appeared. The geniuses of psychology – SigmundFreud, Carl Jung, Wilhelm Reich, R.D. Laing, Hillman – are not the kind who canbe managed.

In David Cronenberg's film A Dangerous Method,Viggo Mortensen's Freud says to Michael Fassbender's Jung, "I assure you,in a hundred years' time, our work will still be rejected." That, in fact,has happened in the field that still calls itself psychotherapy but concernsitself not with the psyche but with coping techniques. Coping has its virtues,but is it even half enough? Freud, Jung, Laing, and Hillman would agree thatteaching people to cope with a crazy world roots them more firmly in craziness,whereas a psychotherapy that includes psychology – a study of the psyche –attempts to bring forth and strengthen a person's wholeness.

It is no wonder that in his later years, Hillmanturned his back on a field that now shies away from the depths of what we are.

Weeks before he died, Hillman dictated to hiswife, Margot McLean, these words for his friends: "We are following amiddle road, neither upbeat nor downbeat. And I am more and more convinced thatupbeat tends to constellate its counter, so before wishing for recovery in theold sense, one should think twice. It's what's going on now and not what theimagination conjures regarding a so-called future. I am dying yet in fact, Icould not be more engaged in living. One thing I'm learning is how impossibleit is to lay out a border between so-called 'living' and 'dying'."

"One thing I'm learning" – dying, yetstill learning. Still teaching.

That was the man.

Trauma and Beyond

2012-01-13T12:32:00.000-08:00

About the 2012 Zurich Lectures Series

Trauma and Beyond:

The Mystery of Transformation
Oct. 5th & 6th 2012

In these lectures, Dr. Wirtz begins with Jung's Red Book, in which Jung wrestles with his own dark night of the soul, as she explores trauma's numinosity, the glimpses it gives into a "sense of the Beyond," and the salvific force within the crucible of transformation. She focusses on the archetypal experience of dying and becoming ("Stirb und werde"), the movement from fragmentation to individuation, as the retrieval of body and soul after the experience of soul-murder.

Reflecting on the spiritual dimension of trauma

therapy, she also addresses the archetype of meaning and the art of reconciliation in transcending trauma. The lectures dive into the archetypal realm of Kali, Lilith, and Sophia as liberating and empowering images of wisdom for the wounded feminine. Dr. Wirtz also traces the paths of mindfulness, emphasizing the sacredness of intersubjectivity and pure presence, as she circumambulates the mystery and alchemy of healing, the power of imagination and artistic expression, and the healing energy of meditation.

Ursula Wirtz, Ph.D., graduated from the C.G. Jung Institute Zurich in 1982. She has a doctorate in literature and philosophy from the University of Munich and a degree in clinical and anthropological psychology from the University of Zurich. She is on the faculty of the International School of Analytical Psychology (ISAPZURICH) and maintains a private practice in Zurich. At the end of June 2012, she will become the new Academic Chair of ISAPZURICH's Jungian Odyssey Committee.

Dr. Wirtz is actively engaged in the training of Jungian analysts in Eastern European countries. She also has extensive experience as a team supervisor in a wide variety of institutions which work with trauma survivors (women's shelters, counseling centers for survivors of sexual abuse and the Holocaust, and the Swiss Red Cross Outpatient Clinic for the Victims of Torture and War). This has led to her numerous publications on trauma, spirituality, and ethics. She is a favorite keynote speaker at conferences worldwide and has taught at various European universities and abroad.

SITE OF THE EVENT

Zunfthaus zur Meisen

Photo courtesy of http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:
Zunfthaus_zur_Meisen

The opening lecture and dinner on Friday, October 5 will be held at the Zunfthaus zur Meisen, a beautiful city palace located at Munsterhof 20 on the Limmat River in the heart of old Zurich. The Meisen was built in 1757 in the French baroque style and represents the highest level of cultural attainment of its day. The interior of the Zunfthaus is decorated in the finest Zurich rococo, which creates a unique atmosphere of elegance and refinement. It is a special privilege to celebrate the Zurich Lecture Series at this grand location.

Friday, October 5 – 6:00 pm Reception, 6:30pm Lecture, 7:30 – 9:00pm Three-Course Dinner. Location - the historic Zunfthaus zur Meisen, Muensterhof 20, Zürich.

Click the title/heading of this post for a link to more information

Lavatersaal at St. Peter

More lectures will follow on Saturday, October 6 at the Lavatersaal located at St.Peter-Hofstatt 6 in Zurich. The Lavatersaal is in a classic 18th century building that belongs to St. Peter's Church, which boasts the largest clock face in Europe. The house is named after Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741-1801), a good friend of Goethe's and whom Goethe visited several times at this location.

Saturday, October 6 – 10:00am – 12:00 Noon Lecture and Discussion, 12:00 Noon – 2:00pm lunch, 2:00pm – 4:00pm Lecture and Discussion, Apero. Location – Lavatersaal, Kirchgemeinde St. Peter, St. Peter-Hofstatt 6, Zürich

NPR Movie Review - "A Dangerous Method"

2011-12-02T13:32:00.000-08:00

'Dangerous Method': Shocking Therapy For A Hysteric
by MARK JENKINS
November 22, 2011
In a clash of dueling methodologies, A Dangerous Method depicts the struggle between the coolly intellectual and the messily instinctual. There's also some stuff in there about Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung.
Based on the correspondence of the two psychoanalytic pioneers, the movie began as a book, then became a play by Christopher Hampton, who's best known for writing another perilous work, Dangerous Liaisons.(That script was also based on letters, but fictional ones.) On the other side of the argument is director David Cronenberg, the horror-flick veteran whose most lurid movies could hardly be further removed from Hampton's tidily literary manner.
The two men's styles sync better than might be expected in this smart if somewhat timid drama; Hampton's approach mostly dominates, his tasteful style reinforced by the upscale historical setting and Howard Shore's conventional score. Yet there are flashes of Cronenbergian anarchy that prevent the movie from settling too comfortably into the period upholstery.
The story turns on Sabina Spielrein, a Russian Jewish teenager who arrives at a Swiss asylum in 1904 with a serious case of what was then termed hysteria. As overplayed by Keira Knightley, she's a whirlwind of tics, grimaces, outbursts and contortions. Her problems might seem physical, but Jung (Michael Fassbender) decides to apply the "talking cure" developed by Freud (Viggo Mortensen).
Not so long before, Freud had shocked the world — or at least educated Europe — by suggesting that many psychological issues were fundamentally sexual. That insight is a key that quickly unlocks Spielrein's psyche; she's a masochist whose erotic proclivities were shaped by the beatings her father began administering when she was 4.
Jung doesn't simply diagnose Spielrein. He enters into her obsession, whipping her before they have sex — an approach that defies the teachings of Freud, who insists that doctors keep a distance from their patients. It also violates Jung's wedding vows to the oft-pregnant Emma (Sarah Gadon), whose inherited wealth funds the family's lavish standard of living.
Later, Jung and Freud actually meet, and the two go on a speaking tour of North America — an oddly truncated episode that seems to have been included in the movie for the sake of a single shipboard conversation. Jung also briefly treats one of Freud's wayward proteges, Otto Gross (Vincent Cassel), who has decided to "never repress anything." Jung disapproves, although his relationship with Spielrein is closer to Gross' lifestyle than to Freud's.
Jung and Freud begin to pull apart, which A Dangerous Method treats partially as a symptom of the gap between Jews and Protestants at the time. Jung's growing interest in the sort of mystical stuff now called "New Age" is mentioned but not really explored. A note at the film's end explains what happened to the principal characters. Spielrein, who became a psychiatrist, might have lived a "normal" life, if not for the Nazis.
Fassbender and Mortensen play their roles coolly and simply, which further emphasizes Knightley's antics. As if the actress weren't conspicuous enough, she uses a Streep-like Russian accent while her colleagues employ the usual Masterpiece Theater diction. The contrast is distracting, though not fatal.
This movie isn't simply work-for-hire for Cronenberg; it treats issues that have long been prominent in his films. Still, the clinical style doesn't play to the director's strengths. A Dangerous Method didn't have to be another Naked Lunch, but Freud plus Jung plus Cronenburg should have equaled something a little more dissonant and troubling.
Copyright Sony Pictures Classics

Film: A Dangerous Method: Film about Carl Jung and the beginning stages of psychoanalysis

2011-11-29T12:39:00.001-08:00

The Asheville Jung Center

Today isan historic event in the Jungian community. For the first time, a majorfilm production is released with C.G. Jung as the central focus. We willbe hosting a webinar about this film on January 25. More details willfollow. Do try to see this film in theaters and spread the wordaround your community if possible. This is a great opportunity tospread the word about Carl Jung...

OnAugust 17^th, 1904 a 17 year old Russian girl by the name of SabinaSpielrein was admitted to the famous Burghölzhi Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich,Switzerland into the care of a young fledgling psychiatrist by the name of CarlGustav Jung. Fresh from reading about the newest methods of psychiatrictreatment published by Sigmund Freud, a method later to be calledpsychoanalysis, Jung applied these new ideas to his treatment of MissSpielrein' hysteria. In two years her disturbing symptoms subsided and Jung,impressed with this new technique and wanting to impress his new mentor, Jungused the Spielrein case to impress Freud while showing him the positive resultsof his method.

Thusbegan a relationship between three people whose influence on Jung's work wouldbe immense in pointing the way forward to something new even as he wasseparating from the old. Based on John Kerr's well researched work called AMost Dangerous Methodpublished in 1993, the play titled The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton was publishedand performed in London in 2002 and focused on the relationships of Freud,Spielrein, Jung and Otto Gross. Hampton adapted the screenplay for the filmeventually called A Dangerous Method starring Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender asJung and Keira Knightley as Spielrein.

AsJung crossed the sacred boundaries of medicine with his client Spielrein, hedescended into his own madness even as she emerged from hers to go on tomedical school and become a psychoanalyst in her own right, always harboring adeep love for Jung. Though her relationship with Jung freed her from thepatriarchal shackles into which she was born, her work was never seriouslyrecognized and she moved back to her home town in Russia, married and hadchildren. There her psychoanalytic work focused on children. Years later shewould be executed by the Nazi's marching through Russia along with all herfamily.

The nineyears of the relationship between Jung, Spielrein and Freud shaped all theircareers and fatefully led to the breakup of Freud and Jung and left a gulfbetween Jung and Sabina. In January 2012 we will present a televised seminarand discussion of the film A Dangerous Method by David Cronenberg whilereflecting on the works from which the film drew, Kerr's A Most DangerousMethod, whose titleis based on a statement of caution by William James when reading about Freud'snew method of psychoanalysis and the play by David Hampton, The Talking Cure.

AUS Jungian Discussion Group Meeting, November 9, 2011

2011-11-20T16:57:00.000-08:00

Six of us met for the November, 2011, Jungian Discussion Group. We had a rousing conversation about a wide variety of subjects connected with Jungian Analytical Psychology.
This discussion group meets monthly on the Antioch University Seattle campus. The discussion group is open to all students, staff members, and faculty and administrative members--to anyone connected with the Antioch University Seattle community. Our next meeting convenes on Wednesday, December 14, 2011, from 1:00-3:00 pm in Room 209. We will discuss next quarter's schedule as well as any questions, topics, and concerns of the assembled group. All are welcome; please join our lively discussion of all things Jungian.

Reb Book dialogues from the Hammer Museum

2011-11-20T16:43:00.000-08:00

The Hammer Museum offers informative dialogues about the Red Book. One of the presenters is Jungian Analyst John Beebe from San Francisco. The talks are more than an hour in length. The Rubin Museum in NY also has some presentations about the Red Book.

http://hammer.ucla.edu/programs/detail/program_id/483

Seattle Jungian-Oriented Therapist Elizabeth Clark-Stern's New Book

2011-06-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Clark-Stern, MA, recently published her newest book: Soul Stories: Safari to Mara & Aria of the Horned Toad (2011).
Content from marketing materials (http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=19):
The characters in Soul Stories are so alive and compelling that they jump off the page right into your heart. Clark-Stern has the rare ability to blend her imaginative poetic voice with exciting page turning plots. Soul Stories will not only touch and engage young readers but are great adventures that will appeal to all ages."

Beverly Olevin, winner of Kirkus Discoveries Best Fiction 2010 The Good Side of Bad

Soul Stories explores two worlds: the world we know with our feelings and senses--sight, scent, touch, belonging, joy, loss, renewal--and the parallel world of dreams, intuition, imagination, and the dimension of the unknown. Together these realms inform, shape, challenge, and nurture the soul.

Safari to Mara finds our heroine on the brink of womanhood in Masai society. The only daughter in a sonless family, she is drafted to do work in the modern world, yet tradition calls her to prepare for initiation as a wife. In the wilderness of her namesake, Kenya’s Masai Mara, she finds an improbable guide who leads her into the mysterious recesses of her awakening heart.

Aria of the Horned Toad begins with the dream of a horned toad crawling out of Beatrice’s eyes,“so real I could feel his prickly little feet on my nose.” And so begins an odyssey to the source of all dreaming. Beatrice believes that in this dark and luminous place, she can find someone to fashion a dream to fix her Mama’s terrible ways, and soothe the longing in her own wild spirit.

About the Author: Elizabeth Clark-Stern is a psychotherapist in private practice in Seattle,Washington. Before embracing this beloved work, she worked as a professional screenwriter. Her produced plays and teleplays include All I Could See From Where I Stood, Help Wanted, and To See The Elephant. Her play, Out of the Shadows: A Story of Toni Wolff and Emma Jung, was performed at the International Jungian Congress in South Africa in 2007.

Product Details:

Trade Paperback: 180 pages

Publisher: Genoa House; First edition (June 21, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1926975006

ISBN-13: 978-1926975009

Clark-Stern,E. (2011). Soul stories: Safari to Mara and Aria of the horned-toad. Hamilton, ON: Genoa House.

Quotation about Working with the Opposites

2011-06-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

Polly Young-Eisendrath and Terrence Dawson’s text offersremarkable information about Jungian concepts. One of the students in my springquarter, 2011, Advanced Theories: Jungian course quoted the following in hisfinal synthesis paper:

Jung enters the conversation ofopposites, lets each side have its say, endures the struggle between theopposing point of view, suffers the anguish of being strung out between them,greets the resolving symbol with gratitude. The psyche, says Jung, arrives at athird point of view that includes the essence of each conflicting perspectivewhile at the same time combining them into a new symbol. We must enter thisprocess and cooperate with it if we are to be fully—and ethically—engaged inliving. (Ulanov, as cited in Young-Eisendrath & Dawson, 2009, p. 328)

Young-Eisendrath,P., & Dawson,T. (Eds.). (2009). The Cambridge companion to Jung (2^nded.). Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.

Red Book Study Group

2011-06-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

During a recent Red Book Study Group Meeting (June 12, 2011), I was struck by the following quotation (see below) from Jung's personal diary. Jung was grappling with external pressures (spirit of the times) versus internal pressure (spirit of the depths). Jung eloquently and cryptically described the process of literal versus symbolic murder of "the princes"--the external authorities and heroes. Instead, Jung suggested that we internalize this struggle to face and embrace our own incapacity, limitations, and true human nature.

But our ruler isthe spirit of this time, which rules and leads in us all. It is the generalspirit in which we think and act today. He is of frightful power, since he hasbrought immeasurable good to this world and fascinated men with unbelievablepleasure. He [sic] is bejeweled withthe most beautiful heroic virtue, and wants to drive men [sic] up to the brightest solar heights, in everlasting ascent.

The hero wants toopen up everything he can. But the nameless spirit of the depths evokeseverything that man [sic] cannot.Incapacity prevents further ascent. Greater height requires greater virtue. Wedo not possess it. We must first create it by learning to live with ourincapacity. We must give it life. For how else shall it develop into ability?

We cannot slay ourincapacity and rise above it. But that is precisely what we wanted. Incapacitywill overcame us and demand its share of life. Our ability will desert us, and willbelieve, in the sense of the spirit of this time, that it is a loss. Yet it isno loss but a gain, not for outer trappings, however, but for inner capacity.

The one who learnsto live with his incapacity has learned a great deal. This will lead us thevaluation of the smallest things, and to wise limitation, which the greaterheight demands. If all heroism is erased, we fall back into the misery ofhumanity and into even worse. Our foundation will be caught up in theexcitement since our highest tension, which concerns what lies outside us, willstir them up. We will fall into the cesspool of our underworld, among therubble of the centuries in us.

The heroic in youis the fact that you are ruled by the thought that this or that is good, that thisor that performance is indispensable, this or that cause is objectionable, thisor that goal must be attained in headlong striving work, this or that pleasureshould be ruthlessly repressed at all costs. Consequently, you sin againstincapacity. But incapability exists. No one should deny it, find fault with it,or shout it down. (p. 240)

References

Shamdasani,S. (Ed.). (2009). The red book: Libernovus by C. G. Jung. New York, NY: Norton.

Legacy and Influence

2011-06-08T14:39:00.000-07:00

50th Anniversary of Carl Gustaf Jung's Death
Carl Jung – Legacy and Influence

2nd Jun 2011; 13:00

RSA Thursday

June, 2011, marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Carl Jung, one of the 20th century's most influential, and controversial, psychologists and thinkers. If you've ever thought of yourself as an extrovert or introvert, or done a Myers-Briggs test, Jung is to blame. If you've ever sat opposite a counsellor, rather than laid on a couch, Jung was the first to practice therapy this way. If you've ever cursed, or praised, the New Age, Jung has shaped your mind again.

But what of his legacy, what of his influence 50 years on? And what of the controversy too, for Jung has also been accused of everything from anti-semitism to mystical obscurantism.

Mark Vernon chairs a discussion with two leading experts on Jung, each offering a different perspective: Robert Rowland-Smith, philosopher, consultant, columnist and author and Gary Lachman; author of Jung The Mystic and bass-player and composer in a band called Blondie.

Listen here:

Legacy and Influence

2011-05-11T14:19:00.001-07:00

Photo Credit: Borrowed from dreamthisday.com

Carl Jung

2011-05-11T14:09:00.000-07:00

"One does not become enlightened
by imagining
figures of
light,
but by
making the
darkness
conscious."

Photo Credit: Borrowed from runningcauseican'tfly.blogspot

Quotes from Jung’s Matter of Heart

2011-05-05T14:19:00.000-07:00

“The psyche is the greatest of all cosmic wonders and the sine qua non of the world as an object. It is in the highest degree odd that Western man, with but very few and ever fewer exceptions, apparently pays so little regard to this fact.

Swamped by the knowledge of external objects, the subject of all knowledge has been temporarily eclipsed to the point of seeming nonexistence.”

C. G. Jung, 1946

Collected Works 8, para. 357

“Not nature but the “genius of mankind” has knotted the hangman’s noose with which it can execute itself at any moment.”

C. G. Jung, 1952

C. W. 11, para. 734

“Today humanity, as never before, is split into two apparently irreconcilable halves.

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.

That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.”

C. G. Jung, 1959

C. W. 9, II, para. 126

“Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life. Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. All my works, all my creative activities, have come from those initial fantasies and dreams which began in 1912.”

C. G. Jung, 1961

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (paperback, p. 183).

“Philemon and other figures of my fantasies brought home to me the crucial insight that there are things in the psyche which I do not produce, but which produce themselves and have their own life.

Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. All my works, all my creative activities, have come from those initial fantasies and dreams which began in 1912.”

C. G. Jung, 1961

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (paperback, p. 183)

“Biographies should show people in their undershirts. Goethe had his weaknesses, and Calvin was often cruel. Considerations of this kind reveal the true greatness of a man. This way of looking at things is better than false hero worship!”

C. G. Jung, 1946

C. G. Jung Speaking, p. 165

“The great events of world history are, at bottom, profoundly unimportant. In the last analysis, the essential thing is the life of the individual.

This alone makes history, here alone do the great transformations first take place, and the whole future, the whole history of the world, ultimately spring as a gigantic summation from these hidden sources in individuals.

In our most private and most subjective lives we are not only the passive witnesses of our age, and its sufferers, but also its makers. We make our own epoch.”

C. G. Jung, 1934

C. W. 10, para. 315

“In our time, when such threatening forces of cleavage are at work, splitting peoples, individuals, and atoms, it is doubly necessary that those which unite and hold together should become effective; for life is founded on the harmonious interplay of masculine and feminine forces, within the individual human being as well as without. Bringing these opposites into union is one of the most important tasks of present-day psychotherapy.”

Emma Jung, 1955

Anima and Amimus, p. 87

“After my wife’s death in 1955, I felt an inner obligation to become what I myself am. To put it in the language of the Bollingen house, I suddenly realized that the small central section which crouched so low, so hidden, was myself! I could no longer hide myself behind the “maternal” and the “spiritual” towers. So, in that same year, I added an upper story to this section, which represents myself, or my egopersonality. I had started the first tower in 1923, two months after the death of my mother. These two dates are meaningful because the tower, as we shall see, is connected with the dead.

At Bollingen, I am in the midst of my true life, I am most deeply myself. Here I am, as it were, the “age-old son of the mother.” That is how alchemy puts it, very wisely, for the “old man,” “the ancient,” whom I had already experienced as a child, is personality No. 2, who has always been and always will be. He exists outside time and is the son of the maternal unconscious. In my fantasies he took the form of Philemon, and he comes to life again at Bollingen.”

C. G. Jung, 1961

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (paperback, p. 225).

“There are no other similar beings like man that are articulate and could give account of their functioning.”

C. G. Jung

“Man’s relation to God probably has to unergo a certain important change: instead of the propitiating praise to an unpredictable king or the child’s prayer to a loving father, the responsible living and fulfilling of the divine will in us will be our form of worship and commerce with God. His goodness means grace and light and His dark side, the terrible temptation of power.

Man has already received so much knowledge that he can destroy his own planet.

Let us hope that God’s good spirit will guide him in his decisions because it will depend upon man’s decision whether God’s creation will continue.

Nothing shows more drastically than this possibility how much of divine power has come within the reach of man.”

C. G. Jung, 1956

Letters, Vol. II, p. 316

RED BOOK Study Group

2011-03-15T18:34:00.000-07:00

Several members of the Seattle-based Jungian Psychotherapists Association meet once per month to study C. G. Jung's recently-published personal journal: The Red Book/Liber Novus. During our first meeting, we read and discussed the introductory comments, which offer a splendid overview and context for reading the journal. During our most recent meeting, we began reading Jung's inspirational words. Because the English translation refers to but does not include Jung's illustrations, we flipped back and forth between the English and German versions in order to include Jung's accompanying illustrations in our discussion. Jung began this journal in 1913, his 40th year; the entries describe Jung's reorientation from external success to his compelling inner life; Jung specifically compared his perspective of input from "the spirit of the times" and "the spirit of the depths," also contrasting explaining with understanding. Based on several dreams and visions, Jung continued to explore his internal dialogue. Likening his soul to a divine inner child, Jung described basic meaning as "leading a full life."

The House that Jung Built: Inner & Outer Structures: 2/4/11 web seminar

2011-02-09T19:11:00.000-08:00

The following is a paraphrased summary of the two speakers (Murray Stein and Andreas Jung) from the 2-4-11 web seminar titled The House that Jung Built: Inner & Outer Structures with Grandson Andreas Jung. Sponsored by the Asheville Jung Center.

Murray Stein gave a historical overview of Jung’s development of Analytic Psychology. Jung’s professional life revolved around his search for the connection between history and science.

I. At the Burgholzli Cantonal Mental Hospital in Zurich from 1900-1013, Jung worked on his theory of the complex, which was the “groundwork for his later work.” Jung’s work on word association experiments yielded a breakthrough regarding evidence of “unconscious active energy of irrational factors effecting responses to a list of test words.” Delayed responses, lack of responses, or strange responses indicated “clusters of feeling-toned associations and images showing disturbances in consciousness which Jung named ‘complexes, the first step in his theoretical foundation.” In 1906, Jung visited Freud in Vienna; by 1910, Jung was president of the Psychoanalytic Congress. Conversations with Freud and others in the newly-formed psychoanalytic community informed mutual exploration and formulations.

II. Jung developed the unique concepts about persona and shadow. Acknowledging “self-contradictions and discrepancies between the public and private self” (the shadow) is the first step toward individuation. As Jung continued to study other theories and texts, he “put his own spin on interpreting others’ ideas.” Jung crafted the concepts of complex, shadow, and persona.

III. The Red Book years (starting in 1913): years of substantial creativity. In his exploration of his own psyche, Jung arrived at the concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious. The Red Book is a first-hand experience with archetypal images, which Jung painted, described, and with which he participated in dialog; Jung later translated these experiences into theoretical constructs. In 1921, Jung developed the theory of psychological types, “the compass and orientation to consciousness.” In 1930, Jung began to explore alchemy and synchronicity. Jung’s work is not a final product, leaving room for “elasticity, openness, and continued development.”

Andreas Jung and his family currently reside in the Kusnacht family residence. In addition to Jung’s drawings and sculpture, the residence reflects Jung’s literal and metaphorical artistic expression. Mr. Jung described his grandfather’s houses as follows: “the inner and outer world of C. G. Jung are interconnected and form a single system.” In 1909, Jung dreamed of a house which became the template for his initial drawings of the family residence. Andreas Jung organized his comments via the following topics: childhood; private house; building patterns; The Red Book; The Tower; Encounters; The Stone; I Ching. Mr. Jung described Jung’s childhood experiences and dreams that informed Jung’s focus of attention and eventual vocation. Jung’s dream imagery included specific architectural designs and lakeside locations. The design of the Kusnacht home fit well with both nature and neighboring homes and buildings. The value of “normal life” with family and home supported Jung’s delving into the depth of human experience. In The Red Book, Jung “released his fantasies of an alien world which led to concrete consultations from unconscious material.” Jung often explored two worlds: above/below; actual/numinous. Jung’s dialog with an inner figure, Philemon, resulted in a realization of the autonomous psyche. Jung wanted a second dwelling in which to privately explore other aspects of himself; in 1923, Jung began to build a residence at Bollingen in the shape of a tower. As he worked on himself and worked on the tower, he expanded the building both horizontally and vertically; the simple structure had no electricity or plumbing. Jung also carved a garden stone on which he depicted many concepts and principles of his theoretical perspective of human existence.

Mr. Jung’s presentation was touching and intimate. Jung’s descendants have continuously lived in the family residence in Kusnacht. Mr. Jung offers small scheduled tours of the family home. Mr. Jung published a book chronicling the history and restoration of the family home. Several foundations handle current and future management of the home and of Jung’s library.

The following sources and resources were mentioned in the 2-4-11 Asheville Jung Center web seminar with Andreas Jung and Murray Stein.

Stein, M. (Ed.). (2010). Jungian psychoanalysis: Working in the spirit of Carl Jung. Peru, IL: Carus.

Stein, M. (1998). Jung’s map of the soul: An introduction. Chicago, IL: Carus.

Jung, A. (date unknown). The house of C. G. Jung: The history and restoration of the residence of Emma and C. G. Jung-Raushenbach. (location and publisher unknown).

The Red Book and other Jungian material are currently on display (through March, 2011) at the Reitberg Museum in Zurich.

Archived Jungian materials are currently available at the following address: http://e-rara.ch/

Symbolic and archetypal images are available at Aras.org

C. G. Jung quotation

2011-02-09T15:32:00.000-08:00

Many years ago (1998-1999), the C. G. Jung Society, Seattle, printed bookmarks publicizing their workshop schedule on one side and offering the following quotation from Jung on the reverse: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." C. G. Jung

MBTI Workshop

2011-02-08T10:52:00.000-08:00

In January, 2011, Ann B. Blake, Ph.D. presented the information below to retreat participants at Antioch University Seattle. The focus of the retreat was application of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to work relationships and responsibilities.

Retreat Goals and Objectives

I. Understand self & self-acceptance;

II. Reclaim projections;

III. Understand others & accept others;

IV. Application of concepts and learning to work relationships, tasks, and context

A Ritual to Read to Each Other

William Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.

Stafford, W. (1994). The darkness around us is deep. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Different Drums and Different Drummers

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.

Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.

Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.

Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.

I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

I may be your spouse, your parent, your offspring, your friend, or your colleague. If you will allow me any of my own wants or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that some day these ways of mine might not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right—for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeing to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences. (Keirsey & Bates, 1984, p. 1)

References

Keirsey, D., & Bates, M. (1984). Please understand me. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis.

Although I learned to approach the world with an Eeyore, glass-half-full mentality, I knew at a young age that some other philosophy was available and more useful. Just after undergrad school, I heard about Jungian philosophy, to which I was drawn because the philosophy values all aspects of self and others. Of course I continue to be a work in progress; at least I now have a vocabulary and conceptual framework upon which I can rely when I often get into trouble. We will explore the Jungian conceptual framework via the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and general Jungian concepts.

All of the information today is both theoretical and my opinion. These ideas make sense to me and provide support and ways to problem solve and make decisions. I am not asking you to agree with or buy any of this information. Please take that which is useful and discard that which is not useful to you.

The theoretical and practical applications of the MBTI are quite idealistic: humans actually using their pre-frontal cortex. The most common psychological function carried out by the prefrontal cortex area is the executive function; executive function relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social "control" (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially-unacceptable outcomes).

All people are unique—therefore, different from each other: “want different things, have different motives, purposes, aims, values, needs, drives, impulses, urges. . . .they believe differently: they think, cognize, conceptualize, perceive, understand, comprehend, and cogitate differently. And, of course, manners of acting and emotions, governed. . .by wants and beliefs, follow suit and differ radically among people” (Keirsey & Bates, 1984, p. 2).

We are often self-oriented so that others’ behaviors seem temporary or odd, at best, or crazy, at worst. A part of us wants all others to be just like us—to comfort us about who we are and how we are—not to threaten or to shake up the status quo/comfort zone. We spend a fair amount of time complaining about the differences in other and another fair amount to time trying to change others—to be like us. This task is impossible—for the good of all. A normal stage of development is to be seen and agreed with (normal narcissism: grandson beaming at grandmother’s replication of his drawings). We are supposed to gain identity stability and confidence during that stage—so that we can branch out to revel in the grand variety in life. When we feel vulnerable, we revert (usually outside of our conscious awareness) to that need to see ourselves reflected in others.

In contrast to other contemporaries, Jung stated in 1910 that, rather than “fundamentally alike” (p. 2), “people are different in fundamental ways even though they all have the same multitude of instincts (archetypes) to drive them from within” (p. 3). Each person has inherent and unique preferences about perceiving the world, which are described as “functions,” “types,” or “psychological types.”

In the 1950s, Isabel Myers and Kathryn Briggs devised the Myers Briggs type indicator based on Jung’s four psychological types, but also incorporating concepts of Hippocrates, Adickes, Kretschmer, Sprager, and Adler. Similar to physiology, temperaments are thought to be inborn; attempting to change these temperaments is as abusive as trying to change someone’s physiology (e.g., making someone taller—other examples?). When we assess others’ physiology or temperament to be “flaws or afflictions,” we do harm to identity, self-esteem, and agency.

The payoff for seeing self and others as unique, different from self, and wonderful-as-is: appreciation of self, others, and the world. Start by exploring and understanding and accepting yourself; then work/play at expanding yourself by exploring and understanding/accepting others. For example, reading about your “type” is useful; reading about the opposite type is also useful. “The essence of type development is the development of perception [Sensing and Intuition] and judgment [Thinking and Feeling] and of appropriate ways to use them. . . .adequate perception and judgment make it possible to face the problems in a mature and credible manner” (Myers and Myers, 1983, p. 167).

Jung’s four pairs of preferences

(Keirsey & Bates, 1984, pp. 14-26):

E/I: Extraverted/Introverted

S/N: Sensing/Intuition

T/F: Thinking/Feeling

J/P: Judging/Perceiving

Preference = choice, not definition in concrete, although these preferences seem to be inborn, we continue to have plasticity from situation to situation or based on experience/trauma. Jung did not classify people as falling into one or the other of the four pairs; Jung understood the functions as a fluid continuum on which a person is described via degree of the function; preferences can change (become stronger or weaker) over time; functions tend to become stronger with application yet do not disappear sans use. The importance of Jungian typology is the possible description about differences in people’s preferred perception of and accompanying responses to inner and outer worlds (Keirsey & Bates, 1984, pp. 14-15).

The preferred function (dominant) (S, N, T, or F) is the highest score (see chart on page 7). The opposite function is less developed, less sophisticated. The other typology scores are auxiliary and can be accessed as flexible supplements and complements to the dominant function.

Example: INFP: Introverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving. Bold = highest score and, therefore, dominant function; opposite of Intuition (N) is Sensing (S), which is the subordinate function and is, therefore, less developed and less sophisticated. The Feeling (F) typology is the auxiliary and is supplemental/complementary to the dominant function. The person’s typology indicates that the opposing paired typologies are not strong suits in this person’s life: ESTJ. Because the dominant function is Intuition (N), the opposite type, S/Sensing, tends to be less developed and less sophisticated (as are Extraversion, Thinking, and Judging).

Extraversion/Introversion: orientation to life

Extraversion: OUTER: outer world of people/things; external activities/practical application; outside environment

Introversion: INNER: inner world of concepts and ideas; inner insight, reflection, contemplation; insight regarding self and others and relationships between ideas; perception of own unconscious processes

FUNCTIONS/PROCESSES (use of the mind)

Thinking



Sensing	Intuition

Feeling

Perceiving: awareness of life; finding out; knowing; understanding tasks

Sensing: FACTS: direct perception/observation via senses; gathering information; actual; practical application; what and how

Intuition: HUNCHES: indirect perception/observation via unconscious images/insight/imagination; possibilities; principles; theory; why

Judging: conclusions; deciding; applying information to decisions; implementing tasks/plans

Thinking: ANALYSIS; yes/no; logical, objective, and impersonal observation (just the facts)

Feeling: APPRECIATION: personal and subjective; appreciation of human relationships; pleasing/displeasing

ATTITUDES

Judging/Perceiving: (methods of dealing with outer world)

Judging: CONCLUSION: agree/disagree; order life

Perceiving: UNDERSTANDING: open mind; just live life

(Myers & Myers, 1983)

Goal and Objective I: I. Understand self & self-acceptance

The following charts summarize Ann Blake’s Myers-Briggs Type Indicator results (based on Myers, P. B., & Myers, K. D. (1998). Form M Report form. Mountain View, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

DEFINITIONS

E	Prefer to focus on the outer world of people & things	I	Prefer to focus on the inner world of ideas & impressions
S	Tend to focus on the present & on concrete information gained from your senses	N	Tend to focus on the future, with a view toward patterns & possibilities
T	Tend to base decisions on logic & on objective analysis	F	Tend to base decision primarily on values & on subjective evaluation of person-centered concerns
J	Like a planned and organized approach to life & prefer to have things settled	P	Like a flexible & spontaneous approach to life; prefer to keep your options open

Ann Blake’s scores over time: fluctuations: I/E; P/J; F/T

3-6-90	INFP
8-19-91	ENFP
10-24-94	ENFP
6-8-96	ENTJ
8-25-05	INFJ
4-23-10	INFJ
1-21-11	ENFJ

INDIVIDUAL SCORES: Ann Blake’s current scores (12/11) as an example: ENFJ

Reported type	E/I	S/N	T/F	J/P
Preference Scores	13/8 (slight)	8/18 (moderate)	3/21 (clear)	19/4 (clear)

Goal and Objective I & III: I. Understand self & self-acceptance;

Understand others & accept others

The following charts (pp. 11-16) offer information about typical typology characteristics. You can apply the information in these charts toward understanding yourself and others.

ATTITUDES: Extraversion (E) vs. Introversion (I)

Extraversion (E)	Introversion (I)
“Sociable” (p. 14) Desires contact and connection	“Territorial” (p. 15) “desires space: private places in the mind and private environmental places”
75% of the population	about 25% of the population
Choosing people as a source of energy Western society values and rewards this behavior	Choosing alone time as a source of energy Both society and the person often criticize this behavior
Loneliness: not with people	Loneliness: in a crowd, especially strangers
Breadth External Extensive Interaction Multiplicity of relationships Expenditure of energy Interest in external events	Depth Internal Intensive Concentration Limited relationships Conservation of energy Interest in internal reactions

(Keirsey & Bates, 1984, pp. 14-16)

FUNCTIONS: Sensation (S) vs. Intuition (N)

Thinking about things: area of most misunderstanding and negative perceptions;

“widest gulf between people” (p. 18); often oppositional (p. 21).

Sensation (S)	Intuition (N)
practical	innovative
75% of the population	about 25% of the population
Sensible: wants, trusts, remembers facts; believes & knows via experience & history Has hunches, but tends to ignore inner voices If ignore hunches too long, tend to disappear	Metaphoric; vivid imagery; speculation; complexities emerge as complete whole Visions, intuitions, hunches—in all aspects of vocation or social life If ignore reality too long, might be out of touch with realities of environment
Earth-bound; Grounded in reality	Daydreams; Poetry, fantasy, fiction
Anchored to earth: terrestrial	Seems extraterrestrial: exploring; beyond present/past
Notices the actual event—wants to deal with the present	Possibilities/future: pulling like magnets
Accurate; notices specifics; Talking with others: interested in their experience, their past Focus on present rather than worrying about future Remain in reality; tolerate no nonsense Pick up on specific elements	Scans, glances; attuned to relevant things; might miss details; might be erroneous re facts Lives in anticipation: sometimes results in dissatisfaction and restlessness; might skip from one possibility to another—changing or improving the current situation; skip to something new rather than completing
Value experience, wisdom of past, realistic Depends on perspiration Attuned words: Actual, down-to-earth, no-nonsense, fact, practical, sensible	Value hunches and a vision of the future; speculative Depends on inspiration Attuned words: possible, fascinating, fantasy, fiction, ingenious, imaginative
Negative descriptors (from N): plodding, exasperatingly slow to see possibilities	Negative descriptors (from S): flighty, impractical, unrealistic
Employer: past experience	Employer: verbalizes about the future; hypothetical situations

(Keirsey & Bates, 1984, pp. 16-19)

Thinking (T) vs. Feeling (F) Selecting what to do/not to do; both necessary; matter of comfort; these functions can be complementary if understood and valued; each needs the person from the opposite pole to present the other perspective.

Thinking (T)	Feeling (F)
Impersonal, objective basis of choice; principles and logic	Personal, subjective basis of choice; personal impact
More men than women	More women than men; Culturally sanctioned
Easier for F to develop T (covered in schooling) than for T to develop F
Both types are equally emotionally intense
Emotions aren’t as visible and, therefore, not noticed as much by others (thus often described as cold and unemotional)	Emotions more visible via physiological responses; Others’ description: warmer and more capable of deeper feelings than T Others affected by F’s expression of feeling: contagious
Sometimes embarrassed to show intense emotions	Seems to enjoy excessive show of feelings
When Fs realize the depth of Ts’ emotions and Ts realize that F can think logically (though not always verbalize), misunderstandings can diminish
Objective, principles, policy, laws, criteria; Impersonal approach; Justice, categories, standards, critique, analysis, allocation; Priority: objective criteria Adept at argument/debate; wins people over to point of view via logic rather than appealing to emotion	Subjective values, social values, extenuating circumstance, intimacy, persuasion; Personal approach to people & projects; Humane, harmony, good/bad, appreciate, sympathy, devotion; Priority: subjective criteria; Adept at persuasion; making choices via personal impact of decision on other people
Negative descriptors (from T): rule-governed; impersonal; almost inhuman; heartless, cold, remote, intellectualizers; stony-hearted	Negative descriptors (from T): emotion-laden; muddle-headed; soft-hearted; unable to take firm stand; illogical; unable to face up to opposition; wear hearts on sleeve

(Keirsey & Bates, 1984, pp. 20-22)

Judging (J) vs. Perceiving (P) Closure/setting vs. options open and fluid;

differences can lead to criticism in the work arena.

Judging (J)	Perceiving (P)
Sense of urgency until decision made, then at rest, at ease, sense of satisfaction	Experience resistance to making a decision, wanting more data, thus feeling uneasy & restless after decision made
Establish deadlines; take seriously and want others to do the same	Look at deadlines as a time to start rather than a time to complete
Take deadlines seriously; communicate deadlines to others; expect that deadlines be met	Might become anxious about others’ meeting deadlines and, therefore, move deadlines up
Jung’s definition: concluding	Jung’s definition: becoming aware
Equally distributed in population
Equally judgmental and equally perceptive
Source of conflict in relationships:
Push toward decision	Hold out for additional data & options
Desire or valuing of closure	Desire or valuing of the open-ended
Work ethic is paramount; complete work before rest or play; Preparation, maintenance; cleaning up afterwards	Play ethic is paramount; More playful; less serious; Work process must be enjoyable
Outcome-oriented	Process-oriented
Settle, decided, fixed, plan ahead, run one’s life, closure, decision-making, planned, completed, decisive, wrapped up, urgency, deadlines, move forward	Pending, gather more data, flexible, adapt as you go, let life happen, keep opinions open, open-ended, emergent, tentative, pleating of time, wait & see
Negative descriptors (from P): jumping to conclusions, hasty decision, driven, driving, too task-oriented, pressured & pressuring, rigid & inflexible, arbitrary, premature in planning & deciding	Negative descriptors (from J): indecisive, procrastinating, foot-dragging, aimless, purposeless, resistive, critical, blocking decisions

“Usually, irritation by another’s preference will dissipate when J and P behaviors are studied. Most people become fascinated and entertained by these differences, and with continued understanding, find it easy to make allowances for the other’s way” (p. 24). (Keirsey & Bates, 1984, pp. 22-24).

EFFECT OF THE EI PREFERENCE
Extraverts	Introverts
Afterthinkers. Cannot understand life until they have lived it.	Forethinkers. Can live life until they understand it.
Attitude relaxed and confident. Expect waters to prove shallow; plunge readily into new and untried experiences.	Attitude reserved and questioning. Expect waters to prove deep; pause to take soundings in the new and untried.
Minds outwardly directed, interest and attention following objective happenings, primarily those of the immediate environment. Their real world therefore is the outer world of people and things.	Minds inwardly directed, frequently unaware of the objective environment, interest and attention being engrossed by inner events. Their real world therefore is the inner world of ideas and understanding.
The civilizing genius, the people of action and practical achievement, who go from doing to considering [sic] back to doing.	The cultural genius, the people of ideas and abstract invention, who go from considering to doing and back to considering.
Conduct in essential matters is always governed by objective conditions.	Conduct in essential matters is always governed by subjective values.
Spend themselves lavishly upon external claims and conditions which to them constitute life.	Defend themselves as far as possible against external claims and conditions in favor of the inner life.
Understandable and accessible, often sociable, more at home in the world of people and things than in the world of ideas.	Subtle and impenetrable, often taciturn and shy, more at home in the world of ideas than in the world of people and things.
Expansive and less impassioned, they unload their emotions as they go along.	Intense and passionate, they bottle up their emotions and guard them as carefully as high explosives.
Typical weakness lies in a tendency toward intellectual superficiality, very conspicuous in extreme types.	Typical weakness lies in a tendency toward impracticality, very conspicuous in extreme types.
Health and wholesomeness depend upon a reasonable development of balancing introversion.	Health and wholesomeness depend upon a reasonable development of balancing extraversion.
Freud, Darwin, T. & F. D. Roosevelt	Jung, Einstein, Lincoln

(Myers & Myers, 1993, p. 56)

EFFECT OF THE SN PREFERENCE
Sensing Types	Intuitive Types
Face life observantly, craving enjoyment.	Face life expectantly, craving inspiration.
Admit to consciousness every sense impression and are intensely aware of the external environment; they are observant at the expense of imagination.	Admit fully to consciousness only the sense impressions related to the current inspiration; they are imaginative at the expense of observation.
Are by nature pleasure lovers and consumers, loving life as it is and having a great capacity for enjoyment; they are in general contented.	Are by nature initiators, inventors, and promoters; having no taste for life as it is, and a small capacity for living as it is, and a small capacity for living in and enjoying the present, they are generally restless.
Desire chiefly to possess and enjoy, and being very observant, they are imitative, wanting to have what other people have and to do what other people do, and are very dependent upon their physical surroundings.	Desiring chiefly opportunities and possibilities, and being very imaginative, they are inventive and original, quite indifferent to what other people have and do, and are very independent of their physical surroundings.
Dislike intensely any and every occupation that requires the suppression of sensing, and are most reluctant to sacrifice present enjoyment to future gain or good.	Dislike intensely any and every occupation that necessitates sustained concentration on sensing, and are willing to sacrifice the present to a large extent since the neither live in it nor particularly enjoy it.
Prefer the act of living in the present to the satisfactions of enterprise and achievement.	Prefer the joy of enterprise and achievement and pay little or no attention to the art of living in the present.
Contribute to the public welfare by their support of every form of enjoyment and recreation, and every variety of comfort, luxury, and beauty.	Contribute to the public welfare by their inventiveness, initiative, enterprise, and powers of inspired leadership in every direction of human interest.
Are always in danger of being frivolous, unless balance is attained through development of a judging process (T/F).	Are always in danger of being fickle, changeable, and lacking in persistence, unless balance is attained through development of a judging process (T/F).

(Myers & Myers, 1993, p. 63)

EFFECT OF THE TF PREFERENCE
Thinking Types	Feeling Types
Value logic above sentiment.	Value sentiment above logic.
Are usually impersonal, being more interested in things than in human relationships	Are usually personal, being more interested in people than in things.
If forced to choose between truthfulness and tactfulness, will usually be truthful.	If forced to choose between truthfulness and tactfulness, will usually be tactful.
Are stronger in executive ability than in the social arts.	Are stronger in the social arts than in executive ability.
Are likely to question the conclusions of other people on principle—believing them probably wrong.	Are likely to agree with those around them, thinking as other people think, believing them probably right.
Naturally brief and businesslike, they often seem to lack friendliness and sociability without knowing or intending it.	Are naturally friendly, whether sociable or not, they find it difficult to be brief and businesslike.
Are usually able to organize facts and ideas into a logical sequence that states the subject, makes the necessary points, comes to a conclusion, and stops there without repetition.	Usually find it hard to know where to start a statement or in what order to present what they have to say. May therefore ramble and repeat themselves, with more detail than a thinker wants or thinks necessary.
Suppress, undervalue, and ignore feeling that is incompatible with the thinking judgments.	Suppress, undervalue, and ignore thinking that is offensive to the feeling judgments.
Contribute to the welfare of society by the intellectual criticism of its habits, customs, and beliefs, by the exposure or wrongs, solution of problems, and the support of science and research for the enlargement of human knowledge and understanding.	Contribute to the welfare of society by their loyal support of good works and those movements, generally regarded as good by the community which they feel correctly about and so can serve effectively.
Are found more often among men than women and when married to a feeling type naturally become guardian of the spouse’s neglected and unreliable thinking.	Are found more often among women than men and, when married to a thinking type, frequently become guardian of the spouse’s neglected and harassed feelings.

(Myers & Myers, 1993, p. 68)

EFFECT OF THE JP PREFERENCE
Judging Types	Perceptive Types
Are more decisive than curious.	Are more curious than decisive.
Live according to plans, standards, and customs not easily or lightly set aside, to which the situation of the moment must, if possible, be made to conform.	Live according to the situation of the moment and adjust themselves easily to the accidental and the unexpected.
Make a very definite choice among life’s possibilities, but nay not appreciate or utilize unplanned, unexpected, and incidental happenings.	Are frequently masterful in their handling of the unplanned, unexpected, and incidental, but may not make an effective choice among life’s possibilities.
Being rational, they depend upon reasoned judgments, their own or borrowed from someone else, to protect them from unnecessary undesirable experiences.	Being empirical, they depend on their readiness for anything and everything to bring them a constant flow of new experience—much or more than they can digest or use.
Like to have matters settled and decided as promptly as possible so that they will know what is going to happen and can plan for it and be prepared for it.	Like to keep decisions open as long as possible before doing anything irrevocable, because they don’t know nearly enough about it yet.
Think or feel that they know what other people ought to do about almost everything, and are not averse to telling them.	Know what other people are doing, and are interested to see how it comes out.
Take real pleasure in getting something finished, out of the way, and off their minds.	Take great pleasure in starting something new, until the newness wears off.
Are inclined to regard the perceptive types as aimless drifters.	Are inclined to regard the judging types as only half-alive.
Aim to be right.	Aim to miss nothing.
Are self-regimented, purposeful, and exacting.	Are flexible, adaptable, and tolerant.

(Myers & Myers, 1993, p. 75)

Goal and Objective III: Reclaim projections

Jung stated that all parts of us are valuable; each of us has at least some of all human aspects; traits we admire or dislike get projected/attributed to others.

Reclaim projections: individual projection exercise

Make two lists:

(1) List 2-3 annoying irritating characteristics

For each characteristic, write the following statement: I too think/feel/behave in this manner in the following ways:

(2) List 2-3 characteristics you respect/admire.

For each characteristic, write the following statement: I too think/feel/behave in this manner in the following ways:

(3) Write a brief paragraph summarizing your thoughts, feelings, perceptions, experience regarding participating in the above self-exploration. Briefly describe the outcome of the above exploration.

Find four people with whom to share portions of the above experience (each person chooses the amount and content of shared information).

Goal and Objective IV: Application of concepts and learning to work relationships, tasks, and context

Ideally, co-workers constitute a team with a common purpose and should work for the same general goal. Their differences in type can be an asset because they help people to do and to enjoy widely different kinds of work. One job may be boring to one type and hence badly done, but it could be interesting and rewarding to another type and expertly handled. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 163)

Introvert types with intuition: think of new possibilities.

Extravert types with intuition: translate ideas into action, but not much interested in implementation.

Sensing types: great satisfaction in producing tangible results and problem-solving issues that interfere with production.

Thinking types: effective in jobs dealing with inanimate objects.

Feeling types: good at dealing with people.

Sensing types with judging: function well and contentedly in structured jobs with sharply defined procedures that must be followed.

Intuitive types with perception: chafe at structure; want to take initiative to pursue the possibilities they perceive. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 163)

Any team, therefore, should include a sufficient variety of types to perform the required job effectively and with satisfaction. Cooperation, however, can run into difficulties because people of opposite types often disagree on what should be done, or how, or whether anything needs to be done at all. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 163)

Morale and effectiveness will survive intact if the members of the team recognize that both types of perception [Sensing and Intuition] and both types of judgment [Thinking and Feeling] are essential to a sound solution to a problem. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 163)

Communication between different types is a greater problem than is generally recognized. A statement that is clear and reasonable to one type may sound meaningless or preposterous to another. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 164)

To be useful, a communication needs to be listed to, understood, and considered without hostility. . . .Of course what is deemed interesting varies from type to type, but the presentation of a good idea can usually be designed to fit the listener’s interests. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 164)

Sensing types: take facts more seriously than possibilities; want an explicit statement of the problem before considering possible solutions.

Intuitive types: want interesting possibilities before looking at the facts.

Thinking types: need that a statement have a beginning, a logically and concise sequence of points, and an end—especially an end.

Feeling types: mainly interested in matters that directly affect people. (Myers & Myers, 1983, p. 164)

Employers/supervisors and employees/supervisees cooperate to accomplish specific tasks. In addition to payment/salary and self-satisfaction of doing a job well, people also need recognition and appreciation. The following list specifies support areas for each of the perceiving/judging typologies. When we offer support, we can be informed about the specific type of support that might fit the individual.

Satisfaction earned by successful striving à incentive; support, reward, recognition

S: extra pleasures or possessions

N: special freedoms or opportunities

T: new/additional dignity or authority

F: new/additional praise or companionship

Goals and Objectives I & III: Understand self & self-acceptance; Understand others & accept others;

Applied learning: Application of concepts and learning to work relationships, tasks, and context

Describe your current perception of the gifts you have to offer to your team.

Describe the increase in your self-valuing of your gifts:

Describe your current perception of the gifts your teammates offer to your team.

Describe the increase in your increased valuing of others’ gifts.

Goal and Objective IV: Application of concepts and learning to work relationships, tasks, and context

Job context

Brief questionnaire:

Rank in order the most important features of your ideal job:

(1) use special abilities

(2) creative and original work

(3) stable and secure future

(4) source of satisfaction

(5) earn a substantial salary

(6) be of service to others

(7) experience fulfillment

(8) start new tasks

(9) finish ongoing tasks

(10) appreciated for social investment in relationships

(11) appreciated for competency

(12) other

(Based on Myers & Myers, 1984, p. 149)

If your current position matches your four highest ranked items, you are fortunate and, probably, satisfied.

If your current position does not match your four highest ranked items:

(a) Is this position a stepping stone? If so, describe your occupational/professional goals:

(b) What can you do to alter the job to increase your satisfaction?

Our deepest fear

By Marianne Williamson

(Quoted in Nelson Mandela’s inauguration speech)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of god. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Williams, 1992, pp. 190-191)

References

Williamson, M. (1992). A return to love: Reflections on the principles of a Course in Miracles. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

References

Keirsey, D., & Bates, M. (1984). Please understand me. Del Mar, CA: Prometheus Nemesis.

Myers, I. B., & Myers, P. B. (1993). Gifts differing: Understanding personality type. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Stafford, W. (1994). The darkness around us is deep. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Williamson, M. (1992). A return to love: Reflections on the principles of a Course in Miracles. New York, NY: Harper Collins.

Bibliography

Kroeger, O., & Thuesen, J. M. (1988). Type talk: The 16 personality types that determine how we live, love, and work. New York, NY: Doubleday.

AUS Library Psychology Jung Guide

2011-01-13T17:13:00.000-08:00

Includes information on Jungian associations, journals, videos, and e-books. Check it out!
http://antiochseattle.libguides.com/content.php?pid=76615&sid=1497064

C. G. Jung Society, Seattle: 2011 Program Schedule

2010-12-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

The following are C. G. Jung Society, Seattle scheduled programs for 2011: Good Shepherd Center (GSC), 4649 Sunnyside Avenue North, Seattle, 98103

The Porphetic Tradition & the Battle for the Sould of the Workd: the Legagy of Henry Corbin, Tom Cheetham, PhD
May 13, 2011: Friday lecture: 7-9 pm
May 14: Saturday workshop: 10 am-4 pm

The Female Trickster: the Mask that Reveals, Ricki Tannen, JD, LLM, PhD
September 16, 2011: Friday lecture: 7-9 pm
September 17, 2011: Saturday workshop: 10 am-4 pm

Who Stole the Arms of Venus deMilo? The Myth of Beauty form Aphrodite to Ansel Adams, Phil Cousineau
October 14, 2011: Friday lecture: 7-9 pm
October 15, 2011: Saturday workshop: 10 am-4 pm
October 16, 2011: Global Spirit Salon, moderated by Phil Cousineau: www.linktv.org/globalspirit

Jung's Post Cariac Visions: Image and Individualtion, Anne Ruitbery Taylor, PhD

November 11, 2011: Friday lecture: 7-9 pm
November 12, 2011: Saturday workshop: 10 am-4 pm

TOPIC TBA, Naomi Lowinski, Jungian Analst
December 9, 2011: Friday lecture: 7-9 pm
Decenber 10, 2011: Saturday workshop: 10 am-4 pm

Returning in January, 2012: James Hollis, PhD

The Making of the Red Book

2010-11-08T11:04:00.001-08:00

Dr. Sandra Meggert's "Ode to Jung's Theory" (An incomplete Ode!)

2010-10-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

To understand Jung’s theory takes thinking
With terminology it is incredibly infused.
When reading I find myself sinking,
Into my Psyche, totally confused

There’s the unconscious, both personal and collective
The Self, the Psyche and the Ego
About each we must be reflective
When through therapy (or graduate school) we go.

If the Psyche is fairly broken,
And the Analysand has pain.
Through the unconscious we must be pokin’
In order to create any gain.

Analyzing our Self is a must,
Therapy relationships are full of propriety.
As we bare our soul, with trust,
Our goal is to release anxiety.

Each of us has a shadow side.
One we don’t want to own.
It’s the part we wish to hide,
We think it sets a negative tone.

Our anima influences relating
Or is it our animus?
Whatever—possible confusion it’s creating
And often times makes us delirious

Archetypes define many roles
But not overtly it seems
When we seek to refine our souls
We have to attend to our dreams.

Individuation is our primary goal.
This is our lifelong ambition. .
So we strive to understand our role
Not even sure of the definition.

Critics abound and are picky.
As they defend their theory rejection.
Analyzing them isn’t too tricky,
Just say, “It’s a Jungian projection.”

Dr. Meggert, visiting faculty member in the Mental Health Counseling Specialization at Antioch University Seattle, wrote this poem when she audited the PSYC 632 Advanced Theories: Jungian course. Permission granted from poet to publish this poem on this blog.

Internet site re interview with Katherine Sanford

2010-10-24T20:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.authorradio.com/interviews/katherine_sanford_serpent_and_the_cross_interview.html

See previous post regarding workshop with Katie Sanford on November 20, 2010, on Mercer Island.

Practical MA Applications of Jung's Analytical Psychology: Skills, Interventions, and Ideas

2010-10-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

Course handout for PSYC632 Advanced Theories: Jungian
School of Applied Psychology, Counseling, and Family Therapy
Antioch University Seattle
Ann B. Blake, Ph.D.
June 15, 2010

Be curious rather than judgmental. Approach your work with clients with an open mind and attitude, bringing no previous assumptions and ideas. Take an initial stance that you do not know.

Take a non-hierarchical relational stance. You and your clients are on a mutual journey.

Hold a wider lens about the range of human nature (e.g., typology, themes, images, symbols, inner characters, archetypal characters).

Monitor recurrent bodily responses, affective responses, images, and words/phrases. After reflecting about your connection with these responses, (1) offer a hypothesis and (2) wonder whether and the degree to which clients resonate with these responses.

Focus on clients’ goals rather than your own. What do clients want from the therapeutic experience; what do clients want for their lives?

Hold clients’ wholeness as your approach to relationship. Assume that clients simultaneously present the totality of themselves as well as specific parts of themselves.

Focus on strengths; focus on moving toward wholeness. Listen for movement toward wholeness. Bring clients’ attention to their strengths and to their movement toward wholeness.

Listen for ambivalence and for tension between opposites: on the one hand, ________, and on the other hand, _________. Inquire about the degree to which clients can accept/integrate both/all sides of situations and of their personalities.

Look for areas of one-sidedness; listen for self-criticism and/or self-blame and/or self-rejection. Offer clients the idea about the possibility of incorporating the other side(s) of situations and/or of their personalities.

Be aware of your typology as well as the strengths and challenges associated with your typology. Make educated guesses about clients’ typology. Brainstorm/consider ways you can genuinely interact from your typology AND include an awareness of clients’ typology in your interactions. Offer ideas about ways clients can expand and integrate other aspects of their typology, for example, moving closer to the center of the continua so that clients can more flexibly respond to the world from a realistic/relevant perspective.

Dreams: facilitate clients’ dream exploration. Explore the context; use associations and active imagination (moving the dream story forward). Only after clients have thoroughly explored the dream images, you can offer furthering questions and associations. Inquire about the degree to which the dream offers compensatory ideas: offering the other side of a one-sided perspective; offering the opposite perspective; widening the viewpoint; offering alternative actions. Be cautious about interpretations.

Active imagination: suggest that clients continue associating to images, dreams, and narratives so that clients can deepen their exploration and understanding of their inner lives.

Perceive countertransference as a gift: after exploring your portion of the response, your human response offers a glimpse into clients’ inner experience and informs your interactions with clients.

Blake, A. B. (2010, Spring Quarter). Practical MA applications of Jung's Analytical Psychology: Skills, interventions, and ideas. Class handout for Advanced Theories: Jungian. Antioch University Seattle.

Samuel Kimbles

2010-10-14T09:38:00.000-07:00

The Jungian Psychotherapists Association (jungseattle.org) sponsored Samuel Kimbles, Ph.D., San Francisco Jungian Analyst, as the speaker for the annual Public Seminar. In his presentation titled Wounds of the past, Tendril of the Future through the Lens of Cultural Complexes, Dr. Kimbles addressed the following learning objectives:
(1) Building upon Jung’s theory of complexes, exploring the concept of individual and group cultural complexes;
(2) Understand the emotional charge of cultural ideas and images clustered around archetypal cores that generate group and individual behavioral patterns;
(3) 4 themes:
(a) Jung’s theory of complexes;
(b) Henderson’s theory of cultural complex and transmission;
(c) Concepts applied to clients and society at large;
(d) Cultural sensitivity and process in which to address activation;
(4) Explore and understand intergenerational transmission of cultural complexes in individual and group trauma.

JPA PE 2010
NOTES IN POETIC FORM

Unusually fabulous autumn day
Windows to verdant vista
Smaller group opens intimacy
Inner/outer reflective hall of mirrors.

Calm, soft-spoken speaker
Captures attention.
Unconscious constellation in group
Yields confronting anxiety
And changed perceptions and behavior.

Attend to our reaction:
What is being constellated in the group?
We affect the group,
The group affects us.
Possible to learn from experiences,
Both individual and group.

Jung: attend to ourselves in the larger collective.
Receptive ears; total transference,
Total countertransference.
Total world surrounds clients.

Jumping archetypes move mere mortals
Via collective unconscious.
Lack of empathy for individuals—
Group sucks us in.
Remember the group we came from.
Return to give back.

Partial personality interrupts the body,
The mouth, the behavior.
Adult tantrums.
Unconscious takes over to solidify,
Concretize group’s survival.
Group identification makes a claim on us.
Danger: don’t lose self by joining others.

FOO background lies between
Personal and collective unconscious.
Undigested ancestral trauma → ghosts and crypts.
Absent presence.
Preservative repression.

Page in a book—torn out & burned,
Yet glimmers and shimmers just out of awareness.
Fantasies try to make sense.
Impact from what is said and what cannot be said.
Kids know better than to ask/say—
Hangs and drifts like psychic fog.
Inhibition to inquire, ask, connect.
If not said, stored as implicit body memory.
Eliminate sight and transform experiences.

Disruption of continuity of meaning
Loss of dreamers, dreams, weavers
Disruption of linking
Ghost images during catastrophes
Fissure in status of being
Primitive agonies,
Unthinkable ways of being
Primal anxieties
Safety, security, survival
Suppression, oppression, repression
Protection: nowhere to go

Work with the narrative we have
Quilting pieces of the past
Hold group and collective content
To engage ourselves and others
So easy to look outward to other culture
Rather than to our internal/local culture
Mine, ownership, possessive
Individual, family, group, culture
Join my culture—
Be like me because it works for me.

Who knows?
We act as if we know
When we know so little.

Ghost, not mourning father in the present.
Crypts provide a container for ghosts.
Stale silences. Unassimilated.
Encrypted: anxious and anxiety about dying.
Encrypted process—
Sealing that which cannot
Be acknowledged, processed.
Encryption results in symptoms.
Protected: sealed away;
Rituals, avoidance, bodily symptoms.
Ann B. Blake, October 12, 2010

Recent Publications

Kimbles, S. (2000). The cultural complex and the myth of invisibility. In T. Singer (Ed.), The vision thing: Myths, politics and psyche in the world (pp. 157-211). London, UK: Routledge.

Kimbles, S. (2004). A cultural complex operating in the overlap of clinical and cultural space. In S. Kimbles & T. Singer (Eds.), The cultural complexes: Contemporary Jungian perspectives on psyche and society (pp. 199-211). New York, NY: Brunner-Routledge.

Kimbles, S. (2006). Cultural complexes and the transmission of group trauma in everyday life. Psychological Perspectives, 49, 96-110.

Kimbles, S. (2007). Social suffering through cultural mourning, cultural melancholia, and cultural complexes. Spring, 78.

Kimbles, S., & Singer, T. (2004). The emerging theory of cultural complexes. In J. Camry & L. Carter (Eds.), Analytical Psychology: Contemporary perspectives in Jungian analysis (pp. 176-203). New York, NY: Routledge.

The Red Book: A window into Jung's dreams

2010-10-11T20:01:00.000-07:00

AUS Library Red Book Reception

2010-10-11T15:02:00.001-07:00

The Red Book reception was a great success!
We thank Ann Blake & Catlain Kinsey for their generous donation,
and encourage everyone to explore this amazing volume. Thank you to Jill Haddaway for taking such lovely photos of the event, and thank you to The AUS Library Newsletter for the mention of the library dedication.

SWISS BANK ACCOUNT III

After quarter century sleeping in a vault,
Jung’s Red Book: Liber NovusAwakens, yawns,
Emerges into the light of day.

Dreams, pictographs,
Personal and outer characters,
Offer deeply-processed truths.

Inner/outer; above/below.
Soul dialogue depicted in
Calligraphic precision,
Intricate mandalas,
Patterned designs,
Costumed characters.

Are we ready?
Will the revelation
Calibrate balance,
Make a difference,
Raise consciousness,
Facilitate transformation,
Allow the holding of tension between opposites?

Check back in twenty-five years.

ann beth blake

6/8/10

DEDICATION OF JUNG’S RED BOOK: LIBER NOVUS
ANTIOCH UNIVERSITY SEATTLE LIBRARY
FRIDAY, JULY 23, 2010
Ann B. Blake, PhD
Catlain Kinsey, MA

Catlain Kinsey (recent graduate of the Mental Health Counseling Specialty in MA Psychology) and I offer this book to the Antioch University Seattle Library as a resource for students, staff members, and faculty members interested in Analytical Psychology. The Red Book will rest on a podium (like dictionaries) for everyone to peruse and enjoy. Be inspired, be suspicious, be uncomfortable, be curious. Notice and cherish your responses, which might vary over time.
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), born in Kesswil, Switzerland, is credited with founding Analytical Psychology, a theoretical framework for working with clients’ whole selves. Jung applied concepts describing holistic dynamics of human functioning: archetypes, typology, individuation, and the personal and collective unconscious. Jung integrated concepts from alchemy, spirituality, art (specifically the mandala as symbolic of the self), cultural dynamics, and dream interpretation.
After Jung ended his professional relationship with Freud in 1912, Jung suffered for a decade, during which he began writing and drawing in a large red journal, Liber Novus (new book), currently titled The Red Book. In this journal, Jung conversed with personal and archetypal images (from his dreams and visions), many of which he depicted in colorful, detailed drawings. Jung worked diligently on his personal and professional development. Jung wrote prolifically, culminating in an 18-volume Collected Works. Many people who sought therapy directly from Jung applied their therapeutic insight to becoming Jungian analysts. These post-Jungians are creative therapists and prolific writers.
Jungian societies sprang up in many cities in many countries; the Seattle and Portland societies actively sponsor workshops for people interested in learning about Jungian principles. The Seattle-based North Pacific Institute of Analytical Psychology offers professional seminars and analytic training. The Seattle-based Jungian Psychotherapists Association (JPA), an organization for Jungian-oriented licensed therapists, sponsors clinical workshops; once per year, the JPA offers a community workshop in depth psychology. Sam Kimbles’ September 25, 2010, JPA workshop is titled Wounds of the Past, Tendrils of the Future through the Lens of Cultural Complexes.
After Jung’s death in 1961, his family thought the content of Liber Novus was too personal for public exposure, thus sequestering the journal in an underground vault in the Union Bank of Switzerland. During the past 50 years, many people have sought to read and/or publish Liber Novus. Sonu Shamdasani, a British historian, finally convinced the family of his professional and respectful intentions. To the delight of some and the chagrin or others in the Jungian community, Jung’s grandsons gave Shamdasani permission to edit and publish The Red Book: Liber Novus (2009).
In April, 2010, nine colleagues and I attended the Oregon Friends of Jung workshop in which Sonu Shamdasani presented his perspective about The Red Book. The Oregon Friends of Jung website stated that, “Dr. Shamdasani gave a lecture and workshop on the latest release of C. G Jung's work. In this private illuminated journal, Jung engaged the inner world of his psyche and its relation to the outer world of collective events in the first half of the twentieth century through text and illustrations.” The venue for the workshop was a large church in the midst of downtown Portland.
From my projection onto Sonu Shamdasani as a presenter, he is quiet, introverted, respectful, and cautious. As an historian, Shamdasani is an editor and translator, not an interpreter; Dr. Shamdasani clearly respects the book’s content as Jung’s work. Shamdasani worked diligently to keep himself on the sidelines as he highlighted the process of producing The Red Book. During the Friday evening presentation, consciously or not, Shamdasani moved away from the podium and the spotlight, resulting in his standing half in shadow. The metaphor of Shamdasani’s standing in half light/half dark spoke volumes to me.
During the second day of the workshop, Dr. Shamdasani offered a tour-de-force of the characters drawn by Jung and with whom Jung conversed in this interactive journal. This overview offered a summary of Jung’s work as well as an overview of historical and archaic figures depicted in The Red Book; Shamdasani supplemented Jung’s drawings with images from museum and photographic archives. Synchronistically, as Shamdasani discussed the role of Christianity, specifically Christ, in Jung’s journal, one of the church’s huge stained glass windows suddenly glowed with sunlight; at the end of this specific discussion, the window reverted to shadow. The overriding impact of Shamdasani’s presentation provided a context for beginning to read Jung’s Red Book: Liber Novus.
Although Shamdasani described his regret about the enormous time gap between Jung’s formulating the journal and its publication, I sensed a possible synchronistic timing. After compiling the book, Jung (probably accurately) hesitated to publish Liber Novus, nor did Jung publish his journal prior to his death. Perhaps the current publication is the synchronistic moment for the book to reach public eyes and hearts. As of April, 2010, current book sales reached 48,000, one testament to the relatively small size of the Jungian community. I am surprised about and grateful for the relative accessible sales price range from $120-$165.
Thanks from the bottom of my heart to Catlain Kinsey for her generosity and enthusiasm. For creating a soulful and just-right dedication party, I am grateful to Victoria Young, Bev Stuart, and Jill Haddaway. For support, encouragement, and celebration, I offer thanks to Carol Stanley, Gwen Jones, Jerry Salzman, Ken Hapke, Lori Dugdale, and David Fagerlie, to my friends and colleagues in the School of Applied Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy, and to the Antioch University Seattle community.

My Analyst Told Me

2010-10-11T15:01:00.000-07:00

MY ANALYST TOLD ME

Lyrics by Annie Ross; melody by Wardell Gray melody.

sung by Joni Mitchell (and many others)

My analyst told me (what?)

That I was right out of my head

He said I'd need treatment (yeah?)

But I'm not that easily led

He said I was the type

That was most inclined

When out of his sight

To be out of my mind

And he thought I was nuts (nuts?)

No more ifs or ands or buts

Oh no (oh no?) (oh no?)

They say as a child

I appeared a little bit wild

With all my crazy ideas

But I knew what was happening

I knew I was a genius...

What's so strange when you know

That you're a wizard at three

I knew that this was meant to be

But I heard little children

Were supposed to sleep tight

That's why I got into the vodka one night

My parents got frantic

Didn't know what to do

But I saw some crazy scenes

Before I came to

Now do you think I was crazy?

I may have been only three

But I was swingin

They all laugh at angry young men

They all laugh at Edison

And also at Einstein

So why should I feel sorry

If they just couldn't understand

The reasoning and the logic

That went on in my head

I had a brain

It was insane

Oh they used to laugh at me

When I refused to ride

On all those double-decker buses

All because there was no driver on the top (no driver on the top? this chick is twisted. what's the matter with her?)

(she must be out of her head) (this line is spoken on top of previous line)

My analyst told me (what?)

That I was right out of my head

The way he described it (how?)

He said I'd be better dead that alive.

I didn't listen to his jive

I knew all along

He was all wrong

And I knew that he thought (what?)

I was crazy but I'm not.

Oh no (oh no?) (oh no?)

My analyst told me (what?)

That I was right out of my head.

But I said, dear doctor, (yeah?)

I think that it's you instead.

Cause I have got a thing

That's unique and new.

It proves that I'll have

The last laugh on you,

Cause instead of one head (one head?)

I got two

And you know two heads are better than one.

Mary Oliver's poem regarding Dream Work

2010-10-08T16:54:00.001-07:00

Poetry from Mary Oliver’s Dream work.

DREAMS

All night

the dark buds of dreams

open richly.

In the center

of every petal

is a letter, and you imagine

if you could only remember

and string them all together

they would spell the answer.

It is a long night,

and not an easy one—

you have so many branches,

and there are diversions—

birds that come and go,

the black fox that lies down

to sleep beneath you,

the moon staring

with her bone-white eye.

Finally you have spent

all the energy you can

and you drag from the ground

the muddy skirt of your roots

and leap awake

with two or three syllables

like water in your mouth

and a sense

of loss—a memory

not yet of a word,

certainly not yet the answer—

only how it feels

when deep in the tree

all the locks click open,

and the fire surges through the wood,

and the blossoms blossom.

(Oliver, 1986, pp. 18-19)

THE JOURNEY

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice—

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations—

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

As you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice,

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do—

determined to save

the only life you could save.

(Oliver, 1986, pp. 38-39)

RAGE

You are the dark song

of the morning;

serious and slow,

you shave, you dress,

you descend the stairs

in your public clothes

and drive away, you become

the wise and powerful one

who makes all the days

possible in the word.

But you were also the red song

in the night,

stumbling through the house

to the child’s bed,

to the damp rose of her body,

leaving your bitter taste.

And forever those nights snarl

the delicate machinery of the days.

When the child’s mother smiles

you see on her cheekbones

a truth you will never confess;

and you see how the child grows—

timidly, crouching in the corners.

Sometimes in the wide night

you hear the most mournful cry,

a ravished and terrible moment.

In your dreams she’s a tree that will never come to leaf—

in your dreams she’s a watch

you dropped on the dark stones

till no one could gather the fragments—

in your dreams you have sullied and murdered,

and dreams do not lie.

(Oliver, 1986, pp. 12-13)

References

Oliver, M. (1986). Dream work. New York: The Atlantic Monthly Press.