The Making of the Red Book

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

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

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

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

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

AUS Library Red Book Reception

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

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

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.