John Beebe in conversation with Beverley Zabriskie

Abstract

John Beebe speaks with Beverley Zabriskie about the central motifs of his life and depth psychological experience, and how these informed his choice of vocation as psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, educator and author. Dr. Beebe narrates how he moved beyond the fate assigned the son of a needy mother and abandoning father. He illustrates how the role his family expected him to fill constellated archetypal motifs--the magical or divine curative child, the whiz kid--from which he had then to disidentify for the sake of becoming an individual with a personal voice and capacity to express his own true values. He tells of his differentiation and search for completion through the perspective of Jung's psychological types theory. He also reflects on the evolution of Jungian analytic theory and practice generally, his editorship of the JAP and the San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal, his confrontation with analytic homophobia, and the emerging quality of professional and personal relationships in relation to ethics and to love. He assesses Jung's courage and integrity as displayed through the release of Jung's Red Book, and his own quest for an organic and psychological moral stance expressed in his benchmark book, Integrity in Depth.