Jungian Approach Research Articles

Psyche within the Matrix of the Natural World: Emergence, Restoration, and Sustainability

This article elucidates a Jungian approach to ecopsychology. The author shows how her own experience of wilderness informs her analytic work with a woman healing from profound developmental trauma. Alongside the holding environment derived from the healing connection, tumult, and repair in the analytic relationship, the emergence of the analysand's relationship to the natural world became central to a reorganization of her inner world. This reorienting of self in relation to the land is likened to the Navajo Beautyway ceremony. By digging in dirt, growing things, experiencing the cycles of the seasons and the life–death–life cycle, the analysand forges a path from dissociation to embodiment of self and a sense of self in the world. The author discusses Jung's view of how a direct experience of the natural world is synonymous with an experience of Self. Connections are drawn to Winnicott's formulation of the process in which psyche indwells soma in individual healing and as a way of understanding Western culture's relation to our bigger body, the earth.

States of grace: Eureka moments and the recognition of the unthought known

In this paper we consider states of grace in analysis. These encompass a range of phenomena which share an experience of something being received or revealed rather than produced by the ego. It feels that they are events that happen rather than events that are made to occur. They are marked by a profound sense of transformation of feeling tone. The quality of relatedness in the analytic dyad is also heightened. Some of these phenomena have been referred to as experiences of the self, synchronicities, moments of meeting, the unthought known and Eureka moments. The latter are experiences of sudden realization where a meaningful thought or image emerges which results in a dramatic shift in direction of the analysis and a transcendence of impasse. Although many authors describe these phenomena, we find that a Jungian approach provides a loom on which these threads can be woven together. Jung's concept of the transcendent function and his understanding of the gift of grace are particularly illuminating here. We also consider the conditions which allow grace to be experienced and how these inform our analytic practice.

НИБЕЛУНГИ И ПСИХОАНАЛИТИКИ: ФРЕЙДИСТСКИЙ И ЮНГИАНСКИЙ ПОДХОДЫ К АНАЛИЗУ ПОЭМЫ «ПЕСНЬ О НИБЕЛУНГАХ»

НИБЕЛУНГИ И ПСИХОАНАЛИТИКИ: ФРЕЙДИСТСКИЙ И ЮНГИАНСКИЙ ПОДХОДЫ К АНАЛИЗУ ПОЭМЫ «ПЕСНЬ О НИБЕЛУНГАХ»

Identification and characterization of symbols emanating from the spontaneous artwork of survivors of childhood trauma

This study defines the visual symbols in the spontaneous artwork of 10 women who are survivors of childhood traumas involving loss or sexual abuse. The analysis was based on 379 artworks and a semi-structured, in-depth interview with each creator. Seven main visual symbols were identified using qualitative methodology and an art-based research approach. The symbols were characterized and interpreted according to a Jungian approach that uses amplification to process and expand upon the products of the unconscious. The symbols were found to tell the story of the trauma and perhaps even hint at the direction of its healing.

Seeking a Utopia in the Past to Endure the Present: A Jungian Reading of The Realms of Gold

This paper attempts a Jungian approach to Margaret Drabble’s novel The Realms of Gold . Jungian reading has been taken up to unravel the distinctive characteristics which make this novel so unique and popular. The focus of the paper is to classify the main characters of the novel in terms of their psychological types. In this novel from the beginning the reader is introduced to an atmosphere which is related to the personality of the main character Frances Wingate. Her thoughts are introduced to the readers in form of monologues. By the usage of these monologues and the narrator’s judgments on the characters their psychological types can be implied. The protagonist is compared with the other major characters to illuminate to what extent different types can get along with each other. In Jungian psychology knowing about our psychological type is a crucial issue in the process of individuation. It gets more significance when it comes to opposite sex relationships or generally any kinds of interaction.

‘Our imperiled age’: an unfinished dialogue between Carl Jung and Karl Stern

Karl Stern was a Catholic psychiatrist in Montreal who published extensively on psychoanalysis and religion from 1951 to 1965. He sent a copy of his second book,The Third Revolution(1954) to Jung, who responded warmly in a (hitherto unpublished) letter dated 30 April 1960. The paper ponders the similarities and differences between Stern and Jung's approach to the psychology of religion, and the impact that Jung's belated response to Stern's book might have had on Stern subsequently.

La Bella Durmiente a través de la historia by Carolina Fernández Rodríguez (review)

Reviewed by: La Bella Durmiente a través de la historia by Carolina Fernández Rodríguez María Fernández-Lamarque Fernández Rodríguez, Carolina. La Bella Durmiente a través de la historia. Oviedo: U de Oviedo, 2012. Pp. 243. ISBN 978-8-483-17072-4. Carolina Fernández Rodríguez’s book, which analyzes the story of “The Sleeping Beauty,” is a valuable contribution to the scarce work in existence internationally in the field of children and adolescent’s literature written in Spanish. La Bella Durmiente a través de la historia’s intention to offer an in-depth study of this canonical folktale is laudable. Nevertheless, for the scholars of Spanish children’s and adolescent’s literature, the book has a number of flaws both in content and scope. In the introduction, Fernández Rodríguez claims that ideology is “ingrained” (11) in any critical work and explains that her theoretical framework is based on Hélène Cixous’s concept [End Page 511] of “rewriting.” In Coming to Writing and Other Essays (1992), Cixous affirms that “rewriting” implies the reconstruction and rejection of societally construed “feminine” gender roles and paradigms reinforced and projected by phallocentrism. On the topic of ideology in children’s and adolescent’s literature, John Stephens is one of the international leading voices; in particular, his brilliant chapter in New World Orders in Contemporary Children’s Literature (2008) is foundational. In this article, Stephens defines “social ideology” and how it influences this literary genre in particular. Another compilation edited by Stephens, Retelling Stories, Framing Cultures (1998), examines the ideological effects in a retold text, and the influence of metanarrative and what he calls “metaethics” evident in these retellings. Fernández-Rodríguez study could have benefited from these critical studies, because they are central to the current international theoretical debate in this field. In chapter 2, the author lists a number of versions of “The Sleeping Beauty” from the canonical Basile’s “Sun, Moon and Talia” to an original Spanish version “El príncipe durmiente” (“The Sleeping Prince”) (1984). The inclusion of “The Sleeping Beauty” adaptations in the Iberian prose and poetry of the one by Catalonian author Frayre Joy is remarkable. However, the critical approaches that are discussed in this chapter are somewhat narrow in scope. The psychoanalytic approach is limited to Bruno Bettelheim’s study on fairy tales, and the Jungian approach is studied as if it were a separate field. The feminist approach is based on authors who have exemplified “The Sleeping Beauty” as the paradigmatic woman created by society as dormant, inactive, passive, and comatose. The inclusion of María Soliño’s study on women representation in Spanish children’s literature could have reinforced this chapter as well. In chapter 3, the attempt to classify the various rewritings of “The Sleeping Beauty” presents a major confusion in terminology. The author conflates “rewritings” with “adaptations,” including parodies of “The Sleeping Beauty” as adaptations. The difference between adaptations and rewritings rely on the fact that mocking or parodying a text deflates and destroys the original one, and cannot be labeled as an adaptation. She also confuses “symbolic” with the actual interrelationship between texts, which is commonly labeled as intertextuality. Symbols are conceptual values identified with certain ideas but are not intertexts per se. It would have been relevant to include recent shifts in adaptation studies, led by scholars such as Linda Hutcheon, Robert Stem, James Ardmore, among others. This theoretical framework would have strengthened this chapter. Chapter 4 intends to analyze the rewritings of “The Sleeping Beauty” and the “deconstruction of patriarchal archetypes” (125). But once again, there is a confusion of terminology. The author mistakenly labels heterosexual marriage and its inherent “happiness” as her first “archetype”; the “male rescuer” as the second “archetype,” and the third, as “the graces of femininity.” In the first case, while heterosexual marriage is the traditional societal norm, it is not an actual “archetype”. In the second, the allusion made to the “male rescuer” is what Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell call the hero archetype. The third axis of Fernández-Rodríguez’s classification is the stereotypical and socially construed characteristics...

Dreaming activity in bariatric surgery candidates.

The objective of this article was to contribute to the comprehension of thepsychological aspects of severe obesity by analyzing the dream characteristics ofbariatric surgery candidates. Given the lack of previous studies comparing controlsubjects and obese patients, we did not formulate specific hypotheses on possibledifferences between the 2 groups. We conducted a pilot study, generating hypothesesfor future research. The study observed 41 severely obese individuals in presurgicalpsychiatric evaluation for bariatric surgery and 41 healthy volunteers of similar age.The last recalled dream of each participant was recorded and transcribed (dreamreport). According to the Jungian approach to dreams as texts, the dream reportswere evaluated according to the canons of textual analysis. Structural differencesbetween bariatric surgery candidates and the control group emerged: The bariatricsurgery candidates tend not to alternate between tenses, their narration inferior indrive and dynamism. They tend to characterize the dream setting in a descriptivemanner and they express less their emotional state in respect to the control group. Themean score of the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale was significantly higher in thebariatric surgery candidates group. Our results suggest that severe obesity-acomplex condition pertaining to both mind and body-correlates with psychologicaltraits.

P A Jungian Approach to Self-fragmentation of Twentieth Century in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four

The problematic life of modern human has always been a significant issue for many areas of study. In reaction to the absence of romantic values and the unity of the pre-modern world, Human being was afflicted with a sense of inner crises which is referred to as self-fragmentation . Fragmentation is one of the significant features of twentieth century when a mode of anxiety subjugated both art and society. In such an atmosphere many writers of the modern century attempted to reflect in their works of literature, what they had experienced in the real world. Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four is one of the popular novels of Modern Era that describes a modern but fragmented society wherein the modern human’s lack of self-integration is perceptible. By representing how the protagonists respond to the voices of their psyches through characterization and dreams, which is also of crucial significance in Jung’s Analytical Psychology, Orwell explores the roots of modern human’s urge for achieving a cohesive sense of self. Accordingly, this study, attempts to illustrate how modern human steps in the path of individuation and to what extent these efforts meet with success, if any. To achieve this goal, some terms and notions of Jungian Criticism such as archetypes and the process of individuation will be borrowed, and a particular focus will be held on dreams occurring in the course of the story. In addition, this paper would like to argue that the dystopian society portrayed in these novels is the offspring of a mere rationalism which prevents human from knowing the opposing forces working within as well as the forces functioning from without.

Guest Editor's Introduction to Volume 9

The editors are pleased to announce that the Jungian Journal of Scholarly Studies is launching the availability of this volume on Kindle and other portable devices. Readers familiar with the journal will note significant format changes: a cover, a table of contents, and this editorial introduction.
 As guest editor of this year’s journal I have the pleasure of introducing the five essays and one book review included in this volume. This year we invited authors to submit papers associated with the 2013 Chicago conference titled Psyche and Society: the work of the unconscious. This conference was itself built upon the success of the 2012 New Orleans conference that addressed the relationship between affect and action. In all, these conference themes are emerging out of the JSSS community’s understanding of the importance of connecting psychology more immediately to social action. This desire is the context for this volume of the Journal which seeks to present their divergent perspectives on the critical social realities of our time.
 The first four papers reflect the conference theme in a variety of interesting and exciting ways. The first three explore the rich terrain of the idea of “cultural complex,” starting with Tom Singer’s recounting of how his thinking developed about the idea over time. He identifies how his contribution to the concept arose from his own need to account psychologically for the problems he was seeing in groups, including those of his own upbringing. Singer notes that while conflicts generated by cultural complexes often take place in the arena of politics, these complexes remain a legitimate subject matter for the study of the psychology of individuals and groups.
 Singer’s paper is followed by Sukey Fontelieu’s that describes the way in which belief in American exceptionalism reveals a cultural complex that can be understood in relation to the Greek god Pan. Within this complex Americans’ attitude toward our own unique value is recognized as having a shadow side that restricts our ability to deal effectively with our own problems and negatively influences other people’s attitude toward Americans.
 Mary Hackworth’s article explores how American individualism may be being balanced by a sense of the Commons expressed in an emerging interest in Unicursal labyrinths. Hackworth uses the concept of cultural complex to discuss the political divisions within and fragmentation of American society. She explores the possibility that the growing interest in labyrinths represents an unconscious expression of the desire to compensate for these complexes through the power of labyrinths to balance individual and common purposes.
 Susan Wyatt’s paper links individual and society through an exploration of the capacity of the individual to be an agent of change. Wyatt uses the story of the Rainmaker to explore the connection between individual and social change. Her article makes use of Jungian theory to increase understanding of social transformation.
 In addition to these four papers spun out of the topic of Psyche and Society, Matthew Fike uses a Jungian approach to understand Ernest Hemingway’s “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” Fike offers an analysis of this story that contributes to prior Freudian and Lacanian studies of this story, which further establishes the contribution of Jungian thought to literature.
 Finally, Susan Rowland in an insightful book review brings a Jungian perspective to the new book, In the Image of Orpheus: Rilke, a Soul History by Daniel Joseph Polikoff.
 Peter T DunlapGuest Editor

Componentes materiais do jogo de areia: revisão crítica

O Jogo de Areia é um método terapêutico de abordagem junguiana utilizado como procedimento clínico em Psicologia, que possui materiais específicos pouco explorados na literatura. Para descrever e analisar os componentes materiais do Jogo de Areia, foi realizada avaliação crítica por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica de textos em bases de dados indexadas (Lilacs, Medline e PsycInfo) e acervo de grupo de pesquisa, para o período entre 1960 e 2009. Foram identificadas caixa, areia, miniaturas e fotografias e assinaladas divergências na concepção da caixa, na composição da coleção de miniaturas, no manejo clínico da areia e das fotografias. Predominaram as justificativas baseadas na simbologia junguiana para a composição dos materiais. Foram recomendadas pesquisas clínicas para estudo sistematizado do Jogo de Areia enquanto procedimento clínico.

Perversion: A Jungian Approach by Ross, Fiona

Journal of Analytical PsychologyVolume 59, Issue 1 p. 131-133 Book Review Perversion: A Jungian Approach by Ross, Fiona Anna Motz, Anna Motz Oxford ClinicSearch for more papers by this author Anna Motz, Anna Motz Oxford ClinicSearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 January 2014 https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12059_1Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume59, Issue1February 2014Pages 131-133 RelatedInformation

A Jungian psychohistory: A. J. Toynbee's use of analytical psychology in his theory of civilizations

In this paper, I examine the work of Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975), a controversial historian heavily criticized by his colleagues, who utilized the lens of analytical psychology in his work. As one example of how Jungian psychohistory might be done, I employ a comparative approach that establishes the critical points of convergence between the two thinkers and highlight aspects of Toynbee's thought that were likely influenced by Jung. This provides a foundation for future works to not only critically reflect upon and delineate the characteristics of a uniquely Jungian approach to the discipline of history specifically, but to assess the efficacy of analytical psychological interventions into the social sciences more generally.

Goddess Politics: Analytical Psychology and Japanese Myth

Myth always plays an important role in establishing people's core identities; and the interpretation of myths is central in Jungian studies, which focus on archetypal images. In this context, this paper examines Hayao Kawai's 1976 work on the Japanese goddess Amaterasu-oh-kami (Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity), who has been referred to as the main deity in Shintoism. Kawai argued that Japan is a maternal society, and that, in general, Japanese have a more feminine psyche than Westerners. The purpose of this paper is critically to rethink Kawai's argument and ideas. In doing so, first, I examine the concept of kami in relation to shamanism and animism in Shintoism. Second, I focus on the formulation of state Shintoism, and on how those who edited Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters) and Nihongi (Chronicles of Japan reconstructed Japanese myths for political reasons in the fifth and eighth centuries (Common Era), and how, in the process, the image of Amaterasu-oh-kami was distorted by patriarchal codes. More recently, in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the idea of Amaterasu-oh-kami as the highest deity in Kojiki was widespread, a view promulgated by the Japanese government. I identify certain problems in Kawai's interpretations of the myth – his choice of texts, his characterization of Amaterasu-oh-kami, his projection of men's needs onto the goddess – and offer a rethinking of his interpretation in terms of recent Jungian, historical, mythological, and feminist viewpoints. I argue that Kawai's discourse about the goddess's image is a kind of conservative renewal of the myth – for covert political reasons. Finally, I advocate the importance of careful examination of the patriarchal codes in the myth, with the hope that this might bring a new potency to the Jungian approach more suited to a new century. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Mundiviv�ncias: Leituras comparativas de Guimar�es Rosa (review)

Reviewed by: Mundivivências: Leituras comparativas de Guimarães Rosa Mary Elizabeth Ginway Valente, Luiz Fernando . Mundivivências: Leituras comparativas de Guimarães Rosa. Belo Horizonte: UFMG P, 2011. Pp. 163. ISBN 978-85-7041-872-2. Mundivivências: Leituras comparativas de Guimarães Rosa is the product of Luiz Valente's long-standing interest in and dedication to the works of João Guimarães Rosa, one of Brazil's foremost authors of the twentieth century. Although six of the nine articles were originally published over a significant span of over twenty years (1986-2008) in American journals such as Hispanic Review, Hispania, Luso-Brazilian Review, and Modern Language Studies, the book's introduction and the last two chapters are notable additions that serve to tie the book together as a whole. The essays can be grouped into two categories: three traditional comparative studies that place the works of Guimarães Rosa in dialogue with those of Tolstoy, Faulkner, and Calvino, and a second group focuses on theoretical approaches to some of Guimarães Rosa's most challenging texts, such as Grande sertão veredas (1956) and Corpo de Baile (1956), with the latter in need of critical studies. The first chapter or introduction begins with a quotation from Machado de Assis's essay "Instinto de nacionalidade" (1873), in which the nineteenth-century master argues that an international perspective is necessary for understanding Brazilian literature. Guimarães Rosa, whose work chiefly addresses regional and Brazilian concerns, is often studied in the context of Brazil alone, but Valente argues that the theories of Bakhtin, Iser, Jung, Ricoeur, and Spivak add significantly to the understanding of his production by highlighting the role of social class and linguistic register in the texts, as well as the role of the reader in constructing meaning. Valente takes into consideration previous readings by Brazilian critics such as Antonio Candido, Walnice Galvão, José Carlos Garbuglio, and Benedito Nunes, while also offering new insights to challenge or supplement these previous interpretations. After the introductory chapter of the collection, the first essay, on Tutameia (1967), demonstrates how Guimarães Rosa's four prefaces to the work serve to complicate rather than explicate it, illustrating how the reader must be aware of multiple meanings in order to understand this work. This is the most abstract chapter, since it does not deal with a specific narrative, but serves as a hermeneutic model for the readings to come. The following chapter analyzes "Campo [End Page 562] geral," the opening story of Corpo de baile. Here Valente uses mainly a Jungian approach, which ties the protagonist to the archetypal or divine nature of several of Guimarães Rosa's child protagonists. In this story, Miguilim is used as a mediating or liminal figure to illustrate the fragility of human laws in the context of a primordial unity or transcendent view of reality, a recurrent theme in much of Guimarães Rosa's work. The two chapters that focus on Guimarães Rosa's masterpiece, Grande sertão: Veredas (1956), utilize Wolfgang Iser's reception theory. By comparing the narrator's plight in reconstructing his past to that of the reader, we see how the reader becomes involved in the painful process of creating meaning in an often seemingly contradictory narration. The following chapter, which compares Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom and Grande Sertão, illustrates the way in which the shifting perspectives of the two works serve to enable the characters and readers to comprehend traumatic events. Iser's concept of "wandering viewpoint" works convincingly here, and Valente shows that while both texts resolve many events, they refuse to fill in all the gaps, leaving a margin of ambiguity. The comparison of "A terceira margem do rio" (1962), one of Guimarães Rosa's most famous short stories, to Italo Calvino's novel Baron in the Trees (1957) examines how protagonists who withdraw from human society serve as mediators between our plane of existence and whatever lies beyond. However, Valente shows how they both offer a religio (the Latin origin of the word "religion"), or a tie to the sacred, thus allowing the texts to serve as a means to navigate human...

Saints and sinners: Competing identities in public relations ethics

Public relations ethics is confused and often superficial in its approach, relying heavily on traditional theory, with only occasional reference to more recent developments in professional ethics, particularly feminist and global ethical perspectives.This paper argues that the central ethical tension facing public relations as a field lies in its divided ethical identity, in particular between the idealized codes of conduct influenced by the US-based excellence project, which conjure images of wise counsel balancing duties to client and society, and practitioner-led expectations that they are advocates and should privilege clients over society. The paper touches on the wider context of professional ethics in the early 21st century from western and non-western perspectives, in order to frame current debates in public relations’ ethics. Taking a Jungian approach, it suggests that the saint/sinner models represent opposing aspects of an ethical identity or archetype which can only be resolved through self-acceptance and a willingness to embrace contradiction.

The egg, the vessels and the words.From Izdubar toAnswer to Job1For an imaging thinking

This essay on The Red Book seeks to underscore a characteristic specific to Jung's approach to psychoanalysis. In this book, and more generally, in all of his writings, Jung's thinking is based on his personal experience of the unconscious, in which he leaves himself open to progressive encounters. Some of them, in the years 1913-14 and 1929-30, particularly his meeting with the giant Izdubar, were quite threatening. As a result, he forged an original way of thinking that is qualified here as 'imaging' and 'emergent'. The Red Book served as the first vessel for theories Jung would later express. His way of thinking, with its failures and semi-successes, all of which are always temporary, of course, is compared to the art of the potter. The author shows the kinship between the formation of the main Jungian concepts and the teachings of the French poet, professor, and art critic Yves Bonnefoy. He also considers certain recurrent formal themes in the work of contemporary German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. Lastly, this epistemological study, constantly aware of the demands of Jungian clinical practice, demonstrates the continuity in Jung's work, from The Red Book to Answer to Job, where Jung ultimately elaborated a conception of history that defines our ethical position today.

The Umwelt and Networks of Archetypal Images: A Jungian Approach to Therapeutic Encounters in Humanitarian Contexts

This paper attempts to develop a new framework within which to comprehend the interrelationship between the ‘inner’ and ‘external’ worlds, between the personal and social, and among the intra-/inter-/trans-psychic realms. It proposes the Umwelt as a heuristic concept to grasp and formulate these interconnections. Then, it argues that if we expand the Jungian theory of archetypes by introducing the concepts of ‘network of archetypal images’ and ‘collective structures of meaning’, it is possible to develop a more coherent framework to address ‘therapeutic encounters’ in the context of humanitarian work. The process of ‘therapeutic encounter’ is distinguished from ‘doing therapy’. An example of such an encounter is offered and a new reading is suggested of processes and phenomena that are often examined through existing approaches. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Becoming Who We Are in Groups: One Jungian's Approach to Group Psychotherapy

Becoming Who We Are in Groups: One Jungian's Approach to Group Psychotherapy

A Jungian approach to dreams reported by soldiers in a modern combat zone

Treating combat deployed soldiers is becoming more prevalent and needed in psychiatry. Modern combat produces unique psychological challenges, including those without criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This article will attempt to share the primary author's experience with psychotherapy in a combat zone, along with understanding the general themes of dreams the author encountered while being deployed. Toward that end, the primary author [RW] discusses his personal experiences in Iraq working with soldiers whom he saw and treated while in theatre, with a particular focus on the dreams they reported. The co-authors [EG and MI] afterward collaborated with the primary author to formulate and provide insight into the dreams from a Jungian perspective.