Jungian Depth Psychology Research Articles

The Vampire Foucault: Erotic Horror Role-Playing Games as a Technologies of the Self

In Technologies of the Self (1988), philosopher and sociologist Michel Foucault summarizes his life work as an analysis of how various truth games explore “the relationships between truth, power, and self” and in this series of lectures he investigates the “practices whereby individuals, by their own means or with the help of others, acted on their own bodies, souls, thoughts, conduct, and way of being in order to transform themselves to attain a certain state of perfection or happiness” (Foucault 1988, 15, 18). While Foucault provides a genealogy of religious and philosophical examples of these technologies of the self, those familiar with role-playing games (RPGs) recognize that their practice also meets these criteria. Even though most people play RPGs for entertainment and escapism, they are potentially transformative (Kemper 2020; Bowman and Hugaas 2021), especially erotic-horror RPGs, like Vampire: The Masquerade (VtM) (Davis et al. 1992).This essay will explain how RPGs function as a type of truth game and how they can be understood as technologies of the self when played to achieve transformative bleed. It will also use Foucault’s thought to explain how some RPGs, like VtM, are better suited for transformative bleed because their technology of signs, i.e., the setting and rules that define meaning within the game, enable the development of more psychologically complex characters through game mechanics inspired by Jungian depth psychology (Bowman 2010; Beltrán 2012, 2013). Finally, my most recent character, Robin Alecto, Robin Alecto, will be used as a case study of how the game mechanics of VtM function as a technology of the self.

Baśń w biblioterapii integralnej

This text’s main objective is to introduce the assumptions of the Jungian depth psychology to the bibliotherapeutic process. Bibliotherapy as an interdisciplinary method using psychology and literary studies enriched with the theory of integral psychology formulates a new theoretical perspective and constitutes a proposition of holistic view of bibliotherapy. The extension of the theoretical basis of bibliotherapy will help to augment the therapeutic effect, activate the unconscious (the sphere neglected in school education), and strengthen psyche. Integral bibliotherapy shall create conditions to expand the dialogue between the rational side and unconscious one, and it will contribute to a positive stimulation of the integration processes. Providing archetypal patterns reflecting the rules of life in culture, and drawing attention to the regulatory role of literary works, will enrich both the intellectual and spiritual side of the development of the participant of the bibliotherapeutic process. Archetypal content present in literary texts studied by the participant according to the bibliotherapeutic procedure will achieve an integral orientation focused on the humanistic dimension of existence.

Ambiguity and contradiction: the outlines of Jung's dialectics.

This essay explores Jung's thinking strategies, argumentation patterns, and concept formation processes, and reveals how they distinguish his work from normal present-day science. Jung doesn't much appreciate the law of noncontradiction, which is a cornerstone of classical logic, and he doesn't refrain from using openly ambiguous theoretical terms. It will be pointed out that not only specific archetypes, but the notion of archetype itself, as well as other of Jung's theoretical notions (energy, including libidinal energy, polarity, integration, wholeness, instinct, symbol, and so on), are consciously ambiguous and thus potentially contradictory. It is shown that this kind of dialectic research strategy and related contradiction-tolerant and ambiguity-tolerant methods connect his work to Post-Kantian German Idealism, Schelling's and Schopenhauer's philosophy in particular. However, it was Hegel who, in his Science of Logic, presented a systematic overview of such dialectic principles of reasoning, which were, in the 19th century, widely applied by German philosophers, theologians, and other scholars. Unfortunately, Jung decided not to study Hegel, but, instead, wrote derogatorily of his work. It will be argued that a Jungian who wants to be conscious of her own argumentation strategies and methods of concept formation should study Hegel's complex and sophisticated dialectical logic. In addition, it is suggested that Jungian depth psychology might help us to amend the phenomenological deficits of Hegel's system by providing it with a primal experiential source. This is needed because Hegel's Geist, due to its intellectual emphasis, is a self-conscious conceptual totality which advances progressively from stage to stage by guiding itself with the help of dialectical reason (Vernunft). It will be shown that if enriched with a proper kind of experiential givenness, which includes the Jungian unconsciousness (with libidinal energy, instincts, and archetypes), Hegelian metaphysics would be able to embrace a seriously aconceptual or preconceptual dimension. Aconceptual experience, which is, for Jung, mainly the instinctual layer of archetypes, remains essentially inaccessible, not only for normal scientific concepts, but for the concepts of any form of dialectics as well.

THE POLYTHEISTIC PSYCHE: RE-IMAGINING SOUL AND SELF IN JAME'S HILLMAN'S ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGY

This article examines the notion of psychological polytheism in the context of Jungian depth psychology. The author focuses on the concept of the “polytheistic psyche” which American psychologist and philosopher James Hillman, founder of the post-Jungian

THE POLYTHEISTIC PSYCHE: RE-IMAGINING SOUL AND SELF IN JAME'S HILLMAN'S ARCHETYPAL PSYCHOLOGY

This article examines the notion of psychological polytheism in the context of Jungian depth psychology. The author focuses on the concept of the “polytheistic psyche” which American psychologist and philosopher James Hillman, founder of the post-Jungian

The Primordial Mandalas of East and West: Jungian and Tibetan Buddhist Approaches to Healing and Transformation

A comparative analysis of Jungian depth psychology and Tibetan Buddhist Tantra reveals a fascinating array of similarities, which are united in their most essential form through the manner in which mythic imagery is employed in both disciplines as a powerful agent of inner transformation. Various forms of creative engagement with sacred symbols–including mandalas–are enacted in each tradition as a vehicle through which latent spiritual potentialities can be brought forth into consciousness, a process that is greatly enhanced through a number of dynamic artistic techniques and contemplative practices. It should be emphasized from the outset that both disciplines represent complex systems that include sometimes widely varying notions of a higher spiritual order or ultimate reality. However, despite any differences in ontological postulations or metaphysical precepts, they share a number of surprising and sometimes striking characteristics. For example, both emphasize the mind, or psyche, as the foundational basis of existence and the primary means through which liberation (in the tantric tradition) and psychic wholeness (as in Jungian psychology) are pursued. Each also emphasizes the realm of dreams (e.g., dream analysis in depth psychology and dream yoga in Tibetan Tantra), contemplative and creative visualizations (such as the focus on wisdom figures and sacred symbols), and an assortment of other practices that are designed to effect a reconciliation of opposites and the attendant union of masculine and feminine principles. Their respective methodologies thus represent essential avenues through which to deepen an understanding of human nature’s far-reaching spiritual potentialities while demonstrating the vital role that mythic imagery–and in particular the mandala–plays in the process of healing and inner transformation.

The Veil between Ordinary and Nonordinary Reality: Working with the Objective Psyche in Shamanism and Depth Psychology

This article is a personal journey integrating Jungian depth psychology and Inca shamanism through an understanding of the objective psyche as it relates to shamanic experience. Parallels between experiencing energetic connection with the land and altered psychic states are explored. Developing a bridge between the experience of shamanism and Western culture, into the veil between ordinary and nonordinary reality, has been a process of weaving indigenous mountain traditions of ceremony and ritual into the context of an analytic framework. The author's hope is that imparting the knowledge received from the Q’ero medicine people will contribute to keeping the understanding of native tradition alive.

Jungian Analytical Method as a Process for Transformative Catechesis

This paper elaborates a theory of religious education that is concerned with the psychological transformation of adult Christians. It explores the suitability of Jungian depth psychology for a faith formation process, presents the process, and then explores the implications of this process for those working in the field. The process involves the identification of archetype in artwork.

Artifacts & Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley by Susan N. Maher (review)

Reviewed by: Artifacts & Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley by Susan N. Maher Andrew Angyal Artifacts & Illuminations: Critical Essays on Loren Eiseley. Edited by Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012. 358 pages, $40.00. Artifacts & Illuminations, the first comprehensive collection of new critical essays about Loren Eiseley’s work, will transform Eiseley scholarship and encourage fresh interpretations. Tom Lynch and Susan N. Maher have assembled a wide variety of critical perspectives, ranging from ecocriticism to structural, rhetorical, thematic, and place-oriented approaches. These essays testify to the scope and diversity of contemporary Eiseley scholarship. In their introduction, the editors lament the dearth of scholarship for a writer of Eiseley’s stature, suggesting that he might be a victim of the same “two cultures” split that he decried. [End Page 413] Or it may be that given his wide range of interests, Eiseley demands a unique interdisciplinary scholarship. Whatever the causes, this long overdue volume should remedy that neglect. The growing importance of Eiseley’s work reflects a new interest in science and nature writing as well as in the genre of creative nonfiction. The fourteen critical essays in this volume highlight the diversity of new interdisciplinary approaches to Eiseley criticism. Several contributors discuss the significance of rural and urban places in shaping Eiseley’s literary cartography. One of the most noteworthy essays, Jacqueline Cason’s “The Spirit of Synecdoche” examines Eiseley’s use of metaphor to depict ecological complexity in his use of the “concealed essay” form in exploring the conflict of order and chaos in evolution (187, 208). A reexamination of Eiseley’s poetry in terms of ecopoetics finds a unique expression of “evolutionary consciousness” (136–40). Another study, Stephen Mercier’s “Epic Narratives of Evolution,” notes the similarities between Eiseley’s and John Burroughs’s use of the tropes of the journey and the road to present the complexities of evolution in nontechnical terms. Pamela Gossin’s “Lessons of an Interdisciplinary Life” examines rhetorical strategies for teaching Eiseley in the interdisciplinary classroom and shows how his work can be used to model new ways of thinking and writing. Kathleen Boardman’s “Anthropomorphizing the Essay” uses new insights from cognitive ethnology to refute charges of anthropocentricism in Eiseley’s thought. Perhaps the most unusual essay, Dimitri N. Breschinsky’s “From the American Great Plains to the Steppes of Russia,” concerns efforts to translate Eiseley’s work into Russian and its mixed reception in Russia. A number of essays explore Eiseley’s personal spirituality in terms of Emerson, Thoreau, Dante, Jung, Whitehead, and Burroughs. New approaches to “The Star Thrower” find an “ecology of redemption” in his persona’s quest for meaning (214–15). Anthony Lioi’s “In a Dark Wood” compares Eiseley’s “dark night of the soul” to Dante’s spiritual journey in the Comedia, contrasting Eiseley’s ecological redemption with Dante’s Christian redemption. Jonathan Weidenbaum’s “Emerson and Eiseley: Two Religious Visions” shows how both writers contributed to the formation of a new “American Religion” of interior spirituality (239). Eiseley’s use of Jungian depth psychology is illustrated in concepts such as sacred time and the collective unconscious and in the archetypal symbol of the pyramid, especially in his 1998 collection of essays The Invisible Pyramid. Eiseley’s synthesis of science and personal reflection is more important than ever as a model of a new awareness of humanity’s place in the pageant of evolution. The essays in Artifacts & Illuminations will introduce Eiseley’s work to a new generation of readers beyond the two cultures’ rift. [End Page 414] Andrew Angyal Elon University, Elon, North Carolina Copyright © 2013 Western Literature Association

2673 – A study of psychiatry in the movies “a dangerous method” an example of boundary violations and the birth of intersubjectivity

David Cronenberg's movie is an example of how modern films have replaced myths and fairy tales for capturing our personal and archetypal projections. The recent movie, “A Dangerous Method” features a fearful and erotic symmetry between; S Freud, CG Jung, Otto Gross, Emma Jung and Sabina Spielrein and this will be deconstructed through the lens of Jungian Depth Psychology, using three core principles. 1. The importance of the transferences and counter-transference will be explored. Then the rule of boundaries will be emphasized in the context of an ethical practice of Psychotherapy. 2. The phylogenetic skeleton and its ontogenetic flesh will be examined as it is inflected through the relationship to the father together with the eroticized aggression in the archetypal theme of initiation. Finally the fundamental differences between the two great scholars of Psychiatry- Jung and Freud, will be examined. Special reference to the role of the objective psyche versus the personal psyche, will be discussed.

The Pursuit of Wholeness in Maurice Gee's O Trilogy

According to award-winning New Zealand writer, Maurice Gee, one of his main concerns is the bringing of parts together to create whole books, whole characters and groups of characters, and whole worlds. This is particularly the case in three of his children's novels: the fantasies The Halfmen of O, The Priests of Ferris, and Motherstone (widely known as the O trilogy) in which he echoes Jungian depth psychology. This essay examines Susan, the child protagonist and ‘chosen one’, who reflects Gee's own preoccupation with wholeness in that her quest throughout the trilogy is to restore wholeness and balance to the divided planet of O.

Jungian Analytical Method as a Process for Transformative Catechesis

This paper elaborates a theory of catechesis that is concerned with the psychological transformation of adult Christians. It offers a definition of this new type of catechesis as well as a comparison with experiential catechesis. It then presents a process for transformative catechesis based on the analytical method of Jungian depth psychology. This process includes anamnesis, interpretation, discernment, and ritual commitment, with the ultimate aim of helping adults identify and experience the paschal mystery in their own lives. It begins by examining the suitability of Jungian psychology for a catechetical process, presents the actual process, and then explores the theological implications of Jungian-based catechesis for those working in ministry.

Alchemical Imagination and Psychic Transformation in Jungian Depth Psychology and the Buddhist Tantras

Alchemical Imagination and Psychic Transformation in Jungian Depth Psychology and the Buddhist Tantras