Tag: Jungian psychology

We are delighted to announce the 2019 Zurich Lecture Series for this coming October. ISAPZurich in collaboration with Chiron Publications will co-host the event. Please see ISAP Zurich’s page for updated details at: www.isapzurich.com/en/current-program/zurich-lectures/

ISAPZURICH and CHIRON PUBLICATIONS present

Mark Saban, MA

“Two Souls Alas…”
Jung’s two personalities and the creation of analytical psychology

Oct 4 & Oct 5, 2019 | Zurich, Switzerland

Friday, October 4, 5:30pm – 9:00pm: Reception, Lecture & Dinner, Zunfthaus zur Schmiden, Marktgasse 20, Zurich

Saturday, October 5, 10:00am – 3:30pm: Lectures & Discussion, Zentrum Karl der Grosse, Kirchgasse 14, 8001 Zurich

Jung’s difficulties with what he describes as his ‘two personalities’ dominate the first few chapters of MDR.  As a child, Jung tried to alleviate his feeling of inner division by repressing one or other of his two personalities, but he eventually realised that in order to live a full and fulfilled life he had to, first, maintain contact with bothpersonalities (even though they conflicted), and, second, find ways to enable each personality to engage dialectically with the other.

This experience constellated an important insight: that psychological transformation – and therefore the process of individuation – depends upon a dynamic engagement with the opposites and the tension between them.  Only in this way can a continuous process of psychic balancing be enabled, and one-sidedness avoided.

This idea runs like a red thread through every period and every aspect of Jung’s psychology.  We see it in his early work on the complexes, and we see it played out in that dialogical meeting between personality 1 and personality 2 which Jung describes in MDR as his ‘confrontation with the unconscious’.  Central to individuation, it runs through Jung’s ideas on the ‘transcendent function’ and on typology and achieves fruition in Jung’s magnum opus, Mysterium Coniunctionis..

Because the logic of the two personalities is fundamental to analytical psychology it has the capacity to provide a unique critical tool when turned back toward Jung’s psychology itself. Applied in this way, the reflexive critique immediately shows up an endemic one-sidedness in Jung’s psychology whereby the themes, motifs and ideas associated with personality no 2 dominate, while the themes motifs and ideas that come with personality no 1 are persistently ignored or rejected.

For example, when we focus on the particular opposites, inner vs outer, and look at the ways in which Jung dealt with them in his life and in his work, what becomes apparent is a striking failure to maintain the logic of the creative and transformative dynamic he had developed.  Instead, Jung one-sidedly identifies the inner realm with psychology itself, and thereby eliminates the outer as proper object for psychological attention.

This has meant that, despite Jung’s own pioneering work with transference and counter-transference (work that depends upon a relational – inner/outer – dynamic), analytical psychology has, on the whole, been marred by a persistent and problematic reluctance to engage with the outer other.  This has led, among other things, to a long-lasting difficulty in dealing with, or even properly acknowledging, the psychosocial dimension.

This problem has become increasingly apparent as the relational, social and political realm becomes recognised more and more as active within, and critical to, depth psychology.  By properly highlighting the logic of the two personalities we can begin to redress this imbalance with an acknowledgment that the collective unconscious may be encountered not only through intrapsychic relations with inner others, but also through extra-psychic engagement with the outer collective and outer others.

Mark Saban is a senior analyst with the Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists and a lecturer at the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. He co-edited Analysis and Activism – Social and Political Contributions of Jungian Psychology with Emilija Kiehl and Andrew Samuels (Routledge 2016) (Finalist American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize, Nominated Gradiva Award for Best Edited Book).

Recent articles include, ‘Secrete e Bugie. Un’area cieca nella psicologia junghiana’, Rivista di psicologia analitica, 2017, n. 43 Volume 95. and ‘Outside-In: Jung’s myth of interiority ambiguated Or – Knowing me, Knowing Jung – ahah!’, Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2018, 63, 3

About the Zurich Lecture Series

The Zurich Lecture Series in Analytical Psychology was established in 2009 by the International School of Analytical Psychology Zurich (ISAPZURICH) and Spring Journal Books to present annually new work by a distinguished scholar who has previously offered innovative contributions to the field of Analytical Psychology by either:

• bringing analytical psychology into meaningful dialogue with other scientific, artistic, and academic disciplines;
• showing how analytical psychology can lead to a better understanding of contemporary global concerns relating to the environment, politics, religion; or
• expanding the concepts of analytical psychology as they are applied clinically

Each year, the selected lecturer delivers lectures over a 2-day period in Zurich based on a previously unpublished book-length work. Chiron Publications publishes this work as a new volume in the Zurich Lecture Series, of which Murray Stein and Steve Buser are co-editors.