Saturday, July 05, 2003

C.G. JUNG READINGS CLASS – FALL 2003
Rose F. Holt, Presenter


To enroll in this class, contact the St. Louis Jung Society by e-mail @ www.cgjungstl@aol.com, by phone at (314) 533-6809, or through the St. Louis Society website link on the left of this page. Enrollment will be limited to ten.

Class Meeting Time and Dates: Seven Thursdays, 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm. September 11, 25; October 9, 23; November 6, 20; December 4

Location: St. Louis Office of Rose F. Holt

Text: Two Essays on Analytical Psychology by C.G. Jung, Second Edition, Princeton University Press, 1966. [Vol. 7 of Jung’s Collected Works]



Course Syllabus

We will divide this important work of Jung’s into four parts: I. Introduction (Week 1); II. Psychoanalysis (Weeks 2-4); III. The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious (Weeks 5-6); IV. Summary (Week 7)

Schedule of Readings

Week 1: “Prefaces,” pp. 3-8. “Appendix II, The Structure of the Unconscious,” pp. 269-304.

Week 2: “Psychoanalysis,” pp. 9-18. “The Eros Theory,” pp. 19-29. “The Other Point of View,” pp. 30-40. “The Problem of the Attitude-Type,” pp. 41-63.

Week 3: “The Personal and the Collective (or Transpersonal) Unconscious,” pp. 64-79. “The Synthetic or Constructive Method,” pp. 80-89. “The Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious,” pp. 90-113.

Week 4: “General Remarks on the Therapeutic Approach to the Unconscious,” pp. 114-118. “Conclusion,” p. 119.

Week 5: “Preface,” pp. 123-125. “The Effects of the Unconscious Upon Consciousness,” pp. 127-171.

Week 6: “Individuation,” pp. 173-241.

Week 7: Review and Summary Discussion

Sunday, May 25, 2003

A Review of The New God-Image by Rose F. Holt

The New God-Image: A Study of Jung’s Key Letters Concerning the Evolution of the Western God-Image by Edward F. Edinger. Chiron Publications, 1996.

Jung once remarked that his life’s work has been to encircle the “central fire” with a series of mirrors but that necessarily there were gaps where the mirrors met. In The New God-Image, Edward F. Edinger provides a great deal of fill-in for one of Jung’s gaps. The book is from audio tapes of a series of lectures Edinger gave in the Fall of 1991 as part of the Analysts’ Training Program at the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles. In the lecture series Edinger drew on letters Jung wrote about the on-going transformation of the god-image and in so doing wove together a coherent understanding of Jung’s thinking about this vital topic.


The opening sentence of the book is startling: “The history of Western man can be viewed as a history of its God-images, the primary formulations of how mankind orients itself to the basic questions of life, its mysteries.” My reaction as I read those words was, “Well, yes, of course!” I remembered a similarly startling statement from an old theology professor: “We all have a theology, whether we know what it is or not.” Edinger helps make conscious some of the theological underpinnings of Jung’s depth psychology. Those underpinnings inform a good deal of the theology of modern peoples—whether we understand them or not.


In the Introduction, Edinger gives us a survey of the six major stages in the evolution of the Western God-image, stages through which each individual passes in the development of consciousness. The sixth of these stages, Edinger tells us, is individuation, the discovery of the psyche. Jung discussed religious imagery as the phenomenology of the objective psyche in two of his late works, Answer to Job and Aion. Edinger, however, believes Jung’s clearest statements about the God-image and its transformation are to be found in letters he wrote during his last ten years, from 1951 to 1961. As material for the lectures, Edinger selects fourteen of the letters, dividing them into three major subject areas: (1) Jung’s epistemological premises, (2) the paradoxical God, and (3) continuing incarnation.


Edinger tells us that there are three steps involved in understanding Jung’s material concerning the new God-image. One must be able to perceive the new God-image and that requires mastering certain epistemological premises. One must actually perceive for one’s self this living reality and the impact it has on one’s own psychology as well on the psychology of the collective. Jung (and analytical psychology) can teach the how, but it is not something taken as an article of faith. It is something one must do for one’s self, a kind of God-has-no-grandchildren concept. And the third step requires a developing awareness of one’s own role in the transformation of the God-image, one’s part in the process of continuing incarnation.


Part I, the first four chapters of The New God-Image, is devoted to the necessary epistemological premises. In these chapters Edinger presents a rather fine crash-course on Kantian philosophy. Jung was very much influenced by his early studies of Kant and never wavered about the import of Kant’s contribution to the theory of knowledge. Jung wrote in 1957: “. . . here that threshold which separates two epochs plays the principal role. I mean by that threshold the theory of knowledge whose starting-poing is Kant. On that threshold minds go their separate ways: those that have understood Kant, and the others that cannot follow him”


Edinger ends Part I by talking about the redemptive power of Jung’s work and the impact it had on his own personal redemption. Edinger explains the Marcion Heresy, an early Church split in which Marcion argued for a complete departure from the Old Testament Yahweh in favor of a new all-loving God. Had Marcion won the day, there would have been no continuity with the past. It is a split suffered frequently by moderns—the idea that one need not be concerned with history, that one can supersede and disregard all the old gods. There is a warning in the I Ching about such an attitude—it is dangerous to cling to the tops of the trees without regard for the roots. A consciousness split off from the levels or stages of evolutionary collective development is in a vicarious and unredeemed state. Jung’s work, according to Edinger, has a great value not only for redemption of the individual but also for redemption of collective human endeavors—alchemy, mythology, philosophy, and more primitive aspects of existence—by demonstrating how each is a manifestation of the eternal, ever-living psyche.


In Part II Edinger explores the topic of the paradoxical God, the God who needs humankind, who incarnates in the human to bring Himself to consciousness. This view of incarnation assigns enormous dignity to the meaning of human suffering as well as huge responsibility for how one handles suffering. The psyche has as one of its functions, the assignment of meaning, and meaning lends significance. Edinger quotes Jung in this regard: “Buddha’s insight and the Incarnation in Christ break the chain (i.e., the Nidhana-chain of suffering) through the intervention of the enlightened human consciousness, which thereby acquires a metaphysical and cosmic significance.”


Lastly, Edinger covers Jung’s ideas of the continuing incarnation. Key questions arise if we accept Jung’s notion that the ego, as exponent for the Self, has a role in incarnation, that psychological maturity means “the responsible living and fulfilling of the divine will in us.” Such questions include: “What is that? How can we do that? How can we even know the divine will? . . . It is the problem of distinguishing between the ego and the Self.” Edinger gives us some fine examples from Jung’s letters, from Melville’s novel White Jacket, and from clinical case histories to illustrate how the paradoxical Self manifests itself in human experience and the care a conscious ego must exercise in relating to it.


In a particularly poignant passage Edinger explains that, “In Jung’s view one is not entitled to pray for anything at all, except one thing: remind the Self to go easy on the ego, that it is expecting too much. One must remind the Self how things are up here in the material world, and thus not break the fragile bonds of the ego by demanding too much. Take it easy, let up a bit.”


One can approach this book in several ways. As an aid for understanding Jung’s formulations about the Self, it is superb. For a quick survey of historical ideas about religion and philosophy, it is a solid primer. It is fine explanation of the thinking of Jung in his later years. Edinger was a man who studied and worked in the area of analytical psychology for more than forty-five years. In the Preface to his book, The Aion Lectures, he offers some advice on reading Jung: “. . . you should realize that Jung’s consciousness vastly surpasses your own . . . If you make the assumption that you know better than he does and start out with a critical attitude—don’t bother, the book (Aion) isn’t for you . . . To read Jung successfully we must begin by accepting our own littleness; then we become teachable” (p. 11). Not bad advice for approaching The New God-Image.


This review was first published in The Round Table Review, January/February 1999, V. 6, No. 3.]

Readings Class
May 22, 2003

Our class met for its eighth and final session on Thursday, May 22. We devoted the two hours to a review and summation of the material we read and discussed. Our general conclusions were:

1. Reading Jung is difficult, rewarding, and satisfying; and we could reread everything from the eight weeks with interest and enthusiasm.

2. We have entertained and discussed difficult and interesting concepts that create many more questions than answers. [One member of the group pointed out that seriously reflecting on questions is a good deal more productive and leads to deeper insight than does focussing on knowledge and theory alone. We certainly did that!]

3. Although we developed general understanding of concepts like individuation. complex, archetype, collective unconscious, persona, shadow, anima/animus, self, our understanding has brought us to the need for further reading and study to help flesh out and bring the ideas even more to life.

Having one member bring and share her notes from the previous meeting has been most helpful and appreciated.

In the Fall, I will offer another "Jung Readings Course" under the auspices of the St. Louis Jung Society. For information, see the St. Louis Jung Society Website by clicking on the link on the left of this page.




Sunday, April 06, 2003

A key concept of Jungian Psychology is that of the "Self." Jung writes: "The self, in its efforts at self-realization, reaches out beyond the ego-personality on all sides; because of its all-emcompassing nature it is brighter and darker than the ego, and accordingly confronts it with problems which it would like to avoid. Either one's moral courage fails, or one's insight, or both, until in the end fate decides. The ego never lacks moral and rational counter-arguments, which one cannot and should not set aside so long as it is possible to hold on to them. For you only feel yourself on the right road when the conflicts of duty seem to have resolved themselves, and you have become the victim of a decision made over your head or in defiance of the heart. From this we can see the numinous power of the self, which can hardly be experienced in any other way. For this reason the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego." [C.W., Vol. 14, Para. 778]

In our "Jung Readings" class this week, we talked about the reasons it is so difficult for the ego to fully apprehend and consider the demands of the Self, let alone respond to them. A full apprehension and consideration would require decisions and responsibilities that the individual is rarely fully prepared for. I found this quote which, I think, helps us understand why our ego development often lags behind the demands of the Self. Jung seems to imply that it is often, if not always the case, that the ego simply cannot keep up, that necessarily the ego must suffer defeat in order to have an experience of the Self. Another way of saying the same thing is that it is impossible to will oneself not to will, which is a precondition to experiencing a greater will.

Jung stresses the need for an ethical, moral responsibility toward the demands of the Self and the images of the unconscious that appear to us in Memories, Dreams, Reflections:

"It is equally a grave mistake to think that it is enough to gain some understanding the the images and that knowledge can here make a halt. Insight into them must be converted into an ethical obligation. Not to do so is to fall prey to the power principle, and this produces dangerous effects which are destructive not only to others but even to the knower. The images of the unconscious place a great responsibility upon a man (sic). Failure to understand them, or a shirking of ethical responsibility, deprives him of his wholeness and imposes a painful fragmentariness on his life." [P. 192-3]
Jung writes of two kinds of thinking. The first kind is linear, learned, goal-oriented, directed and the kind of thinking we strive for in our consciousness. The second kind of thinking is circular; often disorienting and confusing to consciousness, not directed by consciousness; more given over to play and fantasy, and is the very basis of creativity. This second kind of thinking relies on symbol and image a good deal while the first kind finds itself more at home with words and thought.

Symbolic thinking, however, can be acquired and can greatly enrich our normal, more linear, word-based consciousness. Following are some helpful ideas about symbols from C.G. Jung and Paul Tillich:


Jung, in Man and His Symbols, pp. 20-27, writes:

A symbol “implies something vague, unknown or hidden from us.” . . . “Thus a word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. It has a wider ‘unconscious’ aspect that is never precisely defined or fully explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it. As the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.”

“Because there are innumerable things beyond the range of human understanding, we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend.”

“Thus every experience contains an indefinite number of unknown factors, not to speak of the fact that every concrete object is always unknown in certain respects, because we cannot know the ultimate nature of matter itself.”

“As a general rule, the unconscious aspect of any event is revealed to us in dreams, where it appears not as a rational thought but as a symbolic image.”


Tillich, in Dynamics of Faith, pp. 41-43, writes:

“Symbols . . . point beyond themselves to something else.” Symbols “participate in the reality of that to which they point.” Symbols cannot “be replaced for reasons of expediency or convention . . .”

A symbol “opens up levels of reality which are otherwise closed to us.” And a symbol “also unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality.”

“Symbols cannot be produced intentionally . . .” Symbols “cannot function without being accepted by the unconscious dimensions of our being.” Symbols grow and they die.

Saturday, February 22, 2003

Notes for February 20 Class - "Readings in Jung's Analytical Psychology"

In considering the relationship between the conscious mind and the unconscious, we might well begin with this quote from Jung:

"The conscious mind moreover is characterized by a certain narrowness. It can hold only a few simultaneous contents at a given moment. All the rest is unconscious at the time, and we only get a sort of continuation or a general understanding or awareness of a conscious world through the succession of conscious moments. We can never hold an image of totality because our consciousness is too narrow; we can only see flashes of existence. It is always as if we were observing through a slit so that we only see a particular moment; all the rest is dark and we are not aware of it at that moment. The area of the unconscious is enormous and always continuous, while the area of consciousness is a restricted field of momentary visions." [Jung's Collected Works, Vol. 18, Para. 13]

If we accept Jung's view, our level of certainty of knowledge is immediately diminished. Whatever we think we know is always and necessarily only a partial knowledge. What we can see is limited and, as we shall see, highly conditioned by the living context that we are. Our responsibility then is to work to increase our consciousness to the degree possible through education, dialogue, self-reflection, and a careful consideration of the ways in which we make decisions, hold values, influence others; indeed, by the ways we live our lives.

Some key ideas from our reading of de Laszlo's Text:

Jung, especially in his later works, focused on the symbolic expressions of the human spiritual experience. He observed, described and collated spiritual experiences in (a) imaginative activities of the individual and in (b) the formation of mythologies and religious symbolism in various cultures.

Archetypal symbols, that is to say, archaic imprints emerge from the deeper recesses of the psyche and are carriers of the process of individuation. Individuation is the inner experience of psychic growth of the human person and is frequently reflected in a series of symbolic images seen in dreams. Jung has given us a fairly complete exposition of such a dream series in his book, Psychology and Alchemy. Generally speaking the process of psychic growth we call individuation is characterized by an individual's movement from a state of conflict to a state in which he/she experiences greater freedom and unity of personality. Conflicts and problems are not left behind or resolved and solved. Rather, the individual learns to grapple more creatively and to engage fully in the issues and both his/her personal and collective lives.

Symbols are extremely important in the unfolding of the psychic process because through symbols the individual accesses new energy and new life. Symbols arise spontaneously and cannot be conjured up or manufactured. Archetypal symbols emerge from from the collective unconscious, the source of energy and insight in the depths of the human psyche which has been operatingfor aslong as records are available. The activity of the collective unconscious in the human psyche always has and still does aid, encourage, enable, even force spiritual development in the individual. (By spiritual, Jung does not mean the religious devotion to a dogma or creed. Rather, he is pointing to a certain vitality and self-reliance that develops in the person when he/she discovers the source of treasure that lies within the psyce. For a keener understanding of the differentiation Jung makes between religion and a personal religious attitude, see pp. 506-20. As long as the individual seeks answers or meaning or absolute authority outside him/herself, those goals remain elusive. Individuation is the seeking and the partial discovery of the treasure within, partial because individuation is lifelong process that has no clear conclusion or completion other than death.)

"Archetypes, so far as we can observe and experience them at all, manifest themselves only through their ability to organize images and ideas, and this is always an unconscious process which cannot be detected until afterwards." [de Laszlo, p.103]  When archetypal images appear to the individual, they have a numinous character.  Almost everyone has had such experiences, but they are extremely difficult to talk about or to communicate to another.  The experience of an archetypal image brings with it an unshakable, even if uncommunicable certainty because it is the image itself that conveys meaning.

Like instincts, archetypes influence consciousness by regulating, modifying and motivating conscious contents.  Consciousness develops and resides somewhere between the instinctual world of nature and the archetypal world of the spirit.

Jung has demonstrated that the individuation process follows a general unfolding that is characteristic and somewhat universal.   There is a chaotic assortment of images that slowly changes into well-defined elements and themes: (1) chaotic multiplicity and order (2) duality (3) opposition of light and dark, upper and lower, right and left (4) union of the opposites in a third thing (5) quaternity (square, cross), rotation (circle, sphere) and (6) finally the centering process and a radial arrangement that usually follows some quaternary system. The centering process is the climax of the process and is therapeutic. Examples of dreams that illustrate this final process can be found in the "great clock" dream of Wolfgang Pauli's (Jung's Collected Works, Vol. 12) and in a dream of Jung's, his "Liverpool" dream which he recounts in Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

C.G. JUNG SOCIETY OF SAINT LOUIS Program:
Readings in Jung’s Analytical Psychology
Presented by Rose Holt

This group will read and discuss the following selections from C. G. Jung’s works: “On the Nature of the Psyche,” “Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious,” “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious,” and “On the Nature of Dreams.” These readings provide a conceptual foundation that is fruitful for someone working to understand Jung more deeply as well as for someone seeking a solid introduction to Jung’s thinking.

TEXT: The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung, Ed. Violet S. de Laszlo. Princeton/Bollengen, 1990.

CEU’s are available for this course through the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago by individual arrangement with the analyst for an additional fee of $10.00.

Rose Holt, a Jungian analyst who divides her private practice between St. Louis and Chicago, is a diplomate of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.

Details:
8 Thursdays (1/30; 2/20; 3/6,20; 4/3,24; 5/8,22 in 2003)
Home in Central West End, St. Louis, Missouri

READINGS IN JUNG’S ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Course Syllabus
[for those enrolled in the course]

Dates: Thursdays - January 30; February 20; March 6, 20; April 3, 24; May 8, 22 in 2003.

Time: 7:30 – 9:30 P.M.

Text: The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung, Ed. Violet S. de Laszlo, Princeton University Press, 1990


Schedule of Readings and Discussion

January 30: Introductions, Syllabus, “On Reading Jung,” “Jung’s Two Kinds of Thinking,” Definitions

January 30: Writings pp. 39 – 71:
“The Significance of the Unconscious in Psychology”
“The Dissociability of the Psyche”
“Instinct and Will”
“Conscious and Unconscious”
"The Unconscious as a Multiple Consciousness”

February 20: Writings pp. 72 – 106
“Patterns of Behaviour and Archetypes”
“General Considerations and Prospects”
“Supplement”

March 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Monday, December 09, 2002

Jung, writing on the mechanism of projection:

"As events in wartime have clearly shown, our mentality is distinguished by the shameless naivete' with which we judge our enemy, and in the judgment we pronounce upon him we unwittingly reveal our own defects; we simply accuse our enemy of our own unadmitted faults. We see everything in the other, we criticize and condemn the other, we even want to improve and educate the other. There is no need for me to adduce case material to prove this proposition; the most convincing proof can be found in every newspaper. . . . . But as everyone knows, our self-awareness is still a long way behind our actual knowledge. When we allow ourselves to be irritated out of our wits by something, let us not assume that the cause of our irritation lies simply and solely outside us, in the irritating thing or person. In that way we endow them with the power to put us into the state of irritation, and possibly even one of insomnia or indigestion. We then turn round and unhestatingly condemn the object of offence, while all the time we are raging against an unconscious part of ourselves which is projected into the exasperating object." [C.G. Jung, THE STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF THE PSYCHIC, Vol. 8, Para 516]

Sunday, December 08, 2002

C.G. JUNG SOCIETY OF SAINT LOUIS Program:

Readings in Jung’s Analytical Psychology
Presented by Rose Holt

This group will read and discuss the following selections from C. G. Jung’s works: “On the Nature of the Psyche,” “Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious,” “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious,” and “On the Nature of Dreams.” These readings provide a conceptual foundation that is fruitful for someone working to understand Jung more deeply as well as for someone seeking a solid introduction to Jung’s thinking.

TEXT: The Basic Writings of C. G. Jung, Ed. Violet S. de Laszlo. Available locally or from the Chicago Jung Institute, (847) 476-4848 or (800) 697-7679, for $19.95.

CEU’s are available for this course through the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago by individual arrangement with the analyst for an additional fee of $10.00.

Rose Holt, a Jungian analyst who divides her private practice between St. Louis and Chicago, is a diplomate of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.

Details:
8 Thursdays (1/16,30; 2/20; 3/6,20; 4/3,24; 5/8)
Home in Central West End, St. Louis, Missouri
Address will be given to registrants
7:30 – 9:30 P.M.
Friends, $85
All others, $95
Limited to 10 registrants

To register, Call (314) 533-6809, or e-mail: cgjungstl@aol.com

For information about the C.G. Jung Society of Saint Louis, visit their website at http://members.aol.com/cgjungstl

Sunday, October 13, 2002

EGO, SELF, MEANING, AND VALUE

Recently on National Public Radio I heard a writer talking about the importance of St. Augustine’s CONFESSIONS. He said this book represents the first time anyone took himself so seriously, looked so deeply into his own thoughts and experiences, and attempted to share what he found. The CONFESSIONS marked a new dimension in the human project, a new way of human understanding of the project of being human. If the New Testament represents a shift in and a redefinition of the covenant between God and the human person, Augustine’s work is a refinement of and an elaboration of the human side of the covenant. August discovered a new way of reflecting on himself.

Why is self-reflection so critically important to our development, not just important to understand who we are now but also to understand something of that person we are on the way to becoming? I think the answer lies in the role of self-reflection in our ability to assign meaning. Developing a capacity for finding/assigning meaning is crucial:

“. . . this means that the process of interpretation is not complete until the student has produced an interpretive text of his or her own. This is perhaps the place where psychoanalysis has the most to teach literary pedagogy. Both Freud and Lacan stress the importance of the patient’s ‘putting into words of the event’ (Jacques Lacan, THE LANGUAGE OF THE SELF, [Baltimore, 1968] p. 16) in order for any therapeutic effect to be obtained. It is never enough simply to tell the patient what must have happened, to raise his consciousness, so to speak. The patient must verbalize for himself. … . I am not suggesting that psychoanalysis and literary interpretation are the same thing, or even that they are highly analogous processes—only that psychoanalysis has demonstrated consistently for over three-quarters of a century that there is a significant difference between the states of consciousness involved in receiving a text and producing one. Specifically, the text we produce is ours in a deeper and more essential way than any text we receive from outside. When we read we do not possess the text we read in any permanent way. But when we make an interpretation we do add to our store of knowledge—and what we add is not the text itself but our own interpretation of it. In literary interpretation we possess only what we create.” (Robert Scholes, Semiotics and interpretation, [New Haven, 1982] p. 4).

All of us assign meaning to ideas, events, and experiences. Most of us are, more or less, in the dark, i.e., unconscious of the process by which we arrive at meaning. Since the fundamental purpose of Jungian Psychology is to render somewhat conscious that which is largely unconscious in our lives, an exploration of the process itself is in order. There are several possibilities for the ways in which we add an outside content to our consciousness and assign meaning to it:

1. We can adapt something from an outside source and accept it at face value. We do this when we accept dogma as our truth or when we follow the laws of the land because we hold an assumption that our doing so is for the common good. A good deal of early childhood education holds with this way as a methodology even though there is ample evidence that children learn not what they are taught but rather what they see modeled in the behavior of significant others. Rejection or acceptance of dogma or law can be flip sides of the same coin. In either case, it is the dogma or the law that determines the individual’s behavior because the dogma or the law has taken up residence in consciousness.

2. We can achieve a modicum of distance from an idea, an event, or an experience, put it through some kind of consciousness-sorting process and accept/reject some or all, more or less thoughtfully. In this process, our own consciousness is the final arbiter of meaning and value. A potential problem with this process is that whatever is put through a particular state of consciousness is, at least to some degree, shaped and determined by that state, so that meaning and value can arise more from the consciousness than from the content itself. If the content is odious or contrary to the state of consciousness, considerable refraction of the content may take place so that the content loses its value for adding something new/different to the existing consciousness. One way of picturing this process is to consider two extremes of consciousness for approaching a written text:

Author is Authority------------------------------------Reader is Authority

Law---------------------------------------------------------------------Anarchy

Meaning/value determined by author---Meaning/value determined by reader



All of us approach any text somewhere along this continuum, and our approach is by no means a trivial choice. For the fundamentalist Christian, a Biblical text is understood literally, and its meaning and value is determined by the author whom they believe to be God. For a reader on the other end of the continuum who finds meaning and value in translating Biblical story and understanding patterns of behavior described in the Bible as having application to the patterns of his/her life, the reader determines for him/herself meaning and value. At least for these two extremes, the text is held in common. Think how much more extreme the positions can become when even the texts dictated by God are different and are understood as law, as in the Bible and the Koran.

Another example of the importance of method of interpretation is the U.S. Constitution. Is the Constitution a static document whose meaning was fixed by the framers and is to be understood that way? Or is the Constitution a living document that needs new interpretation and adaptation to changed circumstances, and that is the meaning intended by the framers? People fight wars over the meaning and value they assign to ideas without an ounce of understanding of the process by which they came to hold that meaning and value.

3. We can seek a larger context in the outer world for both our consciousness and an idea/event/experience so that our consciousness is not alone or is not the final arbiter for judgment of meaning and value. This is, of course, a tricky business because it demands a great deal of trust and faith. We are willing to yield to a higher authority (i.e., someone who can author) because we believe the higher authority has information, experience, or judgment that we lack. Sometimes the issue (idea/event/experience) is so troubling that we are relieved, even happy, to give it over to someone else. People may come into therapy with the happy expectation that the therapist will tell him/her what to do. Personal responsibility for the state of one’s own consciousness can be a heavy burden. I think we are seeing some abdication of personal responsibility and authority among the general population as we collectively try to deal with this phenomenon of terrorism. The public, even the Congress, is piling more and more authority upon Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft. There are, of course, collective issues that must be dealt with by collective decision and action, and this too is a matter for important discernment.

4. We can seek a larger context in the inner world for both our consciousness and an idea/event/experience. If you accept one of the basic tenets of Jungian Theory, i.e., that the ego and ego consciousness are one part in a larger entity, the Self, there is existent in the inner world a context that can be extremely helpful in the discernment of meaning and value. Whether the Self is a help or a hindrance depends entirely upon the relationship between the ego and the Self—as is the case in any other interdependent relationship. If the ego is at odds with the Self and is pursuing meaning and value contrary to the intentionality of the Self, it may happen that the Self will hasten the destruction of an unhealthy facet of ego consciousness. [Assigning intentionality to the Self may be an anthropomorphism. A more accurate way of stating the situation might be to say, "It is as ifthe intention of the Self is counter to that of the ego." We are probably on firm ground in our statement since frequently the Self personifies itself in dreams.]

Let’s take a specific example to illustrate the possibility outlined in No. 4 above. This example also shows one of the archetypal patterns of human behavior portrayed in the Bible that we have seen lived out in recent events. In the Spring of 2001 a Pakistani official traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, on a mission to save the two 1,700 year-old statues of Buddha that the Taliban were threatening to destroy in their religious fervor. Mullah Omar, “Commander of the Faithful” and head of the Taliban, told the official a dream: A mountain was falling down on him (Omar). Before it hit him, Allah appeared and asked Omar why he had done nothing to get rid of false idols.” (Robert Marquand, The Christian Science Monitor, csmonitor.com, October 10, 2001) Omar, a person who took guidance from his dreams, proceeded with the destruction of the ancient Buddha carvings.

There is a close parallel between Omar’s dream and that of King Nebuchadnezzar as told in the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel. At the peak of his power, Nebuchadnezzar, full of his own might and glory, had a warning dream: “I saw a tree of great height at the center of the world. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen to the ends of the earth. Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, providing food for all. Under it the wild beasts found shade, in its branches the birds of the air nested; all men ate of it. In the vision I saw while in bed, a holy sentinel came down from heaven, and cried out: ‘Cut down the tree and lop off its branches. But leave in the earth its stump and roots, fettered with iron and bronze, in the grass of the field. Let him be bathed with the dew of heaven; his lot be to eat, among beasts, the grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from the human; let him be given the sense of a beast, till seven years pass over him.” (New American Bible, Daniel 4:7-14) A year passes. Nebuchadnezzar has gone on in his arrogant way as before and then “was cast out from among men, he ate grass like an ox, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, and his nails like the claws of a bird.” (NAB, Daniel 4: 30)

Had Mullah Omar been willing to look inward at the “false idols” within his own consciousness, he might have changed his behaviors, and events of the past year and one-half would have unfolded very differently. Had he known the archetypal story of Nebuchadnezzar, Omar might have interpreted his dream as an invitation to self-reflection and self-correction. It could have helped him with his mental hygiene. However, he interpreted the dream as a confirmation of his plan, and thus you could say the Self acted to destroy an unyielding and contrary ego structure. As he was warned in the dream, so it came to pass—a mountain fell on him.

If we accept the premise that the ego is the exponent for the Self in the world, a solid working alliance between them is essential, for the only way the Self can manifest or incarnate is through the conduit of a more or less willing ego consciousness. In the cases of Nebuchadnezzar and Mullah Omar, we could say that the ego became so inflated with its own view and importance that it could no longer accept critical input from the Self.




Saturday, October 12, 2002

When you work with your dreams, "it's amazing the information you get that is different from your everyday perception, information that gives you a different way of walking through life. You don't have to go on in the same old way any more. I used to go strictly with my feelings that were raging around, would get stuck in them. Now I find that if I cann go over them, process them those feelings don't hang around for days. I am unstuck then. It's that old thing--the truth will set you free. So my perception is not always the truth of me or of my situation. I don't have to be stuck in my perception." [Cheryl]



"It is always as if we were observing through a slit so that we only see a particular moment; all the rest is dark and we are not aware of it at that moment. The area of the unconscious is enormous and always continuous, while the area of consciousness is a restricted field of momentary vision." [C.G. Jung, ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE, p. 8]



ON DREAMS

Almost everyone has, at one time in his/her life, had an impressive dream that stays in the memory. Whether you declare the dream meaningless or not, the memory lingers and is evoked by particular peoples, places, and experiences. The mere fact that the dream continues to occupy psychic space is an indicator that it has some kind of effect and that the effect is a lasting one even if it is limited to an occasional thought or emotion.

A dream of this nature brings up an important question: Do dreams, in and of themselves, have meaning, or does the dreamer, by reflecting upon the dream and its images assign meaning to it? If the answer to the first part of the question is yes, the discovery of a dream's meaning could be important in that the dreamer will add a valuable content to his/her conscious understanding. Depending upon the impact and weight of the dream, the added value could be considerable. If, on the other hand, the answer to the second part of the question is yes, the dreamer may assume a certain responsibility to create or assign meaning, in which case the result will be the same--a more or less important content is created in the conscious life of the dreamer.

It seems to me that the mystery of the dream presents us with a peculiar and important decision. We can ignore the dream(s) and explain it away as caused by something we ate, saw, heard--a fragment not related to anything important about us or our lives. Or we can take a more empirical approach in which we consider the hypothesis that dreams have, or could have, important meaning, then set out to test our hypothesis by looking deeply into our own experience of dreaming. By adopting the second approach, we have everything to gain and nothing to lose--even if our decision proves to be wrong--for the simple reason that any reflection on experience can provide for enrichment of our consciousness.

The Jungian approach is, of course, the latter. There is no doubt that dreams have been an important factor in the development of peoples throughout history. Until more recent times, dreams have generally been understood to bring messages, warn, enrich, frighten, correct, and enoble the human person. The Bible assigns considerable importance to dreams and their function in the developing relationships of God with God's people. It may even be the case that in the developing/growing covenant between God and the individual, the dream is one of the tools of communication and negotiation.

In working with dreams over the years, I have developed a set of working hypotheses/assumptions for approaching the dream. Fundamentally, I believe every single dream has two purposes: to heal in some way and/or to cast light on the personal situation of the dreamer.

Following are some additional assumptions about dreams that might prove helpful in exploring the dream as helpful counsellor for waking reality and for increasing consciousness because finding/making meaning is one of the primary needs of the human person:

1. Through patient attention to your dreams, you can make contact with and enter into a meaningful dialogue with the unconscious. [By unconscious, I simply mean the source of those factors that influence and impact our lives in unknown ways.]

2. The unconscious is Janus-faced; i.e., it turns to us the face we turn to it.

3. Every dream is given to us for the purpose of healing past hurts, enlarging our perspective, or integrating portions of our personality.

4. The dreams brings new information to compensate or complement our waking attitudes.

5. Our life energy, or ibido is personified in dreams as if the psyche, or the unconscious, wants to draw us into a living relationship.

6. Relationships with inner figures can be as important, enriching, and rewarding as relationships with people in our outer lives.

7. Our inner and outer lives are in some way mirrors of each other. Work with dreams can provide for a more harmonious balance between the two.

8. The psyche has a teleological aspect, i.e., is working toward a goal or purpose. Further, it seeks our participation and cooperation.

Monday, September 23, 2002

". . . the psyche is the most tremendous fact of human life. Indeed, it is the mother of all human facts, of civilization and of its destroyer, war." [C.G. Jung COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 9i., Para 206]

Never in modern life has an understanding of psyche and of one's relationship to psyche been more important. It is a hubris of ego-consciousness that it believes it is self-made. All evidence indicates that ego-consciousness arises from psyche to which it owes its existence and on-going life. An ego that ignores the fact of its psychic roots is in peril. Like the individual, a world too unconsciously under the sway of psychic processes can easily succumb to barbaric behaviors, untempered by conscious understanding and correction.

Saturday, September 21, 2002

One of C.G. Jung's fundamental contributions to the fields of psychology and epistemology is his concept of archetypes. For Jung, an archetype is a pattern of behavior. You can liken this concept to that of the structure of a crystal. While the crystalline structure predetermines the architecture of the actual crystal, until the crystal is given real form in matter, the pattern exists only as a concept. The archetype, then, is an abstract concept that has real lived meaning only when filled in with actual human experience. Like Kant's categories, an archetype is an a priori structure of cognition.



Sunday, September 15, 2002

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability
And that it may take a very long time.
[PierreTeilhard de Chardin]



Jung believed that the individual has to adapt to some degree to external realities, but he also believed that adaptation to the realities of one's own inner life is just as essential. About his therapeutic goals, he says: "My aim is to bring about a psychic state in which my patient begins to experiment with his own nature--a state of fluidity, change, and growth where nothing is eternally fixed and hopelessly petrified." [COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 7, P. 46]

Paraphrasing Ignatius Loyola, Jung describes the role and function of consciousness: "Man's (sic) consciousness was created to the end that it may (1) recognize (laudet its descent from a higher unity (Deum); (2) pay due and careful regard to this source (reverentiam exhibeat); (3) execute its commands intelligently and responsibly (serviat); and (4) thereby afford the psyche as a whole the optimum degree of life and development (salvet animan suam). [COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 9ii, p. 165]



THE EFFECT OF THE UNCONSCIOUS UPON CONSCIOUSNESS

Unconscious contents, especially those that belong to the personal unconscious, make themselves felt through symptoms, actions, affects, opinions, fantasies, and dreams. The general relationship that exists between ego consciousness and the unconscious is compensatory. When the relationship works, i.e., when there is a balance and harmony between them, there is self-regulation of the psyche. When the relationship goes awry, when there is too great a deviation between the ego attitude and an unconscious process, then an imbalance sets in.

An example of this compensatory mechanism occurs when, for example, we hold a low opinion of someone--too low and not reality based. We might have a dream of that person in an exalted position. Or perhaps we work too hard, are too ego-driven, overly-ambitious and too goal-oriented. The unconscious may compensate such an ego state by withdrawing psychic libido. Depression or lethargy sets in. We might dream our car is stalled, or we are trying to run and our legs won't move, we can't get to the airport on time, etc. The unconscious has withdrawn its cooperation.

A solid working alliance with the unconscious is of great importance to the well-being and functioning of an individual. Complexes interfere with our everydfay functioning, a clear sign that unconscious material is pressing for admission to ego consciousness. When unconscious material is placing pressure on our ego consciousness, we may have dreams of unwelcome intruders or upsetting and troublesome visitors.

Friday, September 13, 2002

No one has any obligations to a concept; that is what is so agreeable about conceptuality--it promises protection from experience. The spirit does not dwell in concepts, but in deeds and in facts. [MDR, p. 144]
Certainly the ego and its will have a great part to play in life; but what the ego wills is subject in the highest degree to the interference, in ways of which the ego is usually unaware, of the autonomy and numinosity of archetypal processes. Practical consideration of these processes is the essence of religion, insofar as religion can be approached from a psychological point of view. [C.G. Jung, MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS, p. 353]
This (the unification of the divided components of the personality within the psyche of the individual) would form a counterbalance to the progressive dichotomy and psychic dissociation of collective man.

It is of supreme importance that this (unification) process should take place consciously, otherwise the psychic consequences of mass-mindedness will harden and become permanent. For, if the inner consolidation of the individual is not a conscious achievement, it will occur spontaneously and will then take the well-known form of that incredible hard-heartedness which collective man displays towards his fellow men. He becomes a soulless herd animal governed only by panic and lust: his soul, which can live only in and from human relationships, is irretrievably lost. But the conscious achievement of inner unity clings to human relationships as to an indispensable condition, for without the conscious acknowledgment and acceptance of our fellowship with those around us there can be no synthesis of personality. [COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 16, Para. 443-44]

Monday, August 26, 2002

When you work with your dreams, "it's amazing the information you get that is different from your everyday perception, information that gives you a different way of walking through life. You don't have to go on in the same old way any more. I used to go strictly with my feelings that were raging around, would get stuck in them. Now I find that if I cann go over them, process them those feelings don't hang around for days. I am unstuck then. It's that old thing--the truth will set you free. So my perception is not always the truth of me or of my situation. I don't have to be stuck in my perception." [Cheryl]


"It is always as if we were observing through a slit so that we only see a particular moment; all the rest is dark and we are not aware of it at that moment. The area of the unconscious is enormous and always continuous, while the area of consciousness is a restricted field of momentary vision." [C.G. Jung, ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY: ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE, p. 8]
ROSE F. HOLT, Jungian Analyst

Offices:

Chicago (773) 293 -4606
St. Louis (314) 726-2032
]
Voice Mail: [314 740-6207]
e-mail: roseholt@aol.com

Sunday, August 25, 2002

For a fictional account of a Jungian analysis, see Robertson Davies' THE MANTICORE.
C.G. Jung: The Self is the principle and archetype of orientation and meaning. Therein lies its healing function.

Saturday, August 24, 2002

C.G. JUNG "The energy of the central point, (the Self), is manifested in the almost irresistible compulsion and urge to become what one is, just as every organism is driven to assume the form that is characteristic of its nature, no matter what the circumstances." [COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 9i, Para. 634]
Complex - An unconscious psychic content made up of associated ideas and images clustered around a central core. The core is an archetypal image. When constellated, affects emerge which upset the psychic balance and interfere with the customary functioning of the ego. Every complex has an archetypal core, and the core consists of a pair of opposites. If we identify with one part of the complex, one of the pair, the other is unconscious and we will know it only in projection, i.e., it truly belongs in our own personality but, for various reasons, we cannot own it and so it will land on some thing, place, or person. An example of this identification/projection mechanism could be in a mother-complex. If the personal mother was a too-good, always available, always a giving mother for us, that is the kind of mother we most probably will introject. The negative mother, the other part of the archetypal mother, we will find in the world, perhaps in a person, an institution, or even in the matrix of our lives (interestingly enough, mother and matrix derive from the same root word.) We could speculate in a similar way on the father-complex. You can see how important, how vital, it is for each of us to reconcile, to the degree that we are able, the opposites that belong to the archetypal core of our complexes.
ROSE F. HOLT, Jungian Analyst

Offices:

St. Louis, MO (314) 740-6207 

Voice Mail: [314 740-6207]
e-mail: rosefholt@gmail.com




Unconscious - The source of those factors that influence and impact our lives in unknown ways. Jung distinguished between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious. The former consists of those behaviors, attitudes, personal characteristics, experiences that we have repressed because they were too painful or too embarrassing for us to acknowledge as belonging to us and to our history. The latter, the collective unconscious, is the repository of human heritage and of things that have never been conscious. Under certain conditions, contents of the unconscious, both the personal and the collective aspects, can become conscious, i.e., can make themselves known to an ego.

Friday, August 23, 2002

Jungian Analysis is a particular approach to psychotherapy that works to harmonize conscious and unconscious factors so that the individual becomes more or less reconciled to his/her own complexities. Jung's view of the psyche is that beyond the personal levels of the psyche, there are active factors that seek recognition by ego consciousness. Unrecognized and split off, these factors cause unpleasant neurotic symptoms. These symptoms can result in a conscious situation of distress that may serve to activate the reconciliation process, a process Jung calls "individuation."

Jungian psychoanalysis is a journey of self-discovery. Dream themes and symbols as well as life patterns are the guides we follow. Dream images and symbols compensate one-sided or too-restrictive conscious attitudes, and thus serve as an "inner teacher" that can round out and complete the personality.

C.G. Jung: The Self is the principle and archetype of orientation and meaning. Therein lies its healing function.
ROSE F. HOLT, Jungian Analyst

Offices:


St. Louis, MO (314) 740-6207

Voice Mail: [314 740-6207]
e-mail: rosefholt@gmail.com


Analytical (Jungian) Psychology is based upon the work of C.G. Jung (1875-1961), a Swiss psychiatrist who spent his life working to understand and to "map" the human psyche. He demonstrated that the psyche, like the body, is fairly uniform in fundamental ways, manifesting itself in people's lives in universal patterns which he called archetypes, or "ancient imprints." Just as a bird has an inate pattern of a nest which serves as a guide, Jung saw that human beings also have inate characteristic and repeating patterns which inform our existence. Central to the archetypes is Jung's notion of the Self, the architect of order and meaning. The Self, according to Jung, envelops and surrounds the individual ego, influencing and guiding while also seeking its own fulfillment in the ego. If ego consciousness strays dangerously far from the Self, the ground of being of the ego, disastrous consequences can result. Important and impressive dreams, emotions and affects, as well as significant life events/patterns are the primary ways the Self communicates with the ego

In the Jungian approach to psychotherapy/psychoanalysis, analyst and client work together to facilitate better relations between the ego and the Self. Through careful attention to the client's history, early traumas, relationships, significant events, and through examination and discussion of the client's dreams, analyst and client may establish this critical ego-Self relationship. Work with dreams is important because the images in dreams "are symbols, that is, the best possible formulation for still unknown or unconscious facts, which generally compensate the content of consciousness or the conscious attitude." [Jung, COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. 14, Para 772] Focus on and discussion of dream images are techniques for understanding the messages the Self is trying to convey via the dream. The dreamer begins to glimpse his/her role and function in the psychic background and see in what ways he/she is at odds with psychic unfolding.


Psychological maturity, for Jung, is the individual's commitment toward the responsible living and fulfilling of the archetypal dimensions of the psyche and the demands of the Self.