Jung’s experience as a child of having ‘two personalities’ impacted the development of analytical psychology in numerous ways, but its most important influence was upon the emergence of Jung’s notion of individuation. Individuation, the central notion of analytical psychology, is all about the avoidance of one-sidedness. Through the operation of the ‘transcendent function’ Jung saw individuation as a way to transform creatively in the direction of wholeness.

In his later psychology in particular, Jung became particularly interested in utilising these ideas to overcome the dominant Cartesian split within modern consciousness, and specifically the dichotomy between the psychological dimensions of interiority and exteriority.  The three arenas in which he was able to explore this question at the greatest depth were Transference/Countertransference, Alchemy and Synchronicity. It was his research into these three topics that enabled Jung to extend the notion of psyche beyond the individual and to put into question the subject/object divide.  My goal in this seminar is to explore Jung’s notion of the extended psyche through a clinical lens. I want to look at how individuation shows up within the analytic vessel and particularly through the trans-subjective energetic field that Jung called “the third”. My aim is to show how a Jungian approach to these clinical questions differs from, for example, the psychoanalytic approach.  I will then go on to explore the possibility that these ideas of Jung offer an opening toward the psychosocial, potentially enabling us to make an authentically Jungian contribution to political and social questions.

Mark Saban, P.h.D, is a senior Jungian analyst (a member of the Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists) and a lecturer in Jungian and post-Jungian studies in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, Essex University. He recently co-edited Analysis and Activism – Social and Political Contributions of Jungian Psychology, Ed. Emilija Kiehl, Mark Saban, & Andrew Samuels (Routledge) 2016 (Finalist American Board and Academy of Psychoanalysis Book Prize, Nominated Gradiva Award for Best Edited Book). Recent articles include, Jung, Winnicott and the divided psyche, Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2016, 61, 3, 329–349 and Secrete e Bugie. Un’area cieca nella psycologia junghiana, Rivista di psicologia analitica, 2017, n. 43 Volume 95.His website http://www.marksaban.co.uk/.

Live Lecture & Discussion

Bonus Lecture
Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

This bonus lecture by Dr. Mark Saban addresses the place of Archetypes and the Collective unconscious in Jung’s psychology, with a particular focus on clinical applications of these concepts. In the first part of the seminar  Dr. Saban outlines Jung’s ideas about archetypes and the role they play within his overall psychology, then he moves onto various critical approaches to the archetype that have arisen in post-Jungian literature. With these critiques in mind, Dr. Saban will then move onto the ways archetypes show up in clinical practice and how archetypal theory can inform work with patients, with a particular emphasis upon the experiential dimension of the archetype and its relation to dream, complex, and symptom.

The slides for the presentation can be found at this link, and the video recording can be watched below:

https://appliedjung.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Archetypes-and-the-Collective-Unconscius-Webinar.pdf

Bonus Lecture Reading Material

Below is a selection of readings provided by Mark Saban, for the bonus lecture on Archetypes.

Main Lecture – Reading Material

Click on the links below to download your articles for this module.

Questionnaire

This module explores the meaning of individuation through stage representations of crisis and transformation. Individuation is a central idea in Jungian psychology. The project of developing and integrating one’s self over the course of a lifetime is rarely explored in other schools of depth psychology; we will consider some of the meanings and opportunities that open out from this idea.

I will use scenes from opera, music theatre, and film to explore individuation as it appears in different characters and narratives. We will see how staged symbols connect unconscious archetypal material with ego consciousness in ways that support and direct various processes. The amplified images, patterned situations, and articulated emotions of screen and stage works are designed to reflect not merely our desires, but all the things that engage us, positive and negative. We use these materials to dream ourselves through the joys and disasters that make up our lives, opening up unexpected possibilities for our own individuation.

Paul Attinello is a diplomate analyst who studied at the C. G. Jung-Institut in Zürich, as well as a senior lecturer at Newcastle University. He has taught at the University of Hong Kong and as a guest professor at UCLA, received his PhD from UCLA, and has lived and worked on four continents. He has published in a number of journals, collections and reference works on contemporary musics, HIV/AIDS, and cultural, philosophical and psychological topics.

Live Lecture & Discussion

Reading Material

Click on the links below to download your articles for this module.

a)  In this module, songs and theatre pieces are used to evoke various stages of the individuation process, through their emotional content, dramatic moments and turning points they may contain.  Contemplate a stage of self-growth, transition, or even confrontation with disparate parts of yourself, that you have experienced at some point in your own life.  Then choose a song that reflects or relates to what you were experiencing at that time, in retrospect.  If not a song, perhaps a visual art work or a scene from a movie, tv show or book may speak more directly to what you remember of the process. Explore for yourself how that work speaks to that experience.

b)  Now contemplate your clinical work or practice. Choose a song or playlist that speaks to your practice as you currently engage in it, or as it is developing.  With that selected music (or other artwork), reflect upon the telos of your work, your therapy setting and practice, and your relationship with it now.  What does that music or art piece evoke?

Note – You are welcome to share your application on the private Facebook forum for this course.

Questionnaire

Cultural Complexes are ubiquitous in the psyches of individuals and groups. Their deep and unconscious effects can be enormously destructive as well as provide a strong sense of identity.  This lecture will explore the notion of cultural complexes and how they live inside us as individuals, as members of groups, and as citizens of nation states. The lecture is based on a series of articles and books that I have written and edited over the past two decades that have focused on complexes in Australia, Latin America, Europe, Southeast Asia and the United States. The initial part of the lecture will provide a history of the development of the idea in the Jungian tradition and a working definition of the concept through elucidating its characteristics. We will then explore the notion through examples both in individuals and in large groups. In the context of unfolding events in Russia, the Ukraine, and the response of the rest of the world, we will work together to see how the concept of cultural complexes may shed some light on this current world crisis.

Thomas Singer, MD is a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst who trained at Yale Medical School, Dartmouth Medical School, and the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.  He is the author and editor of many articles and books, including a series of books on cultural complexes in Australia, Latin America, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States.  Cultural Complexes and the Soul of America won the IAJS award for Best Edited Book of 2020.  In addition, Dr. Singer has co-edited a series of books on Ancient Greece/Modern Psyche.  He serves on the Board of ARAS (Archive for Research into Archetypal Symbolism) and has edited ARAS Connections for many years.)