This paper explores the moment of change in analysis I call "the still point" through consideration of the phenomenology of when that which is known is sacrificed and the new has not yet appeared. The change process is understood as inherently relational where transformation comes about when the analyst is as vulnerable and open as the patient. Ghent's work on surrender, Stern's on moments of meeting, Jung's on transformation in the I Ching, and Strachey's work on the mutative interpretation are each considered. The still point is rooted in the collective unconscious, which provides the underlying energy for the interpersonal dimension of change in analysis. The image of the pendulum swinging to an undetectable stillness in the instant before it changes direction is used to illustrate the still point.
{"title":"The Still Point and the Liminal Character of Transformation.","authors":"Steven Eliezer Zemmelman","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13057","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13057","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This paper explores the moment of change in analysis I call \"the still point\" through consideration of the phenomenology of when that which is known is sacrificed and the new has not yet appeared. The change process is understood as inherently relational where transformation comes about when the analyst is as vulnerable and open as the patient. Ghent's work on surrender, Stern's on moments of meeting, Jung's on transformation in the I Ching, and Strachey's work on the mutative interpretation are each considered. The still point is rooted in the collective unconscious, which provides the underlying energy for the interpersonal dimension of change in analysis. The image of the pendulum swinging to an undetectable stillness in the instant before it changes direction is used to illustrate the still point.</p>","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143013806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This author read W. R. Bion's (1974) unpublished, personally annotated copy of C. G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections (MDR). The interest here is to conjoin Bion's reading of Jung with his own contemporaneous work. After setting out a context for Jung and Bion's meeting one another in 1935, we look at Bion's subsequent psychoanalytic development over the decades until 1974, particularly in the area of clinical intuition. The author takes up Bion's clinical seminars in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in 1974. He maintains that direct correlations can be made between Bion's marginal comments in MDR and material that he directly lectured on in his 1974 clinical seminars. Bion's interest here centred on the development of clinical intuition, dreams and precocious intellectual development. Even though he never mentioned Jung by name in 1974, it seems that Jung was clearly to the back of his mind as he lectured to his Brazilian colleagues in 1974. The fields of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology can be further enhanced by exploring how Bion and Jung's ideas converge as well as diverge.
{"title":"Conjoining Bion's Reading of C. G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections with his Clinical Seminars in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo.","authors":"Joseph Aguayo","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13070","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13070","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This author read W. R. Bion's (1974) unpublished, personally annotated copy of C. G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections (MDR). The interest here is to conjoin Bion's reading of Jung with his own contemporaneous work. After setting out a context for Jung and Bion's meeting one another in 1935, we look at Bion's subsequent psychoanalytic development over the decades until 1974, particularly in the area of clinical intuition. The author takes up Bion's clinical seminars in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo in 1974. He maintains that direct correlations can be made between Bion's marginal comments in MDR and material that he directly lectured on in his 1974 clinical seminars. Bion's interest here centred on the development of clinical intuition, dreams and precocious intellectual development. Even though he never mentioned Jung by name in 1974, it seems that Jung was clearly to the back of his mind as he lectured to his Brazilian colleagues in 1974. The fields of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology can be further enhanced by exploring how Bion and Jung's ideas converge as well as diverge.</p>","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142883253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Editorial.","authors":"Ann Addison, Arthur Niesser","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13069","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13069","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142878282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Introduction from the Clinical Commentaries Editors.","authors":"Michelle Cooper, Constance Romero, Laura Tuley","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13062","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13062","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142830226","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Case Response II.","authors":"Hilda M Guttormsen","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13064","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13064","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142839988","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While C. G. Jung largely eschewed the term "narcissism" following his split with Freud, his writings describe in archetypal language conditions that closely resemble narcissistic disorders. One such archetype, the puer æternus, appears phenomenologically similar to clinical descriptions of Heinz Kohut, in particular his case of "Mr. Z", and what has been termed elsewhere as hyper-vigilant (as opposed to oblivious) narcissism. While narcissism as a concept has been addressed at length in post-Jungian literature, this paper uses Kohut's case as a starting point to explore the corresponding alchemical process of life-renewal, the ambivalence of regression, and the dangers of the lesser coniunctio, or the archetypal basis of the weak ego's desire for incest with the collective unconscious in the form of the Great/Terrible Mother. It also addresses the clinical relevance of this topic when working with the individual who fits Kohut's description of Tragic Man, or Jung's puer æternus.
{"title":"The Alchemy of Narcissism: Depression, Regression, and the Lesser Coniunctio.","authors":"Max Phillips","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13059","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13059","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While C. G. Jung largely eschewed the term \"narcissism\" following his split with Freud, his writings describe in archetypal language conditions that closely resemble narcissistic disorders. One such archetype, the puer æternus, appears phenomenologically similar to clinical descriptions of Heinz Kohut, in particular his case of \"Mr. Z\", and what has been termed elsewhere as hyper-vigilant (as opposed to oblivious) narcissism. While narcissism as a concept has been addressed at length in post-Jungian literature, this paper uses Kohut's case as a starting point to explore the corresponding alchemical process of life-renewal, the ambivalence of regression, and the dangers of the lesser coniunctio, or the archetypal basis of the weak ego's desire for incest with the collective unconscious in the form of the Great/Terrible Mother. It also addresses the clinical relevance of this topic when working with the individual who fits Kohut's description of Tragic Man, or Jung's puer æternus.</p>","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142839990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The construct of mentalization has a growing resonance in the theoretical and clinical spheres across different clinical and psychotherapeutic approaches, including that of analytical psychology. The aim of this paper is to relate the Reflective Function to the concept of Compensation, as it was re-invented by Jung (1914). Beginning with the original reading proposed by Jung in his work about the "interpretation of Daniel's interpretation" of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the authors go so far as to propose that the interpretation of dreams can be a method for critical confrontation with oneself. In this perspective, the reflective function and the compensation principle can be considered as promoters of a critical (re)view of one's own assumptions/attitudes through confrontation with other points of view. This critical (re)view must be conducted first of all in the interior life of the person. In clinical practice, reflective function and the concept of compensation serve as essential tools for seeing differently and reshaping one's understanding of self and others. A brief "modern" clinical case is provided to illustrate the practical application and therapeutic value of this approach.
{"title":"A Dialectical Perspective on Reflective Function and the Concept of Compensation in Jung.","authors":"Ignazio Vecchiato, Simona Gazzotti","doi":"10.1111/1468-5922.13056","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.13056","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The construct of mentalization has a growing resonance in the theoretical and clinical spheres across different clinical and psychotherapeutic approaches, including that of analytical psychology. The aim of this paper is to relate the Reflective Function to the concept of Compensation, as it was re-invented by Jung (1914). Beginning with the original reading proposed by Jung in his work about the \"interpretation of Daniel's interpretation\" of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, the authors go so far as to propose that the interpretation of dreams can be a method for critical confrontation with oneself. In this perspective, the reflective function and the compensation principle can be considered as promoters of a critical (re)view of one's own assumptions/attitudes through confrontation with other points of view. This critical (re)view must be conducted first of all in the interior life of the person. In clinical practice, reflective function and the concept of compensation serve as essential tools for seeing differently and reshaping one's understanding of self and others. A brief \"modern\" clinical case is provided to illustrate the practical application and therapeutic value of this approach.</p>","PeriodicalId":45420,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2024-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142839986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}