Research in Analytical Psychology

Applications from Scientific, Historical, and Cross-Cultural Research

Joseph Cambray, Leslie Sawin, Joseph Cambray, Leslie Sawin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315448589
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psicologia
• Subtopic: Salute mentale in psicologia

Research in Analytical Psychology: Applications from Scientific, Historical, and Cross-Cultural Research is a unique collection of chapters from an international selection of contributors, reflecting the contemporary field of research in Analytical Psychology with a focus on qualitative and mixed-methods research.

Presented in seven parts, this volume offers unique qualitative research that highlights approaches to understanding the psyche and investigating its components, and offers a Jungian perspective on cultural forces affecting individual psychology. The book brings forward the connections between Analytical Psychology and other disciplines including neuroscience, psychotherapy research, developmental research, Freudian psychoanalysis, and cultural studies. Part I provides an introduction to the volume, establishes the nature of qualitative and interdisciplinary research and its applications for research in other fields, and outlines the presented work. Part II, Approaching Qualitative Research in Analytical Psychology, examines postmodernism and the value a Jungian perspective offers, and introduces Jung's correspondence as an emerging resource. Part III, Research on Symbolic Aspects of the Psyche, looks at archetypal theory and cultural complex theory. Part IV, Research on Consciousness and Emotion, presents chapters on meditation and the spectrums of emotion in mythologies, philosophy, Analytical Psychology, and the neurosciences. Part V, A Complex Systems Approach to the Psyche, addresses research on synchronicity, the geometry of individuation, and complexity, ecology, and symbolism. Part VI, Cross-Cultural Research, contains chapters concerning transcendence, psychosocial transformation, psychological infrastructure, and cultural complexes and cultural identity. Part VII concludes the volume by setting directions for potential areas of future study and collaboration. Each chapter provides an overview of research in a specific area and closes with potential directions for future investigation. The book will enable practitioners and researchers to evaluate the empirical status of their concepts and methods and, where possible, set new directions. It also presents the significance of contemporary Analytical Psychology and offers opportunities for cross-discipline collaboration and fertilization.

This book will be essential reading for analytical psychologists in practice and in training, academics and students of Analytical Psychology and post-Jungian ideas, and academics and students of other disciplines seeking to integrate methods from Analytical Psychology into their research. It is complemented by its companion volume, Research in Analytical Psychology: Empirical Research.

Part I
Introduction

1
Qualitative research in Analytical Psychology

Current perspectives and future opportunities

Joseph Cambray and Leslie Sawin

The genesis of this two-volume compendium of research in Analytical Psychology emerged from activities initiated by the international community of Jungian analysts. The mission of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), the administrative body of the worldwide Jungian analytic community founded in 1955 (on the occasion of Jung’s 80th birthday) encompasses the theory, practice, and research in Analytical Psychology. In particular, the Academic Sub-Committee of the IAAP’s Executive Committee attends to links with academic institutions and supports the work of analysts who are involved in research. Commencing in the 1990s, this sub-committee began to foster and support some research efforts, initially focused on the efficacy of the Jungian methods for clinical benefit.

During the years of Joseph Cambray’s presidency of the IAAP (2010–2013), there was a renewed and growing interest in recognizing and supporting the expanding fields of research on Jungian-related topics. These include:

• Historical research on the founders and sources for ideas incorporated into the classical canon of depth psychology, especially Analytical Psychology;
• Empirical studies (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods), including outcome studies;
• Cultural and cross-cultural research (spurred by the increasing diversification of interest in Analytical Psychology around the world, especially the numbers of people seeking training as analysts beyond the traditional Western European and North American groups);
• Studies on the employment of electronic media and telecommunication; efficacy of clinical methods and the training of candidates.

Others areas are referenced within the text. During this period there was an increasing need to develop effective and comprehensive systems to disseminate research project opportunities and findings, to coordinate interest in collaboration within the Jungian community of researchers, and also a growing sense that investigations in other disciplines were offering synergistic possibilities for collaboration with research efforts in common areas.

A set of meetings was held among interested parties involved in research within the Jungian community. The first meeting was the day after the Copenhagen Congress in 2013, followed by meetings in Basel and at Yale. It was agreed that there was a robust and productive Jungian research community with much to offer the scholarly world, including other disciplines as well as great opportunities for collaboration. One significant result of these meetings was the decision to put together two separate volumes based on the current work of members of the group as a first step in introducing this important body of research work and to begin the process of making it available for clinicians and other researchers.

This volume is oriented toward research from qualitative, historical, and cultural studies. Our companion volume provides a history of Analytical Psychology empirical research and a summary of current empirical research conducted by the authors therein. Both volumes also point toward directions for future investigation and collaboration. The two are seen as complementary and seek to provide a broad overview of the range of research being conducted in Analytical Psychology today.

Analytical Psychology: a new approach

Analytical Psychology is the name C. G. Jung gave to his approach to investigation of the psyche. He first coined the term in August 1913, framing it as an evolution out of Freud’s psychoanalysis from which he was about to break. He also differentiated it from the idea of his psychiatric mentor, Eugen Bleuler of “depth psychology” fame, because he saw that as “concerned only with the unconscious” ( Jung, 1961, para. 523). Jung sought an approach that encompassed the interplay of conscious and unconscious processes and the products which arose from those interactions – what he identified as symbols.

Jung strove to cultivate a symbolic attitude in himself and his followers, learning to observe and identify meaning in events beyond descriptions of surface behaviors. While people do not need to be made conscious of these meanings for there to be significant impact on their thoughts and actions, the trained observer can recognize patterns that implicitly carry such meanings. Inclusion of a symbolic approach to life tends to broaden consciousness and promote developments in the personality that lead to increased psychological maturity or individuation. Hence a focus on the symbol has been a staple of Jungian psychology and a part of its research interests and focus from early on.

In defining the symbol, Jung stressed the value of it being “alive” in the sense of containing a vibrant, contemporary inclusion of the unknown. Symbols have collective relevance, transcending the individual’s psychology and reflecting the zeitgeist or time period in which they live: “Since, for a given epoch, it is the best possible expression for what is still unknown, it must be the product of the most complex and differentiated minds of that age” ( Jung, 1971, para. 819). Jung began the development of his theories with his landmark association experiment. From this empirical research he developed his interest in the symbol as the central focus of his psychology, and through further self-exploration he articulated the concepts of the complex and the archetypes.

Analytical Psychology’s research paradigms

As Jung moved away from classical psychoanalysis, which he saw as conflating signs with symbols, his attention increasingly turned to symbolism. As noted earlier, the symbol and its role in mediating between the unconscious and consciousness became a central tenet of his psychology. This also caused him to shift his focus from more traditional scientific, data-based research (his Association Experiments) toward phenomenological, hermeneutic, and narrative modes of inquiry. His own personal experimentation, brought on by a psychological crisis (as detailed in his Red Book; Jung, 2009), began with careful observation of his inner world which had been activated by personal traumatic loss.

This led him to a recognition of an objective dimension to the human psyche, however by this he did not mean an equivalency with the “objective world.” Instead, as he explained in a letter to Jolande Jacobi dated April 15, 1948:

I chose the term “objective psyche” in contradistinction to “subjective psyche” because the subjective psyche coincides with consciousness, whereas the objective psyche does not always do so by any means.

( Jung, 1973, p. 497)

To explore and articulate this realm, he needed to do pioneering research on the nature and reality of symbols and the interface between objective and subjective aspects of experience using a qualitative approach. This involved research into the history and development of symbols and symbolic forms. He was able to demonstrate how some aspects of the dream life of individuals contain references to more universal aspects, often outside of their conscious awareness. The dreams series presented in Psychology and Alchemy ( Jung, 1968) provides numerous examples.

Nevertheless, later in life Jung did return to a statistical approach when he first articulated the synchronicity hypothesis. With the help of Wolfgang Pauli he was able to let go of this attempt at scientism and opened up a pathway to allow the inclusion of affect as a part of the experimental process. The interplay of the subjective and objective aspects of reality, which Jung pioneered, is now making its way into some aspects of contemporary research and scholarship as can be seen implicitly throughout much of this volume.

In subsequent generations of analysts and scholars, the shift from traditional scientific research toward the symbolic has been embraced and amplified. For example, in addition to Jung’s cases, detailed exploration of the evolution of symbolic themes over the course of long-term analyses has been published. Research on the unique clinical methods of Analytical Psychology, with their inflections through the personal idioms of practitioners, can be found in journal articles. There have also been studies of more general analytic approaches, such as on transference and countertransference, examining how these are employed within a Jungian context.

In one significant further development, James Hillman articulated Archetypal Psychology. While based on Jung’s views on a deep universal layer of the psyche, Hillman revisioned the exploration from categories to qualities and processes underlying psychological phenomena. In this there was a shift from symbolic meaning to a more immediate “image-sense” with a penchant for attuning to the metaphoricity in and of experience rather than articulating essentialist structures, such as the hero archetype.

More recently there have been efforts to combine these strands, both in contemporary culture and in Jungian-based research. This has included studies examining the nature of consciousness, its origins, and its development. In particular, a group of researchers has been applying new concepts from the worlds of physics and neurobiology through the adaptation of neurobiological studies applied to corollary states of consciousness, which has led into the inclusion of the wider field of complexity studies. Ironically Jung almost titled his approach “Complex Psychology” (from the encouragements of Toni Wolff, a close confederate and early Jungian analyst), but ultimately felt it was too limited a view. With contemporary understandings derived from complexity studies, a reconsideration of this impulse may be warranted, as some of the chapters reflect.

A complex systems approach to the psyche does permit, even encourage, multiple research vertices to contribute to our fund of knowledge in ways that transgress traditional academic disciplinary lines. New perspectives demonstrating the interconnectedness of many facets of reality previously treated in isolation support the need for new theories and methods for describing these phenomena. The tools developed in studying systems of increasing complexity have begun to reveal a profound ecological basis for experience. The human psyche can no longer be taken in isolation, even in its collective dimension, but requires a new synthesis that includes nature as integral to consciousness. Many of Jung’s methods were developed out of his personal struggles, such as the trial and error introspective research which forms much of his Red Book. These methods can be directly reconceived in terms of complexity with a quest for studying emergent phenomena.

An expanding community

The first generation of Jungians tended to stay close to the works of the master. Since Jung’s death in 1961 there has been an expansion of the community of Jungians. Initially, interest in Jung’s work was held by analysts trained in his approach and also by segments of the general public who were enchanted by what they could discover through his vision. The demographics of the community were primarily Western European and North American. The academic community was limited, as was the development of research efforts beyond affirmation of clinical efficacy of the treatment modality.

Gradually this community has been changing. Expansions beyond Western Europe and North America into Latin America, Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Russia have brought scrutiny to implicit cultural assumptions and cultural relevancy of the theory and methods. The need for bidirectionality of influence has been highlighted through these cultural exchanges. The leap to archetypalizing theory without first articulating cultural contributions has led to confusion and a blurring of the incredible complexities involved at the many levels of psychological reality. Some of the chapters in this volume begin to address these and other related issues.

In recent years there has been a rise in the numbers of academically trained scholars and researchers in fields associated with and employing depth psychology. Many of the practitioners are non-analysts, without the same lines of filiation, and hence offer varying new perspectives. There are also increasing numbers of analysts who are pursuing scholarly work in parallel with their clinical practices. The contributions of these scholars will certainly broaden the interests and applications of Analytical Psychology. Much of this will involve careful critiques of all aspects of the various depth psychologies, including Jung’s version. Already significant work is being done to de-colonialize the theories, which were first articulated in the early 20th century amid cultural attitudes that are certainly not universal and can be seen through for their own unconscious political agendas.

While Jung valued the wisdom and traditions of many indigenous people, he also tended to see them as operating outside explicit conscious awareness and as forms of folk, proto-psychology. Careful historical analyses of the primary sources of the depth psychologists are helpful in this regard. Understanding the “provenance” of the ideas and how they are inflected within the various schools, as well as the evolution of the ideas through the lifetimes of the communities, are beginning to give us tools for a fuller historical and cultural analysis.

Applications from scientific, historical, and cross-cultural research

The focus of this volume is on research that draws upon and is conducted through qualitative and mixed methods, though some also borrow from the findings of quantitative studies while applying it to more subjective or complex phenomena. In this sense the works presented are congruent with the types of explorations Jung himself conducted from his Red Book period on.

Part II. Approaching qualitative research in Analytical Psychology

A central goal of this volume is to encourage interdisciplinary research among Jungian researchers and with researchers from other disciplines. To open this discussion, we examine two approaches: exploration of the potential for Analytical Psychology to contribute to postmodern thought, and for historical documents to enhance current research and point the way toward new approaches to developing research questions.

We begin our exploration with an insightful chapter by Elizabeth Eowyn Nelson, who examines the contexts of postmodern thought and Analytical Psychology and discusses how they might be related and work together. She outlines the horizontal principles and basic tenets of postmodern thought and the vertical perspective of Analytical Psychology. Through the analysis of four themes of postmodernism (the central importance of language, discourse and the social production of knowledge, researcher self-reflexivity, and theoretical pluralism) that have “particular relevance” for Jungian researchers, Nelson makes a strong case for an antinomial approach to research. She notes that the shared commitment to perspectivism and plurality might provide a rich and fertile common ground for conversation and collaboration. Raising a fundamental question, “How does the epistemological commitment to depth – with verticality as its primary metaphor – fertilize the horizontal breadth of social science research?,” Nelson offers ways to collaborate and build upon this potential relationship.

Thomas B. Kirsch advances the idea that an examination of historical materials can serve as a fresh approach to the development of new directions for research and can identify historical areas that could promote collaboration between Jungian researchers and other social science investigators. He explores five recently published major correspondences that Jung conducted. The letters that Jung exchanged with the noted scientist Wolfgang Pauli, the theologian Victor White, his psychologist colleague Hans Schmid-Guisan, and analysts James Kirsch and Erich Neumann offer historical perspective on some of today’s current concerns.

The correspondence between Jung and Pauli has led to the development and articulation of the concept of dual-aspect monism, which Atmanspacher notes in Volume 2 of this set, was not more than speculation at the time, and which may help us to clarify psychophysical phenomena beyond what our knowledge about the mental and the physical in separation are capable of achieving. Understanding the context of the conversation between Jung and his other correspondents could open new avenues for discussion and research today. From a historical perspective, these documents provide windows into the evolving thought of one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century. They contain a wide array of reflections not found in his published works which offer various possibilities for the future.

Part III. Research on symbolic aspects of the psyche

This part of the volume focuses on current research examining symbolic aspects of the psyche. One of the core concepts in Analytical Psychology is the collective unconscious with its resulting archetypal theory. Another singular concept from Analytical Psychology with broad relevance to today’s social science research is the cultural complex theory. Research in both areas is examined.

François Martin-Vallas first explores the development of the concept of the collective unconscious and the theory of archetypes. Following a historical perspective, he traces the development of Jung’s epistemology. He finds the ideas about archetypes and their function to be “a very diverse collection of ideas.” He offers complex ...