Jung's Understanding of Schizophrenia -- Is it Still Relevant in the "Era of the Brain"?

A presentation on YouTube by

Yehuda Abramovitch

M.D. Psychiatrist at Beer-Yaakov Mental Health Center and Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. Senior Analyst, Israel Institute of Jungian Psychology.

Jung understood Schizophrenia as an "Abaissement du Niveau Mental", a similar phenomenon to the one encountered in dreams, and caused by a peculiar "Faiblesse de la Volonté". He contested that complexes in Schizophrenia, in contrast with neurotic disorders, are disconnected and can either never reintegrate to the psychic totality or they can join together in remission "like a mirror broke into splinters". Accordingly, a person who does not fight for the supremacy of his ego-consciousness and for the subjugation of unconscious forces, a person who lets himself be swayed by the intrusion of alien contents arising from the unconscious (or even is fascinated by regression) exposes himself to the danger of Schizophrenia.

Watch here

Erich Neumann: The Roots of Jewish Consciousness

With the publication in 2015 of the important correspondence between C.G. Jung and Erich Neumann (edited by Martin Liebscher), there has been something of a Neumann renaissance. A major international conference was held in 2015 at Kibbutz Shefayim, with participants from more than 25 countries, and in 2016 a symposium was held at the Pacifica Institute in California. 
Neumann’s slim but brilliant book, Jacob and Esau: On the collective symbolism of the brother motif, was recently published by Chiron in collaboration with Recollections. 
A volume of essays by prominent Jungians, as well as members of the Jung and Neumann families, has also een published by Chiron/Recollections. It is edited by Erel Shalit and Murray Stein, Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: The relationship between Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung (1933-1960). 

Ann Conrad Lammers

Soon, in late 2018 or early 2019, Routledge will publish Neumann’s major treatise on The Roots of Jewish Consciousness in an impressive two-volume set (Volume 1 on the psychological significance of revelation, Volume 2 on Hasidism), edited by Ann Lammers, and translated by Mark Kyburz with Ann Lammers. This work, written between 1934 and 1945 but never published, is a treasure trove, a wealth of pearls. Although Neumann mined its themes in several of his Eranos lectures, the work as a whole holds a unique place in his opus.

Further announcements will be posted as the work of translation and editing progresses, but here is a taste of Neumann’s writing:

... for Hasidism the world consists of a great, diffusely distributed creative nothingness, whose points of concentration, in varying degrees of power, reshape and form this unformed energy and cause it to shine. These points of concentration are the world's individuals, created in the tzimtzum, having a smaller and greater circumference and varying energy charge. They can also diminish or increase the extent and intensity of their radiance, depending on the level they attain, that is, their ability to enter into contact with divine nothingness.

Read more about Erich Neumann's The Roots of Jewish Consciousness
Read more about Erich Neumann's Jacob and Esau: On the collective symbolism of the brother motif
Read more about Turbulent Times, Creative Minds: The relationship between Erich Neumann and C.G. Jung (1933-1960)

Cover painting by Mordecai Arnon

Cover image silhouette by Meir Gur Arieh

Etching by Jacob Steinhardt

Renewed website

Renewed website

You are invited to visit my renewed website, here. You will find links to YouTube presentations, material on Jung and Neumann, my books, and useful resources.

Thank you for your interest – any and every comment or correction will be appreciated!

The Soul of Art by Christian Gaillard

The beginnings of art are lost in the dim reaches of prehistory, eons before humans began recording and codifying their experiences in writing. And yet philosophers, artists, and historians have for centuries noted the intimate and perhaps inseparable relationship between human consciousness and the artistic impulse.

As analyst and professor Christian Gaillard notes, we can see some of the earliest expressions of this intimacy in the cave paintings at Lascaux, and the relationship continues to the present day in the works of modern creators such as Jackson Pollock and Anselm Kiefer. What fascinates Gaillard—and, indeed, what fascinated Carl Jung—is, among other things, the notion that art enables us to explore our inner landscapes in ways that are impossible by any other means.

In The Soul of Art: Analysis and Creation, Gaillard takes readers on a tour of his own “gallery of the mind,” examining works of art from throughout history—and prehistory—that have moved, challenged, and changed him. He also explores instances where particular works of art have proven deeply significant in his or his colleagues’ understanding of their analyses and their ability to serve as capable guides on the journey toward self-awareness.

Reviews

From its origins in Paleolithic caves to Abstract Expressionism and beyond, the essence or soul of art is revealed in this charming book.  The psychology at play within a broad range of artistic imagery is explicated in magisterial fashion by Jungian analyst and professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Christian Gaillard.   The reader is led stepwise into experiences of complexity and depth through layers of explications of artworks aided by amplification and art-historical erudition.  This volume is destined to become one of the special jewels in the Fay Lecture Series.—Joseph Cambray, Ph D, provost, Pacifica Graduate Institute; past-president of the IAAP

"This book, Gaillard says, "is not the result of a plan." A lucky circumstance, which renders its flow similar to the artistic creation. There is a parallelism between it and analysis: both are healing processes in which the Ego leaves the stage to the Unconscious. Psychoanalysis strives to heal an individual, while the artist wants to render more complete— “to heal” is etymologically connected with “whole”— an image or another collective expression. Both might be imperfect, yet are pillars of an existence looking for meaning. From the caves of Lascaux to Anselm Kiefer, Gaillard traces a splendid bridge between the two."—Luigi Zoja, past president of International Association for Analytical Psychology

“…a brilliant account…a book that sums up a lifetime of encounters with art and imagination.”—Murray Stein, author of Soul – Treatment and Recovery - Murray Stein, author of Soul – Treatment and Recovery

About the Author

CHRISTIAN GAILLARD is a doctor of psychology, training analyst, supervisor, and former president of the French Society of Analytical Psychology. Previously serving as a professor at the École Nationale Supériure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was also the founding director of the Cahiers Jungiens de Psychanalyse.

Christian Gaillard has also contributed an extremely interesting chapter on Jung, Neumann and Art to Turbulent Times, Creative Minds (pp. 261-297, with plenty of illustrations):

     The theme, or question, we are about to discuss, is not at all simple: Jung, Neumann and Art. The question is not at all simple, because, as I hope to show, it challenges us to examine certain essentials characteristics of the psychology and work of both Jung and Neumann. 

     We shall proceed in three or four steps - as visually as possible. 

     First of all, I must speak of a wicked misunderstanding. A misunderstanding or misinterpretation we hear repeatedly in our Institutes, our publications, or even in our congresses. It concerns Jung’s relationship to the modern and contemporary arts.

     Hence, we will be looking at some of the works that moved Jung and Neumann, along with their approaches to them. Of course, we will also consider some pages from the Red Book and certain drawings by Neumann.

     Finally, I would like for us to consider a current, and very unexpected, event, which therefore was unknown to Jung and Neumann: the recent public showing of Jung’s Red Book at the last Biennale of Contemporary Art in Venice.

The Dream and its Amplification on YouTube

The Dream and Its Amplification unveils the language of the psyche that speaks to us in our dreams.

We all dream at least 4-6 times each night yet remember very few. Those that rise to the surface of our conscious awareness beckon to be understood, like a letter addressed to us that arrives by post. Why would we not open it? The difficulty is in understanding what the dream symbols and images mean. Through amplification, C. G. Jung formulated a method of unveiling the deeper meaning of symbolic images. This becomes particularly important when the image does not carry a personal meaning or significance and is not part of a person’s everyday life.

cover image A Giant Dream from an original painting by Howard Fox

You can now watch a 16 min video of The Dream and its Amplification on YouTube.

The Dream and Its Amplification 
Contents

I.                      The Amplified World of Dreams: Erel Shalit & Nancy Swift Furlotti

II.                    Pane e’ Vino: Learning to discern the objective, archetypal nature of dreams:  Michael Conforti

III.                   Amplification:  A Personal Narrative:  Tom Singer

IV.                   Redeeming the Feminine: Eros and the World Soul: Nancy Qualls-Corbet

V.                    Wild Cats and Crowned Snakes: Archetypal Agents of Feminine Initiation: Nancy Swift Furlotti

VI.                   A Dream in Arcadia:  Christian Gaillard

VII.                  Muse of the Moon: Poetry from the Dreamtime: Naomy Lowinsky

VIII.                Dreaming the ‘Face of the Earth’: Ken Kimmel

IX.                   Coal or Gold?: The Symbolic Understanding of a few Alpine Legends: Gotthilf Isler

X.                    Sophia’s Dreaming Body: The Alchemical Mirror of the Night Sky:    Monika Wikman

XI.                   “The Dream Always Follows the Mouth”: Jewish Approaches to Dreaming: Henry Abramovitch

XII.                  Bi-Polarity, Compensation, and The Transcendent Function in Dreams and Visionary Experience: A Jungian Examination of Boehme’s Mandala - Kathryn Madden

XIII.                 The Dream As Gnostic Myth: Ronald Schenk

XIV.                Four Hands in the Crossroads: Dreams in Times of Upheaval -  Erel Shalit

XV.                  Dreams and Sudden Death: Gilda Frantz

"The Dreams and Its Amplification is a wonderful book for anyone interested in their inner life, their dream life and how the unconscious gives us a map to our lives. 14 different authors, all Jungians, give us a peek into the everyday workings of an analytic practice and dream amplification. Each voice is unique, no two analyst work in exactly the same way, but a common thread runs through the chapters. They all tell us that dreams are important, we need to pay attention, we need to honor this gift from our psyches. If we pay attention and honor our dreams we will be rewarded with a deeper and more meaningful understanding of who we really are beyond our egos.

This book is for both professionals in the field of psychology and the general public. It is accessible, moving and informative. We are given new ways to think about our dreams. If you wake up and ask yourself, "What the heck was that dream about?" this is a book for you. If you have wondered what goes on in those 50 minutes behind closed doors, this a book for you. If you have a curious mind and an open heart, this is a book for you."

Susan BW

Available on Amazon

Murray Stein: Outside Inside and All Around

A new book by Murray Stein

In these late essays, Murray Stein circles around familiar Jungian themes such as synchronicity, individuation, archetypal image and symbol with a view to bringing these ideas into today’s largely globalized cultural space. These are reflections for our time, drawing importantly on the works of C.G. Jung, Erich Neumann, Wolfgang Pauli and a wide range of contemporary Jungian psychoanalytic writers. The general thesis is that all of humanity is connected – to one another, to nature and to the cosmos – and no human being should be left out of the picture of postmodern consciousness.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – Outside Inside and All Around

Chapter 2 – Synchronizing Time and Eternity: A Matter of Practice

Chapter 3 – Music for a Later Age: Wolfgang Pauli’s “Piano Lesson”

Chapter 4 – A Lecture for the End of Time

Chapter 5 – “The Problem of Evil”

Chapter 6 – On Psyche’s Creativity

Chapter 7 – At the Brink of Transformation

Chapter 8 – Failure in the Crucible of Individuation

Chapter 9 – Imago Dei on the Psychological Plane

Chapter 10 – Jungian Psychology and the Spirit of Protestantism

Chapter 11 – Archetypes Across Cultural Divides

Chapter 12 – Where East Meets West:The House of Individuation

Chapter 13 – The Path from Symbol to Science

Chapter 14 – Cultural Trauma, Violence, and Treatment

Chapter 15 – Hope in a World of Terrorism – An Interview with Rob Henderson

Chapter 16 – When Symptom is Symbol

 

Available at Amazon and at Chiron

Kafka’s (Never Sent) Letter to Father

An excerpt from the beginning of the chapter 'Kafka's (never sent) letter to father,' in The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego:

"A more vivid description of a negative father-complex than Kafka’s (Never sent) Letter to Father can hardly be conceived of. Mairowitz refers to it as an “uncanny level of self-revelation.” Kafka had intended to actually hand over the letter to father by means of his mother, hoping to clear up their relationship. Max Brod , however, makes it unmistakably clear that

    in reality the opposite would probably have happened. The explanation of himself to his father that the letter aimed at would never have been achieved. And Franz’s mother did not pass on the letter but gave it back to him, probably with a few comforting words.

   Kafka primarily identified with his maternal ancestors, the Löwys, whom he saw as representing sensitivity and intelligence. However, he also found in himself 

    a certain Kafka foundation [shrewd and aggressive in business] that, however, just isn’t set in motion by the Kafka will to life, business and conquest, but by a Löwy spur that operates more secretively, more timidly, and in a different direction, and which often fails to work at all. (Italics mine)

That is, his father identification was not activated, due to his lack of extraverted (business) and aggressive (conquest) energy (will to life). While Franz Kafka was extremely sensitive and introverted, his father, on the other hand, was extraverted, depicted by Franz as

    a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, worldly superiority, stamina, presence of mind, knowledge of human nature, a certain generosity.

Lest we be tempted to believe Franz idealized his father, he quickly corrects this erroneous impression, adding that father also possesses “all the failings and weaknesses that go with these advantages, into which your temperament and sometimes your violent temper drive you.”

Max Brod and others have pointed out and criticized Kafka’s description of his father for being exaggerated. He says,

    Here and there I feel the perspective is distorted, unsupported assumptions are occasionally dragged in and made to fit the facts; on what appear to be negligible, immediate reactions, a whole edifice is built up, the ramifications of which it is impossible to grasp as a whole, which in fact in the end definitely turns on its own axis and contradicts itself, and yet manages to stand erect on its own foundation.

Of course Kafka’s description is exaggerated, self-contradictory and yet “stands erect on its own foundation!” This merely reflects that we are dealing not with a scientific description of the object, as if there were such a thing, but with Kafka’s imago of his father, and seemingly unbeknownst to himself Brod here draws the very contours of an autonomous complex.

Kafka’s father is perceived through the tinted lens of his complex, and as complex and object interact in the psyche, perceptions will be drawn into the complex and cluster around its core. This does not necessarily mean that Kafka’s view of his father is entirely wrong or distorted. Portraying his father, Kafka himself says, “I am speaking only of the image through which you influenced the child.”

....

Contents:

I. Complexes - The Historical Link                               

Introduction                                                                                                           

The Complex in the History of Psychoanalysis                                                  

A Plenitude of Complexes                                                                                      

Jung’s Personal Complexes                                                                                     

Complex Psychology                                                                                              

The Complex as Path and Vessel of Transformation                                              

The Complex – Cluster, Core and Tone                                                                  

Archetype and Ego                                                                                                 

II. Oedipus – The Archetypal Complex                           

Freud, Jung and Oedipus                                                                                         

Oedipus - The Myth                                                                                                  

Hero and Complex                                                                                                   

Mars and Eros – the Drive of the Complex                                                          

Mother Self – Father Ego                                                                                        

The Primal Scene                                                                                                    

The Sword and the Shield                                                                                       

The Complex Path – From Archetype to Ego                                                       

The Wounding of Oedipus – Ego Defences and the Autonomous Complex           

Oedipus’ Journey                                                                                                    

From Delphi to Thebes - From Archetype to Ego                                                    

Patricide at the Cleft Way Crossroad                                                                       

The Riddle                                                                                                              

The Cancerous Complex                                                                                         

III. The Complex in the Shadow                                   

The Autonomous Complex                                                                                     

The Complex and the Call                                                                                      

The World Parents                                                                                                 

The Archetypal Core of the World Parents                                                             

The Abandoned Child                                                                                             

A Mother Complex                                                                                                  

Kafka’s (Never Sent) Letter to Father                                                                 

The Tower of Babel                                                                                                 

Inflation                                                                                                                  

Hubris                                                                                                                     

The Tower of Babel                                                                                                

The Inflated Ego - The Emptied Self                                                                       

Integration of the Complex                                                                                   

Castration at the Gateway to Individuation                                                      

References                                                                                                        

      Available on Amazon 

The Cycle of Life - David van Nuys interviews Erel Shalit - transcription

You can now listen to David van Nuys from Shrink Rap Radio interviewing Erel Shalit about

The Cycle of Life

You find the audio interview on the Shrink Rap Radio website.

A transcription of the interview has now also been uploaded, here.

Painting by Benjamin Shiff

A Magnificent Book for All Interested in the Journey of Life

by Lori Goldrich, Ph.D., Jungian Analyst and Clinical Psychologist

It is with great pleasure that I review Erel Shalit’s marvelous book. To begin, I feel so moved by the synchronous events that led to his finding of the book’s cover, or “face.” Benjamin Shiff’s painting “Life” and the meaning he gives for this marriage of book and painting are quite exquisite. “The candle’s soft light of life is poised against the painful inevitability of burning out. Yet, as long as they burn, there are shades and colors; there are the distinct faces of transient existence, and there are those of obscurity, hidden in distant nature; there is a lyrical melancholy, as well as a tense harmony…Only an unlit candle will never burn out. A fully lived life extracts the awareness of its finality.” These words are like pearls for the journey he takes us on in The Cycle of Life.

I also appreciate the ground he creates by discussing fate and destiny as a “primary tenet,” or underpinning of his book. When we let the tides of our fate and our destiny flow together into a union of opposites, meaning can be found. What begins as our fate can so often become a part of our destiny, which he so aptly discusses in his book. I have found this to be an important foundational principle, both personally and in my analytic work with patients. “On our journey through life, an incessant tension prevails between predetermined fate and free will, between archetypal patterns as opposed to individual distinctiveness.” So well stated!

Erel Shalit truly succeeds in describing the different stages of life in a way that keeps the reader interested and engaged. The weaving of psychological and theoretical perspectives from Freud to Klein to Winnicott to Neumann to Jung, and others, along with the wisdom from various disciplines including philosophy, literature, religion, and myth, is presented in such a way that both clinician and layperson can deepen in experience and knowledge. I especially appreciate his discussion of how the focus on archetypal images and experience can release the energy that lives in the deeper stratas of the psyche to assist in the transformation of psyche, body and spirit.

I also want to share a personal delight while reading Erel’s book. I always enjoy exploring the precise meaning of Hebrew words, and I so enjoyed his inclusion of this for select words and names. It “makes the connection between word and image comparatively close.” It is also reflective of the depth of attention he brings to his writing.

Erel Shalit has written a truly magnificent piece of work. It is a book for all those interested in the Journey. At the beginning of his book, he offers us the image of the “river” and writes from Plato, “While the river preserves its identity, it is incessantly moving and changing, simultaneously being and becoming.” As I read his book, I can truly experience the being and becoming on the journey of life.

'Life' by Benjamin Schiff