Transference and the Individual in the Analytical Space

The three Israeli Jungian societies held their first joint conference, February 14, 2013 with more than 200 participants.

For details of the conference (in Hebrew), follow this link.

כנס שלושת האגודות היונגיאניות, 14 בפברואר. לפרטים והרשמה

Noah's Ark, oil on canvas painting by Edward Hicks,
1846 Philadelphia Museum of Art

"It is perhaps characteristic of the intellectualist bias of psychoanalysis that rapport should appear to it to be mysterious. The concept implies that the natural attitude of one human being to another is to observe him with detachment as though he were a thing and that some mysterious extra process has to take place if they are to communicate. But perhaps it is really the other way round and rapport occurs naturally unless it is inhibited by such factors as the absence of shared symbols, suspicion on the part of one or both parties, or lack of imagination on the part of the therapist."

Charles Rycroft, A Critical Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

The cover image of Enemy, Cripple & Beggar is a painting by Susan Bostrom-Wong, an artist and Jungian analyst in San Francisco. 

With careful observation, you will find layers of images embedded in the human figure of this fine painting.

As with the human shadow, 'Emerging' represents the need to look within to find the vital symbols and hidden aspects of our evolving selves.

Another fine painting of Susan's, Out of the Fire, appears on the cover of Frances Hatfield's poetry book Rudiments of Flight.

Learn more about Susan Bostrom Wong's fine artwork

Ann Walker's Review of Enemy, Cripple & Beggar in Psychological Perspectives

Recommended in US Review of Books

The Cycle of Life
by Erel Shalit
Fisher King Press

reviewed by Peter M. Fitzpatrick

"The perspective of life as a cycle lived through its stages enables us to bring the archetypal and the personal dimensions together."

While Sigmund Freud mapped out the psychosexual development of children to puberty through the oral, anal, phallic latency and genital stages, Carl Jung expanded the study of human development through the second half of life. Jung also expanded Freud's somewhat materialistic focus on psychosexuality as the source of the unconscious to include a vaster world of archetypes that emanate from our undifferentiated Selves through symbolic forms. It is the child's slow separation from the Great Mother archetype that allows him to incorporate the powerful unconscious energies of this symbol into a developing ego. The next stage, the "puer," or troubled teenager, carries this process further, adding the "fire" of his or her growing awareness of Eros to the "dismemberment" of the "unconscious" contents of the archetypes so that the ego can use their energies. A successful transition to adulthood entails a completion of the ego's ascendancy. But the ego must learn to surrender its role as "king" once old age begins.

The author engagingly illustrates Jung's conceptions of the power of the archetypal forces that inhabit our unconscious Selves, showing how they are dual, with both grandiose and terrible aspects. In accessible language, he maps out how figures from the Bible, Greek mythology, and fairy tales contain eternal truths on the mythic level where the Self at the core of our being operates. He explicates the dangers of becoming stuck in a particular stage, and cites actual cases of individuals he has helped make the transitions in his clinical practice as Jungian analyst.

RECOMMENDED
US Review of Books