In a conference held in London during summer 2016, classicists and scholars in the field of analytical psychology met to consider potential cross currents in their respective fields.
They came together to reflect on the underlying proposition that ancient cultures speak to us all, and fundamentally Jungian psychology looks to originary stories as sources of contemporary energies. The Greco-Roman pantheon, its characters and narratives, has formed a particularly rich seam in Jungian work, though other ancient mythologies, such as the Norse, have also featured.
Unfortunately, as is the way in universities and in academic publishing, disciplines tend to be ring fenced and themes from ancient studies are rarely contemplated in depth psychology contexts except as metaphors, and it works, or rather does not work, the other way around too. But the ancients in many cultures had a talking therapy, and those healing methods still ring true for us. Why had we never explored this? It is a doubly curious omission when we consider the transdisciplinarity of much of Jung's own writing, which at times blended together historical and cultural appreciation with more strictly psychological insights, as well as the wide ranging nature of the post Jungian field in general.
With this in mind, it seemed that the framework of Jungian studies would be a natural space for crossing normative and yet artificial disciplinary boundaries imposed on such exploration for arbitrary reasons, or the framework of ‘analytical psychology’ as we called it for this conference, in order to open up the field for our classicist and ancient studies colleagues. Jungian studies has long wandered into the field of cultural anthropology after all, and exploring ancient cultures in pursuit of the talking cure is a viable project.
Despite the common differences likely to crop up in any cross disciplinary meeting – language and the nature of evidential sources particular to the field – delegates discovered that there was much each had to say to the other.
At its very inception psychoanalysis used ancient myth to set out exempla – Freud and Jung's training from an early age was in the classics. Both these early creators of the field cited Cicero and the Homeric myths in demonstrating verities of psychology for all time. Famously Freud likened his jealousy of his father and his intense love of his mother to Sophocles' tragedy, Oedipus Rex. Jung's forays into ancient mythology included reliance on alchemical medieval imagery, a discussion of Wotan and stories of Chronos, swallowing his son as a living symbol of time eating its future, a theme that Fertel picks up in this volume in exploring Zeus's relationship with the titaness Mētis. For both Jung and Freud, drawing from such sources indicated the universality of affect and human relations. Following their lead, depth psychology has exploited those ancient tales as fodder for exploration and insight into contemporary psychology and issues.
Focusing on ‘ecstasy’ provided a turning point for all too, proving both a creative provocation and point of confluence as we felt able to confidently compare the Dionysian attitude to the ecstatic mode. A dimension of consideration that fascinated Jung in his studies of Nietzsche, for example, who looked intensively to Greek myth in order to work up his ideas of the Apollonian vs. the Dionysian which was a pivotal theme of Jung's earliest work in Psychological Types and proved a source of tension for him as demonstrated in The Red Book. In her new book, reviewed in this volume, Susan Rowland discusses the god Dionysus, the god who is dismembered and then re-membered, specifically in the context of transdisciplinarity: a fertile seam of inquiry indeed.
‘Ecstatic’ events or moments have also informed therapy and its specific dialogical approach of simultaneous deep involvement and alienation from the self from Ancient Greek rites to practices of initiation and sacrifice, as explored in more detail by Evans-Romero in her examination of Dionyisan theatre and Chrzescijanska in her paper, exploring individuation and initiation rites. Alongside such classical Greek customs, Chinese and Sumerian myths were also explored during the conference, as well as Slavic and Norse myths. Bassil-Morozow looks specifically at the mischievous god Loki, through the lens of the Icelandic Edda and other more contemporary retellings. These themes are considered in this issue in light of the precepts of Jungian depth psychology.
Delegates' papers published in this special issue reflect only a portion of the papers delivered in the day and a half of the conference. For this edition of the IJJS, we have chosen papers which are more oriented towards Jungian clinical themes. Other papers of a more historical or theoretical nature are collected in a forthcoming book entitled The Ecstatic and the Archaic: An Analytical Psychological Inquiry upcoming from Routledge in 2018 edited by Paul Bishop and Leslie Gardner.
In this volume, Helena Bassil-Morozow explores the connections and tensions between self and civilisation through the antics of the Norse god Loki, whose energies are traced not just through the medieval Edda, but in contemporary Hollywood's blockbuster Marvel films. Martyna Chrzescijanska circles through and around the links between the classical Greek understanding of initiation rites, sacrifice and rebirth, and Jung’s understanding of the individuation process, before Randy Fertel examines Jung's own improvisatory practice that resulted in The Red Book, through the lens of the mētic spirit – the spirit of polytropic intelligence, personified by the titaness Mētis.
But we lead with a paper on clinical practice by Constance Evans-Romero who explores the links between the theatrical aspects of the Dionysian archetypal image, the first actor Thespis and therapeutic practice and the individuation process.