To Our Readers

How can I not know today your face tomorrow, the face that is already there or is being forged beneath the face you show me or beneath the mask you are wearing, and which you will only show me when I am least expecting it?

Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow

(2005, 155)

In the Winter 2020 issue of Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche (vol. 14, no. 1), we presented a group of reviews of the literature on clinical writing as a stand-alone series of commentaries on analytic practice and an inducement to readers to begin to think about their clinical work in written form. From my review of Thomas Ogden’s “On Psychoanalytic Writing,” I am still impressed with his first and most telling words of the article: “Analytic writing constitutes a literary genre of its own” (2005). He goes on to open the reader into a way of thinking about analytic writing as “a form of conversation between an original analytic idea (developed in a scholarly manner) and the creation in words of something like an analytic experience.” As readers, we sit in the room in each of the many sessions that Ogden describes and are gifted with a view into the intimacy of healing work that is usually shrouded in privacy and anonymity, as is in keeping with our tradition of healing. Ogden bravely lays bare his analytic work, as much a product of his character as his training. In the end, his thoughts about clinical writing seem even more pertinent: “The writing is dreaming me into existence as much as I am dreaming the writing into existence.”

Although Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche has published many clinical articles over the years, this is the first special issue devoted to work on the front lines of analysis and psychotherapy, starting with poetry.

All the poems in this issue’s poetry section, except one, are about therapy and analysis from the other side of the couch, so to speak. Poetry Editor Frances Hatfield describes this selection of poems as a crazy quilt of reflections on the experience of therapy and analysis, ranging from H.D.’s paean to Freud and her 1933 analysis with him to contemporary pop-folk artist Dar William’s “What Do You Hear in These Sounds.” Readers more familiar with Freud’s theory may be surprised to find, in the excerpt from H.D.’s poem “The Master,” such a lovingly intimate view of Freud’s ability to facilitate the emergence of the poet’s complex androgynous identity and her voice as a poet, despite her irritation “with his talk of the man-strength.” Her wonder at how “each word was separate/yet each word let to another word,/and the whole made a rhythm/in the air/till now unguessed at/unknown” finds an echo in the next poem, by Anne Sexton “Said the Poet to the Analyst,” in which “one word is able to pick/out another, to manner another, until I have got/something I might have said … /but did not.” Here Sexton brilliantly distinguishes the mythopoetic living symbol—her nickel machine with “all the believing money”—from the analytic reduction of symbol to sign—“the dead bees in the attic.”

Next, in “Therapy,” poet and psychotherapist Dane Cervine gives us a view from both sides, first using the metaphor of a broken television to describe himself as a patient, then likening his practice of therapy to the scene in a Japanese woodcut in his office, depicting “two men in robes dwarfed by immensity.” Kang Li and Jiangxue Li’s “Feelings of Sandplay Therapy” takes its form partly from a famous love poem, “You See Me or Not See Me,” written by Cang Yang Jia Cuo (Tsangyang Gyatso [仓央嘉措], the Sixth Dalai Lama of Tibet). The poem uses the expression of paradox to evoke the delicate opposites that together create a space in which the ineffable “flower” of individuation can bloom.¹ Nancy Flowers’s “Analytic Hour” uses the image of an animal conjured by the analytic art to describe the equally ineffable “third” that sheds a “fragile carapace” at the end of each hour. Robert Keeler, offering a variety of similes for the experience of analysis, also gives us a vivid take on the dangers of resonance (“music can crack a steel span”) as well as its offering of hope in the analytic process in his poem “Go Out into Far Fields of Glass and Flowers.” Finally, Dar Williams’s funny and poignant song “What Do You Hear in These Sounds” uses the taking down of the Berlin Wall as a metaphor for her own emergence from depression into self-integration and is well worth listening to on YouTube.

The feature articles showcased here were solicited pieces, many from members of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. The authors of these papers took a courageous step in their willingness to share the intimacies that take place in their consulting rooms. Each author allows us a window into the heart and soul of themselves and their work. We learn as much about the practitioners themselves as we do about their analytic technique. For this sharing of their vulnerability, I am grateful. As we learn so much from the willingness of our analysands to be open and vulnerable, the openness of our authors to reflect on their work is an equally profound gift. How else would we be moved enough to learn if not for the openness of our authors? As I read and edited these works, I was moved to tears by some of the touching moments described and was deeply satisfied by the brilliance and progressive nature of the application of clinical ideas to individuals seeking transformation. In the following seven articles, there is a diversity of practice that truly characterizes the scope and capacity of Jungian psychology to contain a broad range of method, mind, and soul.

“Eagles and Jaguars: Archetypes and Myths in Gang-Entrenched Latinx Men,” by Abner Flores, displays his gift for brilliantly adapting Jungian work to the unique and complex issues of inner city youth and men. Flores demonstrates that no matter the setting, the creation of William Goodheart’s description of a “secure symbolizing field” can initiate a descent into deep knowing, meaning, and transformation (1980). By discovering the unique, symbolic cultural language that articulates the archetypal relationships between Mesoamerican/pre-Columbian native myths and the beliefs and behaviors of gang-entrenched Latinx males, Flores connects with psyches ready for manifestation. These include relationships between warrior imagery and sacrifice in gang activity, the Virgin of Guadalupe, male-female relationships, and ancestral connections to the land and the love of the neighborhood. In the work described here, Flores positions himself squarely in the realm of community-oriented Jungians at a time when this is needed more than ever, and analysis is increasingly tied to social justice as a psychic and practical concern. In this sophisticated yet accessible portrayal, Flores adds to a growing and inspiring literature that expands the boundaries of traditional psychoanalysis.

In the “Importance of Being and Silence and the Role of Love in Analysis,” Maria Ellen Chiaia discusses “silence” as key to her analytic work with adults and children. Silence refers to a quality of presence, of listening, of “being with the patient.” In silence, human connection and love can arise and healing occurs as a deeper feeling for life’s mystery enters. Moments of communion may awaken the healing power of love through feeling, images, and sensations, allowing the creative energies of the psyche to enter analytic work in a way that heals and transforms suffering. The author presents cases of a severely traumatized child and an adult to illustrate how, by admitting silence and love, the self begins to emerge with joyous spontaneity. Chiaia writes in a sensitive and gentle way that brings tears to my eyes; hers is a work of powerful proportions.

Betsy Cohen describes Jung’s template for healing in “Jung’s Personal Confession.” Cohen opens the paper considering Jung himself as the patient. She contends that Jung chose the series of ten erotic alchemical woodcuts from the 1550 Rosarium Philosophorum in “Psychology of the Transference” (CW 16) to represent his deep relationships with his patients Sabina Spielrein, Maria Moltzer, and Toni Wolff. Cohen also describes her own work with these drawings in her clinical practice. Drawing on her personal fascination with Jung’s relationships with his patients, she questions whether Jung could be truly vulnerable in his clinical work. As Cohen describes it, “Jung understood that he, Jung, was changed if his patient changed; that he was unconsciously connected to his patient, and affected, infected, and impacted by his patient; ‘that the patient then means something to him (the doctor) personally’” (1946/1954, CW 16, ¶365). In a moving admission by Cohen, she says, “I had permission to bring the patient into my inner life, as a real person in my psychic family and life.” This relational focus gives this paper so much life and is as much a wonderful clinical teaching tool as an important historical account of Jung’s growth and development as a man and analyst.

In “Trauma, Soul, and the Body in Jungian Analysis,” Barbara Holifield describes her Jungian analytic work as it unfolds in a relational and affectively attuned way. What draws the reader most deeply into this paper is Holifield’s focus on the direct moment-to-moment somatic experience in the patient and therapist. She focuses on the body as a primary portal for healing trauma, illustrating how attention to the somatic dimension keeps Jungian analysis grounded. Through clinical vignettes, Holifield creates the tension of the therapeutic encounter as she takes us through her encounter with archetypal affect ignited by trauma. Here she demonstrates how the mythopoetic reality of depth psychotherapy creates a field of deep meaning that facilitates healing. I immediately started working from Holifield’s inspiring frame of reference and felt its power ongoing in my work.

Steven Herrmann’s “The Hypothesis of Psychic Antibodies: The Fight of the Kingsnake and the Rattlesnake” explores a single case history of his clinical work with a boy named “Willy.” In this paper Herrmann introduces us to a new formulation to complement the work on “defenses of the self” under the guise of an immunologic model. Here, he argues that there are, in addition to “defenses of the self” that develop in a pathological toxic way to isolate the child by alienating others, healthier defenses of the self, which he describes as “image-producing antibodies” that work to undo the toxic effects of morbid defenses. These healthy defenses of the developing self are called psychic antibodies. His optimistic paper provides the reader with an added formulation for working with trauma.

“Relating to the Loser Complexity” is Michael Reding’s paper on a little discussed psychological and social phenomenon he labels the “loser complexity.” His article identifies a disorder of the self wherein the patient presents him- or herself for psychological help as a “loser” who may not be helped by psychotherapy. Resisting the reduction of this idea to a single complex bedeviling the patient, the author suggests that this idea is the consciousness that emerges, pathologically, from a complexity, a nest of linked complexes, that has the power to color all individual efforts to work on any of the patient’s issues. Reding effectively uses cultural examples of how this complexity can also be seen in films, in artists, and in political life, and I found these references quite illuminating. He shows how in psychotherapy the loser complexity can be resolved or at least reduced through a collaborative approach.

“Who Is My Jung?” by Henry Abramovitch describes the author’s personal journey toward Jung and his individuation as a Jungian. For Abramovitch, Jung has shone a light on the psyche, the shadow, and the self and revealed the secrets of active imagination, and for that he is eternally grateful to his Jung. Abramovitch also confronts Jung’s anti-Semitism. In the end, owing to Jung’s influence, Abramovitch discovers the need to invent a new therapy for each patient and gives examples of his unique clinical style, stressing the important role of therapeutic space. He proposes a new and creative way to write about analysis. Part autobiography, active imagination, and fascinating reflections on analytic work, this paper is a page turner and a joy to read.

Reviews Editor Helen Marlo brings us two wonderful reviews for this issue. First, in “On Asking ‘Why?’” David Shulman reviews Henry Abramovitch’s Why Odysseus Came Home as a Stranger and Other Puzzling Moments in the Life of Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Abraham, and Other Great Individuals. This is a volume of tender and insightful essays on the most mysterious moments in the world’s most famous stories. Shulman begins, “Would you like to know why Arjuna, the hero of the Sanskrit Mahabharata epic, had a mental crisis right before he was supposed to go into battle with his family’s enemies? This book explains why Arjuna at first refused to fight. What about Socrates’s last words—about repaying a debt, the cock he had once promised the god Asclepius but never delivered? Why did he end his life on this note? Why was the Buddha’s final teaching a hand gesture in total silence? Why did Jesus curse the fig tree? Why did Lot’s wife turn to look back and, as a result, become a pillar of salt? And perhaps most troubling of all—why was Abraham prepared to kill his son at God’s command, for no intelligible reason?” From there Shulman, with the reader in the palm of his hand, is ready to take on Abramovitch’s intriguing book.

Next, in “The Last and Greatest Work of Alchemy,” Thom Cavalli reviews Stephen Wilkerson’s A Most Mysterious Union: The Role of Alchemy in Goethe’s Faust, an alchemical interpretation of Goethe’s early nineteenth-century poem Faust, a Tragedy. Here, Cavalli states, “This is Dr. Wilkerson’s first, but hopefully not his last, book. Goethe’s masterpiece has received enormous critical analysis by scholars of many different disciplines. Despite the fact that Jung references Faust throughout the Collected Works, there is virtually no attention paid to the role of alchemy in the poem. Whether it earned Jung’s highest praise as being the ‘last and grandest example of an alchemical opus’ remains to be seen. But certainly, with Wilkerson’s incisive alchemical interpretations, Faust, a Tragedy surely finds its rightful place in the alchemical canon.” It takes a genuine and skillful effort to retell this story from an alchemical perspective and Cavalli brings us into Wilkinson’s world, remaining true to the source material without imposing a contrived view. Wilkerson succeeds beautifully in his endeavor.

This special clinical issue presents our reader with an opportunity to witness the work of courageous clinicians who opened their consulting rooms, minds, and hearts, allowing us to see the often unseen. May this issue offer some respite from the numerous disasters we have been carrying in our heavy hearts.

Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes, Editor

Notes

1. Interestingly, this poem, along with “The Master” and Robert Keeler’s “Go Out into Far Fields of Glass and Flowers,” all use the flower as a symbol for the self, recalling Jung’s and von Franz’s explorations of this symbol to describe this ineffable reality. References to the flower are scattered throughout Jung’s Collected Works. Marie-Louise von Franz explores the flower as symbol of the immortal self in her book On Dreams and Death: A Jungian Interpretation (Boston: Shambhala, 1987).