Isapzurich A Journey

The book contains contributions for the 10th anniversary of ISAPZURICH, the International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich. Several authors explain why they left the C.G. Jung Institute in Küsnacht in 2004 and why they founded ISAPZURICH. In addition, there are contributions describing the particular identity and image which have evolved around ISAPZURICH in recent years.

Presented in five parts, this comprehensive collection offers an in-depth understanding of the core competencies in Jungian psychoanalysis. It is aligned with the main task of analytical training and practice—that of integrating the unconscious aspects of experience and developing a living relationship with it—and defines a set of key resources and skills for recognizing the emergence of the unconscious and its multiple manifestations, while offering ways to relate to it that fit individual clients and encourage growth and healing. Featuring contributions from renowned Jungian analysts from across the globe, the book sheds light on how Jungians integrate common therapeutic methods in their practices and how they utilize others that are unique to their personal experiences, making the book an essential read for Jungian professionals, trainees, and students.

In exploring the manifestations of human spiritual experience both in the imaginative activities of the individual and in the formation of mythologies and of religious symbolism in various cultures, C. G. Jung laid the groundwork for a psychology of the spirit. The excerpts here illuminate the concept of the unconscious, the central pillar of his work, and display ample evidence of the spontaneous spiritual and religious activities of the human mind. This compact volume will serve as an ideal introduction to Jung's basic concepts. Part I of this book, "On the Nature and Functioning of the Psyche," contains material from four works: "Symbols of Transformation," "On the Nature of the Psyche," "The Relations between the Ego and the Unconscious," and "Psychological Types." Also included in Part I are "Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious" and "Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype." Part II, "On Pathology and Therapy," includes "On the Nature of Dreams," "On the Pathogenesis of Schizophrenia," and selections from "Psychology of the Transference." In Part III appear "Introduction to the Religious and Psychological Problems of Alchemy" and two sections of "Psychology and Religion." Part IV, called "On Human Development," consists of the essay "Marriage as a Psychological Relationship."

Midlife: crisis, anger, change... Drawing on analytic experience, dreams, and myths, the author, a well-known analyst, formulates the three main features of the middle passage. First an erosion of attachments. Then hints of a fresh spirit, renegade and mischievous, that scoffs at routines. This new spirit disrupts life and alarms family and friends. Finally, with luck, a transformation occurs; life begins again. Murray Stein, former president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, has written a best-selling, good-humored book, brimming with shrewd counsel and cultural relevance.

There is a lot of interest in today’s culture about the idea of Persona and the psychological mapping of one’s inner world. In fact, the interest is so strong that the superstar Korean Pop band, BTS, has taken Dr. Murray Stein’s concepts and woven them into the title and lyrics of their latest album, Map of the Soul:Persona. What is our persona and how does it affect our life’s journey? What masks do we wear as we engage those around us? Our persona is ultimately how we relate to the world. Combined with our ego, shadow, anima and other intra-psychic elements it creates an internal map of the soul. T.S. Eliot, one of the most famous English poets of the 20th Century, wrote that every cat has three names: the name that everybody knows, the name that only the cat’s intimate friends and family know, and the name that only the cat knows. As humans, we also have three names: the name that everybody knows, which is the public persona; the name of that only your close friends and family know, which is your private persona; and the name that only you know, which refers to your deepest self. Many people know the first name, and some people know the second. Do you know your secret name, your individual, singular, unique name? This is a name that was given to you before you were named by your family and by your society. This name is the one that you should never lose or forget. Do you know it?

This newly translated volume of the Collected Works of Marie-Louise von Franz, one of the most renowned authorities on fairytales, presents a systematic and wide-ranging approach. Von Franz amplifies a variety of fairytale motifs to show that the magical realm is alien to the profane and mundane realm of ordinary daily life. She was one of Analytical Psychology’s most original thinkers and here she presents a lucid, concise exploration of the archetypal symbols found in fairytales. Fairytales, like myths, provide a cultural and societal backdrop that helps the human imagination narrate the meaning of life’s events. The remarkable similarities in fairytale motifs across different lands and cultures inspired many scholars to search for the original homeland of fairytales. While peregrinations of fairytale motifs occur, the common root of fairytales is more archetypal than geographic. A striking feature of fairytales is that a sense of space, time, and causality is absent. This situates them in a magical realm, a land of the soul, where the most interesting things happen in the center of places like Heaven, mountains, lakes, and wells. At the age of eighteen, Marie-Louise von Franz was invited to meet Carl Gustav Jung at Bolingen Tower. She immediately recognized that there exist two levels of reality, one outer and the other inner. Within months she had enrolled at the University of Zürich and began attending Jung’s lectures at the E.T.H. (Eidgenösiche Technische Hochshule or the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology). Less than a decade after meeting Jung, von Franz had completed her doctorate in classical philology and begun seeing her first analysands. She was a prolific writer, a dedicated teacher and lecturer, and was possessed of a “far-reaching and often non discriminating Eros that accepted everyone seeking help.” (Alfred Ribi, MD in Fountain of the Love of Wisdom, Chiron, 2006)

Do we, like Jung, need to leave the spirit of the time and follow the spirit of the depths, to call out "my soul, where are you?" through the windows of our now post-modern homes? We live in a digital world of incredible virtual inter-connectedness but at the same time fragmented and divided on many levels, including the psychological. The pace of life is rapid and ever accelerating. The spirit of the time is flux: It twitters. There is no sense of coherence in the whole. The guidance of a transcendent North Star is invisible to the naked eye of consciousness. Our existential crisis is not about the individual alone. It infects the entire human world, like the Covid-19 pandemic. Wars between cultural brothers and sisters, increasingly dire effects of climate change, economic disruptions, hunger, migration-these conditions affect everyone on the planet. Is there a spirit of the depths that can take us through this Inferno, perhaps toward the emergence of a meaningful narrative that can stabilize the global community and provide a collective sense of "supreme meaning?" This is the search for soul in the 21st Century.

More than a mere overview, the book offers readers a strong grounding in the basic principles of Jung's analytical psychology in addition to illuminating insights.