Thresholds And Pathways Between Jung And Lacan

This groundbreaking book was seeded by the first-ever joint Jung–Lacan conference on the notion of the sublime held at Cambridge, England, against the backdrop of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War. It provides a fascinating range of in-depth psychological perspectives on aspects of creativity and destruction inherent in the monstrous, awe-inspiring sublime. The chapters include some of the outcrop of academic and clinical papers given at this conference, with the addition of new contributions that explore similarities and differences between Jungian and Lacanian thinking on key topics such as language and linguistics, literature, religion, self and subject, science, mathematics and philosophy. The overall objective of this vitalizing volume is the development and dissemination of new ideas that will be of interest to practising psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and academics in the field, as well as to all those who are captivated by the still-revolutionary thinking of Jung and Lacan.

The Blazing Sublime was seeded by the first-ever joint Jung/Lacan conference at Cambridge, England. Broadly oriented by the protean notion of the sublime, the conference was held against the backdrop of the one hundredth anniversary of the outbreak of The Great War, which radically changed many of the western world's rational values and belief systems. Over a glorious weekend at St John's College, more than forty clinicians and academics from both psychoanalytic traditions came together to debate aspects of creativity and destruction inherent in the monstrous, awe-inspiring sublime, via the application of a depth psychological lens. The chapters in this book include some of the outcrop of this conference, with the addition of various new contributors, and they will excite readers by their display of similarities and differences between Jungian and Lacanian thinking on key topics such as language/linguistics, literature, religion, self/subject, science, mathematics and philosophy. The overall objective of this vitalizing volume is the dissemination of new ideas that will attract practising psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and academics in the field, as well as all those who are piqued by the still revolutionary thinking of Jung and Lacan.

This book is an introduction to the ideas of the Swiss psychologist and psychoanalyst, C. G. Jung. The first chapter describes his early home life whilst subsequent chapters are devoted to his work in various sectors. This started in psychiatry at Burgholzli Hospital in Zurich, where Eugen Bleuler was the Director, a significant figure in Jung's life for many years. The book goes on to describe at some length the professional relationship between Freud and Jung, and the disastrous impact of their subsequent acrimonious split in 1913 on themselves but, more importantly, on the profession of psychoanalysis itself, both at that time and subsequently. Several chapters elaborate Jung's main concepts, including an extensive investigation of his all-important work on psychological alchemy, which includes 10 black and white illustrations from the alchemical text The Rosarium Philosophorum and 10 black and white ox-herding pictures of Kuo-an from the twelfth-century Buddhist tradition. The rest of the book depicts some of the significant women and men who contributed to analytical psychology, which is the term Jung chose to designate his psychoanalytic discipline. This is used interchangeably with the term psychoanalysis as many Jungians designate themselves psychoanalysts, including the author, as a New York State licensed psychoanalyst. This is also an account of some of the scientific, philosophical, and psychological influences on Jung's thinking. The book concludes with an entry on China, where the author has spent the last few years analysing, lecturing, supervising, and teaching analytical psychology to Chinese psychotherapists, counsellors, and students in Beijing and Shanghai. This comprehensive work is essential reading for all those with an interest in C. G. Jung and his work.

This book explores the history of the idea of the midlife crisis, using the writings of C.G. Jung and Goethe to investigate its relevance for today. Tracing how “the ages of humankind” became “the stages of life” in which the midlife crisis represents a pivotal moment, Paul Bishop offers a detailed analysis of a paper by Jung on this subject. He then shifts the focus to Goethe’s interest in Orphic wisdom, and one of Goethe’s major later poems, “Primal Words. Orphic” (Urworte Orphisch). Using Jungian ideas to explore the psychological implications of this poem, Bishop draws on Goethe’s own commentary, and other background material, to uncover its vital message. Reading Goethe at Midlife reveals the remarkable symmetry between the ideas and Jung and Goethe. Jung’s analysis of the stages of life, and his advice to heed the “call of the self,” are brought into the conjunction with Goethe’s emphasis on the importance of hope, showing an underlying continuity of thought and relevance from ancient wisdom, via German classicism to analytical psychology. At a time when many Jungians are turning to neuroscience to provide an external underpinning for Analytical Psychology, this scholarly book is very welcome: it returns to psychology’s home territory, placing Jung firmly in a long cultural tradition. Impressively well-read in many fields extending from literature and the history of ideas to psychoanalysis and Jungian studies, Paul Bishop allows a text by Jung and a late poem by Goethe to mirror and enhance each other, demonstrating Jung's intellectual proximity to the tradition of German classicism. The wealth of “amplifications” that Bishop brings to the many themes treated allows us to experience a living reality—a continuity of ideas across different times and cultures.

Winner of the Internationl Association for Jungian Studies (IAJS) Book Award for Best Edited Book 2021 There is a broad consensus that we are in a time of profound transition. There is worldwide political and social turbulence, with an underlying loss of hope and confidence about the future. Technological change and the stresses of late-stage capitalism, along with climate change, undermine social trust and hope for a future worth living. Shameless behavior is rampant, undermining respect for habits and institutions that hold societies together. Shame, Temporality and Social Change offers multi-disciplinary insight into these concerns. Hinton and Willemsen’s collection covers themes including racism, cultural norms, memory and vulnerability, with examinations of shame at its core. It explores the meaning and significance of shame in a world of social media, autocratic leaders and algorithms and what we can learn from myth as we progress. Increased awareness of the inter-connection of shame and temporality with the ominous transitions of our times provides thought-provoking insights for theory and practice and the ethical decisions of everyday life. Psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, philosophers, anthropologists and academics and students engaged in cultural studies and critical theory will gain valuable insights from this book’s rich and engaging variety of perspectives on our times.

The highly arcane "wisdom" produced by the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan is either endlessly regurgitated and recited as holy writ by his numerous acolytes, or radically dismissed as unpalatable nonsense by his equally countless detractors. Contrary to these common, strictly antagonistic yet uniformly uncritical practices, this book offers a meticulous critique of some key theoretical and clinical aspects of Lacan’s expansive oeuvre, testing their consistency, examining their implications, and investigating their significance. In nine interrelated chapters, the book highlights both the flaws and the strengths of Lacan’s ideas, in areas of investigation that are as crucial as they are contentious, within as well as outside psychoanalysis. Drawing on a vast range of source materials, including many unpublished archival documents, it teases out controversial issues such as money, organisational failure, and lighthearted, "gay" thinking, and it relies on the highest standards of scholarly excellence to develop its arguments. At the same time, the book does not presuppose any prior knowledge of Lacanian psychoanalysis on the part of the reader, but allows its readership to indulge in the joys of in-depth critical analysis, trans-disciplinary creative thinking, and persistent questioning. This book will appeal to researchers and students alike in psychoanalytic studies and philosophy, as well as all those interested in French theory and the history of ideas.

Disciplines from literary studies to environmentalism have recently undergone a spectacular reorientation that has refocused entire fields, methodologies, and vocabularies on the world and its sister terms such as globe, planet, and earth. The Bloomsbury Handbook of World Theory examines what “world” means and what it accomplishes in different zones of academic study. The contributors raise questions such as: What happens when “world” is appended to a particular form of humanistic or scientific inquiry? How exactly does “worlding” bear on the theoretical operating system and the history of that field? What is the theory or theoretical model that allows “world” to function in a meaningful way in coordination with that knowledge domain? With contributions from 38 leading theorists from a vast range of fields, including queer studies, religion, and pop culture, this is the first large reference work to consider the profound effect, both within and outside the academy, of the worlding of discourse in the 21st century.

This fascinating collection explores the life of renowned psychoanalyst Michael Balint in his native Budapest. With a Balint revival in mind, Michael Balint and his World: The Budapest Years brings together the work of psychoanalysts, social thinkers, historians, literary scholars, artists and medical doctors who draw on Balint’s work in a variety of ways. The book focuses on Balint’s early years in Budapest, where he worked with Sándor Ferenczi and a circle of colleagues, capturing the transformations of psychoanalytic thinking as it happens in a network of living relationships. Tracing creative disagreements as well as collaborations, and setting these exchanges in the climate of scientific, social and cultural developments of the time, Michael Balint and his World: The Budapest Years follows the development of psychoanalytic thinking during these critical times. The book recalls the story of several “lost children” of the Budapest School and reconstitutes Balint’s important early contributions on primary love. It also examines his little-known relationship with Lacan, including the extended discussion of Balint’s work by Wladimir Granoff in Lacan’s first public seminar in Paris in 1954, published here for the first time. This important book provides a fresh perspective on Balint’s enormous contribution to the field of psychoanalysis and will interest both scholars and clinicians. It will also inspire those interested in clinical practice and the applications of psychoanalysis to the cultural sphere.