Latest Articles
Trumpism
Aviva Brown
June 9, 2023
A typological analysis of the psychological forces constellated in Trumpism helps explain the situation in the United States today. The co-occurrence of the savior and trickster archetypes represents an awareness that a catastrophe has already happened that must be consciously integrated. A psychological—as opposed to a political—understanding of the forces at work in the collective psyche is necessary.
Philosophical Synchronicity
Todd Speidell and Zachary Kampf
April 20, 2023
Viewing the remarkable coincidence of Jung’s and Polanyi’s ideas as a synchronistic event evokes the feeling of a milestone, as if there were a sudden breakthrough in the collective unconscious after a centuries-long epistemic struggle. Despite this accomplishment, the field of Jungian psychology, especially as it is understood in popular culture, has tended to fall into one-sided subjectivism.
Saving Sheila, Part II
Sheila Newsom
November 13, 2022
I now better understand the odds against all of this: a male, Caucasian physician, living in the firm grasp of an ESTJ cultural weltanschauung awakens to the soul’s desperate pleading late in life. That the soul seeks to live forward something alien, foreign, and predictably destructive is now so comprehensible. Nothing heroic is here, merely a journey of survival.
From the Archives
The End is a New Beginning
Sam Allevato III
October 16, 2019
The world of Rilke’s tale is one besieged by the Dragon. This is the world of the wasteland, where people are living inauthentic lives. In most fairy tales, a successful hero is the answer to the wasteland. Rilke, however, presents the tale not as a deliverance from the Dragon but rather as a slow descent into the shadowy realm of the Dragon.
Marriage Through Peace and War
Van Bui
July 11, 2018
Igniting the spark of opposites produced during conflict can provide an opportunity for holding the tensions between the one-sided attitudes. The process requires confronting and embracing the forces of unconscious qualities, along with holding the tension and uniting of opposing forces, in order for the full expression of an individual’s potential to be revealed.
Do Parents Influence Type Development?
Mark & Carol The Editors
January 8, 2013
Both articles in this issue describe how parental roles can affect type development. Typologically, one indicator of a dysfunctional parental complex can be an under-developed auxiliary function, and this suggests that a positive parental complex could foster the development of the auxiliary function. … What parental influences on type development have you witnessed? What do you notice in your own typology?
Active Imagination: Ne? Ni? Both?
Carol Shumate
October 1, 2014
Which functions do we use when we engage in Jung’s favorite form of internal reflection? Jung conceived of this unique form of meditation as a vehicle for building a bridge between consciousness and unconsciousness, and for connecting our personal unconscious with the collective unconscious. Introverted intuitives seem to embrace this exercise …
Typing the Group Mind: Part III
John Beebe
July 5, 2011
… A wise employee will come to understand the culture of the company … and recognize that the team has long since developed a certain way of taking care of others. The team uses its auxiliary function, not yours, or the one your tertiary Child expects it to use. You cannot expect an organization to take care of you in the way that you want …
Individuation in the Dark
Byron Almén
September 3, 2013
To the degree that the type community has engendered awareness of alternative ways of encountering the world, one another, and oneself, it is engaged in a critically important service. Lest we forget, however, that the process of growth is often perilous, it is occasionally useful to remind ourselves of these perils.
Shadow and Individuation in China
Yin Fang
June 5, 2013
China has emphasized Se and Ne, leaving itself at present with a relatively weak Ni, even though Ni is China’s natural superior function and its historical birthright. A strong Ni, for example was the consciousness that gave birth to the three great Chinese religions: Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, all of which anticipated Jung’s notion of the Self.
Heaven, Earth, and Underworld
Mark Hunziker
April 6, 2016
Within the function-attitude preference hierarchy for each type, there are three natural groupings which seem to reflect a “Me, Spirit, and Other” delineation and describe our areas of “strength, vulnerability and creativity, and defense,” respectively. Is it more than a coincidence that this configuration has parallels in most traditional world views, as “Earth, Heaven, and Underworld?”