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Philosophical Synchronicity

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

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.

The Voice Behind the Curtain

The Voice Behind the Curtain

Rebecca Kilicaslan

April 19, 2022

Suppression of my intuitive function has appeared symptomatically in the loss of my voice, both in dreams and while performing as a vocalist. On a broader level, my voicelessness has materialized in interpersonal difficulties, such as a hesitancy to advocate for my own perspective, impostor syndrome, and a distrust in my instincts and intuitions.

From the Archives

Seeing and Being Seen in Mediation

Seeing and Being Seen in Mediation

Diane Goodman

July 9, 2014

Husbands and wives frequently feel like their marriages broke down because their spouses didn’t hear what they were saying. Therefore, the mediator’s ability to see and hear what each party is saying, and to reframe it so that the other party can see and hear it, can make or break their ability to reach a settlement.

Type, Psychoanalysis & Meditation

Type, Psychoanalysis & Meditation

Polly Young-Eisendrath

November 15, 2010

…how do we get a “spaciousness” in our own responses so that we can experience our feelings, our thoughts, our motivations without acting on them directly—but without denying them either. This is not a matter of suppressing, dissociating, trying to override one’s negative experience; it’s not a matter of controlling; it’s not a matter of pushing anything aside. It’s a matter of being able to watch what is going on in our own experience…

Psychodynamic Coaching and Type

Psychodynamic Coaching and Type

Angelina Bennet

March 1, 2011

Some people can be over-identified with the persona and experience inauthenticity. This identification with the persona can be due to habituation, social pressures, influences from childhood, defensiveness or anything that has given the individual a message indicating that the character of the persona is a preferable way to be.

Individuation: Why Bother?

Individuation: Why Bother?

Mark & Carol The Editors

June 3, 2013

Individuation (which, within the conceptual framework of the type model, is essentially synonymous with ‘type development’) is usually unpleasant, and a positive outcome is far from guaranteed. So why do so many regard it as the psychic purpose of human existence? Why do we do it? What drives us to it? What has been your experience?

Philosophical Synchronicity

Philosophical Synchronicity

Todd Speidell

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.

The Ugly Duckling

The Ugly Duckling

Christine Drucker

September 8, 2016

The image of the ugly duckling growing into a beautiful swan is a powerful and transformative symbol of hope and fulfillment for INFJs. As a metaphor for differentiation and the individuation process, the Ugly Duckling tale illuminates the struggle to separate from the demands of others in order to recognize the value and beauty of one’s essential self.

When the Music Plays the Band

When the Music Plays the Band

Mark Ransom

January 22, 2019

The dynamics of creative process and psychological wellbeing are such that creative artists are often overcome by the demonic. From Nietzsche’s Zarathustra to Curt Cobain’s Nirvana, there is an artistic star swallowed by the unconscious every week. But the arts can also be a type of savior—a place for us to process our darkness and not become it.

Jung’s Third Dimension

Jung’s Third Dimension

Philippe De Sainte Maresville

February 5, 2014

Jung’s approach is based on pairs of polarities. Getting eight functions with such a ‘binary approach’ requires three levels of dichotomy. Jung clearly explained his split of the rational functions into two opposite functions and the same for the irrational functions; but he never provided a theoretical context for a third “dimension” of psychological type.