Philosophical assumptions in Freud, Jung and Bion: questions of causality

Is Jung Existential or Not? Reflections on Temporality and Everydayness

This article contrasts Jung’s theoretical position with existential philosophy, mainly Martin Heidegger’s ideas. The intent of Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time, was to discover the primal ground, the arché, of ideas. In his eyes, that quest failed, resulting in a turn toward a more hermeneutic approach, aimed toward disclosing the Being of beings. This endeavor, for Heidegger, is never final. A basic precept of existential thought is that “existence precedes essence.” An ultimate lack of substantive structure entails a sense of contingency and openness, providing the ground of human freedom. This diverges sharply from Jung’s theoretical writings, because he generally held to a belief in archetypes: inherent, underlying structures or ideal forms related to Platonic ideas. Moreover, temporality and awareness of death are at the core of most existential thought. This involves an openness to the vicissitudes of time, with a consequent existential anxiety. In contrast, throughout most of his life, Jung privileged an “eternal” or “timeless” aspect of existence, presumably manifested in preexisting archetypal structures, while devaluing the “personal unconscious.” For Jung, the personal unconscious is the realm of the everyday time of our existence, mainly serving to set the stage for the emergence of a timeless archetypal realm. The author, a Jungian analyst, proposes that Jung’s view of temporality seems diametrically opposed to existential theory and practice, which focus on the “time of our lives,” as beings who inevitably must die.

Why Bion? Why Jung? For that matter, why Freud?

Bion and Jung share both a significant disjunction from reflecting on personal experience, and a commitment to connecting with a higher truth outside of personal experience; in this they contrast with the Freudian standpoint that fully engages with reflecting on personal experience, and that considers efforts to connect to a higher truth as themselves usefully thought about in terms of their personal meaning. In these aspects of their work, Bion and Jung strongly endorse a romantic and communal approach to experience, whereas Freud essentially integrates the romantic and communal with the classical and agentic.

Evil acts not evil people: their characteristics and contexts

The problem of evil has vexed philosophers and theologians for centuries and anthropologists, sociologists, psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists in more recent times. Numerous theories have been proposed but there is still little agreement on such basic questions as the nature of evil, what constitutes and motivates an evil act, and how we resolve conflicts between individuals and groups in which evil acts are being committed. I am proposing that evil should be used as an adjective, and not as a noun. As such it should be employed to qualify acts of persons rather than their character. This change would enable us to eschew foundational explanations of evil and, therefore, to examine evil acts in their contexts and so better discern their nature and motivation. I will contend that evil acts begin when an individual makes, or members of a group make, assertions about the 'naturalness' of their own acts and, correspondingly, the 'unnaturalness' of the acts of others. I will suggest that this results from the anxiety that ensues when they cannot adequately signify their experience of these acts. When this occurs, those so treated are dispossessed of their 'personhood', allowing members of the 'natural' group to violate their 'boundaries' with impunity. These violations can range from the relatively innocuous such as being ignored to the extreme such as genocide. I am asserting that all these acts should be termed evil as they derive from the same semiotic process of 'naturalizaton'. I will discuss ways of preventing individuals or groups from embarking on the process of 'naturalization' and describe the types of contexts that might reduce or eliminate the commission of evil acts by those already engaged in their perpetration. To demonstrate these ideas I will use examples from my personal experience, from analytic theory and from the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland.

There is no 'truth' outside a context: implications for the teaching of analytical psychology in the 21st century

Humans are from birth embedded in a historical and contemporary context of meanings. This always constrains their theoretical and practical activities. In this paper, I will be suggesting that there are no guiding 'truths' outside such contexts. In order to understand the foundations of any concept or new idea, it is important to comprehend the context in which it is embedded. Candidates and some of their teachers have very little knowledge of the intellectual context in which Jung or any other analytic theorist wrote. As a result, the analytic 'founders' are often believed to have discovered 'truths' transcending the context of history and of everyday life. They were, however, as much creative synthesizers as pure originators. I propose that the components of all analytic theories emerge from their embeddedness. I contend, therefore, that the understandings of these components such as psychic causality, epistemology and identity formation were quite differently conceived at the time the analytic founders were working than they are today. I will give examples to show how the acceptance of this attitude is useful in inculcating a discerning approach in candidates towards traditionally accepted analytic theories and practices. This can provide them with a method to promote their individual creative development.