Course
Five Alternate Thursdays
The purpose of this course is to provide a temenos, a mindful place apart, where we can gain some insight into the relationship between psyche-soul and the political-social from C. G. Jung's psychology. This is important work and an important part of what Jung called individuation. According to the great Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung was passionate about "les droits de l'homme, the security of man's basic rights and the freedom of the individual, which are guaranteed not only by a 'just' state, but far more by the maturity, wisdom, and consciousness of all the members of a community" (Forward in Jung and Politics).
In order to facilitate this exploration, we shall look at Jungian analyst, Volodymyr Odajnyk's Jung and Politics: The Political and Social Ideas of C. G. Jung, which gives a survey of Jung's attitude toward political questions, spread out, as they are, through his many writings. In her Forward commending the book, von Franz pointed out that Jung looked at these questions with the eye "of a trained depth psychologist, and he was more interested in looking for what was going on below the surface of everyday political life than in its superficial aspects" (von Franz, in Jung and Politics). We shall also look at some of Jung's shorter writings on these matters. Film and image will be brought in to round things out.
Among the questions considered will be the following: How does the relationship between psyche-soul and the political-social function in the human journey toward healing and wholeness (individuation)? In the polarizations that characterize the political, what could be the meanings of one of Jung's descriptions of individuation, the coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum)? Is there an archetype of justice, of which we have a memory, and which we humans try at times to realize, however imperfectly, in our social realities?
Class Format: Presentation, film, image, and discussion.
Readings (encouraged but optional):
- Volodymyr Odajnyk, Jung and Politics: The Political and Social Ideas of C. G. Jung, forward by Marie-Louise von Franz (1976 and reissued by Authors Choice Press in 2007).
- C. G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self, new forward by Sonu Shamdasani (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2011). This is also in Civilization in Transition, CW 10.
Further Recommended Readings:
- C. G. Jung, "After the Catastrophe," Civilization in Transition, CW 10.
- C. G. Jung, "The Fight with the Shadow," Civilization in Transition, CW 10.
- C. G. Jung, "Epilogue to Essays on Contemporary Events," Civilization in Transition, CW 10.
Mark Napack, M.A., S.T.L., M.S., studied archetypal patterns in comparative literature at Columbia University, after which he applied Jungian theory to the redemption motif in medieval theology for his thesis at Fordham University. He further studied Jung, psychology, and the history of religion at Loyola and Catholic Universities. A long-time graduate and college instructor, Mark has presented at international conferences and his work has appeared in scholarly journals and books in English and French. Mark Napack, LCPC, is also a Jungian-informed psychotherapist in North Bethesda, MD.
Program registration closes on Tuesday, September 15th at noon.
Zoom links will be sent about 24 hours in advance. If you do not receive your link, please reach out directly to natalia@jung.org
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