Based on my 2011 book, Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey, this presentation will explore the archetypal journey of the human psyche through an examination of the blues as a musical genre. The genesis, history, and thematic patterns of the blues are examined from an archetypal perspective and various analytic theories – especially the interaction between Erich Neumann’s concept of unitary reality and the blues experience.  Mythological and shamanistic parallels are used to provide a deeper understanding of the role of the bluesman, the blues performance, and the innate healing potential of the music.  Universal aspects of human experience and transcendence are revealed through the creative medium of the blues.

In our increasingly isolated and technologically engrossed culture, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to move into these shared experiences of unitary reality in which the bubble of our individualism is pierced, allowing a felt, relational connection to our environment and those around us.  The blues encourages movement into a deeper communion with our own emotional life, especially the more difficult emotions that are often shunned in our relentless pursuit of happiness, material acquisition, and activities designed to occupy time rather than expand soul.  Often it is by moving into and through sadness that we can be released into an experience of joy.  The blues facilitates this process.  In this regard the bluesman, by communicating feelings in song that resonate within the listener, serves as a modern-day shaman who heals through the ritual of music.  The blues originated in experiences of trauma, oppression, and enslavement but now serves to liberate our emotional lives and facilitate a deeper union with our environment and those around us.  

The presentation will be augmented by visual images, audio recordings, and video to deepen the audience’s involvement in the themes explored.

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian Psychoanalyst and Clinical Psychologist.  Dr. Winborn is a training/supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. He is also on the adjunct faculty of the Russian Society for Analytical Psychology, the Moscow Association for Analytical Psychology, and the Romanian Society for Analytical Psychology. He served on the Ethics Committee of the International Association for Analytical Psychology for six years and for nine years on the American Board for Accreditation in Psychoanalysis. He is currently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Analytical Psychology and the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. 

Dr. Winborn’s publications include Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey, Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond, and Interpretation in Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique. He has two books forthcoming from Routledge in 2023, Beyond Persona: Jungian Analysts on Individuation and Beginnings (with Lavinia Tanculescu) and Jungian Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction. He has also published journal articles, book reviews, and book chapters, as well as presented papers at the past five Congresses of the International Association for Analytical Psychology.