Jungian Political Analysis

Jungian Political Analysis addresses the question: in what ways can Jungian psychology contribute to an understanding of politics? Specifically, what are the explanatory concepts that I draw from analytical psychology? And, what political conditions do I select that invite understanding? These nine chapters present distinct socio-political contexts in which I explore answers. The sequence of chapters represents a progression in my understanding. Explanatory concepts from analytical psychology: complexes (dissociation, repression, projection), persona, shadow, cultural complexes (collective trauma), narcissism (healthy and unhealthy), religious function, inflation, compensation, and individuation. Political conditions: oppression and liberation, political consciousness, inter-ethnic strife, fanaticism, Islamism, political movements, welfare state policies, populist morality, neoliberalism, distributive justice, psychopolitical healing, and conspiracy theories.

In this book, a multidisciplinary and international selection of Jungian clinicians and academics discuss some of the most compelling issues in contemporary politics. Presented in five parts, each chapter offers an in-depth and timely discussion on themes including migration, climate change, walls and boundaries, future developments, and the psyche. Taken together, the book presents an account of current thinking in their psychotherapeutic community as well as the role of practitioners in working with the results of racism, forced relocation, colonialism, and ecological damage. Ultimately, this book encourages analysts, scholars, psychotherapists, sociologists, and students to actively engage in shaping current and future political, socio-economic, and cultural developments in this increasingly complex and challenging time.

Jungian psychology has taken a noticeable political turn in the recent years, and analysts and academics whose work draws on Jung’s ideas have made internationally recognised contributions in many humanitarian, communal and political contexts. This book brings together a multidisciplinary and international selection of contributors, all of whom have track records as activists, to discuss some of the most compelling issues in contemporary politics. Analysis and Activism is presented in six parts: Section One, Interventions, includes discussion of what working outside the consulting room means, and descriptions of work with displaced children in Colombia, projects for migrants in Italy and of an analyst’s engagement in the struggles of indigenous Australians. Section Two, Equalities and Inequalities, tackles topics ranging from the collapse of care systems in the UK to working with victims of torture. Section Three, Politics and Modernity, looks at the struggles of native people in Guatemala and Canada and oral history interviews with members of the Chinese/Vietnamese diaspora. Section Four, Culture and Identity, studies issues of race and class in Brazil, feminism and the gendered imagination, and the introduction of Obamacare in the USA. Section Five, Cultural Phantoms, examines the continuing trauma of the Cultural Revolution in China, Jung’s relationship with Jews and Judaism, and German-Jewish dynamics. Finally, Section Six, Nature: Truth and Reconciliation, looks at our broken connection to nature, town and country planning, and relief work after the 2011 earthquake in Japan. There remains throughout the book an acknowledgement that the project of thinking forward the political in Jungian psychology can be problematic, given Jung’s own questionable political history. What emerges is a radical and progressive Jungian approach to politics informed by the spirit of the times as well as by the spirit of the depths. This cutting-edge collection will be essential reading for Jungian and post-Jungian academics and analysts, psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists, and academics and students of politics, sociology, psychosocial studies and cultural studies.

"Jung never wrote a treatise that systematically defines the implications of his psychological theories for politics. His views on the subject are dispersed throughout his works, although a number of books and essays are closely concerned with politics, either explicitly or by implication and logical extension. Hence, this book represents a compilation of those of Jung's ideas that have political and/or social implications, gleaned from the voluminous writings on various subjects, a comparison of those ideas with Freud's, and a consideration of just what Jung's ideas imply for the social and political questions." from the Preface. "Jung's anthropological studies, his concepts of the archetypes and the collective unconscious, did inevitably make him take stands in contemporary political conflicts and he developed a number of sociological and political ideas. Although Professor Odajnyk has not refrained from honestly giving his own views, he gives in his book a very valuable survey of Jung's attitude toward anthropological and political questions." -Marie-Louise von Franz, from the Foreword Contents: The Origin of Culture and Politics * Psychic Inflation * Mass Psyche and Mass Man * The Individual and the State * Politics and the Unconscious * The German Case * The End of Politics * The Future of Man * Jung and Freud * A word about Democracy

Winner of the IAJS Book Award 2023 for 'Best Edited Book' Winner of the 2023 Gradiva Award for 'Best Edited Book' This volume explores Jung’s theories in relation to the concept of Other and in conjunction with the lived experience of it, while examining current events and cultural phenomena through the lens of Jungian and post-Jungian psychology, sociology, literature, film and philosophy. The contributors examine global expressions of these various viewpoints, disciplines and life experiences and how cultural, political and sociological complexes evoke challenges as well as invitations to the idea of the Other from intersecting and convergent perspectives. The Spectre of the Other in Jungian Psychoanalysis is timely and important reading for Jungian and post-Jungian analysts, therapists, academics, students and creatives.

This essential new book presents a discussion of racial relations, Jungian psychology, and politics as a dialogue between two Jungian analysts of different nationalities and ethnicities, providing insight into a previously unexplored area of Jungian psychology. Racial Legacies explores themes and historical events from the perspective of each author, and through the lens of psychology, politics, and race, in the hopes of creating meaningful racial relationships. The historical ways the past has affected the author's ancestors and their own lives today, is explored in detail through essays and dialogue, demonstrating that past racial legacies continue to bind on both conscious and unconscious levels. This book distinguishes itself from other texts as the first of its kind to present a racial dialogue in the context of Jungian psychology. It will be of great value to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, and students of Depth and Analytical Psychology.

Picks up on divisions within the area of analytical psychology and explores many of the most hotly contested issues, with a group of leading international Jungian authors contributing papers from contrasting perspectives.

What can depth psychology and politics offer each other? In The Political Psyche Andrew Samuels shows how the inner journey of analysis and psychotherapy and the passionate political convictions of the outer world are linked. He brings an acute psychological perspective to bear on public themes such as the market economy, environmentalism, nationalism, and anti-Semitism. But, true to his aim of setting in motion a two-way process between depth psychology and politics, he also lays bare the hidden politics of the father, the male body, and of men's issues generally. A special feature of the book is an international survey into what analysts and psychotherapists do when their patients/clients bring overtly political material into the clinical setting. The results, including what the respondents reveal about their own political attitudes, destabilize any preconceived notions about the political sensitivity of analysis and psychotherapy. This Classic Edition of the book includes a new introduction by Andrew Samuels.

Based on Jung's theory of complexes, this book offers a new perspective on conflicts between groups and cultures, demonstrating how the effects of cultural complexes can be felt in the behaviour of disenfranchised groups across the world.

Why do leading political figures arise when they do? Does sibling position determine political destiny? Originally published in 1992, a leading Jungian analyst at the time, Louis Stewart wrote an intriguing study of the influence of family and sibling position on the destiny of the individual and on the future of society. He shows how the four basic sibling positions are related to corresponding styles of political leadership, and uses examples of US presidents and UK prime ministers to illustrate his point. Stewart argues that world leaders owe their pre-eminence to a matching of political zeitgeist with sibling position within the family and he provides fascinating and persuasive material on major political figures, including Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Gorbachev, Stalin and Ghandi.