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Life Arts    H4'ed 10/29/14  

Pope Francis Urges Encounter and Dialogue (REVIEW ESSAY)

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Thomas Farrell
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On pages 43-44, Stein discusses the original edition of Jung's English Seminar of 1925. I would point out that the 2012 revised edition of INTRODUCTION TO JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY: NOTES OF THE SEMINAR ON ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY GIVEN IN 1925 BY C. G. JUNG includes a new introduction and updated footnotes provided by Sonu Shamdasani.

Stein says, "Jung's notion of individuation is based upon a twofold movement: temporary identification with the unconscious images in order to make them conscious, then disidentification and reflection upon them as an individual" (page 48). As Ong says, we need both proximity (closeness) and distance to understand something.

For Dr. Jung, understanding his dramatic experiences during his self-experimentation with active imagination took a great leap forward when he read Richard Wilhelm's book in German, THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER in 1928 (English translation of Wilhelm's German by Dr. Cary F. Baynes, 1931). From Wilhelm's book, Dr. Jung went on to publish his massively researched book about alchemical symbolism, MYSTERIUM CONIUNCTIONIS (German orig. ed. in two parts,1955 and 1956).

In addition to discussing Dr. Jung's mid-life crisis and how it subsequently transformed his life, Stein discusses another aspect of Dr. Jung's thought: transformation as the culminating stage in Jungian analysis. Dr. Jung outlined four key stages, which Stein explains: (1) confession, (2) elucidation (also known as the Freudian stage), (3) education (also known as the Adlerian stage), and (4) transformation (also known as the Jungian stage) (pages 77-79).

Confession in the context of psychotherapy strikes me as self-explanatory. The client explains the presenting problem that has prompted him or her to seek help through psychotherapy. However, in the context of the Roman Catholic Church, Jesuit confessors were hearing a certain Catholic's confession of his or her sins. But in either context, confession involves confession, and confession involves a certain psychodynamic.

Stein says that "after a person confesses, transference begins to emerge [in the person who has confessed]" (page 77). Figuratively speaking, transference could be likened to a prophylactic that helps the discourse/intercourse proceed smoothly

Stein says, "Elucidation, the Freudian stage [of analysis], frees energies that were tied up in neurotic childishness and dependency on external authorities" (page 78).

Stein says, "Adler recognized the need for social education beyond the understanding of the unconscious and insight into its primitive workings. He was fundamentally an educator who sought to help his patients make a better adaptation in their everyday lives through, first, achieving high self-esteem and, second, investing it in broad social interest" (page 78).

Stein sums up the fourth stage in Jungian analysis by saying that Jung explains that "[t]ransformation is a two way process" that involves the transformation not only of the analysand but also of the analyst (page 79).

Stein says, "You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence" (page 79). "The outcome of this interaction, which [Jung] calls transformation, is unpredictable" (page 79).

The encounter and dialogue that Pope Francis often calls for would involve a two-way process. If it would involve transformation, or not, would presumably depend on the quality of the dialogue and the capacity of the individual persons in the dialogue to experience transformation.

Stein devotes a lengthy chapter to discussing not only the relationship between the analysand and the analyst but also other transformative relationships (pages 69-105). The key ingredient in potentially transformative relationships appears to be "an irrational bond" between the two persons in the relationship (pages 84, 100, 101). This irrational bond enables kinship libido to flow between the two persons in the relationship and sustain the ongoing relationship.

To be clear here, I should spell out that love has long been regarded as an irrational bond. This is true not only the love involved in romantic love, but all other forms of erotic and non-erotic love -- for example, the love involved in friendships and the love involved in love of one's country. See Martha C. Nussbaum's book POLITICAL EMOTIONS: WHY LOVE MATTERS FOR JUSTICE (2013).

If kinship libido sounds a bit mysterious to you, remember that it has been said that we are all God's children -- brothers and sisters, figuratively speaking. So the flow of kinship libido means that the two persons in the relationship are optimally able to relate to one another as family, figuratively speaking.

But of course if your mother or your father or your brother or your sister or other family members were problems in your life, then the flow of kinship libido in a given relationship might be colored by those problematic figures in your personal past. So to deal with this kind of difficulty in a given relationship, you should try the Freudian stage of elucidation of the psychodynamics involved in the relationship. This is not always easy to do. But it's not always hard to do.

Next, proceed to the Adlerian stage of analysis. Finally, undertake the Jungian stage of transformation. As noted above, Jesuit spiritual direction aims to foster transformation.

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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