Cutting Edges: Analytical Psychology

In the previous century C.G. Jung interpreted a change in the valuation of a
figure in Christian religion — the Assumption of Mary — by the then pope as
an indication of a change in the values of the culture at large,
understanding the event as an important factor in both expressing as well as
shaping attitudes of the collective at large in the direction of a
re-valuation of the feminine..

In the first of a two-part presentation, based on the recently published
“Gospel of Judas”, I am applying the same interpretative concept to a more
current issue that involves a complete reversal of the view hitherto held
for the last two millennia about what is possibly the most despised figure
of Christianity. I am describing how this may be understood as an important
milestone in the way we collectively deal with shadow aspects that are often
projected onto an enemy other, leading to separation and, ultimately,
persecution and war. Healing this kind of splitting both intrapersonally as
well as interpersonally, both individually as well as collectively, requires
a withdrawal of the projection, and possibly apologising in order to further
forgiveness on the route towards reconciliation and peaceful relating. I am
linking this with the developing theories of clinical practice in terms of
intersubjectivity — the freely relating as equals — and I am also giving
examples from the political sphere to illustrate what these steps might look
like.

Dr. Gottfried M. Heuer,  Jungian Training–analyst and supervisor with the
Association of Jungian Analysts, London; Neo-Reichian bodypsychotherapist;
clinical practice for over 35 years; independent scholar, graphic artist,
photographer, sculptor, poet; over 60 published papers on the links between
analysis, radical politics, body-psychotherapy and spirituality as well as
on the history of analytic ideas in Spring, International Journal of
Psychoanalysis, Journal of Analytical Psychology, International Journal of
Jungian Studies, Harvest, Psychotherapy and Politics International, et al.;
(co-)editor of 7 congress and symposium proceedings for the International
Otto Gross Society (www.ottogross.org/) which he co-founded; ed., Sacral
Revolutions. Reflecting on the Work of Andrew Samuels: Cutting Edges in
Psychoanalysis and Jungian Analysis (Routledge, 2010); and Sexual
Revolutions: Psychoanalysis, History and the Father (Routledge 2011).