Several years ago, I arrived at a building, and I thought it was empty. To my surprise, I ran into a man from another country (Mexico). I asked him if he was by himself. He said, \u201cNo.\u201d Then, he added, as a clarification, of who else was with him: \u201cMy soul and I.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was struck by the beauty and the wisdom of his comment, and I found out, later on, that his response was a cultural and popular phrase from his native land. I believe his comment (\u201cMy soul and I\u201d) is an archetypal experience that highlights the primary and fundamental direction that Jungian analysis needs to take during and after the time of Coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Coronavirus has forced individuals to \u2018stay home\u2019; it has compelled people to distance themselves from others; governments from around the world have implemented \u201csocial distancing\u201d measures in public places, and the streets of major cities from around the world are somewhat empty. During this pandemic, people are forced to spend more time alone, at home. Solitude has increased world-wide. Individuals are noticing they are forced to be by themselves, at home, unless they distract themselves with electronic gadgets. Silence is more noticeable as well as the absence of other people. Therefore, Coronavirus is leading us to a spatial, temporal, emotional, and spiritual space of \u201cMy soul and I.\u201d It is a space of possibilities and terrors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I believe the archetypal sentence, \u201cMy soul and I\u201d, has laid out the path that Jungian analysis needs to primarily pursue during and after the time of Coronavirus: the exploration, cultivation, and the caring for the Ego-Self Axis or \u201cthe soul and I.\u201d In a letter to P.W. Martin, Jung (1945) stated, \u201c…the main interest of my work is…the approach to the numinous\u2026[which] is the real therapy\u2026[and] as you attain to the numinous experiences you are released from the curse of pathology.\u201d Furthermore, Jung delineated the relationship between images, soul, and the Divine, and emphasized the centrality of the Divine through working with images from dreams, active imagination, and synchronicities. Therefore, in time of Coronavirus, it is important that both analysts and analysands focus, during analysis, on those images (Soul) for \u2018releasing\u2019 the individual from pathology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
A teleological analysis of the Coronavirus and the compensatory function of the psyche provide, also, additional arguments for emphasizing more, during analysis, the relationship between the individual and his\/her soul images, and less so the emphasis on the therapeutic relationship (Of course, this does not mean that the therapeutic relationship is not clinically important, nor does it mean that coronavirus has only a positive side). To begin with, a teleological analysis of the Coronavirus shows that this virus is leading people, world-wide, to distance themselves more from others, to be more by themselves, and to be more \u201cwith their own soul.\u201d Coronavirus is archetypally changing the one-sidedness and over-emphasis on the relationship between analyst and analysand by creating a necessary relational distance, which has forced analysts-analysands to use virtual meeting platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Similarly, the virus is sending an environmental message. According to a research at Columbia University, at an environmental level, the virus has triggered a 35% decrease in traffic levels, a 50% drop in carbon monoxide emissions as well as a decrease in one of the most serious pollutants -Nitrogen dioxide- for global warming. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Furthermore, the compensatory function of the psyche, through the coronavirus, is correcting the one-sidedness in Jungian analysis of historically over-emphasizing transference and countertransference issues. After Jung\u2019s death and the death of the early generation of Jungian analysts, like Von Franz, Hannah, Harding, etc, subsequent generations of Jungian analysts have systematically let go of conducting analysis the way Jung suggested in which the analysis of dreams, the practice of active imagination, the identification and use of synchronicity were the fundamental core of analytic practice. Instead, new generation of analysts have focused and over-emphasized the importance of the analytical relationship, borrowing heavily from Freudian and Post-Freudians theoretical and therapeutic frameworks, and confounding psychoanalysis (Post-Freudians) and Analytical Psychology (Jung) as well as blurring their own professional ideas with Jung\u2019s ideas. Rather than calling their new clinical ideas by the use of their last name (i.e \u201cTabordian ideas\u201d, \u201cDoeian ideas\u201d, \u201cSmithian ideas\u201d, etc), they have called their ideas \u201cJungian\u201d, thus contributing further to the disappearing of Jung\u2019s central idea in Jungian analysis: the approach to the numinous. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is my belief that psyche is compensating, through coronavirus, the historical one-sidedness of over-emphasizing the importance of \u201cthe analytical relationship\u201d by creating a \u2018physical distance\u2019 between analysts and analysands and a \u2018social distance\u2019 in the practice of Jungian analysis in order to integrate more, again, Jung\u2019s original emphasis on the Divine, the centrality of dreams, active imagination, and synchronicity, with the help of isolated individuals who are, now, in closer contact with their soul at home, thanks to the solitude, and silence of the \u2018social distancing\u2019 and the \u201clockdown.\u201d It is a new opportunity to emphasize and balance, as Jung did, the sacred images that come from the relationship between \u201cMy Soul and I.\u201d As Marie L. Von Franz said: \u201cThe individuated person lives in the world of active imagination.\u201d Coronavirus has prospectively delineated, and in a compensatory way, the future of Jungian analysis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This post originally appeared on thehealingpsyche.org<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Freddie Taborda, LCPC, PsyD<\/a><\/strong> is a Jungian Analyst with over 27 years of clinical experience. He maintains a private practice in Chicago, Illinois.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Links: Dr. Taborda’s Website<\/a> | About Dr. Taborda<\/a> | Dr. Taborda’s Page on the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago’s Website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several years ago, I arrived at a building, and I thought it was empty. To my surprise, I ran into a man from another country (Mexico). I asked him if he was by himself. He said, \u201cNo.\u201d Then, he added, as a clarification, of who else was with him: \u201cMy soul and I.\u201d I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,198,197,218,209],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog-posts","category-covid-19-pandemic","category-current-events","category-essays","category-taborda-freddie"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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