The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice and Applications

by Renos K. Papadopoulos

Psychology, like every empirical science, cannot get along without auxiliary concepts, hypotheses, and models. But the theologian as well as the philosopher is apt to make the mistake of taking them for metaphysical postulates. The atom of which the physicist speaks is not an hypostasis, it is a model. Similarly my concept of archetype or of psychic energy is only an auxiliary idea which can be exchanged at any time for a better formula. (Jung 1952c: par. 460)

CW 11 forword to God and the Unconscious

This sounds a fine expression of epistemological openness; however, as we know, neither Jung nor any Jungian author has ever exchanged the theory of archetypes with a ‘better formula’ and archetypes are not treaded as models but very much as actual hypostatic entities.

In the very same paragraph, Jung states categorically that ‘In reality, … individuation is an expression of that biological process … by which every living thing becomes what it was destined to become from the beginning’ (Jung 1952c: par. 460). There is no hypothetical openn...

Within the space of two paragraphs he advocates epistemological openness, accepting his theories as working hypotheses and then, he moves to profess his definitive ‘knowledge’ of phenomena which in a tautological fashion confirm his theories. It is this kind of epistemology that was termed ‘Gnostic epistemology’ (Papadopoulos 1997);

Dehing, pointing to ‘an internal contradiction in Jung’s approach’, argues that ‘the agnostic empiricist every now and then turns into a prophet. Most of the time Jung’s opinions are formulated as hypotheses, but sometimes they become hypostases’ (Dehing 1990: 393).

The romantic idea of the Gnostic rebels who were against the establishment is only one side of the Gnostic tradition and this is the one that has been favoured by Jung and Jungians. Yet, there are other more unhelpful sides to Gnosticism that have not been taken into consideration seriously, as yet, by Jungian authors.

In the clinical context, the opposite to Jung’s Socratic ignorance, i.e., his Gnostic epistemology, produces the Jung that, by virtue of feeling justified that he is in touch with the psyche, knows what is good for his clients and prescribes specific actions for them, a practice which is totally opposite to his Socratic openness. For example, Jung was also known to have been quite explicitly prescriptive to his analysands, telling them what specific actions and directions to take in their lives (e.g., Jung, MDR, pp. 156f).

In so far as epistemology studies the ways we formulate what and how we know, it should be indispensable for a proper study of psychotherapeutic approaches. Jung’s ambivalent stance towards philosophy seems to have prevented him from acknowledging fully the implications of his own epistemological sensitivity.

Like all great pioneers, Jung succumbed to the intoxication of his own discoveries and it was only human that there was also a streak in him that wanted to stick to his own theories and propagate them further with the fervour of a zealot.

it is important to appreciate that there are two Jungs, so to speak – the one with an open epistemology and Socratic ignorance who was constructionist and relational, and the other Jung who, following Gnostic epistemology, was, in fact, essentialist and universalist.

As Jung himself emphasised, it is important to have diversity of views and not only to pursue one-sided perspectives: ‘No line of research which asserted that its subject was … a “nothing but” has ever made any contribution to knowledge’ (Jung 1944: par. 120).

CW 12 Psicologia y Alquimia

———(1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. New York: Ballantine.

———(1979) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. New York: Dutton.

Libro sobre epistemología de la ciencia que parece necesario leer

Becvar, D.S. and Becvar, R.J. (2003) Family Therapy: A Systemic Integration, 5th edn. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Brooke, R. (1991) Jung and Phenomenology. London: Routledge.

Coulter, J. (1995) The Social Construction of the Mind. New York: Macmillan.

Crowden, A. (2003) ‘Ethically sensitive mental health care: is there a need for a unique ethics for psychiatry?’ Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 37(2): 143–149.

Dieckmann, H. (1991) Methods in Analytical Psychology: An Introduction. Wilmette, IL: Chiron.

Interesante eso de un libro sobre metodología Jungian

Fulford, B., Morris, K., Sadler, J. and Stanghellini, G. (eds) (2003) Nature and Narrative: An Introduction to the New Philosophy of Psychiatry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gergen, K.J. and Davis, K.E. (eds) (1985) The Social Construction of the Person. New York: Springer Verlag.

Gergen, M. and Gergen, K.J. (2003) Social Construction: A Reader. London: Sage.

Hermans, H.J.M. and Hermans-Jansen, E. (1995) Self-narratives: The Construction of Meaning in Psychotherapy. New York: Guilford.

Horne, M. (2002) ‘Aristotle’s ontogenesis: a theory of individuation which integrates the classical and developmental perspectives’. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 47(4): 613–

Jones, A.M. (2002) ‘Teleology and the hermeneutics of hope: Jungian interpretation in light of the work of Paul Ricoeur’. Journal of Jungian Theory and Practice, 4(2): 45–55.

———(1909) ‘The family constellation’, in CW 2: 466–479.

———(1921) Psychological Types. CW 6.

———(1934a) ‘The practical use of dream analysis’, in CW 16: pars. 294–352.

Habla de las consideraciones eticas que van junto a las teoricas y técnicas

———(1938/1940) ‘Psychology and religion’, in CW 11: pars. 1–168.

———(1944) Psychology and Alchemy. CW 12.

———(1947) ‘On the nature of the psyche’, in CW 8: pars. 343–442.

———(1949) ‘Foreword to Neumann: Depth Psychology and a New Ethic’, in CW 18: pars. 1408–1420.

Etica como indisociable de la epistemología

———(1952a) ‘Religion and psychology: a reply to Martin Buber’, in CW 18: pars. 1499–1513.

———(1952c) ‘Foreword to Fr. Victor White’s God and the Unconscious and Werblowsky’s Lucifer and Prometheus’, in CW 11: 449–467.

Keeney, B.P. (1983) Aesthetics of Change. London: Guilford.

McGuire, W. (ed.) (1974) The Freud/Jung Letters. London: Hogarth Press and Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Mathers, D. (2001) An Introduction to Meaning and Purpose in Analytical Psychology. London: Routledge.

Leer. Lo tengo en pdf y esta en Kindle por 43$

Nagy, M. (1991) Philosophical Issues in the Psychology of C.G. Jung. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

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Neil, J. and Kniskern, D. (eds) (1982) From Psyche to System: The Evolving Therapy of Carl Whitaker. New York: Guilford.

Papadopoulos, R.K. (1980) ‘The dialectic of the Other in the psychology of C.G. Jung: a metatheoretical investigation’, PhD thesis, University of Cape Town.

———(1984) ‘Jung as dialectician and teleologist’, in R.K. Papadopoulos and G.S. Saayman (eds) Jung in Modern Perspective. London: Wildwood.

Sarbin, T.R. (ed.) (1986) Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct. New York: Praeger. Segal, R.A. (1992) The Gnostic Jung. London: Routledge.

Co construcción del conocimiento

Selvini-Palazzoli, M., Cecchin, G., Prata, G. and Boscolo, L. (1978) Paradox and Counterparadox. New

Sosa, E. and Kim, J. (2000a) ‘Epistemic contextualism’, in E. Sosa and J. Kim (eds) Epistemology: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell.

Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. and Fisch, R. (1974) Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution. New York: W.W. Norton

Williams, M. (2001) ‘Contextualism, externalism and epistemic standards’. Philosophical Studies, 103: 1–23.

Young, G. (1997) Adult Development, Therapy, and Culture: A Postmodern Synthesis. New York: Plenum Press.

Idea de construcción postmoderna del conocimiento

The concept of a mind, or spirit or ‘will’ outside of, and beyond, the everyday ‘conscious’ mentality of human beings seems – as far as we can tell – to have existed across cultures and throughout human history.

In other eras, the degree to which this ‘mind’ resided in powerful others such as gods, animals, elements like the wind and rivers, or a single God, was emphasised much more than the modern idea that this was an aspect of the minds of human beings themselves.

The way that serious attention was paid to dreams seems to be clear evidence of humankind’s respect for, and interest i...

But we know from anthropological investigations that the conceptual separation between a conscious and an unconscious mind (as we divide them now), is not necessarily the form of understanding shared by humans living ...