WorldWork and Jungian Psychology

The Patient Who Is Too Big For Private Practice

By Ursula Hohler [ursula.hohler@smile.ch] from Zurich

We are thankful to Ursula Hohler who gave an exciting class integrating worldwork into Jung’s Psychology – here is an abstract of her classes given at the C.G. Jung-Institut in Zürich, February 2004.

Lecture 1

Introduced the overall structure of the three lectures and pointed out the huge social, political and economical changes of the last 20 years since I got the diploma of the C.G. Jung-Institute Küsnacht. Also how much I owe to my former analyst and teacher Arnold Mindell with whom I experienced, learned and still learn so much about working with groups, conflicts, and the world-situation.

It is evident that dealing with the new developments and consequences of wars and civil wars, migration and all kinds of trauma, of social changes as well as new technologies and the effects of globalization and today's mobility are new challenges where new disciplines and paradigms are evolving and new professional profiles are consolidating. Where do the Jungian attitudes and skills fit into this field?

These lectures are meant to formulate the solid ground for Jungian contributions to this situation (lecture 1) as well as the necessary extensions and changes in certain aspects of our attitude and way of working (lectures 2 and 3). Finally a connection with Jungs last thoughts and phantasies about the future development of mankind was made.

During the whole series the participants were included in experiencing and testing the material presented through personal questionnaires and small experiences (either personal, in small groups or within the whole group).

Basic remarks about the theoretical background:

In order to transpose Jungian concepts from the individual level to a wider group-and field-level three aspects of the Jungian paradigm are especially important:

1. The emphasis on the relationship between the ego and the unconscious (which can be transferred to the level of groups as the relationship between the parts the group identifies with vs the parts the group doesn't pick up or rejects)

2. The importance and effect of wholeness (i.e. the more parts of the psyche can be represented and dealt with the more fluid and healthy the individul will be -or -as an analogy -the group)

3. The concept of the Self as a field (the idea of the field is very old and at the same time has been the subject of contemporary research in natural sciences as physics, quantum physics and biology and has influenced social sciences and psychology very much).

Jung described and named the "Anthropos" as an ancient archetypal field concept which was presented by slides from different cultures (pictures “Encyclopedia of Archetypal Symbolism”, Shambala). All these pictures showed the mythical idea of a universal being which contains all life in its body and gives life to all parts of the creation when it gets dismembered. Those figures represent at the same time the origin and the final destination of the whole universe.
This myth is a helpful analogy when working with groups and transposing the Jungian concepts from a individual level to groupwork. The group can be seen as a "body" or Anthropos which has different parts as an individual does.

The first lecture ended with a group [ep]experience during which the participants were invited to explore the group at[h]mosphere starting with three questions [which were addressed] individually, [then by] sharing with a partner and finally with the whole group. During the group sharing we tried to formulate our experiences as parts of our Anthropos and discuss its more conscious and less conscious parts.

Lecture 2

After a short exercise on inner plurality an example of working with a group of six families living in the same house was analyzed and reflected step by step in great detail in order to show how the three points mentioned in the last lecture can be practically applied.

Then the elements of Jungian Psychology determined by Jung's biographical lifetime were pointed out and explained.
The experiences and views of Jung and his first followers differ from our contemporary experiences and beliefs, especially the following:

1. their patriarchal attitude towards women and female children

2. their white-middle-class-european background which shows in standards, patterns of interpretation, communication-style, lifestyle, attitude towards sexual orientation and more.

3. as Hillman emphazises, the monotheism of Christianity as a religious background doesn't value the importance of diversity.

4. their very painful inherent racism which implies white supremacy, equates “white" with “more conscious" and uses the alchemical terms “black" and “white" without awareness of their implicartions.

The point was made that these themes have to be worked on with as much differentiation as possible in today's world and that groups create a special opportunity to develop insight and skills relevant for this big task.

To pick up information from the level of the disturbing, rejected, or “dreaming" side of groups, big fields and finally the world and make it more accessible and helpful is a necessity more than ever today. There are different ways to do this, one of them is through the capacities and wholeness of the human psyche.

In the following section different possibilities for getting access to the unseen and unwanted "dreaming" aspects of bigger fields and to unfold them were listed in a division which is just a suggestion to be discussed:

Fieldwork connected to "direct expression of experience" goes to the places where something happens and works with the people involved by providing opportunities to express their experiences as fully as possible (different methods of individual and groupwork like work with signals and synchronicities, relationshipwork, group-process, open forums, dream-matrix, "dialog"(Buber -Bohm) all kinds of expression in different modalities and art work, rituals.

Fieldwork connected to "expressing reactions in depth" encourages and supports people who have strong reactions or/and are very committed to a subject to express their experiences and go deeper with them as individuals and/or in groups. (the same techniques as mentioned above and Andrew Samuels "clinics", different imagination techniques, all kinds of meditation and "inner work" (Arnold Mindell))

Fieldwork using representation in the space, empathy and unfolding the deep dynamics in the background
(Virginia Satir, Joanna Macy, Arnold Mindell's Worldwork, Bert Hellinger, Varga v. Kibed)

Lecture 3

As the date was Feb.13th the fairytale of "Sleeping Beauty" was used to discuss the 13th fairy who does not get invited because the king has only 12 golden plates. A closed system with a restricted number of golden plates which excludes the rest of the reality is a dangerous one!

Making use of this image the aim of Jungian or Post-Jungian groupwork can be described as coaching groups to relate to all their parts and to the challenges in the outside world they don't have "golden plates" for. [Ursula what a great example!]

Three practical aspects of work with big fields were especially mentioned:

1. All levels of the group should be addressed (individual, small groups, subgroups, whole group)

2. The designated goal should be kept in mind and referred to.

3. Options to reach it and necessary changes should be openly discussed and explained.

The following issues have been crucial in my work, to teach and practice them was helpful and effective in many cases:

• cultural differences (use of time, code of behaviour in relationships, social roles and values, high context and low context cultures etc)

• perception (sense athmosphere, signals and double signals, trance-signals, feedback, escalation and de-escalation, weatherreport" as an intervention)

• communication styles (digital and analog, personal and positional, difference between genders)

• rank and privileges and their effect on behaviour and communication

• recognize mainstream and minority positions and support all parts to express themselves

• "blank access" as a technique to support something to come out, even if you don't know yet what it is

Introduction to the technique of group process followed.

The group practiced sorting possible issues and choosing one of them and then tried to imagine how it could unfold and what could happen in the group process itself.

The importance of the attitude of deep democracy (value all parts equally) and the emphasis on creating a safe atmosphere and supporting minority positions to come in were pointed out.

Some deep mythological aspects of group-development were explained going back to the Anthropos-myth and illustrated by a series of slides as well as with practical examples:

• dismemberment (falling apart and conflict)

• maze (going into the unknown as a necessary confusion)

• dance around the tree (importance of the center)

• the two creators (maple sprout and fire stone as an example from American Indian mythology: the necessity to value creation by care and consideration as well as creation by distruction)

Summary of conclusions

Work with groups or fields is comparable to individual work.

The psychological life of groups consists of more conscious parts ("we") and less conscious parts ("not we") and their disturbances are related to those parts. One-sidedness and unlived life are as dangerous for the psychic health of groups as they are for individuals and cut them off from their deepest resources (in Jungian terms: the Self).

Therefore it is important and useful to work with groups on getting to know their parts and use their diversity as a resource.
Sensory grounded signal work and a solid knowledge of the systemic order in a given group is indispensable for the protection of the groupmembers.

The lectures ended with a final look into the last interviews Jung gave in 1959 where he talked about the importance of a big transformation of our psychological attitude for the time to come and about the arising age of Aquarius. Jung mentioned that in the astrological symbol of the Aquarius "there seems to be a picture of a coming big man" which he didn't dare to interpret.

Today we are tempted to relate this picture of the "coming big man" to the phenomenon of globalization and the new information technologies of the internet as expressions of the Anthropos myth in our time.