Jung, Psychology, Postmodernity

The snake in the mandala: dialogical aspects of Jung’s ‘A study in the process of individuation’

“…Both options can’t be true, the antinomy implies. Another option is to attribute the inconsistency to an epistemological bias, a so‐called ‘fugitive dialogical’ (Jones ): Jung denies the ontological necessity of dialogicality even when asserting its practical necessity.…”

“…We glimpse here the process that social constructionists describe as the discursive production of selves (cf. Jones ). We glimpse also the inception of a narrative truth about her development.…”

Jungian dialogism and the problem of depth

“…In their introductory chapter to the Jones and Morioka () volume, Jones and Hermans (following Jones ), point to the ‘fugitive status’ of Jung's notion of dialogue: ‘We catch glimpses of it, but it vanishes when we turn to look directly’ (2011, p. 15). In particular, the dialogical ‘other’ referenced by Jung derives from abstracted elements such as complexes and archetypes that figure in the intrapsychic life of mind rather than from ‘other people as such’ (ibid., p. 13).…”

“…The social world is thereby conceived as a field of projections rather then as an intersubjective space for the co‐constitution of meaning. Moreover, as Jones () pointed out, there is no account of the social process by which such meanings are jointly constructed. The self, in particular, is conceived of in terms of the impulse to wholeness and balance in the psyche, rather than as something extended into the social world.…”

“…In essence, the Jungian model forestalls the kind of social ontology of self that is considered critical for postmodern dialogism (Jones ). Thus, for Jones among other postmodernists, Jungian dialogism is the stuff of mere analogy or ‘implicit anthropomorphism’ (ibid., p. 31), an interpretation that is reinforced by Jung's statement that ‘it is as if dialogue were taking place’ with the unconscious (ibid., para.…”