Ladson Hinton

This panel is a series of presentations by a father and his three sons. The first is a critique of the concept of the Unus Mundus, an idea that goes back at least as far as Plato’s Cave in western intellectual history. A longing for unchanging foundational ideas lies at the core of much of our culture, psychology, and theology. The subsequent presentations describe various unforeseen, destructive results stemming from the perspective of the Unus Mundus. The first example is of persons with Alzheimer’s disease, whose singular subjectivity is often ignored because they are seen as a category. They are ‘Alzheimer-ed’, subtly enabling those around them to avoid an anxietyproducing encounter with their enigmatic otherness. Another important perspective is the modernist re-construction of city spaces that has resulted in the loss of an organic sense of containment. The lengthy horizon of the grand boulevards seemed like openings upon infinity, often provoking panic and agoraphobia, as see...

Immersion in time gives birth to consciousness, as well as conflict and torment. When human beings developed a sense of future, they also gained the ability to anticipate threats from nature or their fellow beings. They thereby created cultures that are bastions of survival, as well as places of poetry, art and religion where they could band together and reflect upon their common plight. The practice of psychoanalysis is in many ways a temporal process, a process of remembering, for owning and elaborating a past that gives us substance, thereby providing a basis for reflective consciousness. Stimulated by Freud's early writings, Lacan, Laplanche and their successors in particular have focussed extensively on time and psychoanalysis, and their views are a central point of this discussion. A substantial case study is offered that provides concrete examples of these perspectives. A multi-faceted view of temporality emerges, one that is more syncopated than linear or teleological. In conclusion, I will briefly discuss recent findings in the neuroscience of memory and 'time travel' that underpin contemporary psychoanalytic ideas in surprising ways. It is important to remember that acceptance of the contradictory nature of temporal experience can open space for increased freedom and playfulness.

Immersion in time gives birth to consciousness, as well as conflict and torment. When human beings developed a sense of future, they also gained the ability to anticipate threats from nature or their fellow beings. They thereby created cultures that are bastions of survival, as well as places of poetry, art and religion where they could band together and reflect upon their common plight. The practice of psychoanalysis is in many ways a temporal process, a process of remembering, for owning and elaborating a past that gives us substance, thereby providing a basis for reflective consciousness. Stimulated by Freud's early writings, Lacan, Laplanche and their successors in particular have focussed extensively on time and psychoanalysis, and their views are a central point of this discussion. A substantial case study is offered that provides concrete examples of these perspectives. A multi-faceted view of temporality emerges, one that is more syncopated than linear or teleological. In conclusion, I will briefly discuss recent findings in the neuroscience of memory and 'time travel' that underpin contemporary psychoanalytic ideas in surprising ways. It is important to remember that acceptance of the contradictory nature of temporal experience can open space for increased freedom and playfulness.

This article contrasts Jung’s theoretical position with existential philosophy, mainly Martin Heidegger’s ideas. The intent of Heidegger’s magnum opus, Being and Time, was to discover the primal ground, the arché, of ideas. In his eyes, that quest failed, resulting in a turn toward a more hermeneutic approach, aimed toward disclosing the Being of beings. This endeavor, for Heidegger, is never final. A basic precept of existential thought is that “existence precedes essence.” An ultimate lack of substantive structure entails a sense of contingency and openness, providing the ground of human freedom. This diverges sharply from Jung’s theoretical writings, because he generally held to a belief in archetypes: inherent, underlying structures or ideal forms related to Platonic ideas. Moreover, temporality and awareness of death are at the core of most existential thought. This involves an openness to the vicissitudes of time, with a consequent existential anxiety. In contrast, throughout ...

Michael Horne died on April 11, 2016, of Alzheimer’s Disease, surrounded by his family in Berkeley where he was in residential care. He was 71 years old. Michael was a valued member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and a founding member of the New School for Analytical Psychology in Seattle. He was a popular teacher, clinical supervisor and analyst, and was deeply respected for his vigorous and creative scholarship. Between 2003 and 2009 he was an assistant editor, and then the US editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. Michael grew up in Sydney, Australia. His father taught history at a boys’ boarding school and his mother was the headmistress of a girls’ school, so his upbringing was filled with academic expectations. At the military boarding school he attended he became a star Australian rules football player. He was so renowned for his ability that many expected he would make a career of the sport. On the other hand, he suffered several concussions and he told me that he was unconscious for at least 45 minutes on one occasion. It is possible those injuries contributed to his later brain disorder. In any case, athletic activities were very important to him throughout his life, and he continued to be an active biker and swimmer until near the end. He was a fully-fledged counter-culture person during the late sixties and had a ‘hippie house’ in Paddington. Some of his friends were surprised when he made the decision to go into medicine after completing his undergraduate education at the University of Sydney. In the senior yearbook he was described as ‘“Horny old Michael” [who] came to University with a book under one arm and a football under the other ... [whose] latest achievement has been to prove to the grey-flannelled suit enclave that “flower power” is not incompatible with success in medicine’. This description rang true for me because I personally experienced Michael as a fascinating combination of an almost innocent openness, a very disciplined intellect and a strongly responsible character. He had a profound curiosity, even fascination, with new concepts in philosophy and psychoanalysis. We met regularly for lengthy breakfasts, hosted by my wife, to reflect upon a

War, genocide, economic upheaval and terrorism have crushed belief in endlessly 'enlightened' progress. We more and more doubt the teleological nature of psychological events, including the activity of a Self or centre that guides the development of the subject. There is a growing view of a 'decentred' subject that develops in the face of an enigmatic Otherness. Jean Laplanche has created an extensive metapsychology describing this situation, emphasizing the original helplessness of an infant who is bathed in enigmatic messages from its very beginnings. These messages from the adult other are often sexualized, and are partly or largely unconscious to the sender. Laplanche calls this situation 'primal seduction'. The immature human cannot fully metabolize such adult messages, and through 'primal repression' they remain as the unconscious core of subjectivity. They disrupt psychological life, conveying a sense of signifying something to the subject. What they signify is an enigma, like finding a hieroglyph in the desert. The story of relationships and culture is the story of our repeated attempts to translate them, to respond to them. An analytic case illustrates these concepts as they appear in the transference, first as gaps and monsters, and then in the crucial and surprising appearance of transformative laughter. The vicissitudes of the clinical situation illustrate the vital importance of the enigmatic signifier in the development of the subject.

In 2002 the North Pacific Institute inaugurated a new seminar series on the 'origins of depth psychology' for incoming candidate-members. This approach emphasized the historical and cultural embeddedness of analytic theory, practice and institutions. The seminar was experienced as enlightening and freeing, as well as sometimes painfully disillusioning. The overall feedback indicated that it fostered an opening of creative space for their education as analysts. This paper describes the structure, and some of the rationale and process of the seminar. It includes firsthand expressions of the candidate-members' experiences.

The 'black hole' is a signifier that pervades contemporary experience, conveying the 'gaps' and 'voids' in Western culture and psyche. Depth psychology stemmed from the growing uncanniness of city and psychic spaces during the 19(th) century. There was an emerging fascination with the 'dark Thing'--the 'It' of many names. Like a pandemic, depictions of the 'black hole' experience have continually emerged in the tragic events and cultural malaise of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Art, philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, literature, and cultural studies have variously articulated this frighteningly potent, yet endlessly elusive signifier. A many-sided, dialogical process best provides acquaintance with such a complex phenomenon. Multiple examples and perspectives, as well a detailed case study, will delineate some of its dimensions. They will show that such 'black hole' encounters are not merely negative, but are often the enigmatic source of new awareness and creation.