The allegorical tale of the Prodigal Son illustrates Jung’s basic understanding of the structure and development of the psyche.

The Roman god Janus had two faces. They looked in opposite directions, representing dualities, especially beginnings and endings, past and future. Psychotherapy often begins by facing the past and understanding its influence on the present. Belief in the past as unalterably determinative, however, can imply that personal history is a single, all-powerful god—as if Janus fixed on yesterday. Jung took special interest in psyche’s purposive and creative energy—the face Janus turned toward the future. Incarnating our innate potential, which Jung termed the individuation process, is the process of engaging our capacity for growth and wholeness. Life’s road ahead has new possibilities, which is why we launch the new year in honor of Janus, for it is he who presides over all new beginnings. 

We welcome Jungian colleague, psychiatrist, and historian Dr. Bert Price, whose research in Vienna during a 2019 international conference led to the discovery of new facts regarding the famous friendship—and break-up—of Jung and Freud. Following lively correspondence, the two men met in Vienna and talked for 13 hours. They continued over the next three days, and after attending the Wednesday night meeting of Freud’s Vienna circle, took a “spirited” walk to a tattoo parlor, stirred by the mythic significance of “marking” their newfound bond. 

Failure is a call to self-confrontation, humility, and resilience. We can recognize the limits of our conscious attitude and our dependence on the unconscious. Failure can imbue us with a higher sense of purpose that is in service to a greater good, including our own.

The nature of reality may be a complex philosophical question, but from a psychological viewpoint, reality is largely a question of adaptation to the truths of our inner and outer worlds. How well do we manage psychic life and the electric bill? Science fiction writer Philip Dick pithily states: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Multiple realities challenge us. We live in shared social realities, from embracing niceties to being steeped in beliefs and a need to belong. We also may access the objective realities of verifiable facts and scientific data. And we experience subjective realities of emotion, intuition, and unconscious influences. We can feel our feelings, differentiate between levels of reality, and choose which to apply to a particular situation or decision. Unclouded acceptance of reality is medicinal.

Jung understood libido as psychic energy: desire, will, interest, and passion. Libido includes instincts for fulfilling bodily appetites and engaging developmental tasks. Although energy infuses all human activity, it is not a function of ego alone; for many, a worthy goal has lacked the libido to achieve it.

The crocodile and its alligator cousin appear regularly in dreams. Its primordial force, seemingly submerged in psyche’s ancient riverbeds, can erupt to drown, dismember and devour the ego’s claim to autonomy.

Mythological heroes defend, protect and quest. They range from warriors, adventurers, and saviors to magicians, loners, and rebels, but one way or another, they battle bad for the sake of good. They have courage, skill, and strength, but never a troubling moment. Although we still delight in heroes with might and shine, modern times have given rise to a new ideal: the everyday hero.

Like all aspects of the collective unconscious, the witch lays low when times are fine but rises when times are tense. Her archetypal power then infects humankind, inciting mass hysteria and the horrors of persecutory epidemics.