pixel

REVIVING OUR CAPACITY TO FEEL: the heart of Jung’s legacy

Nov 5, 2020

Marie-Louise von Franz, Jung’s close collaborator, capped her public work in a 1986 lecture that summarized Jung’s signal contributions to understanding the human experience. Jung was concerned that rationalism, quantitative methodologies, and the objectification of people and animals had become one-sided, resulting in ethical and empathic deficiencies. He felt the over-development of professional personas—even among physicians and psychotherapists—led to avoiding authentic encounters. Sentimentality, a superficial expression of feeling, could be used to mask cruelty, including to animals.

For Jung relationship to the sacred was foundational, and was the true source of an ethical stance. He felt that a well-developed feeling function, the conscious development of empathy, and differentiated relatedness are at the heart of the human endeavor. The feminine principle of eros is central to his work. This Jungian Life explored von Franz’ insightful and moving summation of her understanding of Jung and his work in a presentation for the Washington, D.C. Jung Society.

C.G. Jung’s Rehabilitation of the Feeling Function in Our Civilization by Marie-Louise von Franz https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1525/jung.2008.2.2.9

Have you thought about joining DREAM SCHOOL? https://thisjungianlife.com/join-dream-school/

13 Comments

  1. Silvana Burns

    The week’s podcast will not play for some reason

    Reply
  2. Dan Slife

    Greetings. For some reason the most recent podcasts are no longer downloadable from the webpage. Is this an intentional format change?

    Reply
  3. henrietta.lang@gmail.com

    Totally loved this! Thank-you so much – articulated so much of what I have been felt/known for decades and my frustration with the profession of therapy. I trained as a Rogerian therapist and I totally agree that the cult of niceness is syrup that drowns the therapist and the client. ‘Let the therapeutic hour be a personal encounter’ YES YES. I finally got the point of therapy when my training counsellor who dressed herself and her room entirely in fairy themes and told me she too rocked in corners. Like the alchemists would say, unconditional positive regard is an outcome, it requires a process or procedure to achieve.(see Catherine MacCoun on this – brilliant). That procedure is deep inner work and the discovery and trust in the Self which can only lead in one direction: the reverence of the other. That must be what Jung meant by religious attitude being necessary to ethical action?

    And all that waffling about transference and counter-transference – God I found it so annoying! (I’m sill working on the UCPR clearly….:) Thanks for showing it up. We only need to pay attention to know who is Mummy and who is baby, who is perpetrator and who is victim without obscuring it in with terminology. I have felt so dismal about the therapy profession I have considered giving up. Until now Jung has been a guiding father in my personal and inner life, now he (and MLvF) are reviving my working life too.I’m really going to digest this all and find my own way. Big thank-you to you all for bringing this essay forward.

    Reply
  4. Jim

    Is the link above, whoich costs $44, THE ONLY PLACE ONE CAN ACCESS THE ACTUAL LECTURE BY VON FRANZ. Ooops sorry for all caps

    Reply
  5. Christian Breiding

    There was at least one shaman in your meeting, which makes me wonder how one finds a shaman? You certainly can’t ask around, “Hey, Shirley, know any good shamans?”

    Reply
    • Joseph Lee

      Hi Christian,
      Shamans are openly creating web presences, workshops and lectures. As as start you might enjoy Michael Harner’s organization https://www.shamanism.org/. I recommend his book, The Way of the Shaman.
      ~ Joseph

      Reply
      • Calvin

        Hi Christian, and Joseph, Good call on recommending Michael Harner. Not to blow my own horn but Ive been teaching Shamanistic ways world wide for some 40 years now, and though I use drumming (and other things) often and have taught Corte shamanism in that form. But, here it goes, I could not help but notice a certain person passive aggressively down playing the importance of plants as an aly. I will address that offline, but it seemed very counter productive to the topic. Just standing up to a truth. Thanks.

        Reply
  6. Kevin Jones

    These podcasts just get better!
    I was thinking of Remains of the Day, both the novel and the film. So many characters with out discerning access to the feeling function. A kind of warning on how to live a wasted life. Even, if you know the characters, Miss Kenton cannot find the courage to act on her feeling function. All the rest have drab and empty lives. If the right hemisphere understands connection perhaps this is the place of connection and meaning also.
    Thank you so much all three!

    Reply
  7. Alice Wells

    Hello! Thanks so much for a vibrant and illuminating discussion. I had understood that many of the resources that were mentioned would be listed on this page, and other than the link to Von Franz’s lecture, I’m not seeing any. Is that for members only? Thanks so much!

    Reply
    • Joseph Lee

      Hi Alice,
      I think that’s all we had time to pull together – sorry about that.
      ~ Joseph

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Alice Wells Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *