Mathers - Alchemy and psychotherapy : post-Jungian perspectives

Alchemical symbols are alive in popular culture, as recently popularised in the Harry Potter books and films. Alchemy intrigued Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology. It inspired him as he wrote The Red Book the journal of his voyage of internal discovery. He devoted much of his life to it, using alchemical symbols as metaphors for unconscious processes. Alchemy and Psychotherapy explores the issue of alchemy in the consulting room and its application to social and political problems. This book argues against the dominant discourse in contemporary psychotherapy scientific materialism and for the discovery of spiritual meaning.

Alchemy and Psychotherapy has four main parts:

Alchemy and Meaning looks at the history of alchemy, particularly the symbol of the coniunctio sacred marriage as a metaphor for the therapeutic relationship.

The Symbolic Attitude explores working with dreams, fairytales, astrology and the body: each of which is, itself, a symbolic language.

The Spirit and the Natural World discusses burn-out of therapists and our ecological resources the mystical aspects of quantum physics and the philosophical underpinning of symbol formation.

Clinical Applications shows alchemys use with victims of abuse, with those struggling to secure gender identity, in anorexia and in social healing atonement and restorative justice applying the idea of the coniunctio.

Alchemy and Psychotherapy is illustrated throughout with clinical examples, alchemical pictures and poetry to emphasise that alchemy is both a creative art and a science. Bringing together clinicians from different analytical psychology schools in the UK, contributors show that the consulting room is their alchemical laboratory, and that research is their creative engagement.

Alchemy and Psychotherapy will be a valuable resource for practitioners, students at all levels of psychotherapy, analytical psychology, psychoanalysis and creative, art-based therapies, and for creative practitioners (in film, literature and performing arts) who draw on Jungs ideas.

Dale Mathers is a member of the Association of Jungian Analysts. He teaches analytical psychology in the UK and Europe and is in private practice in South London.

ALCHEMY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

Post-Jungian Perspectives

Edited by
Dale Mathers

First published 2014
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2014 Dale Mathers

The right of Dale Mathers to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Alchemy and psychotherapy : post-jungian perspectives / edited by
Dale Mathers. First Edition.
pages cm
Includes index.
1. Jungian psychology. 2. Psychotherapy. 3. Alchemy.
4. Archetype (Psychology) I. Mathers, Dale, 1955
BF175.A5494 2014
155.2644dc23
2013035422

ISBN: 978-0-415-68203-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-68204-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-81327-1 (ebk)

Typeset in Times
by Keystroke, Station Road, Codsall, Wolverhampton

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO OUR FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES AND TO OUR BEST TEACHERS OUR PATIENTS.

JOHN BEEBE

SUSAN ROWLAND

DALE MATHERS

PART I
Alchemy and Meaning

ADELE DAVIDE

RABBI DAVID L. FREEMAN

CATHERINE BYGOTT

DALE MATHERS

PART II
The Symbolic Attitude

GOTTFRIED MARIA HEUER

CAROLA MATHERS

ANTONIA BOLL

KARIN SYRETT

RICHARD WAINWRIGHT

PART III
The Spirit and the Natural World

ADELE DAVIDE

GOTTFRIED M. HEUER

BIRGIT HEUER

MICHAEL WHAN

PART IV
Clinical Applications

ADELE DAVIDE

RUTH WILLIAMS

MARYANN BARONE-CHAPMAN

PHIL GOSS

JOHN COLVERSON

NATHAN FIELD

GOTTFRIED MARIA HEUER

Maryann Barone-Chapman, MSc, Dip Psych, Member of AJA. PhD candidate at Cardiff Universitys School of Social Science researching unconscious processes in late motherhood. In 2005, whilst training, she won first prize for her unpublished research at a joint academic conference of the IAAP and IAJS. She is in private practice in London. Her publications include: The Hunger to Fill an Empty Space: an investigation of primordial affects and meaning making processes in repeated use of ART (2007), Journal of Analytical Psychology: 52:4, 479501; Pregnant Pause: procreative desire, reproductive technology and narrative shifts at midlife in Raya Jones (ed.), Body, Mind and Healing After Jung: a Space of Questions (2011) London: Routledge.

Antonia Boll, MA (Cantab.) She is a professional member of AJA and former Chair. She teaches on the AJA training and until recently was a trainer and supervisor at Re.Vision, London and the Psychosynthesis Institute, Gothenburg, Sweden. She contributes to the Hereford Jungian seminars and runs post-graduate workshops in Sweden. Antonia is a visiting supervisor on the IAAP Developing Group Training, Kiev, Ukraine and she is in private practice in London.

Catherine Bygott is a supervising member of ASA and a senior member of the Independent Group of Analytical Psychologists (IGAP), serving on their council and training programme. She lectures and leads seminars and conference workshops on the Red Book, structure and dynamics of the psyche, and its amplification through alchemy, fairytale and active imagination. She was born in Canada and is in private practice in Somerset, UK. Her publications include: The Red Book and Clinical Practice (2012) Journal of Analytical Psychology, 57:4, 455461 London: Wiley-Blackwell.

John Colverson, BSc, Biology, John Moores University, Liverpool; MA in Jungian and post Jungian studies, Essex University; MA in Integrative Psychotherapy, Middlesex University. John trained in integrative psychotherapy at the Minster Centre, London. He is a professional member of the Association of Group and Individual Psychotherapy (AGIP) and a member of AJA. He worked in therapeutic communities, homeless hostels, and hospitals and has an interest in eating disorders which he developed particularly while working at Capio Nightingale hospital, London, and later at the Priory hospital, Chelmsford. Website: www.jungianpsychoanalysis.co.uk.

Adele Davide, formerly in private practice as a Jungian analyst from 1985 to 2010: training analyst, supervisor and lecturer for AJA; supervisor and lecturer at the Centre for Psychological Astrology from 1985 to1996. Adele lectured in creative writing and literature in higher education from 19741983, in drawing and composition at Plymouth College of Art 1964, and in drawing at Chelsea College of Art. In 1963 she received a medal for painting from the Regent St. Polytechnic; in 1978 she won a prize at the Caernarvon Poetry Festival and in 1993 she won the Cheltenham festival Appleby Cup for poetry. Adele continues to paint, write and publish on mythological and psychological themes. Her publications include: poetry in anthologies, newspapers and journals in Great Britain, USA, Canada, Sweden and Japan, translations into Swedish and Japanese;