Latest Paper
Elephants painting? Selfness and the emergence of self states as illustrated in conceptual art
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2009, 54, 619–635 Michael Horne, Seattle, USA Abstract: The traditional view of the self is that of a singular entity whose ground is an inherent function of the mind. The more recent conception of the self is moving toward the social constructionist concept that its ground is the discourses of the particular culture into which one is born. These two divergent views have created an irresolvable binary of inner/outer that limits their explanatory … Read entire article »
More Reading
Evil acts not evil people: their characteristics and contexts
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2008, 53, 669–690 Michael Horne, Seattle, US Abstract: The problem of evil has vexed philosophers and theologians for centuries and anthropologists, sociologists, psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists in more recent times. Numerous theories have been proposed but there is still little agreement on such basic questions as the nature of evil, what constitutes and motivates an evil … Read entire article »
There is no ‘truth’ outside a context: implications for the teaching of analytical psychology in the 21st century
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2007, 52, 127–142 Michael Horne, Seattle, USA Abstract: Humans are from birth embedded in a historical and contemporary context of meanings. This always constrains their theoretical and practical activities. In this paper, I will be suggesting that there are no guiding ‘truths’ outside such contexts. In order to understand the foundations of any concept or new idea, it is important to comprehend the context in which it is embedded. Candidates and some of their teachers have very little knowledge of the intellectual context in which Jung or any other analytic theorist wrote. As a result, the analytic ‘founders’ are often believed to have discovered ‘truths’ transcending the context of history and of … Read entire article »
Book Review: The Sunken Quest, the Wasted Fisher, the Pregnant Fish: Postmodern Reflections on Depth Psychology
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2006, 51,149-151 Book Review: The Sunken Quest, the Wasted Fisher, the Pregnant Fish: Postmodern Reflections on Depth Psychology. by Ronald Schenk Wilmette, Illinois: Chiron Publications, 2001. Reviewed by Michael Horne, M.D. Analytical psychology purports to help despairing people repair the tattered meaning of their existence. Many analytical psychologists feel that postmodernist approaches to understanding are relativistic and nihilistic and, therefore, destroy … Read entire article »
The universe of our concerns: the human as person in the praxis of analysis
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2004, 49, 33–48 Michael Horne, Seattle, Washington Abstract: Since its inception, psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists have used the reductionistic methods of science to explain both human development and analytic practice. The most recent iteration of this tendency uses attachment as the explanatory principle. This disposition has created theories that understand the human solely as an organism. While this is a satisfactory way to view human development, it is not appropriate for the practice of analysis. In this context, the human must be viewed as a person that is explicable in his/her own terms. Interpretation based on reductionism eliminates personhood. Humans appear as persons in ‘the feeling of what happens’ or of … Read entire article »
Book Review: Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self
Fort da: The Journal of the Northern California Society for Psychoanalytic Psychology (2003), 9(2), 107-111 Book Review: Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of the Self by Peter Fonagy, Gyorgy Gergely, Eliot Jurist, and Mary Target New York: Other Press, 2002; 577 pp. Reviewed by Michael Horne, M.D. Although this book very thoroughly discusses many of the current issues in child development, such as attachment … Read entire article »
Book Review: Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities.
Psychoanalytic Review. 91: 149-153. Hauke, Christopher. (2000). Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities. London: Routledge: 304, xiv pp. The establishment of psychoanalytic studies programs in Universities is creating an exciting collaboration between psychoanalysts and academics in the humanities. In this context, psychoanalysts are exposed to postmodernism which is revolutionizing all the traditional disciplines by critiquing their underlying presuppositions. Conversely, academics … Read entire article »
Philosophical Assumptions in Freud, Jung and Bion: Questions of Causality.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2000, 45, 109–121 Michael Horne, Seattle, WA; Angela Sowa, Palo Alto, CA; David Isenman, San Francisco, CA Abstract: The historical development of concepts of causality in philosophy is described. Since the Enlightenment and the growth of science, exponents of the two most important concepts, determinism and teleology, have been in conflict. At the inception of psychoanalysis at the end of the nineteenth century this conflict was particularly intense. It was the cause of the first major schism in psychoanalysis between Jung and Freud. Psychoanalytic theorists have continued to disagree over this issue. Post-modernist philosophy has abolished all metaphysics and therefore called into question concepts of psychic causality. Parallel to, but uninfluenced … Read entire article »
Recent Comments