DIALOGUE

Why Giegerich?

Posted by Norland Tellez on February 1, 2011 at 11:11am in Depth Psychology General

I have enjoyed many of the discussions here, especially those that have contributed a more critical spirit to the approach of Jungian psychology. So far, however, I have not encountered any reference to the work of Wolfgang Giegerich, a Jungian analyst who above all must be credited with the introduction of a more rigorous critical approach to Jungian psychology, a dialectical "Hegelian" spirit of analysis, which does run counter the devotional or dogmatic Jugianism that has clustered around analytical psychology over the decades. It is for this reason, because Jung's work is threatened to become a pop-culture ideology (via Campbell), that a critical approach such as Giegerich offers seems indispensable to the further development of Jungian theory. For whereas devotional Jungians want to worship his theory where Jung left it 70 years ago, critical Jungians such as Hillman and Giegerich are working to further develop its critical frontiers beyond the isms of Jung's time and ours.

Has anybody else in this "alliance" had the critical experience of Giegerich's work? Or is Giegerich's voice, like my own voice often sounds among official card-carrying "Jungians," condemned to be the voice that cries from the wilderness of the archetypal psyche?

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Tags: Giegerich, Hegel, Hillman, Jungianism, critical, psychology, wilderness
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    • Norland Tellez > Ed Koffenberger February 2, 2011 at 11:26am

      Yes. I think I'll make it a point here to introduce some of his fundamental thoughts and points of view, especially and above all his "tricky" transcendental-dialectical approach, which presupposes, I suppose, an acquaintance with Hegel's work, especially his greater LOGIC--which is a "crazy" "psycho" logic of the soul--that Hegel's calls the negative dialectical logic of the Notion or Concept [of the soul].

      Psychology, after all, literally means the LOGIC of the SOUL.

  • Bonnie Bright February 1, 2011 at 12:36pm

    Hi Norland. Thanks so much for this. I, too, have followed Siona's "Why Jung" discussion with much relish. It's funny how certain questions or topics really have juice and just take off.

    I wish I could say I had had critical experience of Giegerich's work, and I was feeling pretty proud of myself (good old Narcissism visiting) in the last segment because I was thinking how well-rounded my depth education has been. Ha! 

    Meanwhile, I've been an avid "Tweeter" for a couple of months now and have been saving a couple of links to articles on him (written by a very smart Jungian analyst, Dolores Brien) because (ironically) I wasn't sure if they were "mainstream enough" to enter the "twitterstream" which does tend toward pop culture in many aspects.

    For what its worth, I will post them here for anyone who wants to read further in honor of this pending discussion. Meanwhile, I'm curious: where did you develop your passion and learning about Geigerich?

    Jung and Giegerich on the Objective Psyche (from “A Jungian Notebook”: http://jungianotebook.blogspot.com/2009/01/jung-and-giegerich-on-objective-psyche.html

    Jung and Giegerich on the Individual: http://jungianotebook.blogspot.com/search?q=Giegerich

    Dancing Around the Bomb: On Wolfgang Giegerich’s “The Nuclear Bomb and the Fate of God: On the First Nuclear Fission” by Dolores Brien: http://www.cgjungpage.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&am...

    “The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man: an Essay about the State Reached in the History of Consciousness and an Analysis of C.G. Jung’s Psychology Project.” What did Giegerich mean by “end of meaning”? http://www.cgjungpage.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&am...

    • Norland Tellez > Bonnie Bright February 1, 2011 at 1:15pm

      Thanks Bonnie. You know it was YOU, from twitter, who tempted me into joining this alliance, although it seems you have not followed me back yet! I'm at twitter as @mitohistoriador and also am the "animator" of @CGJungian @JDerridian @SKierkegaardian @FNietzschean @KJasperian @MHeideggerean---although I've been away for a few weeks as I've started back finishing the last edits of my disssertation in mythological studies in PGI.

      Thank you for all the links as I am determined to make Jungians more aware that Giegerich's thought is equaly important as Hillman's. In fact, they should be taken up TOGETHER if we are to do full justice to the contemporary spirit of depth psychology. People need to read RE-VISIONING PSYCHOLOGY alongside THE SOUL'S LOGICAL LIFE and enter the profound debate that has emerged between these the leading thinkers of Jungian psychology. This debate has taken a very explicit form in a series of articles aimed at each other and arguing specific points.

      And as you can perhaps already tell by my twitter avatars, it is passion for philosophy that has made me embrace Giegerich's "Hegelian" infusion of the transcendental dialectics --the mythic LOGOS--of the psyche, its "crazy" psycho-logic, into the "imaginal" discourse of archetypal psychology. His works are being published now by SPRING where he uses the subtitle of "critical psychology."

      One thing I can tell you for sure is that it was not Jungians who led me toward him, or did lead me toward him unconsciously, in the way they told us to stay away from him. They really had a hard time stomaching his criticism of Jungian ideology and the whole devotional mode of "believing" in him and his ideas. Altogether ironic for a man who could not stomach belief in himself! Especially if this "believing" (or make belief?) was not a form--perhaps THE fundamental "gnostic" form--of knowledge. For when depth psychology becomes ideology we have lost the soul of our subject, lost the subject of the soul, as the "reality of the psyche" that is caught in the process of "individuation" or the transcendent dialectics of the soul's [mytho-]logical life.

      • Bonnie Bright > Norland Tellez February 1, 2011 at 5:40pm

        My bad for not "following" you on Twitter, Norland, to be sure! Oversight corrected as of now! I really appreciate what you said: "When depth psychology becomes ideology we have lost the soul of our subject, lost the subject of the soul...". Jung, of course, would agree with you. He never wanted his ideas to become fixed ideologies and I think that's where we sort of started in the discussion on "Why Jung?".

        In another forum post, someone recommended the book "Who owns Jung?"--and of course, psychology --especially Americans--have increasingly co-opted what pleased us (we're so human, aren't we?)--and left the rest by the wayside. After all, Jung named his psychology Analytical Psychology and we dropped that like a hot potato because it didn't suit a few people.

        In some ways, I think because Jung is profound but also contradicted himself in his writings on many occasions, its easy to kind of get lost in his work and never look outside of it again--there's just so much there. I absolutely agree with you that everyone should read some Hillman no matter how you feel about him--especially "Revisioning Psychology". This all also reminds me of the comment on Rafael Lopez-Pedraza who recently passed away. Someone made the observation that he was rather dismissed in some ways over the course of his career because he had a falling out with some of the louder voices and was never really given the credit he deserved. I think that happens all the time.

        Seeing where my commentary has gone, perhaps it would have been more apt back in the "Why Jung?" thread, but I do think you are raising a very fundamental and critical point!--What is depth psychology if not a continual open-ended inquiry. If we settle on Jung as the brightest, best, most soulful--or whatever projection we each carry about him--we have to be "care-full" to also hold the shadow or the opposite, because that exists as well and if we don't make space for it, that's when preferences can turn to biases can turn to fundamentalism.

        Having said all that, my tendency is always to look for "more information" when I find myself intrigued in a debate, so here's a little more. Wikipedia (I know, I know)!--but for others who are really green on the general topic, this was actually really helpful for me to understand Giegerich's basic tenets--and it does help to have a little understanding of Hillman here fo comparison: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Giegerich

        The other piece is not one I have finished reading, but halfway through it, I can already tell I will want to address and engage Giegerich in my own upcoming dissertation because of the way he interprets soul and cultural phenomena...so thanks for all of this! www.junginstitute.org/pdf_files/JungV7N2p61-74.pdf


         

         

      • Paul Budding > Norland Tellez February 1, 2011 at 1:48pm

        Yes, I have read Giegerich's End of Meaning a few times. I have also read him comment on the paper. I have lost the reference to the quote and take it by memory but in his comment he said something like "I left out whatever I liked about Jung so that people didnt say things like "Oh he's a good Jungian really." (paraphrased) 

        Giegerich wants people to (first-and-foremost) see him as a strong critic and only as at all Jungian in a secondary sense.  

        Giegerich of course shouldnt be accepted just because he's being critical... especially if you think that you have an adequately critical mind of your own and don't need taking by the collar so-to-speak.

        And I guess that it is possible to agreee with alot of what Jung said while not being slavish to him. I get the impression that Wolfgang Pauli comes into that category. Here's a quote by the physicist:

         ""The designation 'Jungian Psychology' is actually already unscienti..."
        http://www.iwise.com/Wolfgang_Pauli
        You always have to judge whether the the critic is a better thinker than the person he or she is criticising. With Jung it is especially difficult because those who are most knowledgeable about Jung's ideas read him differently from one another maybe because they emphasise different parts of his psychology as taking priority over other parts. I am tempted to say that the best thing to do is read Jung and then take up your own individual post-Jungian perspective. But yes, Giegerich regards meaning (psyche) as having moved on. He wants Jungians to emphasise different (more modern) meanings from ancient religion, myth. I say that the meaning is poured into new bottles. There's discontinuity and continuity. 
         
        Paul. 

          

        • Norland Tellez > Paul Budding February 2, 2011 at 11:06am
          Just one clarification here, Paul. Being "critical", or the word "criticism," has a special meaning at this level of discourse. It does not mean the petty-minded activity of finding faults and knit-picking. We have to remove the word from its mundane use in everyday speech--or perhaps we have movie "critics" in mind-- and place it within a more scholarly context. In this context, criticism is a POSITIVE thing. Just as in "Literary Criticism" of Moby-Dick or Shakespeare you don't find people knit-picking at Melville's writing or Shakespeare's diction. No. At this level of "criticism", the work to be "criticized" is amplified and made richer, as well as closer to our day and time. THAT is exactly what Giegerich's "criticism" of [the neurosis of] depth psychology is doing. It is alchemically decomposing the old structures and forms so as to extract the philosophical gold of true depth psychological understanding.
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