Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond (Mark Winborn, Editor) is now available for purchase. Shared Realities brings together Jungian analysts and psychoanalysts from across the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Jung's concept of participation mystique is used as a starting point for an in depth exploration of 'shared realities' in the analytic setting and beyond. The clinical, narrative, and theoretical discussions move through such related areas as: projective identification, negative coniunctio, reverie, intersubjectivity, the interactive field, phenomenology, neuroscience, the transferential chimera, shamanism, shared reality of place, borderland consciousness, and mystical participation. This unique collection of essays bridges theoretical orientations and includes some of the most original analytic writers of our time. An essential read for psychoanalysts, Jungian analysts, psychotherapists, and analytic candidates. Published by Fisher King Press.      

Contributors Include: Pamela Power, Marcus West, Robert Waska, Dianne Braden, Michael Eigen, Deborah Bryon, Jerome Bernstein, François Martin-Vallas, John White, and Mark Winborn

Praise for Shared Realities

“The breadth of these essays is truly extraordinary.  Reading them has enriched both my personal and professional life.  I highly recommend this book.”                                 

Donald Kalsched, Ph.D.

“This book is a true delight for anyone intrigued by those “moments of meeting”, moments of awe, when the ineffable becomes manifest, when we feel the shiver down our spine, be it in our work or in a moment of grace as we sit quietly in nature. Shared Realities offers nourishment for the clinician, for the intellect and, most importantly, for the soul.  I highly recommend it!” 

Tom Kelly, President – IAAP

Available at Amazon http://tinyurl.com/p7tnuks

Available at Fisher King Press http://tinyurl.com/qbxap9b

If you're planning on purchasing "Deep Blues" for the August 2012 Depth Psychology Alliance Book Club reading - Fisher King Press is offering an additional $5 off on any order placed online through their website. Fisher King is the publisher for my Jungian exploration of blues music - "Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey" - which currently has an additional 20% markdown. So ring in the New Year with some blues. To receive the $5 discount just put the redemption code "fiveoff" during checkout. Many thanks to those who have already ordered in 2011.  Fisher King Press

Hi everyone - my book "Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey" is currently being printed and the publisher, Fisher King Press, is estimating an August 15th shipping date for orders through their website. Fisher King is currently offering a 20% discount off the retail price of $25 on advance orders - thanks for your support.

I will be presenting a paper entitled "Is There Room for Ruthlessness in Analysis?" at the spring meeting of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts in Boulder, CO on April 14th. 

The paper is a meditation on the experience of ruthlessness in analysis.  Much has been written on the analyst’s experience of the ruthlessness that emerges from the patient’s psyche but little about ruthlessness as a quality possessed by the analyst or reflected in the analyst’s activity. 

Often it seems it is the passive-receptive-holding-maternal-containing-unknowing attitudes and activities which are valued and emphasized in our training, literature, and clinical dialogues.  In today’s analytic world, might there not be a need for a reclaiming of the active-penetrating-paternal-phallic-disruptive-discriminating aspects of analysis? While most experienced analysts will endorse the importance of allowing the negative transference reaction to become embodied in an analysis, I wonder if we offer our analytic candidates sufficent guidance about how that might be engaged and survived.  Has the Weltanschauung of Analytical Psychology, in regards to the analyst’s activity, become one-sided?  Has a tension of opposites been lost in terms of our analytic stance, perhaps like the tension was lost when Freud and Jung parted ways nearly 100 years ago?  It seems that ruthlessness, when it is acknowledged as an analytic quality, at best, is treated as an unwelcome dinner guest – sometimes tolerated but not valued or respected.  My experiences have led me to the conclusion that a capacity for ruthlessness should occupy a space in our analytic sensibilities much like the capacity for patience, curiosity, awe, complexity, empathy, and openness to psychic reality.    

The idea of analytic ruthlessness is examined via Jung's concept of the tension of opposites and a re-consideration of the concept of analytic authority.  My paper will outline a theoretical, clinical, and archetypal rationale for embracing ruthlessness as a necessary and essential analytic quality, without which certain aspects of analytic experience would be left untouched and therefore unavailable for transformation. 

I recently signed a contract with Fisher King Press to publish a book titled "Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey." The book is a psychological interpretation of blues music utilizing ideas from Analytical Psychology and Psychoanalysis. Estimated shipping date is Sept. 1st, 2011. It will be available through Fisher King (fisherkingreview.com), Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Deep Blues explores the archetypal journey of the human psyche through an examination of the blues as a musical genre. The genesis, history, and thematic patterns of the blues are examined from an archetypal perspective and various analytic theories.  Mythological and shamanistic parallels are used to provide a deeper understanding of the role of the bluesman, the blues performance, and the innate healing potential of the blues.  Universal aspects of human experience and transcendence are revealed through the creative medium of the blues. The atmosphere of Deep Blues is enhanced by the black and white photographs of Tom Smith which capture striking blues performances in the Maxwell Street section of Chicago.  Jungian analysts, therapists and psychoanalytic practitioners with an interest in the interaction between creative expression and human experience should find Deep Blues satisfying.  Deep Blues should also appeal to enthusiasts of music, ethnomusicology, and the blues. 

About the Author

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA is a Jungian Psychoanalyst and Clinical Psychologist.  He is a training and supervising analyst of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and is also affiliated with the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis and the International Association for Analytical Psychology.  Dr. Winborn maintains a private practice in Memphis, Tennessee where he is also currently the Training Coordinator for the Memphis Jungian Seminar – a training seminar of the IRSJA.