The Psychodynamics of Myth: The Absence of God as Mental Illness According to Post-Jungian Analytical Psychology

This dissertation introduces the subject of Analytical Psychology and identifies the importance of the divine in its practice, particularly in the post-Jungian scene. To achieve this, some vehicles through which religious manifestations occur are considered. Special attention is given to religious experiences, the psychodynamics of myth, and the role of suffering for the individual. The description of these manifestations as psychic fundamental dynamics is used to explore and synthesise the religious function of the psyche — first introduced by Jung as the ultimate therapy. Departing from works of reference in the field, the methodology used describes this particular analytical path regarding religious matters through their symbolism and accepted meaning. The religious concepts present in Jungian therapy are identified and explained through a conceptual and comparative analysis. The result of such effort includes the explanation of the relationship between religious/spiritual experiences, their mechanics and symbolical importance, and mental illness in the Jungian context. This thesis also connects the decrease of institutional religious affiliation with the intensification of spirituality, and how the latter is perceived by therapists. It is observed in the explored literature that such internal movement is considered an autonomous attempt to establish psychological balance. And that in order to respond to this, the therapeutic opinion is mostly concerned with the preparation of the professional in correctly understanding the religious experience and approaching it in a positive way, fostering more personal ways of exploring one’s spirituality.A presente dissertação identifica a importância do divino na Psicologia Analítica, dando ênfase aos desenvolvimentos pós-Junguianos. Para alcançar tal objectivo, são considerados alguns veículos pelos quais as manifestações religiosas ocorrem. As experiências religiosas, as psicodinâmicas do mito, e o papel que o sofrimento pode adquirir para o indivíduo são tópicos observados. A exposição destes recursos como dinâmicas psíquicas fundamentais é utilizada para explorar a síntese da função transcendente da psique — introduzido pela primeira vez por Jung como a derradeira terapia. A partir de obras de referência para o enquadramento Junguiano, a metodologia utilizada descreve este distinto caminho analítico considerando as questões religiosas, a sua respectiva simbologia e significado vigente. Os conceitos religiosos presentes na terapia Junguiana são identificados e explicados através de uma análise comparativa e conceptual. O resultado deste estudo circunscreve a explicação da relação entre experiências religiosas/espirituais, o seu mecanismo e importância simbólica, e a doença mental no contexto Junguiano. Esta tese também estabelece uma conexão entre a diminuição da afiliação religiosa institucional com a intensificação da espiritualidade, e como este último factor é compreendido por terapeutas. É observado na literatura que serviu de base para esta dissertação que tal movimento interno é considerado uma tentativa autónoma de estabelecer equilíbrio. De maneira a responder esta expressão, a opinião terapêutica compromete-se sobretudo com a preparação do profissional na correcta compreensão da experiência religiosa, abordando-a de forma positiva, fomentando uma conduta mais pessoal na exploração da própria espiritualidade

The presence of the analyst in Lacanian treatment

Transference implies the actualization of the analyst in the analytic encounter. Lacan developed this idea through the syntagm presence of the analyst. In the course of his seminars, however, two completely different presences emerge, with major implications for how the treatment is directed. In the light of Lacan's idea that the transference is constituted in Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary dimensions, it can be seen how in his early work the analyst's presence is a phenomenon at the crossroads between signifiers and images. From the 1960s onward, however, the analyst's presence comes to necessarily involve the Real. This means it points to the moment at which symbolization reaches its limits. The clinical implications of this later interpretation of the presence of the analyst as incorporating the Real are manifold and affect psychoanalytic practice with regard to the position and the interventions of the analyst. Specifically, interventions targeted at provoking changes in defenses against experiences of excess or senselessness are discussed and illustrated with case vignettes and a published case. With transference considered the navel of the treatment, the necessity that traumatic material will emerge in relation to the analyst becomes clear

Learning agent's spatial configuration from sensorimotor invariants

The design of robotic systems is largely dictated by our purely human intuition about how we perceive the world. This intuition has been proven incorrect with regard to a number of critical issues, such as visual change blindness. In order to develop truly autonomous robots, we must step away from this intuition and let robotic agents develop their own way of perceiving. The robot should start from scratch and gradually develop perceptual notions, under no prior assumptions, exclusively by looking into its sensorimotor experience and identifying repetitive patterns and invariants. One of the most fundamental perceptual notions, space, cannot be an exception to this requirement. In this paper we look into the prerequisites for the emergence of simplified spatial notions on the basis of a robot's sensorimotor flow. We show that the notion of space as environment-independent cannot be deduced solely from exteroceptive information, which is highly variable and is mainly determined by the contents of the environment. The environment-independent definition of space can be approached by looking into the functions that link the motor commands to changes in exteroceptive inputs. In a sufficiently rich environment, the kernels of these functions correspond uniquely to the spatial configuration of the agent's exteroceptors. We simulate a redundant robotic arm with a retina installed at its end-point and show how this agent can learn the configuration space of its retina. The resulting manifold has the topology of the Cartesian product of a plane and a circle, and corresponds to the planar position and orientation of the retina.Comment: 26 pages, 5 images, published in Robotics and Autonomous System

Soul as Paraphrase: The Formalism and Minority of Prayer

Philosophical and theological treatments of Christian prayer regularly overlook its formal stakes. As a type of limit-speech, prayer can be thought alongside the class of logical dilemmas generated whenever an element of a total set refers to the very totality of which it is a part. These dilemmas are grouped together in what Graham Priest calls the “inclosure schema” and, moreover, exhibit a non-self-identical structure that is also the hallmark of robust metaphysical materialisms (i.e., the structure by which matter constitutively fails to coincide with itself). This dissertation sketches an immanent materialist account of Christian prayer by bringing these two things together: (1) the formal inclosure paradox in which prayer participates and (2) the non-self-identity that characterizes materialist ontologies. The dissertation begins with an Introduction that briefly sketches the gaps in the literature and the challenges facing a materialist account of prayer. Chapter 1, “God and Inclosure,” then introduces Graham Priest’s schematic for limit paradoxes and shows how Anselm and Pseudo-Dionysius’s accounts of prayer fit this schema. Chapter 2, “Form-of-Life in Prayer,” outlines a rather different approach to inclosure represented by Giorgio Agamben. Prayer is here treated as a devotional practice that scales life into an indivisible whole and inhabits the site of time’s failure to coincide with itself. In this way, prayer resists the biopolitical excesses risked by inclosure, answers certain Foucauldian critiques of Christian devotion, and challenges theories of prayer that understand it to be primarily a mental or dialogic practice. Chapter 3, “Prayer as Quantum Chamber,” puts prayer in conversation with François Laruelle’s particle collider—a prepared space in which the world takes on a minimal appearance and registers the effects of the real. On this reading, prayer is like a physicist’s construction of a state vector; it gathers up a disciple’s material occasions in order to present them to a kind of immanent vision. Finally, the project concludes with a brief fourth chapter that articulates a jointly Agambenian and Laruellian reading of the Lord’s Prayer

“Suddenly you are King Solomon”: Multiplicity, transformation and integration in compassion focused therapy chairwork

Chairwork is a psychotherapeutic method that frequently focuses on self-multiplicity and internal relationships. Compassion-focused therapy (CFT) uses chairwork to generate and apply compassion towards threat-based aspects of the self. This study explores self-multiplicity in a CFT chairwork intervention for self-criticism. Twelve participants with depression were interviewed following the intervention and the resultant data were analyzed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. Three super-ordinate themes were identified: differentiating selves; mental imagery of selves; and integrating and transforming selves with compassion. The results highlight how the intervention enabled clients to differentiate internal aspects of themselves in a way that was accessible and helpful, increasing self-complexity and introducing the potential to observe and change patterns of self-to-self relating. The process of bringing compassion to self-criticism was shown to integrate both aspects of the critical dialogue, transforming the ‘critic’ by understanding its fears and function. The use of mental imagery was also shown to facilitate clients’ experience of self-multiplicity and to symbolize the kind of changes generated by the exercise. Implications for clinical practice are discussed.N/

Action-Related Representations

Theories of grounded cognition state that there is a meaningful connection between action and cognition. Although these claims are widely accepted, the nature and structure of this connection is far from clear and is still a matter of controversy. This book argues for a type of cognitive representation that essentially combines cognition and action, and which is foundational for higher-order cognitive capacities