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Role of Ethics in Indivduation, January 6, 2005
This review is from: Heart of the Matter the (Paperback)
Psychologically, the Heart performs an integrative psychic function, and carries individual morality. The Heart is the place where opposites converge: Logos and Eros; masculine and feminine; thinking and feeling; the rationality of the ego and the irrationality of the unconscious. It possesses its own knowledge and its own truth. This truth is distinct from the truth of the mind while also containing it. The Heart is the seat of conscience, understanding, forgiveness, grace, and our ethical attitude; it is the place of dialogue. In the Heart, we can be in the ethical attitude of holding both polarities until the new attitude appears.
This book is an inquiry into philosophical and spiritual aspects of individuation's ethical dimensions. Specifically, these aspects are viewed in the context of people actively engaged in their process and in the practice of analytical psychology. The book is aimed at clients and patients wishing to understand how to live an ethical life when confronted with the amorality of the unconscious and the ethical conflicts of duty that arise. Becker also addresses analysts, therapists, and those in training by providing a framework for thinking and reflecting on these issues. The work spans many aspects of this complicated topic: Is morality learned or is it innate? How do we live in the world ethically, authentically, and with integrity? What is the distinction between the individual "Voice of God" and collective ethical codes? and How do we live this tension in our lives and in day-to-day practice as analysts? Finally, how do we confront the Shadow in individuals and collectives and bring these elements to consciousness?
The book is divided into two parts. The first part looks at individuation as an ethical process as Jung understood it. Included in this examination are Jung's philosophical influences and personal experiences, which informed his belief that morality is innate in human beings and rests at the archetypal level of the psyche. These explorations also present a classical notion of analytical psychology within the philosophical and psychological contexts of ethics, morality, and conscience. They offer insights into the underpinnings of Jung's theories and ideas. Particular moral and ethical challenges are highlighted-especially related to conscience and the ethical confrontation with the unconscious.
The second part of the book addresses more collective, twenty-first-century implications of Jung's ideas of the "Voice of God". It also explores contemporary issues related to the practice of analytic psychology, given the legacy of Jung's personal relationships with his clients. While supporting individual subjective psychic experience, analysts can side with the psyche to the neglect of collective ethical codes. As a result, many analysts have committed serious boundary violations, all in the name of following the "Voice of God" or the Self. In recent years, the Jungian community has come to the unanimous agreement that sexual activity between analyst and analysand represents a serious rupture in the analytic relationship. However, between the obvious inappropriateness of sexual activity and the institution of strict, rigid rules prohibiting any crossing of analytic boundaries, there exists a field where there are no hard and fast rules, and where the line between ethical and unethical behavior is difficult to distinguish. It is possible for an analyst to adhere strictly to collective codes of ethics prescribed by governing bodies and still behave unethically. In this space, the subject of ethics is a much more delicate and ambiguous endeavor. Most of the issues that arise within this area involve non-sexual boundary violations.
As part of this discussion, Becker examines the archetypal foundations of analytic boundaries and the important role they play in supporting individuation as an ethical process-for both analyst and analysand. Becker argues that the therapeutic relationship has an archetypal core that informs our experience of analysis. The constellation of the Divine Healer with its potential to heal also brings with it the potential for the Charlatan and the False Prophet to wound. Central questions within this dynamic are: What is the difference between flexibility and violation? When is the crossing of the boundary experienced as healing by the analysand? When is it experienced as wounding? Case material is provided, which presents both sides of this issue. Becker has also included the results of a survey she prepared as part of the research for her Diploma Thesis at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zürich. In it, I asked practicing analysts (members of the IAAP) how they lived the tension between individual conscience and collective moral codes in their daily practice. In conclusion, Becker looks at suffering and the ethical attitudes required to live individuation as an ethical process in everyday life and in practice.
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