The Dialogical Jung: Otherness within the Self.
William E Smythe
Behavioral Sciences November 21, 2013 DOI: 10.3390/bs3040634 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Archetypes Dialogical self Analytical psychology Otherness |
| Key points | Argues that Jung's analytical psychology contains dialogical currents, evident from the outset and expressed in active imagination, psychotherapy, and archetype theory, and proposes that analytical psychology and contemporary dialogical self theory can mutually inform each other through a dialogical re-conceptualization. |
Abstract
This paper explores dialogical currents in Jung's analytical psychology, with reference to contemporary theories of the dialogical self. The dialogical self is a notion that has gained increasing currency in psychology since the 1990s, in response to the limitations of traditional notions of the self, based on monological, encapsulated consciousness. Modern dialogical self theory construes the self as irrevocably embedded in a matrix of real and imagined dialogues with others. The theme of dialogical otherness within the self is also taken up in Jung's analytical psychology, both in the practice of active imagination and psychotherapy and in the theory of archetypes, and a dialogical approach to inquiry is evident in Jung's work from the outset. The implications of a dialogical re-conceptualization of analytical psychology and of analytical psychology for dialogical theory are considered in detail.