Home and Archteype: A Book Review of "At Home in the World"

Home and Archetype: A Review of “At Home in the World”

When John Hill performed the role of Father Victor White in  The  Jung-White Letters, he seemed possessed by the spirit of the man.  In John Hill’s recent publication,  At Home in the World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging, leaves me wondering if he has now been possessed by an entire cloud of witnesses comprised of Irish poets spanning centuries.  There is a lyrical quality that pervades the book and the publisher, Spring Journal Books, has done a marvelous job with the layout, cover design, the references, and every detail of the book.  Perhaps John Hill pulled his inspiration from a Fairy fort but the result is magical.

At Home in the World

As the February 4th conference Architecture of the Soul:  The Inner & Outer Structures of C G Jung, (with Murray Stein & Andreas Jung) approaches, this is a timely read.  Hill’s scholarship is systematic and rigorous, but the book is replete with powerful and evocative language.  Hill gently weaves into the text many others who have shaped and influenced him like Paul Ricouer, Ernst Cassirer, along with one of my favorite fiction writers, Jhumpa Lahiri.  The thesis of his book may appear self-evident but I could not have imagined the depth and breadth of material I found in this book.


John Hill has been practicing Jungian Psychoanalysis for forty years and it shows.  He has been devoted to matters of the spirit even longer.  The reader will enjoy the subtle, perceptive way Hill incorporates clinical material from client’s dreams and narratives.  It is refreshing to encounter a writer who also lays himself bare to the reader without crossing the line into self-indulgence that can easily become a spectacle.   This is an analyst who comprehends that self-disclosure, even within the pages of a book, can be a powerful tool and unwieldy tool.
Modernity has ushered in unprecedented opportunities for homeowners to furnish their in a cohesive style sold as a package.  Some furniture retailers make it easy to avoid making mistake by standardizing entire groupings of furnishings.  IKEA is not unique in its ability to commoditize home furnishings and to impart a sense to its customers that a unique look can be achieved on a budget.  The sheer volume and global reach of an IKEA testifies to the inclination to make a home unique through elements that are in fact standardized.  Such a home, according to Hill, “….is without a soul.”

In contrast, we will have the opportunity coming up on February 4th to participate in a conference whose outer, visible subject is

The House of Jung

The Home of C. G. Jung.  After reading Hill’s, At Home in the World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging, I suspect the upcoming conference presented through Asheville Jung Center will end up being about our own magnum opus, our home.  We each approach this differently, just as we each approach the magnum opus of our individuation differently.  For some, the reliance on a standard assortment of furnishings provides a personal space that avoid too much personal disclosure but also impedes personal discovery.  For others, the home provides a platform of self-expression.  There are homes I have entered where I could sense the disconnection between the soul of its inhabitants and the structure itself.  There are limitless permutations for combining the inner dimensions of our being and the outer structure of our home.  And according to John Hill, “When a home becomes a mere product, dissociated from one’s own personal and collective history, it is probably in danger of losing its soul.” (pg11)
Some individuals delight in assembling elements into a home.  They strive for that ineluctable symmetry between the inner call of the soul and the outer manifestation of their home.  When we speak of homemaking as a function of managing the household we miss the much deeper connection between the demands of keeping things going in a family and the making of a home.   Hill notes, “We live in a world that offers us two different ways of seeing it — one functional and the other symbolic.”  (pg47)  It seems there as many different modus operandi for fashioning a home as there are styles of composition, materials  and technique for the artist.

Good teachers like John Hill convey complex subjects in clearly understandable ways.  The five or six pages on transference provide a good illustration and despite their conciseness Hill does not sacrifice the rich, evocative quality of his prose.

Images alone do not necessarily address key psychological issues or cross the great divide between Thou and I … (pg112)

Often in the deep constellations of transference and countertransference, the client finds the opportunities to relive much of the past.  …  The analyst must realize that he cannot indulge in the fantasy of providing a home for all those who need one. (pg113)



I live on the hyphen as a Cuban-American.  My soul has one foot firmly planted in the United States of America where I was born while the other foot, the one possessed of dreams of return to an island I have never known, has nowhere to step.  Countless others share my experience of life on the hyphen. The nations that bookend their hyphen do not separate us nearly as much as the hyphen unites us.  We who are hyphenated are a diaspora in our own right.  We are caught between two homes the one we left and the one where we dwell.  But we are all likely to find ourselves somewhere along the continuum of a home we have known, a home we know now, and a home that awaits us.

Salmon Rushdie writes that, “Exile is a dream of a glorious return.”  Like Odysseus, we  may find ourselves in a seemingly endless pursuit of a return home.  John Hill reveals to us some of the personal details of his own life away from his native Ireland without being mawkish.  At Home in the World would be wonderful preparation for the upcoming conference Architecture of the Soul:  The Inner & Outer Structures of CG Jung, (with Murray Stein & Andreas Jung).  It will also be a great resource for anyone interested in the psychological implications and underpinnings of home from a Jungian perspective.

John Hill gave a gifted performance of Father Victor White in The Jung White Letters  that moved me to examine the chords that resonated through Jung’s relationship with Sigmund Freud and later Father White.  It also deeply moved me to consider what chords resonate through my relationships with men in my life.  Now At Home in the World has moved me to examine from a fresh perspective my relationship to place.  It has stirred a renewed interest in exploring the spaces and structures, past, present, and future that are called home in my life.  Hill’s last paragraph reads like a closing hymn in prose and here he reveals a dream that arrived as he brought the book to completion.

… All at once the dream flashed across my mind, and I “knew” what it was trying to say.
…The house was my book on home.  The brickwork symbolized the thoughts and ideas of others who had influenced me, and contributed to its making.  The rough-hewn stones indicated that the work was connected with my identity.
… I have built the house from the materials of the earth.  It is a house that contains, but it is also open to the world and to the spirit.  Hopefully it can be an object of delight and contemplation, not just for me, but also for all who have crossed its threshold, so that you, dear reader, may appreciate your own home in new and creative ways.

Invitation
Take a moment to consider the word “home”.  Let your imagination run free and let yourself be transported to homes you have occupied, homes you have wished to occupy, homes you have left, homes you have awaiting you in the future.  Consider what home means in your interior life and notice where the interior experience or awareness of home is in sync with the structure you call home and where the two seem out of sync. Please consider posting a comment about “home” so that we might open the doors and let one another peak in.

Len Cruz, MD

CROESUS SYNDROME: The Shadow in Psychotherapy

CROESUS SYNDROME: The Shadow in Psychotherapy
What, if anything, can the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist do to contend with the shadow aspects of their professional persona?   This is by no means a universal concern among psychotherapists for several reasons.  Certainly there are many persons practicing forms of psychotherapy that do not regard the unconscious as their concern at all.  Behavioral, cognitive, and solutions-oriented therapies, to name a few, have no need of the unconscious.  I am reminded of one of my supervisors in residency who attempted to encourage me to face facts squarely about a certain repeated conflict I was experiencing.

He pointed out:
"It's entirely up to you whether or not you choose to ignore reality;  the question  is, will reality ignore you?".

Likewise, modern therapies that emphasize ego adaptation are free to ignore the unconscious; the question remains; however, will the unconscious ignore the therapy?

A psychotherapist in training is more likely to remain in contact with their unconscious.  Formal supervision, whether or not it intends to examine the psychotherapist's unconscious, may provide a measure of scrutiny to the psychotherapist's unconscious process.  Ideally, supervision imparts to the psychotherapist a praxis and a habit for such examination.   This may then develop into a continuing process of self-examination that will serve both therapist and clients in the future.reality this is where reality frequently diverge from the ideal objectives of training.
There are no formal requirements that the psychotherapist remain in supervision.  Instead, there is a tacit implication that a figure has arisen in the psychotherapist whose function becomes supervisor in abstentia.  It seems highly unlikely that if this figure ever really coalesced that it will be preserved.  There are many reasons why such an interior figure is likely to atrophy or die.   Chief among the reasons for this figure either never fully developing or atrophying is what I shall call the Croesus Syndrome.



Croesus was King of Lyda from 560 BC to 547 BC until his defeat by the Persians.  He is credited with being the first to introduce gold coinage of a standard weight and purity.  His wealth and power was vast and before setting out on his campaign against Cyrus of Persia, he consulted the Delphic Oracle.

Consulting the Oracle by John William Waterhouse

The message provided by the Oracle took it's usual cryptic form.  Croesus was told that if he campaigned against Cyrus of Persia a great empire would fall and he was further advised to align himself with the most powerful Greek state.  He struck alliances with Sparta among others and set off.  As was the custom, Croesus disbanded his army when winter arrived.  Cyrus did not and he attacked Croesus in Sardis.  Croesus then understood the great empire that the oracle foretold would be destroyed was his own empire.  Such is often the fate of the psychotherapist who endeavors to cultivate an interior figure that serve as supervisor in abstentia.




Like Croesus, that psychotherapist seeks the oracle's message but the psychotherapist's dreams, associations, and active imagination yield their mysteries in cryptic form.  And also like Croesus, the psychotherapist suffers a predictable inclination toward interpreting his or her unconscious material in accord with their conscious, more acceptable understanding.  Notice that the psychotherapist's shadow need not be included in this process.  In fact, the shadow elements of the psychotherapist will further resemble Croesus's tale in that its unacknowledged state may be credited with the failures of the campaign, the psychotherapy or psychoanalysis itself.

CHALLENGE
I have some ideas of what may be done about this predicament but I am interested in knowing what other therapists think about this dilemma and how others endeavor to address it.

But I encourage you to explore the idea for yourself.

Len Cruz, MD

Architecture of the Soul: Inner & Outer Structures of C. G. Jung

On February 4, 2011, Dr. Murray Stein will present a conference together with Andreas Jung, in collaboration with the Asheville Jung Center titled “Architecture of the Soul: Inner and Outer Structures of C. G. Jung”. Andreas Jung is an architect whose father and great uncle were also architects.  He is a graduate of Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETHZ) and currently lives in the home on Seestrasse.

C. G. Jung was intimately involved in the design of this home and attended to such things as the cladding upon the walls that provided deeply niched windows and lovely inset glass cabinets in the dining room.  Andreas Jung authors two very personal chapters and serves as the co-editor of the book.

Arthur Rüegg, a professor of architecture at ETHZ, opens one of the chapter titled “Living in a Museum?” with the following rendering:

The house of Carl Gustav Jung is without a doubt the physical expression of a great mind.

In 1906, while still “an impecunious assistant medical director at the Burghölzi mental home in Zürich”, Jung wrote to his cousin, architect Ernst Fietcher, of his plans “… to build a house someday, in the country near Zürich, on the lake”.  It was the untimely death of Emma Jung’s father that allowed the couple to build the home.   The Jungs worked closely with the architect and landscape architects on the design. 

Three generations of Jung’s have lived in this home that is now owned by a foundation (Stiftung C. G. Jung Küsnacht).  Two of those generations of inhabitants were “…families who could read these traces and respectfully carry on the tradition.” (p 90). The history of the house and it’s renovations is crisply and artfully presented.

What emerges from the pages of  The House of C. G. Jung is a portrait of an intentional man who demonstrated an uncanny ability to move between the worlds of the mythopoetic interior life and the tangible, concrete realms.  It should be no surprise that the man who constructed the Tower at Bollingen would have built a home worthy of memorializing.   Jung gave attention to details such as wall hangings, tile selection and placement of the rooms where he conducted analysis so as not to displace Emma from the library and interfere with her work.

The chapter “Living in a museum?” reads like a patient’s anamnesis as it reviews the homes history and developmental influences.  The reader is reminded that homes, like organic things, change and adapt to their circumstances and their inhabitants.  Despite several major renovations through the last century, the respect and regard for the original home was preserved.  The home is a testament to what concentrated self-examination and openness to the individuation process can produce.  It is the biography of a house that is no less impressive for what it reveals or the man who built it.

Architecture and psychology are first cousins.  Consider a few quotes assembled from several renown architects:

“Space and light and order.  Those are the things that men need just as much as they need bread or a place to sleep.”  Le  Corbusier

“The home should be the treasure chest of living.”  Le Corbusier

“Buildings, too, are children of Earth and Sun.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

“Form follow function – that has been misunderstood.  Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.”  Frank Lloyd Wright

“Freedom is from within.” Frank Lloyd  Wright

“The heart is the chief feature of a functioning mind.” Frank Lloyd Wright

“Architecture is the will of the epoch translated into structure.” Ludwig Miles van der Rohe

Invitation:  The house that “you” built

Take a moment to consider the space you inhabit, whether it is a home, office, apartment, or just a room.  Examine it for details that reflect aspects of your interior life.  Where do you see function pronouncing itself and where does aesthetic seem to announce itself?  Examine the space for signs and signifiers of your individuated self and for signs of where your individuation is ensnared in its effort to emerge.

Compose a work of your own that reflects the house you have built.  If you feel so moved, please share those reflections with others in our community by posting a comment on this blog. If you are planning to attend the seminar on February 4, “Architecture of the Soul: Inner and Outer Structures of C. G. Jung”. then this exercise might be a useful preparation, like tilling the soil before the planting.

Len Cruz, MD