Ethics and Analysis: Philosophical Perspectives and Their Application in TherapyAlso available in an open-access, full-text edition at http://oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/86082 Most books on psychoanalytical ethics focus on rules, but author Luigi Zoja argues that ethics is really concerned with personal decisions—as is analysis itself. Rules are defined by others and center on punishment, but the purpose of analysis is to free the individual to make choices from his or her own “best” psychological and emotional center while still respecting society. Rules establish black and white; real ethics and psychological understanding both operate in the gray zone. Rules emerge from Enlightenment rationality; true ethics proceeds from choices and thus cannot be given in advance or be satisfied by respecting the rational part of the psyche only. After considering the nature of ethics, Zoja turns to Immanuel Kant and Max Weber for a practical consideration of therapeutic relationships. He applies his ethical principles to the first psychoanalytical cases (Anna O. and Sabine Spielrein) described by Freud and Jung. In his thorough examination of these original examples, Zoja balances the traditional ethic of rules and law with the “new ethic” proposed by Erich Neumann. The result is an appreciation of the complex—at times even contradictory—yet healing nature of analysis. |
Contents
Prologue | xv |
Acknowledgments | xvii |
Justice | 1 |
Beauty | 7 |
Palace and Square | 11 |
Can Evil Be Avoided If Ugliness Is Compulsory? | 19 |
Has Beauty Been Shrinking throughout History? | 27 |
Ethics Again | 31 |
Growing Unethical? | 41 |
The Ethics of Analysis | 45 |
Processing | 51 |
Sabine S and Anna O | 69 |
A New Ethical Frontier | 81 |
Final Remarks | 93 |
Notes | 107 |
Bibliography | 113 |
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Common terms and phrases
abuse activity ambivalence Analytical Psychology Anna archetypal attitude aware balance beauty become boundaries Breuer C. G. Jung called century CHAPTER Church collective common complexity consciousness correspond countertransference Depth Psychology Dolce Stil Novo economic enantiodromia Erich Neumann ethical codes ethical perspective ethics and aesthetics Ethics and Analysis Ethics Committee evil experience expressed fact fascism feelings Freud function goal gray zone Greek guilt healing human humanistic Immanuel Kant individual inner Italian Jung Jung's Jungian analysts justice Levi Luigi Zoja Martin Buber Max Weber modern moral narration Neumann palazzo paradoxical patient person piazza political Primo Levi principle professional psyche psychic psychoanalysis psychological psychotherapeutic ethics psychotherapy relationship Renaissance repressed responsibility risk rules Sabine Spielrein seduction sense sexual simply social society specific Stil Novo task tend Texas A&M University therapeutic therapist therapy tion traditional tragic transference and countertransference turn uncon unconscious values Western
Popular passages
Page x - It is only when man learns to experience himself as the creature of a Creator who made light and darkness, good and evil, that he becomes aware of his own Self as a paradoxical totality in which the opposites are linked together as they are in the Godhead.
Page ix - Through the new ethic, the ego-consciousness is ousted from its central position in a psyche organized on the lines of a monarchy or totalitarian state, its place being taken by wholeness or the Self, which is now recognized as central. — CG Jung Luigi Zoja has written a thought-provoking treatise on ethics and analysis that advocates a healing "gray zone,
Page x - It is the paradoxical secret of transformation itself, since it is in fact in and through the shadow that the lead is transformed into gold.