The Fate of Jung’s Psychic Objectivity in an Age of Contemporary Cynicism

The workshop contends that Jung is a marginal figure in psychotherapy because he distinguishes between a self constructed through social experience that he called personality #1, and a self that exists prior to and apart from socialization that he called personality #2. Because the latter is not easily influenced, it retains a capacity for psychic objectivity. Jung’s belief in psychic objectivity places him at odds with most contemporary psychotherapies, which consider the idea of psychic objectivity as illusory at best, and dangerous at worst. This workshop will passionately defend Jung’s notion of psychic objectivity, contending that only the repristination of this capacity can minister to the cynicism of the postmodern mind.