Alchemy and the repair of dissociation – a response to William Meredith‐Owen

Abstract

This paper is a response to William Meredith‐Owen’s paper presented at the inaugural joint conference on ‘Alchemy, a bridge to Jung’s objective psyche’, for The Society of Analytical Psychology and the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy in autumn 2020. The paper presents a way of understanding the collective unconscious through the functioning of the core self, and thus offers a bridge which addresses the indivisibility of the personal and collective psyche/unconscious, referencing Mary Williams’ (1963) classic paper. Specifically, this is applied to Winnicott’s dream of destruction that he had after reviewingMemories, Dreams, Reflections, as well as to parts of the psyche that were dissociated due to significant early deprivation – the primary narcissistic wounds. Alchemical metaphors are shown to relate to the analytic process, which allows the primitive core self (with its identificatory, participatory, connecting nature), when integrated through relationship, to sink back into the unconscious and function as the Self.

Collective Trauma, Implicit Memories, the Body, and Active Imagination in Jungian Analysis1

“…At the beginning, the physical abuse did not prevent Vera from keeping a connection between her incipient ego and vital aspects of the self, linked to her origins, which emerged while playing in nature, building houses where to await the return of her true parents. It seemed at the time that only within this natural environment did Vera feel safe and protected, for it was the only one she did not experience as “intolerably threatening and paradoxically inhumane” (West, 2021b, p. 896).…”