APT Public Lecture: In The Stream: Reflections on Translating the Original Protocols for Memories, Dreams and Reflections

Organised by:

West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy

Description

ZOOM ATTENDANCE IS ALSO AVAILABLE

From the Philemon Foundation: In 1963, Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung, recorded and edited by Aniela Jaffé was published and swiftly became a bestseller. Since then, it has been regarded as the primary source of information concerning C. G. Jung’s life and work, with sales nearing a million in English alone. In short, it is the work by which Jung has come to be known by the public at large.
The protocols of Aniela Jaffé’s original conversations with Jung reveal that significant material was withheld in the published version, and that much had been edited. While the published version of Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung was cast in the form of a more or less chronological life narrative, the protocols show Jung ranging across an array of subjects in an associative manner in a single conversation, and discovering meaningful connections that he had hitherto not realized, aided by Aniela Jaffé’s sensitive questioning and Kurt Wolff’s prompting.

The protocols present not only recollections of times past, but a critical chapter in Jung’s evolving self-understanding and the elaboration of his work, and a window into his own personal cosmology, as elaborated in his Red Book and Black Books, and only hinted at in his published writings. They function as a bridge that links Jung’s life and personal relations with his work and professional collaborations. For a contemporary reader, they provide a vivid impression of being in Jung’s presence and hearing him speak openly about his life in a manner that is in turn questing, profound, witty and melancholic.

The world was entering the archetypally loaded epoch of plague as I undertook work in earnest on the translation of this text. As nature itself seemed to pause and the curious sun-filled days of early lockdown began to be metabolised, I was immersed in deep engagement with this archetypally quasi-hyperlinked text. Online exercise classes, sourdough baking and banana bread punctuating the sombre calculations of R numbers and death counts passed me by completely. Here was this profound immersion in a stream of synchronicity-rich material which was at times striking. In this paper, I will explore this remarkable confluence of external world events with engagement in depth with Jung’s profound wisdom about the reality of the psyche and how this interpenetration illustrates that “there are things in the psyche which I do not produce but which produce themselves and have their own life.”

To book, email aptc@wmip.org