JA No. 2 (58) 2024 Personal Myth

Introduction

A personal myth is a shimmering story, situated between two worlds—the public and the private, the collective and the individual. It is a connecting link, a path, a bridge between man and humanity, between unity and multitude, the deeply individual and the incomprehensibly universal. It is the story of a person’s relationship with the world and its various layers, a story of searching for meaning and transmitting it through storytelling. It is along this path, this narrow road leading to the transpersonal dimension, that the articles in this issue are located.

Richard Strozzi-Heckler explains to us how personal myth is constructed and how it relates to the archetype. All this will become clearer and more vibrant when we turn to the personal myth of the founding father himself: Marie-Louise von Franz discusses the influence of Christian mythological images on Jung's personal myth – the search for the Grail, the wizard Merlin, and other figures of individuation. Mark Saban analyzes the relationship between Personality No. 1 and No. 2 in Jung's identification and shows how the dialogue between them led to the discovery of the transcendent function. And Sonu Shamdasani offers us a fascinating account of how Jung's autobiographies were created and published, which turned out not to be autobiographical at all…

But how is the personal myth of ordinary people created? Ours, our patients'?

We will hear Murray Stein's story, which he told in an interview for Jan Wiener – about his unusual experience of wandering and rooting in different countries and communities. Fairy tale therapist Elena Shkadarevich explores the meaning of storytelling about lived experience: it creates a transitional space, a path into the symbolic dimension where personal experience undergoes transformation. Art historian Irina Polyanskaya compares the cycle of frescoes about Mary Magdalene with the analytical process of several patients, illustrating the process of balancing between two opposing sides of the archetype.

In resonance with the theme of the issue, a new section by Sergey Morgachev begins – The Problem of the Authentic Self. Personal myth allows us to touch the unknowable realm as part of ourselves, so Warren Colman's work, which deals with what cannot be grasped, known, but only experienced in symbolic images – the Self and the archetype of the Self – seems important to us. Lee Robbins discusses Jung's concept of the emptiness of the archetype and the emptiness of the Self, as well as what this emptiness can be filled with in Buddhist and modern Western understanding.

Liya Kinevskaya's article adds a special – anti-narcissistic – note to reflections on personal myth. She discusses fate and predestination, the boundaries within which human life is confined, service and calling, and the meaning of doing. And all this is directly related to the professional life of psychologists and the analytical process. It is this article that begins the issue, as if commenting on Jung's modest statement: "I did not know that I was living a myth, and even if I had known it, I would not have known what myth was governing my life without my knowledge."

Maria Loseva, Elena Purtova

Contents

Point of View
Liya Kinevskaya. Fate and Analysis
Richard Strozzi-Heckler. On the Nature of Personal Mythology

Jung's Myth
Marie-Louise von Franz. Le cri du Merlin: Jung's Myth
Mark Saban. The Myth of the Two Personalities – Jung's Personal Myth
Sonu Shamdasani. Jung's Myth vs. Myths about Jung

Personal Myth and Individuation
Elena Shkadarevich. I will tell you a story… Working with personal myth in Jungian psychology
Irina Polyanskaya. The Magdalene Cycle. Encounters with the Archetype of the Holy Prostitute in the Analytical Office and Art
Murray Stein. "We wandered like Old Testament Jews…" Interview with Murray Stein by Jan Wiener.

The Problem of the Authentic Self
Sergey Morgachev. The "Problem of the Authentic Self" Project
Lee Robbins. Jung's Empty Self: Buddhist and Postmodern Perspectives
Warren Colman. Models of the Self