DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY AND A NEW ETHIC, Phyllis LaPlante

Course

It is said that we are now living in extraordinary times. How are you coping? What are your thoughts, feelings, and experiences? Please join me in a discussion of Erich Neumann’s Depth Psychology and a New Ethic, published in German in 1949, and certainly relevant today.

Neumann was born in Berlin in 1905 and died in Tel Aviv in 1960. He met Jung in 1933 at a seminar that Jung was conducting in Berlin.  Searching for a tzadik (a spiritual guide), Neumann entered analysis with Jung for six months in 1933 before he emigrated to Tel Aviv.  The two men corresponded until Neumann’s death.  His other works include The Origins and History of Consciousness (1954), The Great Mother (1955), and Amor and Psyche (1956).

"Erich Neumann’s book Depth Psychology and New Ethic (1949) was and remains a disturbing and revolutionary book. Having appreciated the discovery of psychodynamic psychology, Neumann challenges the received tradition of transmitted ethical authority with the “authority” of the soul.  What happens when these two are in conflict?  How does one choose?  How does one solicit a dialogue with the psyche and work one’s way through to an ethically nuanced conviction supported by one’s own depth? From Antigone through Kierkegaard, MLK, and Gandhi, up to the present hour, these timeless questions challenge each of us to consider the basis of our choices more holistically."

- James Hollis, Pd.D.

Phyllis LaPlante is a certified Jungian Analyst and Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She received her Diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute of New York in 1998. She teaches courses in Jungian theory and practice in Washington and is a member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. Semi-retired, she offers short-term consultation.