Erotic dialogues: language in the practice of archetypal psychotherapy

Coppin, J. (1996). Erotic dialogues: language in the practice of archetypal psychotherapy (Doctoral dissertation, Pacifica Graduate Institute, 1996). UMI no. 3002398

There is a perceivable gap between the theory and practice of archetypal psychotherapy concerning language. A significant body of literature, which begins with Carl Jung's early work, draws attention to the dialectical and plural nature of the psyche. The goal of Jungian and archetypal practice has been to enter into dialogue with this plural psyche, and yet we are limited by a language which assumes that the ego is a monolithic figure. A new way of seeing the dialectical nature of psyche, particularly with regard to language, is presented here in the form of a perceived tension between consensual eros and imaginal eros. This notion is anchored in the Jungian idea that language is produced in the interplay of two kinds of thinking.
Prominent among those who have written on the problems of language in the practice of archetypal therapy have been James Hillman, Mary Watkins, Russell Lockhart, and Thomas Moore. Interviews with these four people have been part of a hermeneutic inquiry which initiates a discourse on the rectification of therapeutic language in the service of a plural psyche. In addition, these interviews have been analyzed phenomenologically as lively examples of therapeutic dialogue in their own right, illustrating many of the points which are made in theory.