John R White, PhD, LPC, Jungian Diplomate

12/14/2025

12/14/2025

🛑 People often mistake DENIAL for stubbornness, self-deception, or moral failure.

Denial is actually a primal psychological defense that attempts to regulate which aspects of reality are permitted to reach awareness.

It can be viewed as a benevolent survival strategy, yet (like most defenses) it must ultimately be set aside for us to make full contact with ourselves and the world.

🎧 Find the episode wherever you get your podcasts, or via the link in the first comment on this post.

12/10/2025

Teaching About the Dynamic Mind: Then and Now with Jonathan Shedler, PhD (San Francisco) A new podcast episode 194 produced by Harvey Schwartz for the IPA ipaoffthecouch.org

12/09/2025

Online talk - Wednesday 10th December 6-7.30pm (GMT)

Explore the lives and work of early female analysts who shaped the development of psychoanalysis, highlighting their impact and contemporary relevance.

Via Freud Museum London

https://www.freud.org.uk/event/early-women-psychoanalysts-history-biography-and-contemporary-relevance/

12/07/2025

"Michael Balint thought that without reaching the core of the doctor-patient relationship and understanding its context, the doctor’s work is nothing other than what he termed 'apostolic zeal'. This refers to the health care worker’s conviction that only they, the medical professionals and specialists, are knowledgeable enough to help the sick. Such an attitude destroys communication, hinders cooperation in the treatment as a result renders the therapeutic encounter ineffective. It is then impossible to use the medicine i.e. the doctor himself and his relation with the patient. The key objective of the doctor according to Balint, is contact with the patient."*

Remembering Michael Balint, born today in 1896! 🎉

Quote from “Balint Group Training Theory and Application” by Bohdan Wasilewski and Lilianna Engel (2015).

Main Image / Balint Group, France.

12/07/2025

Today, December 4, we celebrate the birthday of Thomas H. Ogden (born in the United States, 1946), who turns 79 this year, and who once wrote:

“In one of the clinical illustrations of reverie offered earlier in this paper, I 'half-joked' that I was 'handling' my fiftieth birthday by refusing to believe it. In that example, I was (unconsciously) creating a metaphor for my experience of what was going on between the patient and me. The thoughts and feelings condensed in the half-joke represented a new form that I was giving to the unconscious experience of the patient's and my own 'handling' of that which cannot be controlled (ageing, dying, feeling shame, feeling insane).” p.727

Ogden, T. (1997) Reverie And Metaphor: Some Thoughts On How I Work As A Psychoanalyst. International Journal of Psychoanalysis 78:719-732
pic. buff.ly/zf46gAw

12/07/2025

COURTING THE CRONE: Reclaiming Wisdom in an Age of Disposability with Jungian Analyst Muriel McMahon • SATURDAYS • JANUARY

Through Jungian analysis, storytelling, dreamwork, and reflective practice, we will learn to welcome her as an archetype of transformation, authority, and soulful discernment in our time.

Register / More Info:
https://www.jungarchademy.com/courting-the-crone-muriel

12/07/2025

Dr Jon Mills is a philosopher-psychoanalyst and Honorary Professor at the University of Essex, whose work bridges Hegelian philosophy, psychoanalytic theory,...

12/07/2025

📕Have we ever REALLY read Jung?

This week eminent Jungian scholar Sonu Shamdasani speaks with Lisa about the production of a brand new Critical Edition of the Works of C.G. Jung.

This ambitious, multi-year undertaking will result in 26 volumes of material, all newly translated by Caitlin Stephens.

The project will breathe new life into Jung's writings, offering an English translation that is both more accurate and more accessible.

Lisa and Sonu discuss the fascinating story of Jung's original translator, R.F.C. Hull, who took a freewheeling, literary approach to the translation of the Collected Works, and in the process obscured some key Jungian concepts.

They also highlight areas of Jungian thought where we can anticipate fresh insight, including foundational concepts like individuation and the self.

🎧 This week's episode is available wherever you find your podcasts, or via the link in the first comment on the post.

11/17/2025

https://tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/news/ninety-years-on-jung-at-the-tavistock/

This year marks the 90th anniversary of Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s famous series of lectures at the Tavistock Clinic in London…