Dispatches from Ukraine: “So much is at stake…does the individual know that [they are] the makeweight that tips the scales?” (CG Jung, CW10, para 586)

Presenter: Catherine Cox, BJAA, WMIP
Chair: Thomas Singer, CGJISF

Catherine Cox writes:

I have recently returned from two trips to Ukraine, the second taking me close to the front line. It was an extraordinary experience—one I would like to share with you. This is not the story you will read in the papers or watch on the news, but I hope it will move and inspire you.

As we enter a new year, it is increasingly evident that the world order is breaking down and reshaping itself in ways that, until recently, few of us anticipated. “[Humanity] is [its] own greatest danger,” Jung warned, pointing to the very real threat of mass psychosis and the profound suffering it can inflict on millions.

Writing of the metamorphosis of the gods, Jung described a moment of decisive transformation: one that may lead to a significant increase in consciousness—or to catastrophe. Near the end of his life, he reflected, “So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern [humanity].” But, he questioned: “Does the individual know that [they are] makeweight that tips the scales?”—that each of us “is the infinitesimal unit on whom the whole world depends?”

I was standing at a bus station, talking with undercover explosives operatives, when suddenly I understood what Jung meant—and how it works on the ground. Hope for the future, albeit precarious, returned.

As we approach the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our colleagues there are keen that those who have visited bear witness—not only to the suffering, but also to the resilience, creativity, and enduring beauty of life in Ukraine.

BJAA invites you to let me tell you a story, to show your support for our colleagues, and to join us in reflecting on Jung’s enduring question: whether it is indeed the individual who is the makeweight—on whom the fate of the world depends.

About the speaker and chair 

 

Catherine Cox (BJAA, WMIP) is a Jungian Analyst and Supervisor in private practice in London and Norfolk. She is the founder of With Ukrainian Jungians, an international pop-up that supports Jungian analysts and others in Ukraine. Her professional life took her from theology to law, before drawing the threads together as a Jungian Analyst. She has a particular interest in working with trauma, inter-generational trauma and grief, and in Jung’s Red Book as a paradigm of the individuation process.

 

      

Thomas Singer, MD (CGJISF) is a psychiatrist and Jungian psychoanalyst based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Trained at Yale Medical School, Dartmouth Medical School, and the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, he writes and lectures internationally on symbolism and “cultural complexes.” Singer has edited a multi-volume series mapping cultural complexes across regions (Australia, Latin America, Europe, the United States, and East Asia) and co-edited works exploring myth, city life, and the contemporary psyche. He is closely connected with ARAS (the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) and has been a prominent voice linking collective imagery to psychological life. His new book is A Field Guide to Cultural Complexes: The Battleground of the Splintered American Psyche.