In this newsletter: The feminine in Christmas | Dante & the Red Book | Puella archetype | Alchemy of jazz | Falling in love with life | Hands of Orpheus | Backrooms | Video and written interviews with Martin Schmidt, Susan Schwartz | Written interviews with Lucas Costanzi, Susan Tiberghien, Dragana Favre, and Yury Li-Toroptsov | book presentations | Jung’s childhood in Basel
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As the longest nights give way to the promise of light, our lead article explores the deeper meaning of Christmas through a Jungian lens, tracing symbolic themes from the interplay of light and shadow within the psyche to the archetypal figures of Mary and Joseph. It invites readers to reflect on Christmas as a time of inner awareness and psychological transformation, resonating both personally and collectively.
We further showcase a range of stimulating articles from 2025, including one threaded with musical links. Featured are two interviews with leading Jungian analysts, Martin Schmidt and Susan Schwartz, also available as video interviews, along with five additional conversations with Jungian writers, clinicians, and a Jungian filmmaker.
We highlight two noteworthy recent Jungian books, alongside a classic work with an introduction by Jung, and share photographs from Jung’s childhood home and school in Basel, accompanied by quotes from Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
Finally, we celebrate the launch of a dedicated page featuring video and audio recordings from our contributors, providing a rich new way to engage with their work.
Articles
Christmas, Shadow, and the reconciling Feminine as pathways to the Self
This article explores the deeper meaning of Christmas beyond its commercial trappings. From the hidden dimensions of the Self to the archetypal roles of Mary and Joseph, the author guides readers through a rich journey of inner reflection and spiritual renewal, revealing how Christmas can serve as a catalyst for personal and collective transformation.
Rachel Huber
Dante and love in C.G. Jung’s Red Book
This ardent article explores Dante’s Commedia as a visionary journey shaped by love, showing how C.G. Jung found in it a model for his descent into the unconscious. Moving between fire and form, eros and logos, the analysis culminates in love not as dogma but as enigma: a force that animates visions and calls the “I” into service of the soul.
Tommaso Priviero, PhD
Exploring the Puella archetype: Girl unfolding
Puella represents the young feminine on the brink of becoming and at a crossroads. This article explores this feminine archetype through archetypal images, etymology, and its alignment with the mythological maiden. We learn about ourselves by examining the puella’s roles and enactments, assumptions and perceptions, acquired consciously and unconsciously.
Susan E. Schwartz, PhD
Radical ordinariness: John McNeil and the alchemy of jazz
Trumpet artist Ryan Nielsen explores jazz through the lens of alchemy in homage to his mentor, John McNeil. A waking dream image pulled him from his Mormon upbringing to Boston to study with McNeil, whose approach centers on radical ordinariness and self-acceptance as the heart of the alchemical opus. The piece is threaded with musical links.
Ryan Nielsen, DMA
Falling in love with life
Bringing together Bergson’s élan vital, Deleuzian difference, Jung’s concept of libido, contemporary cognitive neuroscience, and the neural networks of AI, this article explores falling in love with life as a universal archetype of transformation, demonstrating a single underlying movement: the possibility of becoming Other.
Dragana Favre, PhD
The hands of Orpheus
A strange, luminous dream unfolds: Orpheus addresses an assembly, bringing calm, until Eurydice enters with lit candelabra—only to realize they are Orpheus’s hands. This symbolic and contemplative essay weaves together dream imagery, myth, and Jungian themes to explore the archetypal significance of the hand.
Claire Droin
Wandering in the Backrooms: Liminal spaces, digital myth, and a Jungian reading of the Void
This diptych explores the Backrooms as a contemporary figure of katabasis, a descent into the collective unconscious in the digital age. Between disintegrated mythology, the anxiety of emptiness, and liminal aesthetics, the article brings video games, cinema, and contemporary art into resonance with Jungian thought.
Dragana Favre, PhD
Interviews
Exploring paradox in the analytic process: An interview with Martin Schmidt
Drawing on Jungian and psychoanalytic thought, Martin Schmidt reflects on the concept of the Self, his work with psychotic patients, cultural complexes in Russia and China, the role of beauty, art, and the sublime, temporality, the breaking of the analytic frame, and eroticized trauma.
Interview by Peggy Vermeesch, PhD
Also available as a video interview.
Unrequited Love, Father Wound, and Fragility of Self: An interview with Susan Schwartz
Susan Schwartz reflects on the wounds left by absent or lacking paternal love and their resonance in the therapeutic relationship.
Interview by Peggy Vermeesch, PhD
Also available as a video interview.
Theater of Shadows & In Search of the Self: An interview with Lucas Costanzi
The Brazilian filmmaker Lucas Costanzi discusses his two documentaries inspired by Jungian thought: Theater of Shadows and In Search of the Self. These films explore the significance of the shadow and the inner journey that leads to our deepest self: a path that distances us from the influences of the surrounding collective.
Interview by Jean-Pierre Robert
Darkness and Light in Seasons of Love: An interview with Susan Tiberghien & Catherine Chevron-Tiberghien
Susan Tiberghien discusses her memoir Seasons of Love: A Lasting Marriage, recounting her 66-year journey with her French husband, marked by joy, faith, and the courage to confront sexual abuse within the larger family. With her daughter Catherine, she reflects on the alchemical stages of love and transformation, beginning with the nigredo, and moving toward an ever-deepening coniunctio.
Interview by Peggy Vermeesch, PhD
From neuroscience to the depths of the psyche: An interview with Dragana Favre
Dragana Favre, psychiatrist and doctor of neuroscience, blends scientific rigor with a deep sensitivity to the psyche and the major upheavals of our time. In this interview, she reflects on her unique journey, where science meets Jungian psychology, offering fresh insights into the challenges we face today.
Interview by Jean-Pierre Robert
When Psyche speaks in images: An interview with Yury Li-Toroptsov
From the Russian taiga to the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Yury Li-Toroptsov has followed a path shaped by images, working as a coach and analyst-in-training with dreams, fairy tales, and visual symbols, while also practicing as a photographer. For him, images are fundamental expressions of the psyche, revealing what words cannot, connecting us to hidden parts of ourselves, and guiding inner exploration and transformation.
Interview by Jean-Pierre Robert
Writing Toward Wholeness: An interview with Susan Tiberghien
Susan Tiberghien reflects on her journey as a writer, the transformative power of journaling, and Jung’s influence on her work. She emphasizes the importance of keeping your own Red Book and writing to your soul.
Interview by Jean-Pierre Robert
Book presentations
Of Fire and Form: Jung, Dante, and the Making of the Red Book
Tommaso Priviero offers a fresh Dantesque reading of Jung, tracing Dante’s influence in the Red Book and exploring the relationship between analytical psychology and what Jung referred to as “visionary literature. This book presentation also includes a reflective essay by the author.
A Jungian Exploration of the Puella Archetype; Girl Unfolding
In this book Susan Schwartz explores the puella as an archetypal, symbolic and personality figure reaching into the classical foundations of Jungian analytical psychology, focusing on the modern conflicts reverberating personally and culturally to remove the obstacles for accessing our more complete selves.
The Hands of Children: An Introduction to Psycho-Chirology
In this book, Julius Spier presents a fresh and promising approach to understanding human character—an approach that was praised by Carl Gustav Jung, who wrote the introduction. Even today, it remains a singular and inspiring work for those interested in the connections between the body, the psyche, symbolism, and education.
Jungian Psychology Space
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