JUNG'S CONCEPT OF POSSESSION

Possession is the linchpin of Jung's analytical psychology. Possession is the concept with which he formulates ideas about the dynamic between an ego consciousness and an autonomous unconscious, with which he conveys phenomenologically the power of neurotic and psychotic symptoms.

Possession is the linchpin of Jung's analytical psychology. In his Collected Works, possession forms the throughline, from his 1902 dissertation for his medical degree to an essay completed shortly before his death in 1961, in which he recommends to psychologists the practice of placing classical case histories of possession in a parallel and analogous relationship to contemporary secularized cases of psychopathology. Possession is the concept with which he formulates ideas about the dynamic between an ego consciousness and an autonomous unconscious, with which he conveys phenomenologically the power of neurotic and psychotic symptoms.

We will reconnect Jung's concept of possession to its etymology - to the forceful image of selfhood sitting in its own seat, and of the suffering inherent when selfhood experiences itself as unseated by something Other-and to its basis in the Western history of religion. Focusing on a particularly famous case of possession in seventeenth-century France, we will examine how theorizing about possession in Europe changes over the subsequent four hundred years and situate Jung's concept within this historical continuum.

Possession is the linchpin of Jung's analytical psychology. In his Collected Works, possession forms the throughline, from his 1902 dissertation for his medical degree to an essay completed shortly before his death in 1961, in which he recommends to psychologists the practice of placing classical case histories of possession in a parallel and analogous relationship to contemporary secularized cases of psychopathology. Possession is the concept with which he formulates ideas about the dynamic between an ego consciousness and an autonomous unconscious, with which he conveys phenomenologically the power of neurotic and psychotic symptoms.

We will reconnect Jung's concept of possession to its etymology - to the forceful image of selfhood sitting in its own seat, and of the suffering inherent when selfhood experiences itself as unseated by something Other-and to its basis in the Western history of religion. Focusing on a particularly famous case of possession in seventeenth-century France, we will examine how theorizing about possession in Europe changes over the subsequent four hundred years and situate Jung's concept within this historical continuum.

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