Latest Articles
America’s Addiction Epidemic
Kerri Homerick
January 21, 2026
The mainstream attitude that equates addiction with criminality tends to overlook some of the more foundational and influential components of addiction, those related to individual and cultural wounding. Those who turn to substances do so to fill a void—to bridge the vast expanse that they experience between disparate parts of themselves, and between themselves and the world.
Artificial Intelligence
Satish Kappagantula
October 7, 2025
As a species, we have been invoking the machine for centuries. The machine has become an archetype, evolving in its shape and form over the generations. One only needs to think of the massive data centers already in place today with thousands of computing elements in operation for AI training and generation. Jung (1984) reminded us that these vast machines are the dragons of our day.
The Deep Well
Rachel McKamey
June 9, 2025
I was so outwardly focused on my own anticipation and expectation of others that I dampened the voice from within so that it was barely a whisper with no sense of agency. I was quite adept at anticipating and meeting others’ needs and normalizing them over my own. I accepted things I should not have and lived without a sense of inner comfort or safe harbor, instead choosing to embark on boats where other people were at the helm.
From the Archives
Psychodynamic Coaching and Type
Angelina Bennet
March 1, 2011
Some people can be over-identified with the persona and experience inauthenticity. This identification with the persona can be due to habituation, social pressures, influences from childhood, defensiveness or anything that has given the individual a message indicating that the character of the persona is a preferable way to be.
Liberté, Egalité, Sensualité
Lisa A. Pounders
April 5, 2017
“Once upon a time, there was a quiet little village in the French countryside whose people believed in tranquillité.” This opening indicates that the psychological orientation of the village is one of peace and calmness, agreeability and order, suggesting that the village has certain values through which it judges situations—in other words a feeling function is at work.
Do Parents Influence Type Development?
Mark & Carol The Editors
January 8, 2013
Both articles in this issue describe how parental roles can affect type development. Typologically, one indicator of a dysfunctional parental complex can be an under-developed auxiliary function, and this suggests that a positive parental complex could foster the development of the auxiliary function. … What parental influences on type development have you witnessed? What do you notice in your own typology?
Type and Other Biases, Part II
Stephanie Puentes
May 2, 2012
“What do you want?” asked one of the boys, his crossed arms over his chest authoritatively. “I want a drink of water,” I told him, but as I made a move to go around him, he stepped in front of me again. Before I could say anything or react in any way, he told me, “You can’t drink here. This fountain is for people. No monkeys allowed.”
Coaching Abrasive Leaders
Pam Rechel
September 8, 2016
He was so struck by his MBTI® assessment that it took us three coaching sessions to get through the report. He saw how his type preferences heavily influenced how he preferred to work. After he presented his preferences from his Type Verifier, one of his superiors said that she thought he was being underutilized in the department.
Golf: A Game of Individuation
Jeffrey Lauterbach
July 9, 2014
To win in the crucible of national championship golf requires skill, luck, and self-knowledge. A player with the requisite physical skill may be distracted by the emergence of the inferior function or led out of focus on the present by auxiliary or tertiary functions. One must rely on the extraverted sensation function, whether it is dominant or not.
Cultural Attitudes
John Beebe
April 5, 2017
Individuation is attractive as a therapeutic goal, but adaptation, even to a self that analytic work has brought into focus, can continue to be a challenge. I have come to feel that one of my jobs as a therapist is to help the person working with me develop an attitude that can negotiate culture comfortably— one adequate to bridge the gulf between irreducibly individual self and continuously demanding world.
A Tympanum in a Time of COVID
Vicky Jo Varner
April 25, 2021
We harken back to the Conques tympanum’s division of cosmos and chaos as Jung thereby affirmed the value in engaging with all four functions so as to address our human challenges and set matters in order. Just as Christ was the arbiter of human souls on the Conques tympanum, we may engage our inner self to negotiate the chaos within our own psyche.