Velanthas Asks A Very Good Question: How About Jung and Ecopsychology?

Velanthas asks, "How about Jung?"
Submitted by Velanthas on Mon, 2007-11-12 16:04. *new
Thanks for sharing, Mark!

Would it be relevant to bring in Jung's self-realization or individuation process to enrich your current position based on Maslow? Jung's model is an excellent contemporary model of arete which is completely developed in itself but doesn't seem to have been applied to ecopsychology yet.

~I believe!
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This is a very good question. I'd begin by saying that overall, even though ecopsychology as a movement has been around since at least 1992, it is still not an established field of study. Why this is, is the reason that Jorge Conesa-Sevilla has begun organizing a symposium to address this at a forthcoming meeting in Chicago in early May 2008. If this symposium is approved, the essay "Toward An Eco-Psychology of Being" is my contribution. This history of ecopsychology is also at the moment totally fragmented. My own efforts to bring clarity to this history was finally published this year--I had to wait two years for the peer review process to approve this essay and then wait for space in the journal. It is titled "Wrestling with Arne Naess: A Chronicle of Ecopsychology's Origins." It is free at http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/940/1353. I will warn you ahead of time, this is a 30 page essay. I was worn out writing it, requiring gallons of coffee, countless trips to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln main research library, plus more than 20 years of my life as I am part of this history.

The work on Maslow, motivational, humanistic and transpersonal psychology grows out of this history--and my working with Warwick Fox and Ralph Metzner. This short essay that we are discussing is the growing tip of something that is just now emerging. But what about Jung? How does his fit into all this? Well you're right Velanthas, there is not much that has been written about this--although there is some. Meredith Sabini has within the past year put together an edited book on JUNGS NATURE WRITINGS. I've not read this book yet, but it was recently reviewed by Don Eulert, Director of the Center for Integrative Psychology in San Diego. Don and I met at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology in Palo Alto, California in late September of 2006. I had spent over a year organizing a symposium on this history and future of transpersonal psychology with Miles Vich, James Fadiman, Stanley Krippner and Valerie Mojeiko. This is on DVD and perhaps I can can put a clip of it on here if someone helps me. Anyway, Stanley introduced me to Don and we hit it off immediately. A month later Don asked me to write a short piece for the ASSOCIATION FOR HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY-PERSPECTIVE, which came out this April, 2007. It is also free and is available on-line (much shorter too--only 2,500 words). Eulert's review of Sabini's book is not, however, available on-line. As the world is a strange place, or maybe I am just experiencing strange things in this world--but two weeks ago Meredith Sabini wrote to me. I had never heard of her before Eulert's review came out, and then I learned in retrospect that Sabini had also been presenting at the International Association for the Study of Dreams at Sonoma State University this June/July, 2007 in Santa Rosa, California.
I was so busy at the conference that I never even had time to read my program of events. I knew what day my two-hour symposium was on (requiring a year of organization and that went right to the deadline for submissions). I worked on the outline until nearly 11pm on New Years Eve last year. Flash forward to the dream conference and I am constantly engaged in conversation and am simply led to events by meeting people during lunch, dinner and while I am out walking. And if I did pass by Meredith, our paths did not meet at this time. I'm on the road again right now and perhaps when I get back to Lincoln Meredith will have replied to my letter--she uses snail mail. Meredith is also the Director and founder of THE DREAM INSTITUTE in Berkeley. Maybe I'll be giving lectures on the West coast in the spring of 2008--I'll let you know if it happens.
But what about Jung? Well, three years ago in the JOURNAL OF HUMANISTIC PSYCHOLOGY Jeremey Yunt published an essay on Jung and ecopsychology. I have yet to reference this essay in anything I've written or talked about at a conference; this will be one of my next projects. There is also the excellent book by June Singer, SEEING INTO THE INVISIBLE WORLD (1990), which is influenced by Jung. So thank you again Velanthas for an excllent question and I will continue to work on this. Mark A. Schroll

PS--See also http://www.ahpweb.org/pub/perspective/feb2007/feb07cover2.html
"Diagnosing Humankind's Dissociation From Nature: Does Environmental Disregard Suggest the Need for a new DSM Category?" Now there are problems with clinical psychology and I go into these in a longer essay that came out of the discussion at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology in September 2006. Plus there are a few minor errors in the piece in AHP-Perspective listed in the link above. Life is ReVision.