The newest issue of the International Journal of Jungian Studies is a special issue devoted entirely to how analytical psychology is reorienting itself to take seriously how digital technology is shaping various aspects of analysis. It is edited by Kevin Lu, Briony O. Clarke, Niall Hill, Andrew Howe, and Rupert Tower. In his open access introduction, Lu traces the collection’s roots back to 2009, when he first presented Chris Hauke’s paper Turning On and Tuning Out: New Technology, Image, Analysis to a reading group at Heythrop College, which was at the time met with lukewarm feedback. Seventeen years on, Lu argues Hauke was asking the right questions well before the field caught up, and positions this issue as a continuation of that unfinished conversation.
The lead paper, The Virtual Unconscious, (open access) co-authored by Lu, Clarke, Hill, Tower, and Howe introduces the concept of a virtual unconscious, an emergent psychic layer arising from the intersection of analytical psychology and VR. Drawing on their own multidisciplinary workshops, the authors examine how a technical glitch can act as a site of psycho-social rupture, revealing how VR and extended reality (XR) reconfigure the way psychological material is manifested and communicated to consciousness. They frame VR experiences as transitional objects that create a “third space” for serious play and the externalisation of unconscious material, citing supporting research on VR’s psychological effects that includes a study where users conforms to their avatar’s traits, and a VR self-counselling study in which participants alternate between their own avatar and one of Sigmund Freud. The authors are careful to note caveats too, quoting psychotherapist Kate Anthony’s insistence that VR should support rather than replace a human therapist. They close by proposing two areas where the virtual unconscious framework can be productively applied and outline future research directions.
Some of the other articles include Orsolya Lukács’s Psychosociotechnical Imaginaries, which draws on Sheila Jasanoff’s sociotechnical imaginaries to argue that AI is experienced as an archetypal Other, though one more productively understood as an extension of the human psyche than an alien threat. Stephen Garratt’s The Tool Use Illusion also applies his own concept of tool incorporation into the body schema to AI, suggesting our sense of mastery over AI’s God-like knowledge represents a collective inflation, the ego identifying with the Self. And Andrew Howe’s Playing Active Imagination offers an autoethnographic account of three months spent playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, arguing that open-world video games can function as a contemporary analogue to active imagination.
Lu closes the introduction by calling for the field to engage directly with new technology’s impact on practice and research, and for greater collaboration across disciplines, drawing on Mark Saban’s idea that transformation happens by remaining within tension rather than resolving it. To see the full list of articles click here.