The International Society for Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority (ISPDI) presents its 2025 Online Symposium on August 2-3, with the theme “Thinking Psychology.”
The symposium’s central metaphor is both striking and profound: psychological thinking as uroboric—a thinking that “eats its own tail.” This ancient symbol of the serpent consuming itself represents the self-reflective nature of psychological inquiry, where thinking turns back on itself to unveil the deeper truth and meaning beneath ordinary appearances. As the organizers note, this uroboric movement forms a circle that embodies wholeness, eternity, and the unity of all things—for psychology, the very essence of soul.
This concept aligns with Jung’s own understanding of psychological interpretation. When we engage in dream work through circumambulation, for instance, we allow the dream to become, as Jung quoted from the Talmud, “its own interpretation.” The symposium seeks to explore how this kind of thinking releases what the alchemists called mercurius—the transformative essence inherent in phenomena ranging from dreams and fairytales to clinical symptoms and cultural realities.
The symposium opens with a presidential welcome from John Hoedl and Pamela Power, setting the stage for a series of thought-provoking presentations. The program includes Harry Henderson’s “‘I/Robot’: Thinking the Modern Ego in Soul’s Uncanny Valley,” which promises to examine contemporary consciousness through the lens of technological metaphor. Greg Mogenson contributes “The Covid 19 Pandemic Reconsidered as a Psychological Topic Afterall,” offering a psychological interpretation of our recent collective experience. Jennifer Sandoval presents “The Owl and the Stone: Reflections on Psychological Consciousness,” bringing together symbolic wisdom and psychological insight.
The formation of the ISPDI was inspired by the writing and thinking of Dr. Wolfgang Giegerich, a Jungian analyst living in Berlin, who refocused thinking and discussion concerning the essence of depth psychology in the Jungian tradition. Giegerich defines psychology as the discipline of interiority. Interiority, in this sense, refers to the ‘interior’ of the phenomena themselves. This approach, while decidedly modern, remains mindful of psychology’s ancient roots in the historic desire to “tend to” or “study” the soul in its deepest nature. As its name implies, The International Society for Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority is dedicated to the furthering of psychology by means of this very same process of rigorous self-application and continuing self-redefinition.
What distinguishes the kind of thinking explored in this symposium is its objective character. The organizers emphasize that they are concerned not with personal or egoic thinking, but with “the objective thinking which contains the ego.” This represents a sophisticated understanding of psychological consciousness—one that recognizes the ego as contained within a larger field of awareness rather than as the center of psychological reality.