In his endorsement of Stefano Carpani’s book, Breakfast at Küsnacht (Chiron, 2020), Andrew Samuels asks, “Who exactly are today’s Jungian ancestors?” Samuels observed that the field’s commonly cited founding figures—Jung, von Franz, Wolff, Neumann, Jacobi, Hillman, Fordham, and others—are read by all, but that “ancestors change,” and that the analysts who studied under these figures are themselves, if not today’s giants, already ancestors in their own right. The figures identified by Samuels in his book Jung and the Post-Jungians (1985) now belong to a previous generation. In this lecture, Samuels examines three generational waves, Jung’s early circle, the post-Jungians, and the neo-Jungians (Carpani, 2021), identifying figures whose work offers a forward-looking perspective on the future of the field. In this lecture, he proposes an “Agenda 2050” for analytical psychology centered on three priorities: the development of a Jungian–psychosocial–relational model; a renewed emphasis on Kulturkritik, positioning analysts as social critics alongside their work as personal therapists; and the active cultivation of greater extraversion within the culture of analytical psychology.
Learning Objectives
- Distinguish the theoretical, clinical, and cultural similarities and differences among classical Jungians, post-Jungians, and neo-Jungians.
- Describe the proposed Jungian–psychosocial–relational model.
- Explain the proposed incorporation of Kulturkritik into the professional lives and activities of Jungian analysts.
