Shakespeare on Jung’s couch

William Shakespeare has provocatively been described as the original inventor of depth psychology. His characters possess a striking psychological complexity, but Shakespeare’s insight extends beyond the personal into the larger movements of psyche—the territory of Jung. His plays can resemble those rare dreams that are at once archetypal and utterly mundane. Rather than resolving into familiar types or moral lessons, Shakespeare’s characters and situations remain alive through contradiction, paradox, and the tension of opposites. It is often here that a play’s distinctive energy resides. Joel Crichton, author of the recently published Jungian Shakespeare, explores how encountering these plays with psyche in mind can illuminate difficult or elusive elements of the text while preserving the mystery and wholeness of the work of art.