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Americans, citizens of the world’s most well-known democratic system, want change but why is political change so difficult to come by? Will a President McCain or a President Obama be able to change our national policies in such a way as to benefit the main body of the people? Why do both parties in Washington act in ways that seem to work against the best interests of the American citizenry?
This lecture explores the psychologist C. G. Jung’s ideas on “national psyche” suggesting that an underlying essential narrative or “myth” determines how Americans select their leaders and how those leaders govern. Current political slogans such as “Change We Can Believe In” or “Change is Coming” are rooted in the structures of this myth. Dr. Schenk argues that U.S. history is a re-enactment of the Old Testament and New Testament narratives of Chosen People, Journey, Promised Land, God’s Blessings and Protection which reveal the unconscious structure of the American psyche.
Real national change is not possible unless individuals become conscious of the unconscious factors which govern the population as a whole. What role will the national myth play in the presidential election on November 4? Will this myth affect the next president’s call for change?
Ronald Schenk, Ph.D., LMSW-ACP, LPC, is a Jungian Analyst in private practice in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Schenk received his Master's Degree in Social Work from Washington University, St. Louis, and initial training in psychoanalytic psychotherapy in New Haven. He lived and worked with the Navajo Native Americans before receiving a Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Dallas, specializing in Phenomenological Psychology. He trained in Jungian Analysis with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts where he has been a Senior Training Analyst for many years and acted in several administrative capacities, most recently serving as President. His interests are in clinical training, cultural psychology, and post-modernism. He has written three books, The Soul of Beauty: A Psychological Investigation of Appearance, which gives an aesthetic perspective on depth psychology; Dark Light: The Appearance of Death in Everyday Life, a collection of essays on culture and imagination; and The Sunken Quest, The Wasted Fisher, The Pregnant Fish: Post-modern Reflections on Depth Psychology
Sponsored by the Society for the Friends of Jung in Waco, the Classics Department of Baylor University, Spring Journal: A Journal of Archetype and Culture, and the Baylor University Bookstore. |
