Andrew Samuels & The Post-Jungian Plurality: Bringing Depth Psychology to Politics
Can depth psychology remain confined to the private consulting room while the outside world fractures under political polarization, social inequality, and systemic crisis? How do collective psychological dynamics shape elections, cultural scapegoating, and national identity? Renowned British Post-Jungian analyst, professor, and activist Andrew Samuels revolutionized contemporary analytical psychology by taking Jung out of the clinic and thrusting depth psychology into the political arena. In influential works like Jung and the Post-Jungians , The Political Psyche , and Politics on the Couch , Samuels mapped the major branches of Post-Jungian thought and demonstrated that the Collective Shadow operates just as powerfully in national politics as it does in individual dreams. Mapping the Post-Jungian Landscape In his seminal 1985 study Jung and the Post-Jungians , Samuels categorized the evolution of analytical psychology into three major contemporary schools: ...