Warren Colman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Warren Colman
Routledge eBooks, Feb 17, 2021
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Mar 15, 2011
With reference to two patients who brought material objects to their sessions (previously discuss... more With reference to two patients who brought material objects to their sessions (previously discussed in Colman 2010a, 2010b), this paper reconsiders the pre-eminent role of verbal communication in analysis. I suggest that the privileging of words over action derives from Freud's view of the mind in which only that which can be put into words can become conscious. Following Stephen Mitchell (1993), I discuss the way that this view has become relativized by the shift away from an instinctual drive model to a more relational, meaning-making view of the mind. This is then linked to Jung's emphasis on the importance of symbols and the transcendent function and Milner's view of the therapeutic frame as a space for symbolic meaning. Drawing the boundaries of the therapeutic frame in this way allows for symbolic actions within the frame rather than as boundary-crossing deviations from a more narrowly defined frame which allows only for verbal communications.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Nov 1, 2013
In this interview with Warren Colman, James Astor speaks about his development as a Jungian analy... more In this interview with Warren Colman, James Astor speaks about his development as a Jungian analyst from his own experience of personal analysis in the 1960s to his recent retirement from clinical practice. The discussion covers his long association with Michael Fordham, the child analytic training at the SAP, the infant observation seminars with Fordham and Gianna Henry through which Fordham was able to make new discoveries about infant development, his experience of supervision with Donald Meltzer and the development of his own thinking through a series of papers on the analytic process, supervision and the relation between language and truth. The interview concludes with reflections about the legacy of Michael Fordham and the future of analytic work.
PubMed, Jul 1, 2002
... Neumann 1973, pp. 234). Similarly, Fordham refers to Emma Jung's claim that her... more ... Neumann 1973, pp. 234). Similarly, Fordham refers to Emma Jung's claim that her husband 'was not interested in anybody unless they exhibit archetypes' (Fordham 1993, p. 117). If we look at Answer to Job, the situation is even more explicit. ...
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Dec 1, 2004
This paper was written after, but published prior to 'Aspects of anima and animus in oedipal deve... more This paper was written after, but published prior to 'Aspects of anima and animus in oedipal development' (Colman 1996) in which I set out to 'rehabilitate anima and animus for clinical use'. Both these papers represented my personal attempt to integrate Jungian and psychoanalytic thinking in the distinctive tradition of the Society of Analytical Psychology. Jung's ideas about anima and animus had first inspired my interest in Jungian psychology so I had been disappointed and perplexed when I could not find a way to integrate these ideas with the predominantly object relations perspective of my clinical training. It was through working with couples that I eventually began to recognize Jung's typical 'pen pictures' of anima and animus possession and to notice (a) that such people tended to be married to each other and (b) that their difficulties could also be expressed in terms of oedipal development. However, like most of Jung's major concepts, anima and animus are multi-faceted and this way of seeing them as oedipally derived internal objects underplayed their meaning as psychic functions operating as 'a bridge to the unconscious' (Jung 1928, para. 339). A subsequent paper, 'Contrasexuality and the unknown soul' (Colman 1998) attempted to redress this balance. Although the clinical material in the 'cross-gender' paper is drawn from couple psychotherapy, I had not seen it as primarily about couples but rather as a paper about gender identity. I was sorry that the BJP had published it under the heading 'couples' as I thought this obscured its primary intention. This may have been partly due to the relative unfamiliarity and specificity of the couple focus. While the contribution of child psychotherapy to psychoanalytic theory has long been recognized, couple psychotherapy still seems to be seen as merely an 'application' of psychoanalysis and its distinctive contribution to the field as a whole is rarely recognized.
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Mar 1, 2006
This paper suggests that the prohibition against 'taking the role of the good object' may inhibit... more This paper suggests that the prohibition against 'taking the role of the good object' may inhibit therapists from an appropriate recognition of a loving relation between the patient and themselves. It is argued that the prohibition actually refers to a defensive attempt to get the analyst to take the role of the idealized object as a defence against the emergence of bad objects in the transference. This clinical scenario is contrasted with one where the patient needs to find in their therapist a real good object who genuinely cares for them.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Oct 1, 2000
This paper sets the archetypal relationship between the tyrannical, devouring father and his sons... more This paper sets the archetypal relationship between the tyrannical, devouring father and his sons in the context of a disjunction in the parental couple (syzygy) whereby the role of the maternal feminine is eclipsed and excluded. This is shown to originate in an omnipotent defence against infantile dependence on the mother. Successful liberation from the father's tyranny requires the restoration of mutuality between the internal couple. Although the main focus is on the internal world (and a detailed clinical illustration is given, showing the working out of this process in the analytical relationship), reference is also made to political tyranny, attitudes to the control of Nature by technological means and patriarchal forms of masculinity. The Chronos myth is amplified through the use of two modern variants in the films The Terminator and Star Wars.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Mar 30, 2009
This paper investigates the relationship between clinical knowledge and psychological theory and ... more This paper investigates the relationship between clinical knowledge and psychological theory and considers the implications for clinical writing. I argue that clinical knowledge is a way of understanding rather than a body of facts and compare clinical material to 'texts' that generate multiple and indeterminate meanings. Analytic theories, which represent the crystallization of ways of understanding clinical phenomena, have an inherently metaphorical 'as if' quality since they are derived from and adapted to the clinical process of making meaning by representing psychic states in symbolic form. Thus good clinical writing demonstrates an integration of theory and clinical material into a unified network of symbolic meanings. Redfearn's paper, 'The captive, the treasure, the hero and the "anal" stage of development' (1979), is discussed as an exemplar of such integration. It is suggested that clinical knowledge is equivalent to the skill of making effective interpretations.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Aug 29, 2011
This paper contrasts Jung's account of synchronicity as evidence of an objective principle of mea... more This paper contrasts Jung's account of synchronicity as evidence of an objective principle of meaning in Nature with a view that emphasizes human meaningmaking. All synchronicities generate indicative signs but only where this becomes a 'living symbol' of a transcendent intentionality at work in a living universe does synchronicity generate the kind of symbolic meaning that led Jung to posit the existence of a Universal Mind. This is regarded as a form of personal, experiential knowledge belonging to the 'imaginal world of meaning' characteristic of the 'primordial mind', as opposed to the 'rational world of knowledge' in which Jung attempted to present his experiences as if they were empirically and publicly verifiable. Whereas rational knowledge depends on a form of meaning in which causal chains and logical links are paramount, imaginal meaning is generated by forms of congruent correspondencea feature that synchronicity shares with metaphor and symbol-and the creation of narratives by means of retroactive organization of its constituent elements.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Sep 1, 2013
In this personal talk, Warren Colman traces the similarities between the cluster of influences th... more In this personal talk, Warren Colman traces the similarities between the cluster of influences that informed his own training and practice as a British developmental Jungian analyst and those that led to the creation of intersubjective and relational analysis in America. He aims to show that a relational approach to the practice of Jungian analysis is both 'traditional' and 'radical', being rooted in the traditions of the past while opening up pathways towards future development and clinical innovation. Warren Colman (UK) is a training and supervising analyst for the Society of Analytical Psychology and Consultant Editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He trained and worked at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relations for 15 years and is now in full time private practice in St. Albans. He teaches, lectures and supervises internationally and has published many papers on diverse topics, including couple interaction, sexuality, the self, synchronicity and the therapeutic process.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Jan 21, 2009
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Sep 1, 2004
This paper considers consciousness from the point of view of extreme materialism, which asserts t... more This paper considers consciousness from the point of view of extreme materialism, which asserts that everything is physical and extreme idealism, which asserts that 'the world is my idea'. Attempting to avoid dualism, I argue that there is no fundamental ground of being and that consciousness is a nothing. Science can explain its mechanisms in terms of 'propositional knowledge' but this is distinct from the 'experiential knowledge' that refers to the domain of meaning (psychic reality). Although consciousness is omnipresent and infinite, it is surrounded by the further infinity of the Unknown. Together these comprise the totality that Jung called 'the Self'. The paper concludes with some reflections on the experience of Being in 'the Isness Business'.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Aug 14, 2015
George Hogenson's 2001 paper 'The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutiona... more George Hogenson's 2001 paper 'The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutionary thinking' developed the radical argument that, if archetypes are emergent, they 'do not exist in the sense that there is no place that the archetypes can be said to be'. In this paper, I show how Hogenson's thinking has been seminal to my own: it is not just archetypes but the mind itself that has no 'place'. The mind is a dynamic system, emergent from the cultural environment of symbolic meanings to which humans are evolutionarily adapted. Drawing on the work of philosopher John Searle, I argue that symbols constitute the realities that they bring forth, including the imaginal realities of the psyche. The implications for clinical work include a rejection of structural models of the psyche in favour of the emergence of symbolic realities in the context of psychoanalysis as a distributed system of cognition.
Routledge eBooks, Feb 17, 2021
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Mar 15, 2011
With reference to two patients who brought material objects to their sessions (previously discuss... more With reference to two patients who brought material objects to their sessions (previously discussed in Colman 2010a, 2010b), this paper reconsiders the pre-eminent role of verbal communication in analysis. I suggest that the privileging of words over action derives from Freud's view of the mind in which only that which can be put into words can become conscious. Following Stephen Mitchell (1993), I discuss the way that this view has become relativized by the shift away from an instinctual drive model to a more relational, meaning-making view of the mind. This is then linked to Jung's emphasis on the importance of symbols and the transcendent function and Milner's view of the therapeutic frame as a space for symbolic meaning. Drawing the boundaries of the therapeutic frame in this way allows for symbolic actions within the frame rather than as boundary-crossing deviations from a more narrowly defined frame which allows only for verbal communications.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Nov 1, 2013
In this interview with Warren Colman, James Astor speaks about his development as a Jungian analy... more In this interview with Warren Colman, James Astor speaks about his development as a Jungian analyst from his own experience of personal analysis in the 1960s to his recent retirement from clinical practice. The discussion covers his long association with Michael Fordham, the child analytic training at the SAP, the infant observation seminars with Fordham and Gianna Henry through which Fordham was able to make new discoveries about infant development, his experience of supervision with Donald Meltzer and the development of his own thinking through a series of papers on the analytic process, supervision and the relation between language and truth. The interview concludes with reflections about the legacy of Michael Fordham and the future of analytic work.
PubMed, Jul 1, 2002
... Neumann 1973, pp. 234). Similarly, Fordham refers to Emma Jung's claim that her... more ... Neumann 1973, pp. 234). Similarly, Fordham refers to Emma Jung's claim that her husband 'was not interested in anybody unless they exhibit archetypes' (Fordham 1993, p. 117). If we look at Answer to Job, the situation is even more explicit. ...
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Dec 1, 2004
This paper was written after, but published prior to 'Aspects of anima and animus in oedipal deve... more This paper was written after, but published prior to 'Aspects of anima and animus in oedipal development' (Colman 1996) in which I set out to 'rehabilitate anima and animus for clinical use'. Both these papers represented my personal attempt to integrate Jungian and psychoanalytic thinking in the distinctive tradition of the Society of Analytical Psychology. Jung's ideas about anima and animus had first inspired my interest in Jungian psychology so I had been disappointed and perplexed when I could not find a way to integrate these ideas with the predominantly object relations perspective of my clinical training. It was through working with couples that I eventually began to recognize Jung's typical 'pen pictures' of anima and animus possession and to notice (a) that such people tended to be married to each other and (b) that their difficulties could also be expressed in terms of oedipal development. However, like most of Jung's major concepts, anima and animus are multi-faceted and this way of seeing them as oedipally derived internal objects underplayed their meaning as psychic functions operating as 'a bridge to the unconscious' (Jung 1928, para. 339). A subsequent paper, 'Contrasexuality and the unknown soul' (Colman 1998) attempted to redress this balance. Although the clinical material in the 'cross-gender' paper is drawn from couple psychotherapy, I had not seen it as primarily about couples but rather as a paper about gender identity. I was sorry that the BJP had published it under the heading 'couples' as I thought this obscured its primary intention. This may have been partly due to the relative unfamiliarity and specificity of the couple focus. While the contribution of child psychotherapy to psychoanalytic theory has long been recognized, couple psychotherapy still seems to be seen as merely an 'application' of psychoanalysis and its distinctive contribution to the field as a whole is rarely recognized.
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Mar 1, 2006
This paper suggests that the prohibition against 'taking the role of the good object' may inhibit... more This paper suggests that the prohibition against 'taking the role of the good object' may inhibit therapists from an appropriate recognition of a loving relation between the patient and themselves. It is argued that the prohibition actually refers to a defensive attempt to get the analyst to take the role of the idealized object as a defence against the emergence of bad objects in the transference. This clinical scenario is contrasted with one where the patient needs to find in their therapist a real good object who genuinely cares for them.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Oct 1, 2000
This paper sets the archetypal relationship between the tyrannical, devouring father and his sons... more This paper sets the archetypal relationship between the tyrannical, devouring father and his sons in the context of a disjunction in the parental couple (syzygy) whereby the role of the maternal feminine is eclipsed and excluded. This is shown to originate in an omnipotent defence against infantile dependence on the mother. Successful liberation from the father's tyranny requires the restoration of mutuality between the internal couple. Although the main focus is on the internal world (and a detailed clinical illustration is given, showing the working out of this process in the analytical relationship), reference is also made to political tyranny, attitudes to the control of Nature by technological means and patriarchal forms of masculinity. The Chronos myth is amplified through the use of two modern variants in the films The Terminator and Star Wars.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Mar 30, 2009
This paper investigates the relationship between clinical knowledge and psychological theory and ... more This paper investigates the relationship between clinical knowledge and psychological theory and considers the implications for clinical writing. I argue that clinical knowledge is a way of understanding rather than a body of facts and compare clinical material to 'texts' that generate multiple and indeterminate meanings. Analytic theories, which represent the crystallization of ways of understanding clinical phenomena, have an inherently metaphorical 'as if' quality since they are derived from and adapted to the clinical process of making meaning by representing psychic states in symbolic form. Thus good clinical writing demonstrates an integration of theory and clinical material into a unified network of symbolic meanings. Redfearn's paper, 'The captive, the treasure, the hero and the "anal" stage of development' (1979), is discussed as an exemplar of such integration. It is suggested that clinical knowledge is equivalent to the skill of making effective interpretations.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Aug 29, 2011
This paper contrasts Jung's account of synchronicity as evidence of an objective principle of mea... more This paper contrasts Jung's account of synchronicity as evidence of an objective principle of meaning in Nature with a view that emphasizes human meaningmaking. All synchronicities generate indicative signs but only where this becomes a 'living symbol' of a transcendent intentionality at work in a living universe does synchronicity generate the kind of symbolic meaning that led Jung to posit the existence of a Universal Mind. This is regarded as a form of personal, experiential knowledge belonging to the 'imaginal world of meaning' characteristic of the 'primordial mind', as opposed to the 'rational world of knowledge' in which Jung attempted to present his experiences as if they were empirically and publicly verifiable. Whereas rational knowledge depends on a form of meaning in which causal chains and logical links are paramount, imaginal meaning is generated by forms of congruent correspondencea feature that synchronicity shares with metaphor and symbol-and the creation of narratives by means of retroactive organization of its constituent elements.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Sep 1, 2013
In this personal talk, Warren Colman traces the similarities between the cluster of influences th... more In this personal talk, Warren Colman traces the similarities between the cluster of influences that informed his own training and practice as a British developmental Jungian analyst and those that led to the creation of intersubjective and relational analysis in America. He aims to show that a relational approach to the practice of Jungian analysis is both 'traditional' and 'radical', being rooted in the traditions of the past while opening up pathways towards future development and clinical innovation. Warren Colman (UK) is a training and supervising analyst for the Society of Analytical Psychology and Consultant Editor of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He trained and worked at the Tavistock Centre for Couple Relations for 15 years and is now in full time private practice in St. Albans. He teaches, lectures and supervises internationally and has published many papers on diverse topics, including couple interaction, sexuality, the self, synchronicity and the therapeutic process.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Jan 21, 2009
British Journal of Psychotherapy, Sep 1, 2004
This paper considers consciousness from the point of view of extreme materialism, which asserts t... more This paper considers consciousness from the point of view of extreme materialism, which asserts that everything is physical and extreme idealism, which asserts that 'the world is my idea'. Attempting to avoid dualism, I argue that there is no fundamental ground of being and that consciousness is a nothing. Science can explain its mechanisms in terms of 'propositional knowledge' but this is distinct from the 'experiential knowledge' that refers to the domain of meaning (psychic reality). Although consciousness is omnipresent and infinite, it is surrounded by the further infinity of the Unknown. Together these comprise the totality that Jung called 'the Self'. The paper concludes with some reflections on the experience of Being in 'the Isness Business'.
Journal of Analytical Psychology, Aug 14, 2015
George Hogenson's 2001 paper 'The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutiona... more George Hogenson's 2001 paper 'The Baldwin Effect: a neglected influence on C.G. Jung's evolutionary thinking' developed the radical argument that, if archetypes are emergent, they 'do not exist in the sense that there is no place that the archetypes can be said to be'. In this paper, I show how Hogenson's thinking has been seminal to my own: it is not just archetypes but the mind itself that has no 'place'. The mind is a dynamic system, emergent from the cultural environment of symbolic meanings to which humans are evolutionarily adapted. Drawing on the work of philosopher John Searle, I argue that symbols constitute the realities that they bring forth, including the imaginal realities of the psyche. The implications for clinical work include a rejection of structural models of the psyche in favour of the emergence of symbolic realities in the context of psychoanalysis as a distributed system of cognition.
Information about my recently published book from which the chapter on Participation Mystique is ... more Information about my recently published book from which the chapter on Participation Mystique is taken.