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Confrontation with the Unconscious: Jungian Depth Psychology and Psychedelic Experience Paperback – June 30, 2019

by Scott J. Hill (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 33 ratings
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An exploration of the use the of psychedelics and Jung's work on trauma, the shadow, psychosis, and psychospiritual transformation.

Carl Gustav Jung pioneered the transformative potential of the deep unconscious. Psychedelic substances provide direct and powerful access to this inner world. How, then, might Jungian psychology help us to better understand the nature of psychedelic experiences? And how might psychedelics assist the movement toward psychological transformation described by Jung?

Jungian depth psychology and psychedelic psychotherapy are both concerned with coming to terms with unconscious drives, complexes, and symbolic images. Unaware of significant evidence for the safe clinical use of psychedelic drugs, Jung himself remained wary of psychedelics and staunchly opposed their therapeutic use. His bias has prevented Jungians from objectively considering the benefits as well as the risks of using psychedelics for psychological healing and growth.

Confrontation with the Unconscious intertwines psychedelic research, personal accounts of psychedelic experiences, and C. G. Jung's work on trauma, the shadow, psychosis, and psychospiritual transformation - including Jung's own confrontation with the unconscious - to show the relevance of Jung's penetrating insights to the work of Stanislav Grof, Ann Shulgin, Ronald Sandison, Margot Cutner, among other psychedelic and transpersonal researchers, and to demonstrate the great value of Jung's penetrating insights for understanding difficult psychedelic experiences and promoting safe and effective psychedelic exploration and psychotherapy.

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  1. Print length
    250 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Aeon Academic
  4. Publication date
    June 30, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    6.1 x 0.57 x 9.09 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1913274020
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1913274023
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"As a Jungian psychologist who works with shamanic plant hallucinogens, I found this book illuminating, rich, well organized and open to both positions of Jungians pro and con psychedelics." -- C. Michael Smith, author of Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue

"Scott Hill's brilliant book presents a sophisticated analysis of how psychedelic experiences may be understood from the standpoint of Jung's archetypal psychology." -- Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author of The Unfolding Self and other books, including The Psychedelic Experience (with Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert)

A perceptive and creative interface between the thought of Carl Jung and contemporary psychedelic research, now in its rebirth, by a scholar who skillfully articulates a profound comprehension of both realms of knowledge. --William A. Richards, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

The Jungian insights Dr. Hill provides here are invaluable for clinicians working with acute psychedelic crises and the integration of difficult psychedelic experiences. They also shed light on the robust archetypal dynamics of all psychological transformation. --David Lukoff, Ph.D., co-president of the Association for Transpersonal Psychology and co-author of the DSM-IV category Religious or Spiritual Problem

"A landmark study ... timely, impeccably researched, and wisely conceived." -- Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author of Individuation and the Absolute: Hegel, Jung, and the Path Toward Wholeness

"The wisdom in this book offers hope that we can heal the psychological wounds and political divisions of the past, objectively assess the benefits as well as the risks of psychedelics, and move toward a more informed and mature application of these valuable substances." -- Rick Doblin, Ph.D., executive director, Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS)

"Dr. Scott J. Hill's comprehensive volume [is] the first significant reconsideration of psychedelics in light of Jungian psychology since the 1950s. In fact, what Dr. Hill has created is a sourcebook for those interested in such a natural interface for the compelling reason that Jung's work is a psychology of inner exploration and, understood properly, psychedelics or entheogens can be an ideal tool in this endeavor. Moreover, its publication coincides with a renewed interest in psychedelics in terms of research and their clinical utility and the revaluation of something culturally long forbidden. . . . Dr. Scott Hill has written a big book about a thorny subject and I, for one, am extremely grateful, though my few words scarcely do it justice. Speaking as a seeker after consciousness, it is about time that someone called our attention back to the potential value of the psychedelic experience as a bona fide agent in personal transformation. And speaking as a Jungian analyst, it is about time that serious consideration of and openness to it should replace the quick judgment and summary dismissal I witnessed so long ago.."
-- Stephen A. Martin, Psy.D., is a licensed psychologist and a certified Jungian analyst who has been in practice for over thirty years. He is the President Emeritus and Co-Founder of the Philemon Foundation that funded the publication of C. G. Jung's Red Book

About the Author

Scott J. Hill, Ph.D., lives in Sweden, where he conducts scholarly research on the intersection between psychedelic studies and Jungian psychology. He holds degrees in psychology from the University of Minnesota and in philosophy and religion from the California Institute of Integral Studies.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aeon Academic; New edition (June 30, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 250 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1913274020
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1913274023
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.1 x 0.57 x 9.09 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 33 ratings

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Scott J. Hill

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
33 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

JD
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent application of Jungian psychology to psychedelics
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2020
Verified Purchase
I have studied depth psychology and working with psychedelics for healing and personal growth, including authoring The Psychedelics Integration Handbook. This is the best discussion of issues surrounding psychedelics from a Jungian perspective that I know -- including covering Jung's negative views on psychedelics for therapy in this time, what Jung may have missed or misunderstood, and how Jungian psychology may help those who seek recovery from troubling experiences with psychedelics and those now opening to therapeutic work in nonordinary states of consciousness.
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Lewis H. Lafontaine
1.0 out of 5 stars Carl Jung: Oh no ! Never ! A new idea is intoxicating enough.
Reviewed in the United States on March 31, 2022
It is a source of regret that this book contains a number of assumptions, assertions and conclusion which are found a tad faulty upon critical examination.

For example the author insinuations with no citation of historical evidence that Dr. Jung used LSD or Mescaline.

In fact Dr. Jung found as evidenced in his writing of The Red Book at the more natural and organic use of Active Imagination provided most exemplary psychological insights.

This reviewer wishes the book contained an addendum of all of the letters Dr. Jung wrote referencing drugs (Psychedelic and otherwise) so the reader could evaluate his views for themselves.

Below is some of what Dr. Jung wrote in his various writings with citations so the discriminating reader may read them in context:

Question: Do you occasionally resort to stimulants of any kind (alcohol, morphine, hashish, etc.)?Answer: Oh no ! Never ! A new idea is intoxicating enough. Carl Jung, CW 18, Page 787

Although I have never taken the drug [Mescalin] myself nor given it to another individual, I have at least devoted 40 years of my life to the study of that psychic sphere which is disclosed by the said drug; that is the sphere of numinous experiences. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 222.

It is on the contrary an excellent demonstration of Marxist materialism: mescalin is the drug by which you can manipulate the brain so that it produces even so-called "spiritual" experiences. That is the ideal case for Bolshevik philosophy and its "brave new world." ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 224.

The idea that mescalin could produce a transcendental experience is shocking. The drug merely uncovers the normally unconscious functional layer of perceptional and emotional variants, which are only psychologically transcendent but by no means "transcendental," i.e., metaphysical. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 223.

Man has to cope with the problem of suffering. The Oriental wants to get rid of suffering by casting it off. Western man tries to suppress suffering with drugs. But suffering has to be overcome, and the only way to overcome it is to endure it. We learn that only from him.” [And here he pointed to the Crucified.] ~ Carl Jung, Letters, Vol 1, Page 236.

Look at the rebellion of modern youth in America, the sexual rebellion, and all that. These rebellions occur because the real, natural man is just in open rebellion against the utterly inhuman form of American life. Americans are absolutely divorced from nature in a way, and that accounts for that drug abuse. ~Carl Jung, Conversations with C.G. Jung, Page 35.

But I never could accept mescalin as a means to convince people of the possibility of spiritual experience over against their materialism. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Page 224.

There are some poor impoverished creatures, perhaps, for whom mescalin would be a heaven-sent gift without a counterpoison, but I am profoundly mistrustful of the “pure gifts of the Gods.” ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II to Victor White dated 10 April 1954

That is the mistake Aldous Huxley makes: he does not know that he is in the role of the “Zauberlehrling,” who learned from his master how to call the ghosts but did not know how to get rid of them again. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II to Victor White dated 10 April 1954

I should indeed be obliged to you if you could let me see the material they get with LSD. It is quite awful that the alienists have caught hold of a new poison to play with, without the faintest knowledge or feeling of responsibility. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II to Victor White dated 10 April 1954

There is finally a question which I am unable to answer, as I have no corresponding experience: it concerns the possibility that a drug opening the door to the unconscious could also release a latent, potential psychosis. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 222-224.

The result [taking Mescalin] is a sort of theosophy, but it is not a moral and mental acquisition. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, 12August1957

It [taking Mescalin] is the eternally primitive man having experience of his ghost-land, but it is not and achievement of your cultural development. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, 12August1957

To have so-called religious visions of this kind [taking Mescalin] has more to do with physiology but nothing with religion. It is only that mental phenomena are observed which one can compare to similar images in ecstatic conditions. ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, 12August1957

The author states that Dr. Jung was “prejudiced” against the use of psychedelics ignoring the fact that Dr. Jung was by profession a Medical Doctor of Psychology who was recognized in the East has qualified to writing the Psychological Commentaries to “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” and “Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation.”
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Top reviews from other countries

Nikolaos Charalampidis
2.0 out of 5 stars Boring for people already deep in the psychedelic literature. Nothing new really.
Reviewed in Germany on January 18, 2021
Verified Purchase
Maybe an interesting introduction for people new to the field of psychedelics, but very boring and repetitive for ones already deep in the psychedelic literature.

The author seemed to have some very bad experiences with psychedelics in his youth and then he spend a great chunk of his adult life trying to understand what caused them. However, he tried to do so on a theoretical level and from a safe distance. He kept suggesting explanations for those dark experiences citing others’ understanding of them instead of developing a deep understanding of his own.

A profound personal experiential grasp is essential when it comes to understanding psychedelics, since intellectual or abstract explanations of others can lead to frivolous theoretical conclusions.
It is also hard to convince the reader about the validity of your suggestions when you cannot speak from a place of profound personal understanding.

Many times throughout the book, he kept bringing examples of people who underwent psychedelic therapy. He did so though, without convincing the reader about whether patients undergoing these bad or positive trips had any actual impact on their psychological development.

Did these people actually change ? Did they heal? Can psychedelics cause lasting positive changes in individuals ? This is the most important issue when it come to psychedelic therapy and he brought zero examples of such cases.

Still, he made some interesting points in certain parts of the book and he did a good job in explaining certain things in Jungian terms and concepts.
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