The Seba library treats Psychic Orientation in 8 passages, across 5 authors (including Stein, Murray, Jung, Carl Gustav, Neumann, Erich).
experience shows that individual mandalas are symbols of order, and that they occur in patients principally during times of psychic dis-orientation or re-orientation.
Stein cites Jung to demonstrate that the self produces mandala symbols as compensatory responses specifically during episodes of psychic disorientation, making orientation-loss a diagnostic marker for the therapeutic emergence of self-symbolism.
, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998thesis
the psychic values have a diametrically opposite localization for the two types. The introvert sees everything that is in any way valuable for him in the subject; the extravert sees it in the object.
Jung establishes that the two fundamental attitude-types represent opposite psychic orientations, each defined by where libidinal value is located — inward or outward — producing irreconcilable experiential worlds.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
Ego-consciousness becomes disturbed and, depending upon the extent of the disturbance, can be thrown into a state of considerable dis-orientation and confusion.
Stein links complex-possession directly to psychic disorientation, framing ego-disturbance through complexes as a clinical spectrum with loss of stable orientation as its symptomatic hallmark.
, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998thesis
by availing ourselves of the evolutionary or synoptic view we can make out a kind of guiding line running through limitless symbolism of the collective unconscious which helps us to orient ourselves in the theory and practice of depth psychology.
Neumann argues that tracking archetypal developmental stages furnishes a framework for psychological orientation within depth-psychological theory and practice.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting
Taking the development of consciousness as the decisive phenomena of human history, we arrive at an arrangement of the phenomena that does not, to be sure, coincide with the usual sequence of historical events, but makes possible the psychological orientation we require.
Neumann proposes consciousness-development as the organizing axis for a ‘psychohistory,’ explicitly framing this interpretive schema as supplying the psychological orientation necessary for archetypal analysis.
, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, 1955supporting
orientation and consciousness in, 221 … and orientation, 377; and written productions, 160; blocking and, 35
Bleuler’s index entries position orientation as a clinical variable correlated with states of consciousness and complex-activity in schizophrenic patients, anchoring the concept in psychiatric nosology.
, Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, 1911supporting
psyche 219, 268, 277–8, 282, 283, 287, 313 … orientation 309; parental 203; plural/polytheistic 290, 314
The Handbook’s index records ‘orientation’ as a discrete entry within a broader psyche entry, confirming the term’s systematic place in the Jungian technical lexicon as compiled by Papadopoulos.
, The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice and Applications, 2006aside
The most we can hope for is a certain general orientation, not an exhaustive exposition. Even the concepts of the schema are in a certain sense ‘symbols,’ each of which embraces a whole area of psychic meanings.
Neumann qualifies the limits of schematic presentation, using orientation in its general epistemological sense to acknowledge that archetypal frameworks offer directional guidance rather than definitive closure.
, The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype, 1955aside