Teaching in Poland: Emergence from Repression

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

This article reflects my psychological and philosophical orientation as a Jungian Analyst. Through my affiliation with the international Jungian organization, I have traveled to Poland for the past four summers to teach Jungian analytical psychology. Poland is a country, like many around the world, where only a short time ago this form of education was disallowed by the government. The reality of this fact made me conscious, more than usual, that culture affects our personal lives and how individuals are restricted in their development by forces beyond themselves.

In Poland the spectrum between the basic instincts and the complexities of cultural advancement are evident in a history of repression. The grain is harvested with scythes, and the village milk is collected in cans that we in America buy as antiques. The simple beauty of village life contrasts with the bustle of Warsaw, where people scurry around with cell phones. However, now West and East, old and new meet and through education and learning a process of emergence is occurring. For me, this validates what a Jungian Analyst said, “The real legacy of C.G. Jung does not so much consist of certain ideas about the psyche, but of an attitude. We have to try to explore the life of the psyche, to search for our soul, everybody in her or his own way” (Guggenbuhl-Craig 1).

For the people in this analytical program, the suppression of ideas, especially since World War II, has been a primary force in their lives and in those of their parents. Poland and its people sustain many projections from others due to the pain of the events that took place there—the repression from the Nazi invasion, the huge loss of life in the concentration camps mostly located in Poland, and the Communist takeover. Projections that are unacknowledged represe