Reflection on Queering of Jungian Psychology
As I explored Depths Psychology and its potential to analyze the experiences of queer, trans, and intersex immigrants, I noticed that the Jungian direction in Depth psychology is trendy in the American and Western European queer communities (at least in social media). And I asked myself, what is the reason for such an interest?
Maybe it is a desire to connect Jungian psychology as a scientific method for creating a rational substantiation of the experience of integration with the Transcendent, something beyond sensory experience (continuing the ideas of William James). Or Is it a desire to find meaning/justification for queer identity beyond evolutionary biology and identity politics? Is it a desire for spiritual compensation from the lasting excluding/exile of the queer persona from the religious component of American culture? Is it a fantasy/dream about common queer belonging (queer utopia), community collective memory, and having a community beyond only the practices of queer sexuality? Finally, is it the desire for emotional and psychological support, especially during different personal and cultural transformations of queer identity?
From my point of view, Queer identity has been liberated in the modern world through sexuality/sex, not through a combination of sexuality and spirituality. And it presents itself mainly through the visual and narrative depiction of sexuality, body, and sex. There are exceptions, like Radical Fairies, who postulate a combination of spirituality and sexuality, but the view of queerness through the prism of sex practices, pleasure, and sexuality predominates. Is spirituality necessary in this context?
It reminds me of Alain Badiou's quote: "In fact, in sexuality, everyone is mainly left to himself. Of course, there is a connection with the body of another, but in the end, enjoyment will always be your enjoyment. The sexual does not connect; it separates. The real is narcissistic, and the connection is imaginary. If sexual relations do not exist in sexuality, then love is that which compensates for them. Lacan does not say at all that love is an outfit for sexual relations. He says that love takes the place of this non-connection. It leads to the assertion that in love, the subject tries to meet the being of the other. It is in love that the subject goes beyond himself, beyond narcissism." ("Eloge de l'amour", 2009)
Maybe it is the desire to unite spirituality and queerness, as the transformation of narcissism from the realm of the imagination into a new symbolic order as the beginning of initiation, not as its completion. This question will remain open for now.