A Cree Woman Reads Jung

Abstract

This article begins with Jung’s description of two predicaments which confront the contemporary psychiatrist: ‘the mystery of the patient’s difference’ and the danger of ‘committing psychic murder in the name of therapy.’ The article then presents the example of one suffering individual from within a non-Western culture who used Jung, as well as her Native culture’s traditional knowledge, to find healing. This Cree woman, Yvonne Johnson, created what Jung would call temenos in order to facilitate change and called upon images of theriomorphic guides to manoeuvre within the confines of her suffering. The article concludes by considering how the equivocal language of Jung’s analytical psychology may function as an effective bridge between transculturally oriented psychiatrists and their patients, and particularly between Western medical practice and the healing practices of other cultures for whom the word ‘medicine’ carries a religious connotation.

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