Update: His book, Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, was released on Oct. 10, 2020 and is now available from Amazon.
Jason E. Smith is a Jungian analyst and author based in the Cape Ann region north of Boston, Massachusetts.
After receiving his undergraduate degree from the theater program at the University of British Columbia, he worked for several years as an actor in his hometown of Vancouver, Canada. It was during this time that he became acquainted with Jungian psychology and decided to pursue a career as a psychotherapist.
He went on to attend Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California and received a master’s degree in counseling psychology with an emphasis in depth psychology. He then relocated to Massachusetts and began analytic training at the C.G. Jung Institute Boston, earning a Diploma in Analytical Psychology, the degree of a Jungian analyst.
In his 20 years of clinical experience, Jason has worked in many settings. He has facilitated dream groups and taught classes and workshops on dream interpretation, run a support group for hospice workers, led career counseling groups offering individual career counseling from a Jungian perspective, and has provided mental health and substance abuse counseling at a community mental health clinic in Gloucester, Massachusetts. He is a past president of the C.G. Jung Institute Boston (now the C.G. Jung Institute of New England), where he continues to serve as a training analyst and faculty member in the analytic training program. He also works in private practice in Manchester-by-the-Sea where he lives with his family.
An article he had written around Thanksgiving of 2015 titled “Thank God I’m a Jungian” caught my eye, so I asked him if we could record an episode about it. His first book, Religious But Not Religious: Living a Symbolic Life, will be released on Oct. 10, 2020 by Chiron Publications. Those topics, and more, are the subjects of our talk today.
This interview was recorded on Wednesday, August 5, 2020. It’s 58:35 long and 52.1 MB. You can listen to it right here in your browser or download it directly to your computer. It’s also available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, TuneIn, Spotify, and iHeartRadio. And it’s now available on our YouTube channel.
You can also listen to this episode on your Amazon Echo device. Simply say, “Alexa, play Speaking of Jung on Apple Podcasts (or on TuneIn).” Just be sure to pronounce Jung with a hard J.
SHOW NOTES
Pacifica Graduate Institute M.A./Ph.D. in Jungian Psychology and Archetypal Studies
C.G. Jung Institute of New England On July 1, 2020, the New England Society of Jungian Analysts and the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston merged to form the C.G. Jung Institute of New England
Analyst Training Program C.G. Jung Institute of New England, Newton, Massachusetts
Jung: His Life & Work – A Biographical Memoir by Barbara Hannah, Jungian analyst
Laura’s visit to Barbara Hannah’s grave
C.G. Jung Letters, Vol. 1: 1906-1950 Source of the quote, “Science is the art of creating suitable illusions which the fool believes or argues against, but the wise man enjoys their beauty or their ingenuity, without being blind to the fact that they are human veils and curtains concealing the abysmal darkness of the Unknowable.” ~C.G. Jung in a letter to J. Allen Gilbert, 2 January 1929, p. 57
On Psychological & Visionary Art: Notes from C. G. Jung’s Lecture on Gérard de Nerval’s Aurélia Philemon Foundation Series
The Undiscovered Self by C.G. Jung; includes Jung’s definition of religion: “Religion means dependence on and submission to the irrational facts of experience. These do not refer directly to social and physical conditions; they concern far more the individual’s psychic attitude. But it is possible to have an attitude to the external conditions of life only when there is a point of reference outside them. Religion gives, or claims to give, such a standpoint…”, CW 10, par. 505-506
David Whyte Poetry Official website (poem is “The Well of Grief”)
Heartsfire Counseling with Jason E. Smith
@Jason_E_Smith Jason on Twitter
This episode is dedicated to everyone who has come at me with, “Jung said ‘Thank God I’m Jung and not a Jungian!’”