Alessandra di Montezemolo & Elisabetta Pasini

Re-connect and Re-imagine Ourselves in the World

Our paper highlights what we have experienced in the past two Pandemic years. At the beginning of 2020 the Covid pandemia took us by surprise, challenging the scientific and social capacities of our entire global social system and generating strong collective fears, uncertainty, deep emotions. No one seemed prepared to deal with death and its denial, and to contain the unexpected emergence of deep vulnerabilities and fragilities. These emotions have become a real threat to the very one-sided world of “endless progress” we thought we belonged to, and the idea of the future as a linear progression of constant technological and scientific developments which had driven the Western world for centuries sounds now problematic, vague, threatening. The very important “Feeling Function” has been left behind, becoming a primitive inferior function with the outburst of violent and uncontrolled individual and collective emotions, adding turmoil to the ties generated by this new unknown invisible virus. In such an apocalyptic scenario, however, the desire for a different kind of sociability, for different forms of intimacy, open new potential spaces for group explorations within a safe and protected psychological container.

Our approach combines different research frameworks: the CG Jung’s Psychological Types Theory and some further studies on emotions and feelings - as in example James Hillman’s developments and some key neurosciences’ findings -; well-established methods for working in group “outside the consulting room”, like Social Dreaming and Expressive Sand-Work-; the anthropological perspective of the “Anthropocene Era”, when humans began to question their over-control upon nature and their relationship with the natural world. Our hypothesis is that Analytical Psychology offers an innovative approach and a safe setting for “group and community exploration” (not therapy); a potential space, where words and images regenerate the connection within and between individuals, and the Anima Mundi can be re-imagined and re-experienced. During the conference we would like to present the theoretical framework of our research.

Bios

Alessandra di Montezemolo is a clinical psychologist and Jungian training analyst at the CG Jung Institute in Zurich. She published articles in French and Italian in several journals, among which an interview to Prof. Sonu Shamdasani on the Red Book in Cahier Jungiens de Psychanalyse, an article on the relevance of Analytical Psychology for Italian Cinema in Enkelados Journal, and another on the founders of Psychoanalysis in Italy. Alessandra speaks and works clinically in four different languages and as a multi-cultural psychoanalyst actively engaged in today’s world. She is particularly is interested in building bridges between humanities, social sciences, and the different psychological approaches. She joined the founders of Stillpoint Spaces (Zurich, Berlin, London, and Paris) in December 2016 as their partner for Paris where she opened the spaces in 2017 with the intention of exploring psychology in depth inside and outside the consulting room.

Elisabetta Pasini, Jungian Psychoanalyst trained at the C.G. Jung Institute for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, with professional experience in the development of individuals, groups, organizations in more than 15 years of living and working in different countries (UK, US, Latin America, Switzerland, Spain, Dubai). She currently lives and works in Milan in private psychoanalytical practice. In her work she applies and develops active methodologies like Listening Post, Social Dreaming, Active Imagination, Sandplay, for the development of individuals and groups.

Recent Publications

• Listening Post & Social Dreaming: esplorare l’immaginario sociale e stimolare la nascita di un nuovo pensiero collettivo – in Cantieri, Educazione Sentimentale n. 33/2020 – Franco Angeli, Milano.
• Cinderella vs Sherazade: the Symbolic Meaning of the Veil in the Islamic Culture - paper at the Opus International Conference, London, 18/19 November 2016.

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