This Jungian Life

In psychoanalysis, a screen memory covers up a deeper, more emotionally charged issue. Similarly, movie and television screens both shield and open us to human complexity through fiction. The opportunity to peer into shadow and secrets from a safe distance is irresistible. Depictions of psychotherapists and therapy can range from the malevolent Nurse Ratched (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) to psychic empath Deanna Troi (Star Trek). Most on-screen therapists, however, like their real-world counterparts, are wounded healers doing their best to help despite sometimes substantial fallibilities. Bruce Willis (Sixth Sense) doesn’t realize he’s dead; Jennifer Melfi (The Sopranos) denies her mobster client’s sociopathy, and Kelsey Grammer (Frasier) embodies the mercurial power of humor that grants perspective. Jung understood the value of the analyst’s capacity to suffer as they led the way; he writes, “…it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal.” During the painful tumult of the COVID pandemic,