Jungian Psycho-Social Studies

Abstract

This paper establishes a specifically Jungian and Post-Jungian contribution to psycho-social studies. It locates the position an analytical psychological approach may occupy within existing debates before turning its attention to developing archetypal thematic analysis (ATA) as a psycho-social method that may be employed in qualitative research. Using 2019 as a focal point, the authors argue that an archetypal thematic analysis of texts related to two ‘events’—the release of the 30th anniversary edition DVD of Akira and the announcement of Greta Thunberg as Time magazine’s ‘person of the year’—supports the assertion that the archetype of the child has been constellated. This paper proposes that a Jungian hermeneutic may usefully be mobilised to bring structure to a dataset, and to deepen the researcher’s interpretation of the data. Utilising Jung’s theory of synchronicity, and extending Main’s (2006) argument for a synchronistic approach to a reading of contemporary events, where appropriate, the authors provide an interpretation of the data’s possible meaning.