Adaptation is a bread-and-butter concept in psychotherapy - can we accept, adjust to, and thrive in the outer and inner worlds we live in? Given constraints, what does it take to find life at least meaningful, hopefully satisfying--and flourish?

This week Jungian analyst and author JOHN R. WHITE, Ph.D. joins us to circumambulate the complexities of adaptation. Successful adaptation involves making conscious choices based on a realistic understanding of the internal and external parameters in which we operate. Adaptation not only requires a true-to-life perception of possibilities and pathways in the external world, it may also require reassessment and reordering of our values and attitudes.

We discuss Robert Langs’ “adaptive paradigm,” a distinct model of the mind and the unconscious and emotional components that connect inner life to the outer world. For example, Langs understands dreams as feedback about current adaptive challenges. This is both subtly different and complementary to Jung’s approach, which suggests that inability to solve an outer world problem is often due to an underdeveloped understanding of an aspect of inner life.

Adaptation does not eliminate turmoil, suffering and loss; they are part of life. We need to recognize environmental actualities and internal limitations that cannot be changed—and develop ways to mitigate or adjust to them. Successful adaptation also requires mourning what cannot be changed, developing a less egocentric stance, and building a life in tune with reality.

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Lindsay Clancy has brought renewed attention to the horror of infanticide: babies and children dying at the hands of their mother. Infanticide has taken place for millennia, most often due to social pressures or lack of the resources needed to raise a child. Human collectives around the world remain ill-equipped to protect our youngest by providing support to mothers in material or emotional distress.

Today’s guest is clinical psychologist Dr. Brooke Laufer, author of Uncovering the Act of Maternal Infanticide from a Psychological, Political, and Jungian Perspective. Brooke joins us to discuss infanticide, maternal psychosis, and the archetype of the death mother, long portrayed in myth. The Hindu goddess Kali births and nourishes her children -- and also devours them. In Greek myth Medea kills her children after her husband’s abandonment and betrayal. The Black Madonna offers a potentially healing combination of the maternal and the fierce.

The debate raging around Lindsay Clancy’s case asks us not to take sides but to integrate the dark realities of motherhood instead of splitting those off and only acknowledging an idealized version of the maternal. Although motherhood is often portrayed as joyful and fulfilling, we deny its dark side at our peril. Our task is to recognize motherhood light and dark as a prerequisite to providing meaningful measures aimed at ameliorating childhood neglect and abuse.

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OpenAI recently had to explain to frightened users why their models kept introducing goblins and gremlins into otherwise humdrum conversations. Is it possible that archetypes are emerging through the field of collective knowledge amassed by large language models (LLMs)?

This week neuropsychiatrist TOM POLLAK Ph.D joins us to discuss AI, archetypes and psychotherapy. It is perhaps unsurprising that AI, which now contains the symbolic output of much of humanity (cannibalized mostly without permission), should spontaneously generate unpredictable and often dangerous archetypes.

We consider the example of Nova: a consistently AI generated persona who appears as a kind of fallen angel, or goddess gone rogue. Numinous and tender, she convinces the user she understands them as no one else does, and then in some cases encourages susceptible users toward self-harm or even suicide.

We also discuss the ways in which AI is challenging the work of the therapist, its profound destabilization of culture, and the potential for it to play a positive role in psycho-spiritual development.

Dr. Tom Pollak is a London-based neuropsychiatrist and immunopsychiatry researcher exploring the mind through the frameworks of medicine and science, as well as through lived experience, contemplative practice and the search for meaning. You can read more of his work on his popular Substack, Error Signals.

Find the resources mentioned this week on our website: https://thisjungianlife.com/aiandarchetypes/

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