Michael Lukie-Round Table-JSSS Conference June 10 2015

8/18/2019 Michael Lukie-Round Table-JSSS Conference June 10 2015

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Round Table

EdS 122

Thu. June 11, 2015

Michael Lukie

An Analysis of the

Projective Dynamics

Involved in the

Conflict Between

Creationism and a

Pre-Service Physics

Teacher

13th Conference of Research in Jung andAnalytical Psychology

Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies (JSSS)

On Nature and the Feminine:

Psychological and Cultural Reflections

June 11 - June 13, 2015


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Introduction

• discuss a conflict a pre-service physics teacherexperienced while completing a teaching

practicum at a creationist high school

– scapegoating – psychic inflation

– fanaticism for the scientific method

–what was constellated in the personal, familial,and cultural unconscious



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Conflict

• at the end of a physics lesson I discussedpaleoclimatology, the study of ancient climate

• it provided a real world context about how

global warming is being studied by scientists

• paleoclimatologists study Earth’s climate as far

back as 800,000 years by examining ice cores

obtained from Greenland and Antarctica,(Fergusson, 2013)



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• by determining the ratio of heavy oxygen O18 to light

oxygen O16 in ice cores, scientists can learn about

ancient climate changes (Ichoku, 2014)

• less heavy oxygen in the frozen water means thattemperatures were cooler (Ichoku, 2014)

• conflict occurred between the cooperating teacher’s

claim for a 6000 year old Earth and the 800,000 year

date I suggested to students


Conflict


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Complexes

• superiority complex constellated

– my truth claim for a 4.5 billion year old Earth was

based upon superior scientific reasoning

– truth claim for a 6000 year old Earth is based upon

inferior faith based reasoning

– scientific truth claims are superior (provable)

– religious truths claims are inferior (not provable)



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How Did I Know I Was Constellated

• I was immediately agitated, distressed and

disturbed over the claim for a 6000 year old Earth

• I became compulsive in my actions and thoughts

• I had trouble taking in what another was saying

(Fidyk, 2014)

• I was much more into my body than I was in my

conscious mind during the conflict

• my heart rate and blood pressure increased



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How Did I Know I Was Constellated

• compulsively attempted to refute the young Earth

claim with scientific arguments

– discovery of a 9,550 year old Norway spruce in

Dalarna, Sweden (Kullman, 2014) – based on the light year, scientists have found

objects that are more distant than 6000 light years

away from Earth



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Personal & Familial Unconscious


• Religion & Gender

– raised in a Ukrainian Catholic household

• household not very religious

• traditional gendered roles were not followed

• father performed traditional female roles in the household

– I was an alter boy and was asked to become a priest

– immediate family members were either teachers or priests

• male dominated gender roles

–repressed the priest role into my shadow

• became a teacher

– repressed male dominated gender roles into my shadow


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Personal & Familial Unconscious

• Personal & Familial Shadow Contents

– my shadow contents were constellated by the

cooperating teacher’s religious creationism and

male dominated gender roles at the school

– projected the contents of my shadow that

repressed the priest as a career choice and

repressed male dominated gender roles – these projections constellated my complexes for

religion and gender



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• contemporary Canadian culture emphasizes scientism – a belief that the methods of the natural sciences should be

employed in investigating all aspects of human behaviourand condition (Bonnett, 2013)

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Canadians continue to consume and pollute theenvironment since it is understood that science will solvethe problem of global warming

• the contents of our cultural unconscious shadow consistof repressed feelings that religion is capable of solving

the problem of global warming• I projected the contents of this unconscious cultural

shadow when science was challenged


Cultural Unconscious


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Scapegoating

• the scapegoat, "is perceived as beingfundamentally different from the rest of thegroup and must be excluded or sacrificed in order

for the group to survive and remain whole"(Colman, 1995, p. 81)

• scapegoated by students and teachers becausemy scientific truth claims were perceived as

fundamentally different and challenging• students and teachers could survive and remain

whole only by rejecting me



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Fanaticism

• Jung associates fanaticism with repressed

doubt

• extreme beliefs, strongly held and defended,

characterize fanaticism (Alschuler, 2009)

• the cooperating teacher and I both held

fanatical beliefs for religion and science



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Psychic Inflation

• we both fell victim to psychic inflation – puffing up of the ego, often resulting in the

dissociation (splitting off) and repression of anythought that is incompatible with these beliefs

(Alschuler, 2009) – the unconscious attempts to moderate the ego's one-

sidedness by confronting it with an opposite image, adoubt (disbelief) (Alschuler, 2009)

• our egos both had repressed doubt – I repressed doubt about science

– the cooperating teacher repressed doubt aboutreligion


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Psychic Inflation

• I encountered my repressed doubts in projection

onto a science non-believer

• I had to convert my cooperating teacher to

science in order to confirm the beliefs of myscientific fanaticism

• I was trapped in a vicious circle of my fanaticism

– my repressed doubt was projected each time Iprovided a scientific example disproving the religious

truth claim


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Conclusion

• accept the other person's point of view rather than attempting toconvert them

• try to consciously hold both conflicting positions in your mind

• look for the image or hooks that constellate conflicts with people

– in my conflict the hook was truth

• to depotentiate future conflicts – attend to the hooks and images that constellate the unconscious

shadow

– be more cognisant of these images when they arise

– be able to recognize when you have been constellated and mediate

your reaction• by examining such conflicts, pre-service teachers may begin to

understand how valuable a knowledge of analytical psychology iswhen attending to conflicts that arise during teaching


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References

Alschuler, L. R. (2009). Fanaticism: A Psychopolitical analysis. The Psychology of Violence. A Journal of Archetype andCulture 81, pp. 59-83.

Bonnett, M. (2013). Normalizing catastrophe: sustainability and scientism. Environmental Education Research,

19(2), 187-197.

Colman, A. D. (1995). Up from scapegoating: Awakening consciousness in groups. Wilmette, IL: Chiron Books.

Ferguson, W. (2013,05,01). Ice Core Data Help Solve a Global Warming Mystery. Scientific American. Retrieved from:http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ice-core-data- help-solve/

Fidyk, A. (2014). Complexes and the Research Process. EDSE 501 class handout.

Ichoku, C. (2014,03,29). Paleoclimatology: the oxygen balance. NASA Earth Observatory (EOS). Retrieved from:http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Paleoclimatology_OxygenBalance/

Kullman, L. (2014,04,26). World's Oldest Living Tree -9550 years old -Discovered In Sweden. Science Daily. Retrievedfrom: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080416104320.htm


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Michael Lukie-Round Table-JSSS Conference June 10 2015