Time and Trauma in Analytical Psychology and Psychotherapy: The Wisdom of Andean Shamanism

This book explores the experience of time in psychoanalysis and Andean shamanism. It plots ways to work through unresolved trauma by expanding how we conceptualize both implicit and nonverbal atemporal experience, drawing from the rituals, narratives, and medicine of Andean shamans and quantum theory.

Shifting between subjective states in time is fundamental in trauma work and psychoanalysis. Integrating traumatic experiences that have become split off and held in “timeless” unconscious states of implicit memory is an essential aspect of psychic healing. Becoming familiar with the Andean shamans’ understanding of atemporal experience, as well as learning about their ways of “grounding” the experience consciously, can offer a route through which psychoanalysis and therapy may deepen the therapeutic process and open new states of consciousness. Theories developed in quantum physics are included to parallel the shamans’ experience and for describing the analytic process.

Written by a noted expert in this field, this insightful volume will interest trainee and practitioner analytical psychologists, as well as any professional interested in the resolution of trauma within a psychotherapeutic setting.

Introduction PART I: OVERVIEW AND ANDEAN MEDICINE 1. An Overview of the Origins of the Conceptualization of Time in Psychoanalysis and Depth Psychology 2. Temporal and Atemporal Experience in Andean Medicine 3. Power: The Capacity to Hold Energy 4. Psychic States in Andean Medicine 5. The Paqos’ Direct Experience—Shifting States of Awareness through Ritual Chapter 6. Experiencing the Energetic Realm through the Body: Temporality and Atemporality PART II: ATEMPORAL EXPERIENCE AND RE-ENTRY 7. A Personal Account of Mystical and Re-Entry Experience 8. Making Sense of the Re-Entry Experience: The Aftermath 9. Phases in the Re-Entry Experience PART III: INTEGRATING PSYCHOANALYSIS, ANDEAN MEDICINE, AND QUANTUM THEORY 10. Weaving Together Theories of Psychoanalysis, Andean Medicine, and Quantum Physics 11. Quantum Theory, Human Experience, and the Analytic Encounter 12. Navigating Temporal Reality: The Subjective Experience of Time 13. Conclusion

Deborah Bryon is a graduate of UCLA and the University of Denver. She has previously published two books and several articles on Andean shamanism and psychoanalysis and is a frequent lecturer in the international Jungian analytic community. In addition to teaching and private practice, Deborah exhibits her paintings at Spark Gallery in Denver.

'Dr. Bryon’s bold weaving together of interpersonal and Jungian analytic perspectives, informed by indigenous Andean shamanism, and contemporary scientific understanding of time invites the reader into an expansive, enriched vision of the world. Her personal descent to deep layers of unconscious phenomena is shown to bring an enhanced awareness of reality with profound healing effects. The wisdom and integrative power of a syncretic approach to recovering from trauma shines through the text and will open doors for all who enter.'

Joe Cambray, Ph.D., IAAP, Past-President-CEO, Pacifica Graduate Institute

'Jungian analyst and psychologist Deborah Bryon offers Andean shamanic wisdom as it dovetails with concepts from contemporary relational psychoanalysis. After being adopted and inducted by Peruvian paqos, Bryon seamlessly combines her personal experience with theoretical concepts to highlight practices of connection and compassion. This is a one of a kind, can’t-put-down book, a roadmap for connecting states of light, energy, joy, and wholeness with processes of healing.'

Terry Marks-Tarlow, Ph.D., author of Psyche's Veil, Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy, Awakening Clinical Intuition, Play & Creativity in Psychotherapy, and A Fractal Epistemology for a Scientific Psychology.

'Deborah Bryon presents a novel view of the roots of trauma based on her own transformative, spiritual experiences in Peru, combined with her clinical encounters as a Jungian analyst. What emerges is a fascinating insight into how trauma gets stuck in time, quite literally frozen in an atemporal, unconscious realm, supplemented with an understanding on how it might then be released by bringing it back into time, switching between the two viewpoints. Using a wide range of examples, from psychology to poetry to physics, Bryon skillfully navigates the two worlds like a shaman.'

Professor Dean Rickles, Ph.D. - Faculty of Science, University of Sydney, Co-Director, Centre for Time, co-author of Dual-Aspect Monism and the Deep Structure of Meaning.

'Deborah Bryon’s Time and Trauma in Analytical Psychology and Psychotherapy provides a wide ranging perspective on experiences central to contemporary depth psychology – i.e., the subjective experience of time and trauma. In this refreshingly integrative volume, she draws extensively on her experiences as a psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst as well as her extensive immersion in Andean shamanistic practice. She utilizes the conceptual framework of quantum theory to reveal underlying links between mystical and clinical experience, expanding the reader’s understanding of both experiential domains. The book also provides the reader with an in-depth introduction to Andean medicine practices. Time and Trauma is scholarly, insightful, and experientially grounded. Recommended for any reader seeking a fresh lens for understanding subjective experience across a variety of settings.'

Mark Winborn, PhD, NCPsyA – clinical psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Jungian Psychoanalysis and Interpretation in Jungian Analysis.

'A masterful journey through Andean medicine to offer a new, valuable perspective on Jung’s unconscious and its atemporal vastness. This is accomplished by bringing us on a journey through the eyes and mind of an Andean shaman (Paqos), its secrets passed on to her orally and elucidated here by thorough scholarship, making this a unique and significant contribution to the dimensions of transcendent experiences, the energy and nature of psyche, Jung’s notion of individuation and why psychoanalysis and the Andean tradition weave so smoothly with Quantum physics.'

Professor Leslie Stein, Ph.D. - Jungian Analyst, author of Working with Mystical Experiences in Psychoanalysis.