Books
The Broken Psyche
Identity [re]construction on Instagram
The book discusses the question what effect Instagram has on the interaction between the ego and the non-ego of its users. The perspective of the psyche derives from a combined reading of Lacanian and Jungian psychoanalysis with contemporary neuroscience. The book argues that Instagram amplifies the ego’s tendency to block out the non-ego via its structure that enforces “crystallisation” along central axioms (angles, hashtags, filters) which become the pillars of individual and social identity. Its sources include contemporary psychology and neuroscience, psychoanalysis and 20th-century philosophy. The book concludes by emphasising the importance of the encounter of negativity in the non-ego to allow the natural unfolding of the ego.
21 Days of Giving
The Reciprocal Formation of Subject and Collective
Giving is at the heart of how human subjects interact with each other to form „collectives“ and interact with these collectives to form individual identities. Taking giving as its main motif, the book navigates through psychoanalytic, neuroscientific and philosophical literature to understand how individual and collective identity give rise to each other. At the heart of the discussion is the Daoist notion of mutual arising alongside Carl Jung’s idea of (De-)Individuation. The book’s aim is to advance axioms for a theory about how individuals shape collective identities and vice-versa.
The Dynamic of the Psyche
The Process of Transformation in the YiJing and DaoDeJing
On the backdrop of the DaoDeJing and the YiJing - the book discusses the individual’s process of transformation as a movement between conscious and unconscious. It highlights the "liminality" of the unfolding of identity and the rise of coherent identity as an abstraction from the ruptures the subject is confronted with. Opposing Carl Jung's term "Individuation" the book characterises this process described in the DaoDeJing and YiJing as "De-Individuation". It thereby develops the contemporary understanding of the role of the "Dao" in Jungian metaphysics.
An Always Within a Never
The Individual's Position in the World
The book discusses the interplay between the subject’s identity and the environment in which it acts. It hypothesises that identity functions as “narrated body” that the subject experiences as its individuality. The orderly continuity this identity presupposes is challenged by the presence of an environment. The book analyses the ways in which humans have confronted and overcome this issue on the level of myths, rituals, alchemy, folklore, and religion vis-a-vis neuroscience and psychology to establish an understanding of the subject’s identity formation. Moving fluently between mythological and scientific perspectives, it takes a standpoint in which the individual is positioned as a mediator between the “three layers of the world”. It concludes with a discussion of how identity unfolds in this process of mediation in cycles of death and rebirth.
Deutschsprachige Titel
Briefe eines Wahnsinnigen
Im Angesicht der Liebe
Die Novelle erzählt die Geschichte eines Wahnsinnigen, der im Angesicht der Liebe nicht nur den Glauben an sich selbst, sondern auch den an die Realität verliert.
Das Buch besteht aus einer Sammlung an Briefen und Notizen zeichnen das Bild eines emotionalen Wettlaufes mit der Zeit, Vernunft und Leben-digkeit in dessen Verlauf die Grenzen der Realität des Protagonisten letztlich vollends verschwimmen.
Die Dynamik der Psyche
Der Prozess der Wanldung im YiJing und DaoDeJing
Vor dem Hintergrund des DaoDeJing und des YiJing erörtert das Buch den Transformationsprozess des Individuums als eine Bewegung zwischen Bewusstem und Unbewusstem. Es beleuchtet die "Liminalität" der Identitätsentfaltung und die Entstehung einer kohärenten Identität als Abstraktion von den Brüchen, mit denen das Subjekt konfrontiert ist. In Anlehnung an Carl Jungs Begriff "Individuation" charakterisiert das Buch diesen im DaoDeJing und YiJing beschriebenen Prozess als "De-Individuation". Es entwickelt damit das zeitgenössische Verständnis der Rolle des "Dao" in der Jung'schen Metaphysik.