Συνέντευξη με την Bojana Stamenkovic Rudic

Ο συνάδελφος Στέλιος Μιμίκος συνάντησε και πήρε συνέντευξη από την πρόεδρο της Serbian Analytical Society. Η Bojana Stakenikovic είναι ψυχίατρος από το Βελιγράδι, γιουνγκιανή αναλύτρια, επόπτρια και εκπαιδεύτρια. Η γνωριμία μας μαζί της στην Αθήνα και το Βελιγράδι, υπήρξε ιδιαίτερα αναζωογονητική καθώς είναι αδύνατο να μην σε κερδίσει, η καλοσύνη, η γενναιοδωρία και η σοφία της. 

– Please Bojana, talk a little bit about yourself.

I live in Belgrade, a city which takes a lot of energy but also gives a lot of energy in return. Since the end of 1999, I have been a member of Jungian society in Serbia. Likewise, Jungian society in Serbia is a group which takes a lot of energy but also gives a lot of energy in return. Jokes aside, this is how I truly feel. Over the years, I met so many inspiring people in this group from both Serbia and abroad. The exchanges we had were- and still are- intense, with a rich and wide spectrum of positive and negative feelings. Needless to say, positive ones prevail. We all experienced periods of strong cohesion and love, “the times of glory”, as well as periods of divisiveness, which were frustrating and sad.

Drawing a parallel between the “spirit” of the city and our group seems to be really adequate here. Living in Belgrade throughout the last few decades was frequently full of sadness. A lot of refugees came to Belgrade during the war in ex-Yugoslavia, carrying with them visible or invisible scars of war. During the 90s, people from my generation were looking for a way to leave the country and emigrate abroad.  This process continued in the decades that followed. When I was young, I experienced all of that as a loss, which it undoubtedly was. Yes, life is not easy, but it is also miraculous, as my analyst used to say. Decades later, it is touching to see children who came to Serbia during the war grow into strong and creative individuals. And it is also exciting to see a mixture of different cultures in the city where each family has someone who lives abroad.

I owe you some facts as well. I graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine and became a psychiatrist. My training started in Slovenia where I lived for six beautiful years with my family. After 20 years of experience in psychiatric hospitals, I continued to work in my private practice. Nowadays, I mostly work as a Jungian analyst and supervisor. I’m also a systemic family therapist. Our Jungian group is still small, and just like other analysts here, I’m included in a very intense training program for groups of students that intend to be psychotherapists with an analytical approach.

– What attracted you in studying Jung and Analytical Psychology in general? Also, what motivated you to become a Jungian analyst?

It just happened, with some help from the specific circumstances of my life and surrounding.

As a young specialist in psychiatry, I felt the need to begin the process of personal analysis, in general.

At that time, in 1999, the bombing of Serbia started. Besides professional obligations, our family life was devoted to the care and protection of our children. We spent a lot of time together going for walks, cooking, inventing new games and spending time with a friend who was undergoing Jungian analysis. Together, we decided to come up with quiz games, and children suggested that the quiz should be about Greek mythology. Later they told us it was a coincidence because they saw the book with that title in our friend’s apartment. It became an important project for us. We had the daily task of preparing ourselves for a specific topic which we would cover later at the quiz night. I will never forget the day when I was drawing the map of the Ancient Greek underworld with my children. At the same moment, alarm sirens blared, explosions rang out from the oil refinery and smoke billowed through the windows. We didn’t know when the attack would end, and how it would end. We continued to draw the River of Forgetfulness and the place where souls live in the underworld. At one point I realized that it is not necessary to make an effort to maintain attention to drawing. Somehow, we were participants in both events at the same time. Dealing with the mythological theme even took on the dimension of healing, as a kind of cushioning of fear. A soothing and amortizing feeling of being a drop in the great sea of life, as an effect of significant amplification. A month later, I started with my personal Jungian analysis.

In the beginning, there were no thoughts of becoming a Jungian analyst. I joined a group of colleagues who met once a week to work on analytical psychology topics, group supervisions, and holding public lectures. A few years later, this group was recognized as the one which became DG of IAAP and things took their course.

– You have been president of the Serbian Developing Group for a long time now. What can you share with us about your experience?

In our generation “zero”, almost all my colleagues and I were group presidents for a while. Since we became a Developing Group, Jelena Sladojević Matić, Georgije Vuletić and Ivana Radovanović Novaković all held this position. I accepted this role in September 2021 and I hope that I will continue the good practice of my predecessors and meet the expectations of the group members until the end of the mandate.

We agree that a group like this cannot function without the wholehearted commitment of each member. Our responsibilities are distributed. Colleagues perform their responsibilities by participating in boards that we have constituted or in activities related to specific events that we organize. Several years ago, in cooperation with IAAP, we organized international seminars for routers and supervisors. We have regular visits from guest analysts from abroad as part of the training of our routers. There are also activities related to the education of students for the title of analytically oriented Jungian psychotherapist, which is recognized by the national association of psychotherapists. This training is also supported by IAAP analysts from abroad.

In the beginning of June this year, we will be hosting The Conference on Film and Analytical Psychology. Serbian Analytical Society – DG of IAAP prepares it in collaboration with Associazione Italiana Psicologia Analitica (AIPA). Mercurius Prize (MP), Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade (FDA), Italian Cultural Institute in Belgrade and Film Archive Museum in Belgrade.  We are supported by IAAP Academic Sub-Committee.

In the second half of this year, we are delighted to have taken on the hosting of router’s seminar for the participants from this region of Europe, with the support of IAAP analysts from abroad.

– Are people interested in Jungian analysis? Can we characterize the approach popular?

Considering education and the number of attendees, it has not reached the same popularity as some other approaches, such as CBT and Systemic therapy.

You might have noticed that Jungians write about the phenomenon of speed, more precisely – the accelerating pace of our lives. For example, film scenes are getting shorter, through a combination of how screenwriting and montage is performed nowadays. This is just one example of our entire environment moving toward faster gratification. The entire world around us is getting faster, as we build more efficient transportation and communication networks, with all the advantages and disadvantages that this brings. Jungian education is not “fast”, and this attribute of it I believe should not be changed.

In my experience, there is a small fraction of potential clients who approach Jungian analysis with a certain amount of elitism. You could also say that I recognize in them something that can be called intellectual snobbery. In these cases, there is a great challenge in establishing emotional exchange, which is actually the heart of the therapeutic process.

People who are in Jungian therapy are mainly those who recognize the importance of process, what is, precisely told, streaming and transformation of the emotions throughout the time. Not short period of time. They also appreciate the dreams and the other encounters with the unconscious.

– Do you believe that Jungian analysis still responds to the psychological needs of modern people?

I agree with people who say that our time is oversaturated with thinking, and our emotional side is not fed enough. This already sounds like a cliché, I’m aware of that. But, although we often hear this said, we have not progressed far in its deeper understanding, and especially not in our approach to deal with it. It is known that this attitude points the finger at analytical psychology, as a comprehensive theory and practice, which is needed now more than ever before. The question of understanding and dealing with it, however, also applies to us as Jungian therapists.

– Some of Jung’s ideas attract critical responses. Many connect him with New Age movements and consider Analytical Psychology as unscientific. 

It was always inspiring for me to read about the history of healing, and generally speaking the history of medicine. I fantasize about herbalists, priests and surgeons working together during the times of ancient civilizations, and I am knowingly idealizing this of course. In this frame, we could also consider the history of psychiatry, not simplifying it only as a journey from horror to humanization. Taking this viewpoint is not only exciting, but it could also be useful for us.

Analytical psychology has been here for a little more than a century and throughout this period we perceive motions in the prevailing collective way of thinking. We could see from Jung’s books, more or less explicitly, how difficult it was not to meet the demands of, at a time reigning scientific positivism, especially in the beginning.  It is obvious that any new movement in society is always a reaction to the previous general state, it is its opposite, and it presents not only itself but also gives information about the one it replaced. We can learn a lot trying to understand why some movements appeared, what was their purpose and meaning. Of course, there is always a context in the beginning, and historical influences, which must be taken into account.

The New Age Movement, which was primarily a religious movement, advocated world peace and was against racism and poverty. It also brought about individual and collective transformation of conscience.  A lot of very diverse groups and approaches at some point came under the umbrella of the term New Age Movement. Although it belongs to the past now, I wish to believe that some positive aspects of this movement were awakened in our culture, and that they will be preserved. Most of all, I specifically think the aspect of a more holistic understanding of our existence is crucial. It is in this aspect that I see a deep connection with analytical psychology.

When I say this, I want to emphasize that I do not advocate pseudoscience – romantic fantasies or conscious forgeries in anthropology, archaeology and other scientific branches, which are often driven by ambitions of personal monetary gain.

In general, with any kind of innovation, there seems to be a repeating pattern which is perfectly described in a pharmacology textbook – as surprising as that might sound! The textbook humorously described oscillations in the development of the drug, according to the time phases. “And another one of his crazy ideas. He’s funny. / That’s remarkable. It’s simple, cheap and magical. / Death from agranulocytosis! It’s poison! / If used in special cases, it is the best treatment for disease X.”

Take something closer to our field as an example, the antipsychiatry movement. Several decades after it, we acknowledged that it had a positive impact on life in psychiatric hospitals, by partially melting the rigid medical hierarchy, and mobilizing a new group of sensitive practitioners.

Referring to the area of our work, we ought to think about the “phase” in which our culture is dealing with some phenomenon. It helps to hold the appropriate attitude, as we know that we are “read” by our clients. Take, for example, the trend toward producing toys without sexual characteristics. I personally see it as “second-stage extremism”. Can I be accused of political incorrectness? Do I have to believe that this leads to a solution to the problem of gender inequality, or do I have the right to fear a strong right-wing reactive response? This pendulum will stop sometime in the future. I wish its extreme oscillatory amplitudes had less of an impact on my life, and I assume that’s our common desire. These and similar questions are something we need to talk about in our circles without pressure, without fear of being recognized as backward.

In general, the psychological split, “either you’re with me or you’re against me” is something we live with in our society all the time. The fact is that some social movements have a stronger influence and deeper emotional impact, which affects both the intensity of the movement’s presence and its massing. The last few years have “favored” the deepening of the rift, partly because of the pandemic, partly because of the war. We are witnessing a split in related analytical associations and in large regional associations of psychotherapists. I hope the Jungian world will strive to avoid this.

We know that all our associations take place through phases of union and phases of division. What arises from this is the repetition of the pattern in a changed, newly created and most often improved circumstances. Yes, it is such a universally repeating pattern, and yet it is difficult to comprehend that a split, so essentially unsuitable for a therapeutic attitude, prevails in this context. Just as we nowadays talk about the early authorities committing ethical violations (not concealing, for example, the identity of their clients sufficiently in their texts), it is my hope that the future will bring recognition and naming of the ethical violations that we commit today.

– Is the Serbian Developing Group open to other schools of thought and/or approaches?

A lot of my colleagues entered the group as already certified psychotherapists. We cover the field of Gestalt, CBT, Systemic family therapy, Body therapy, Psychodrama, etc. I recognize transferable skills and knowledge from other approaches, and we use them when we have to solve certain problems in the group. Perhaps it may not come to mind as the most expected approach but in some cases employing or combining approaches works well. On a practical level of organization, we have to consider the tasks, to be more directive than we ordinarily are. We can understand the problem on an analytical level, but frequently we also deal with it in a way that other approaches do, through a group situation.

I also enjoy working with Fairytale Interpretation Groups. To be able to fully appreciate it though, a basic knowledge of psychodrama is needed.

– How do you feel about the post- Jungian thinking? Is it alive and productive in your opinion?

My impression is that the most valuable achievement has been that the theory didn’t become rigid. This is the merit of both Jung and his followers. Personally, I strongly believe that we live until we feel affection, trust and a kind of joy in relation to younger generations.

Having several “schools” of Jungian theory is a treasure we must cherish. It allows for the theory to stay malleable and open for influences and enrichment from other theories.

The moment I finished reading “Depth Psychology and New Ethics” by Erich Neumann, I recognized the importance of this book. Throughout the past few years, its’ importance only grew further. This goes beyond the content of the book, and extends to the context in which it was written. It is what we have to know about, to connect with and to reflect on.

I would like to know what would happen in the future with our ethical codes. Would their improvement eradicate the underestimation of some groups of people or races? How would we look at some of our own conferences or zoom-forums of the present a couple of years down the line?

The widening of Jungian thought all over the world could prove to be valuable and beneficial to our society. At the same time, what the future holds for us is a great challenge to cover all cultural diversities through a unique code of ethics.