Prosperous New Year to all!
Greetings readers, authors and editors of Self – Revista do Instituto Junguiano de São Paulo!
We end 2016 with a great sense of satisfaction. Today, just eight months after the launch of Self, our editorial team, the Instituto Junguiano de São Paulo (Jungian Institute of São Paulo) and all of our readers have a great deal to celebrate.
Beyond the fact that the articles published are important to us, and fill us with a sense of pride, we see the 2,000 views that our works have generated as a profound record of reader appreciation and consideration. These readers demonstrate that something important is happening here, in the intellectual space that Self provides to those who believe they have something valuable to communicate. These who read are the ones who validate those who write, removing them from the realm of subjectivity.
Self was created with the intent of serving as a channel of expression, a mercurial, intermediary, and an inter-mediator between two very important groups: on one hand, connoisseurs of depth psychology ‒ the psychology of the unconscious – who in their professional and personal development have acquired an abundance that should be made available to another very important body: the universe of people, ordinary people, lay people, society, and therefore all of us: all of us united, in so much need of encouragement, clarity, and nourishment of the soul, so that we can navigate through the whirlwind of changes and transformations of our current world.
We are amazed by what has been happening around the world (and our very immediate world) as a result of the digital, biotechnological and physical revolutions, all transformations that are one of the same.
On one hand, we see obvious improvement in the general quality of life indexes worldwide, and the expectation of increased longevity, and as a result bringing together generations: grandparents, great-grandparents ... On the other, there is a clear general feeling that something ails us: a social illness, and if it is social then it necessarily involves the individuals that make up society. We see this sickness in the devastation unleashed on our planet Earth, such as the recent environmental disaster in Mariana, Minas Gerais. We see this also when faced with the injustice, scarcity and misery that still persist, especially in and around the war-torn regions of the world.
How can a scientific journal on psychoanalysis try to help an ailing humankind make healthier and more creative use of its capabilities?
I see the answer on three levels:
First of all, by helping to make fully accepted the idea that our unconscious psyche, with its symbolic images, is at the base of our being, our personality, our feelings, our thoughts, our behavior. Being aware of this, and bringing these unconscious contents to light, is more than just valuable in the process of development of every person, it is indispensable.
Secondly, by helping the world to understand that tolerance of human diversity and acceptance of the numerous aspects of existence are the only possible answers, faced with the magnificent enigmas we are to ourselves.
Third, by extending an invitation to live! To live in this current world (because there is no other), this superlatively fast-changing world that presents us with many challenges, with conquests and losses, and in which we must continually create meaning based on our worldviews that are also always in constant transformation.
The technology that is the result of the digital revolution has provided us with an extraordinary achievement: the ability to connect! Self is currently connected with 3,000 people - mostly professionals in psychology-related fields - via LinkedIn. All of the magazine’s new articles, ideas or activities are immediately communicated to friends of the publication. And our friends are everywhere, from Brazil to Russia, from Iran to Australia, from China to Canada, from Mexico to Japan: the polysemy of languages through internet connectivity is transforming the world of ideas into an immense and borderless world. All and every one of us is welcome.
Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year to all!
Ricardo Pires de Souza
The Scientific Editor
