Time and Trauma in Analytical Psychology and
Psychotherapy The Wisdom of Andean Shamanism 1st
Edition
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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 (paqo), 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.
Time and Trauma in Analytical Psychology
and Psychotherapy
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.
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.
Time and Trauma in Analytical
Psychology and Psychotherapy
The Wisdom of Andean Shamanism
Deborah Bryon
Designed cover image: Ecstasy by Deborah Bryon
First published 2024
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2024 Deborah Bryon
The right of Deborah Bryon to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bryon, Deborah, author.
Title: Time and trauma in analytical psychology and psychotherapy : the
wisdom of Andean Shamanism / Deborah Bryon.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2023050234 (print) | LCCN 2023050235 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032411385 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032411378 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003356448 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Time–Psychological aspects. | Jungian psychology. |
Shamanism–Andes Region.
Classification: LCC BF468 .B77 2024 (print) |
LCC BF468 (ebook) | DDC 153.7/53–dc23/eng/20240209
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023050234
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023050235
ISBN: 978-1-032-41138-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-41137-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-35644-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003356448
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Newgen Publishing UK
In loving memory of my sweet son Colin, who has
walked in other realms.
Contents
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
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 Theory
11 Quantum Theory, Human Experience, and the Analytic Encounter
12 Navigating Temporal Reality: The Subjective Experience of Time
13 Conclusion
Appendix
Index
Introduction
DOI: 10.4324/9781003356448-1
Our subjective experience of the interaction of time with space in any given
moment defines our perception of reality in the present and in our dreams, in
how we remember the past, and in our projection of potential future
trajectories. I remember studying painting and hearing my favorite professor
comment that musicians control experience through manipulating tempo and
rhythm in the fourth dimension, while visual artists slow a viewer down by
creating interest in the first three dimensions, through the expression of color
and composition by using space.
When I was about six or seven years old, I had the impression that time
was an abstract structure existing outside of me that could not be altered. I
remember periods of longing for time to pass. Time seemed to move much
slower when counting the days until my grandmother came to visit us, or
waiting for Christmas morning, or trick or treating on Halloween. In grade
school, waiting for recess during a boring lesson could feel like an eternity,
while Friday afternoon art classes seemed to fly by much faster. At that age,
things that were happening in the world seemed larger—both in size and
figuratively. In childhood states of reverie during the summer months—
taking time during play to lie down in a field of grass to watch the clouds, the
days seemed longer than they do now. Perhaps this is because there was no
schedule to conform to. In the summer, I didn’t experience life as a habitual
routine—every experience was new. As I’ve grown older, sitting in my
consulting room with my analysands, I often hear them commenting that they
feel time is speeding up and passing them by more quickly.
Although the sense of time passing is subjective, these experiences exist
within the context of time and space, in consensual reality. There are other
psychic states that do not conform to temporal experience, which have shaped
my understanding and interest in the phenomenon of time.
More than a couple of decades ago, while building a private practice and
entering analytic training with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts
(IRSJA), I began to travel to Peru to study with the Q’ero paqos (shamans) in
the Andes.1
This is when I became acutely aware of the existence of atemporal reality.
In my training to become a yachacheq (a paqo who works with the mind), I
began receiving karpay rites in initiation ceremonies from the paqos, when
the “lineage” from their misa (medicine bundle) was energetically transmitted
into mine. During these rituals, I found myself dropping into atemporal states
that to me seemed to be in an undifferentiated energetic realm beyond form
and words, where everything was connected. These experiences, which took
place over several years, sparked my interest in atemporal time. I began to
see connections between the shamanic states of ecstasy I was experiencing,
the oceanic experience of oneness in infancy that Freud (1930) described, and
the atemporal states of implicit memory that often develop in response to
trauma. This was the impetus in my writing this book.
My descriptions of shamanic experience that I will be drawing from in this
writing are based upon my study with the Q’ero shamans living in the Andes
of Peru. I am a psychologist and a psychoanalyst—not an anthropologist. The
information presented is based upon my own experience and what was passed
on to me orally by the paqos (Andean shamans). For this reason, I will be
unable to provide research references when describing Andean shamanic
practices, although I will be referencing psychoanalytic literature, as well as
other scientific references regarding time. Because my training has been with
the paqos in the Andes specifically, this is the method and cosmology I will
be working from. Although there may be overlap between Andean medicine
(shamanism), and other forms of shamanism, because there are cultural
differences and so forth my descriptions of Andean practices may not
necessarily apply to other types of shamanism.
Temporality and Atemporality in Andean Medicine
While undergoing experiential training that often involved deep meditative
states in ceremony and initiatory rituals, I often felt my sense of linear time
dropping away.
Although I could not put words to it, in a deeply calm state I often had the
sense of being outside of time, and that the past, present, and future were
accessible simultaneously because everything was one. When I attempted to
put words to the experience and describe it, I was immediately back in a
temporal state and outside of the experience.
This is when I discovered that when I tried to describe the experience—
using words—language exists in a state of temporality. I came to understand
that temporal reality requires context, anchored in experiencing the outer
world of physical reality, sequentially, while atemporal or extra-temporal
reality was not necessarily a linear experience. In addition, deep atemporal
meditative states, a sense of separation between one’s self, others, and the
world drops away and everything is experienced as being connected. This is
frequently described as a state of ecstasy and a felt sense of “coming home.” I
learned through the initiations I was experiencing that the deeper one “drops
into” a state of connected experience of oneness, the less differentiated the
experience becomes and it can feel as though multiple points in time are
accessible at the same time and can be experienced simultaneously.
Atemporal states are not bracketed in a past, present, and future. Because
there is no temporal sequencing and no experience of separation, these
experiences cannot be referenced by language. Consensual reality—a shared
sense of a physical and symbolic world between one’s self and others—is
understood within the constructs of temporality. Life unfolds on a timeline
with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and a sense of then and now that can
be reflected upon and described through language.
Liminal States between Temporal and Atemporal Experience
In temporal reality, sequential timelines exist, which enable the formation of
narratives that can organize experience within the context of consensual,
physical existence. I discovered that in psychic states bordering on ego-
consciousness, such as the imaginal realm of dreams and reverie,
“everything” is not necessarily happening at once. In these liminal states,
time can bend, and is not inescapably bound to an order of past, present, and
future. Jumps are often made back and forth between a “then and now” and
an imagined future.
I’ve observed in my own analytic work with my analysands that in
dreamscapes, and “working through” and reliving past trauma, reality is
frequently experienced in spaces of psychic “borderlands”—somewhere
beyond ego-consciousness—where the experience or re-experiencing of
events often does not comply with the parameters governing a linear time and
space paradigm. The experience of time is often inconsistent. In dream states,
a long span of time may be occurring only in minutes in the “real-time” of
physical reality. In The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis, 1950)
decades could pass in the land of Narnia that took place in a few minutes in
the outer physical world.
In Peru, some of the gifted coca leaf trackers I have worked with have an
uncanny sense of the future. By throwing coca leaves and reading the pattern
formations that the leaves land in they can interpret current events and what
will follow. They have told me that “seeing” the occurrence of a future event
is much easier than forecasting when the event will take place in time.
Predicting the actual time an event will occur is a greater challenge because it
requires accessing information in an atemporal realm and then transferring it
and translating it within the context of temporal reality and these different
realms do not correspond to each other in a predictable way.
