In this thought-provoking episode of Jungian Perspectives: Conversations in Depth, host and analyst Dr. Barry Miller explores the urgent question of the rise of gender identity in young people with Lisa Marchiano—Jungian analyst, co-host of the wildly popular podcast This Jungian Life, and co-author of Dreamwise.

Drawing on her two landmark articles in Psychological Perspectives, Marchiano reflects on how she first encountered the phenomenon of rapid-onset gender questioning in her clinical practice — and what it stirred in her as a depth psychologist. Far from dismissing the impulse to explore gender, she approaches it through a distinctly Jungian lens: as a potentially rich, symbolic encounter with the anima and animus — the contra-sexual dimensions Jung believed were essential to psychological wholeness.

But what happens when that symbolic process gets concretized — rushed into irreversible medical intervention? And what role might social contagion, archetypal forces, and collective complexes be playing beneath the surface of a culture-wide phenomenon?

This is a rare, nuanced, and deeply human conversation — one that holds complexity with care, inviting listeners to think more deeply about individuation, identity, and the unconscious forces shaping our collective moment.

LISA MARCHIANO, LSCW, (USA), is a Jungian analyst and the author of Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself (Sounds True, 2021), The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire (Sounds True, 2024), and the coauthor of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams (Sounds True, 2024). She is the cohost of the popular depth psychology podcast This Jungian Life and is on the faculty of the C. G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia. Lisa is on the board of Therapy First, a nonprofit that advocates for a return to a psychological approach when treating gender questioning youth.

This episode is based on the following articles:

Marchiano, L. (2017). Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics. Psychological Perspectives, 60(3), 345–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2017.1350804

Marchiano, L. (2021). Transgender Children: The Making of a Modern Hysteria. Psychological Perspectives, 64(3), 346–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2021.1959220

In this captivating episode, host Thomas Elsner sits down with Elliott Morgan—stand-up comedian, actor, and PhD student in depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute—to explore the psychological and spiritual dimensions of the UFO phenomenon. Drawing on Carl Jung's groundbreaking 1959 work Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky, their conversation delves into what Morgan calls "the enchantment around UFOs" and its profound implications for modern consciousness.

As congressional hearings bring unprecedented credibility to reports of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAPs), this discussion shifts focus from whether UFOs exist to examining what the phenomenon reveals about our collective psyche. Morgan argues that UFOs may represent a "newly dominant archetype" in the Western psyche—specifically, the trickster—blurring boundaries between material and immaterial, inner and outer, real and imagined.

From synchronicities and shadow encounters to dreams of aliens and the breakdown of traditional meaning-making systems, this conversation explores how the UFO phenomenon might signal the emergence of a new god-image for a culture grappling with ecological crisis, technological acceleration, and the death of traditional religious forms. Is this "visionary rumor" pointing us toward a necessary transformation of consciousness at the end of an era?

Join us for this mind-bending exploration of sacred skies, trickster energies, and the return of mystery in our modern world.

Elliott Morgan is a comedian, content creator, and scholar of depth psychology currently pursuing his PhD at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. He is one of the original members of the popular YouTube channel SourceFed and the founder of The Valleyfolk, a crowd-sourced comedy production company. He co-hosts The Fundamentalists podcast, along with Dr. Peter Rollins, which explores modern culture through the lenses of psychoanalytic theory, philosophy, and depth psychology.

Based on Elliott Morgan's article "Sacred Skies: UFOs and the Religious Function of the Psyche" from Psychological Perspectives, Volume 66, Issue 3 (2023).

Timestamps

00:00 Introduction to Jungian Perspectives

02:08 Today’s Guest, Elliott Morgan

08:33 The UFO Phenomenon and Jung’s Flying Saucers

12:08 The UFO as a visionary rumor

18:43 The UFO as a Trickster Archetype

26:25 UFO Sightings

30:20 New God Image

33:02 Transformation brought on by revelation

38:26 UFOs in dreams

45:55 Projection and Psychological Dimensions

56:37 Outro to Jungian Perspectives

What if Shakespeare's darkest tragedy holds the key to understanding Western consciousness itself? In this riveting conversation, Shakespearean scholar and Jungian theorist James Driscoll reveals how King Lear and Jung's Answer to Job chart the same extraordinary journey—the transformation of the God-image from unconscious tyrant to suffering servant to defiant rebel. Through Lear's descent into madness and nothingness, we witness what Driscoll calls "the crucifixion of the ego," where pride strips away to reveal authentic self-knowledge and compassion.

This episode explores how evil, suffering, and injustice paradoxically become instruments of consciousness itself. Driscoll argues that King Lear presents the four archetypes of the Western Godhead—Yahweh, Christ, Prometheus, and the feminine Sophia—more powerfully than any work in literature. From his background as an AIDS activist who fought pharmaceutical injustice to his profound readings of visionary art, Driscoll demonstrates why understanding things "feelingly" rather than merely intellectually is essential to wholeness. A challenging, profound meditation on how we discover truth about ourselves only by confronting our nothingness.

Based on James Driscoll's article "King Lear, Answer to Job: The Archetypes of Godhead" from Psychological Perspectives, Volume 66, Issue 3 (2023).

James Driscoll has a PhD in English literature in Shakespeare. He has applied Jungian psychology to literature, philosophy, and social issues. His published books are: Identity in Shakespearean Drama (1983); The Unfolding God of Jung and Milton (1992); Shakespeare and Jung: The God in Time, (2019a); Shakespeare’s Identities (2019b); How AIDS Activists Challenged America (2021a); Jung’s Cartography of the Psyche (2020); The Devil and Dr. Fauci (2021b); Carl versus Karl: Jung and Marx, Two Icons for our Age (2022). He became prominent in the movement to speed FDA approval for AIDS and cancer drugs in the 1990s. His How AIDS Activists Challenged America reviews his career as an AIDS, LGBTQ, and FDA reform activist.

Timestamps

00:01 Introduction to Jungian Perspectives

02:09 Today's guest, James Driscoll

07:40 Shakespeare as a visionary artist

12:59 A summary of King Lear

19:14 The Four Archetypes of the Western Judeo-Christian Godhead

29:06 The role of evil in the transformation process

33:49 The theme of “nothing”

40:41 Suffering and Madness

49:06 Our emotional need for justice within society

53:31 The Archetypal Patterns and Symbols behind Cordelia, Lear, and their Story

59:07 Outro to Jungian Perspectives