In his work with Mitch Lauridsen, Kurt Jung was encouraging all three forms of regression. He encouraged Mitch to look back at his recent and distant past (especially in his interpretation of Mitch’s dreams). He invited Mitch to be creative when envisioning future meetings with Frank and Gwen (and in his encouragement of Mitch to share his dreams). Finally, it was in Kurt Jung’s work with Mitch on the discovery of courage in facing the bear and menacing hoodlums in his dream, that Kurt nurtured Mitch’s regression back to childhood (bears) and early adult (hoodlums). With the constructive return to earlier times and earlier fears, Kurt was able to assist Mitch in facing present-day fears (meeting with Frank).
RITSE is truly an extraordinary capacity of the human psyche. We can move backward in personal and collective history to explore alternative portrayals of reality and to be selective regarding how best to guard against the massive intrusion of anxiety-producing memories, impulses or existential concerns. Someone like Carl Jung could plunge for a short while each day into “madness” as he chisels on granite blocks and as he prepared the visual illustrations and the narrative (written in beautiful old Gothic script) in his Red Book (Jung, 2009). An artist such as Edvard Munch, can enter his Oslo Norward studio and create a series of deeply troubling paintings depicting anguish and despair without slipping into deep depression himself. Thomas Wolfe (2011) retains his sanity while write “madly” on tablets about his troubled childhood in North Carolina and about his inability to ever “go home again.” We protect ourselves and find support inside ourselves for insightful and creative endeavors, while pushing the boundaries of emotional regulation.
The Thin Place
Finally, I wish to comment on the special place where Kurt Jung (and his uncle) does their work. This is also the special place where Carl Jung went “mad” and where Mitch Lauridsen found a bit of “madness” himself. Contemporary psychotherapists would identify the safe setting provided by the Jungs as a “container” for the anxiety that inevitably arise in depth-based psychotherapy and organizational consultation. Matt Miles identifies these as temporary settings where people can explore and play with alternative behaviors. These are also sanctuaries where we can re-habilitate, learn and even transform (Bergquist, Weitz and Pomerantz, 2026).
There is another term that might be applied. This term comes from those who seek to describe the remarkable insights and commitments that arise in especially spiritual locations around the world. These locations were called Thin Places by the Celtics. They are called “thin” because only a thin boundary between the grounded reality of our everyday life (the secular) and the ethereal reality of the transcendental and transformative (the sacred). Some thin places have been well-known to spiritual seekers for centuries and have become popular places of pilgrimage, such as the isle of Iona and Findhorn in Scotland, Lourdes in France and Sedona in the Unites States.
Thin places exist not only at physical locations (such as Lourdes, Findhorn, and Sedona) but also as moments or spaces in everyday life where the sacred is felt more intensely. These personal thin places are particular to our own experience of a divine presence. and serve as touchstones as we allow the spiritual to enter our life. They can be the sources of Awe that Dacher Keltner (Keltner, 2023) identifies—such as enthralling landscapes, beautiful or historic architectural sites, or dynamic, changing seashores. The experience of a thin place often brings clarity, spiritual renewal, and a sense of intimacy with the Divine.
