Book Title: The Archetypal Pan in America: Hyper masculinity and Terrorism
Publisher: Routledge
Year Published: 2018
Pacifica Program: MA Counseling
Graduation Year: 1995

The Archetypal Pan in America

The Archetypal Pan in America examines the complex moral and ethical dilemmas that Americans have had to face over the last few decades, including the motivations for the Vietnam War; who was in control of women’s productive rights; how to extend civil rights to all; protests for the historically unapologetic narrative of the genocide of Native Americans; and the growing number of school shootings since the Columbine massacre. Fontelieu suggests that the emotional pain these issues created has not resolved and that it continues to surface, in the guise of new issues, but with a similar dysfunctional pattern.

The book argues that this pattern acts in the culture in the same manner as a psychological defense system: stimulating fight, flight, or freeze reactions; requiring great stores of energy when activated; and deflecting attention from other areas. Relying on Jung’s theory of the applicability of myth to psychological problems and the post-Jungian theory of cultural complexes, the myths of the Greek god Pan are used to scaffold a metaphor that informs this pattern. Fontelieu proposes that, rather than looking inward as a culture for how to accept its changing role in a global world, this pattern reinforces dysfunctional emotional responses to the reoccurring traumas of modernity, responses such as an increase in the magnetic appeal of hypermasculinity, or choosing to remain naively self-absorbed.

The Archetypal Pan in America will be of great interest to Jungian analysts and scholars of depth psychology, as well as academics and postgraduate students studying psychology, foreign studies, literary criticism, politics and cultural studies.

“A compelling shadow history of America envisioned through the mythic lens of the god Pan. Both deeply meditative and eminently practical Sukey Fontelieu’s study capture unacknowledged themes percolating throughout the collective psychology of the US from inception to the present. The socio-political analysis displays the potency of an archetypal approach to culture, identifying what has been quite difficult to capture in more mundane analyses. Eschewing easy solutions we are brought to wrestle with our reflections in a silvered mirror of depth psychological craft. Have a long look.”

Joe Cambray, Ph.D, President/CEO, Pacifica Graduate Institute.

About Sukey Fontelieu

Sukey Fontelieu has been on the faculty of Pacifica since 2000 and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who practices Jungian-based psychotherapy in Santa Barbara. She brings her creative background in film and writing to her current work as an educator and psychotherapist. Her upcoming publication, The Archetypal Pan in America: Hypermasculinity and Terrorism, reflects her research interest in amplifying cultural events through applications of Jungian and mythological theory.