The spiral of plastic pollution: a compensatory urge from the collective unconscious for an ecological‐psychological transformation of civilization

• Published in: Journal of Analytical Psychology
• Main Author: Bucher, Susanna
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2022
• Subjects: Arctic; Eros
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1468-5922.12861; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1468-5922.12861; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full-xml/10.1111/1468-5922.12861

Abstract This article explores the symbolism of plastic pollution. Plastic and microplastic particles are now found everywhere – in the Arctic, in deep ocean trenches, in human organs – and plastic accumulates in our oceans forming gigantic spiral‐shaped garbage patches. Both spiral symbolism and E.A. Poe’s ‘Maelström’ are suggestive of a necessary fundamental ecological‐psychological transformation of our one‐sidedly logos‐dominated civilization. Plastic, the author argues, has become a carrier of our longing for immortality: in plastic, humanity has synthesized an ‘immortal’, a virtually non‐biodegradable substance. To avert what Jung called a ‘catastrophic enantiodromia’, humanity must relinquish its ecologically and psychologically detrimental consumerist mentality and jump into the unknown towards a less resource‐intensive lifestyle. The author’s dream about sea salt and spiral‐shaped marine animals is interpreted as a compensatory urge from the collective unconscious for humanity to reconnect to inner and outer nature by cultivating the neglected eros principle – feeling‐based relatedness – as a felt realization that we are part of nature on which we depend. Instead of succumbing to paralyzing fear or denial, the author argues for facing the abyss of our ecological‐psychological crisis and acting, informed by science. For ecological‐psychological transformation, Jungian psychology can play an important role.