Sichuan Earthquake : December 2009 Update

To : The IAAP, Hester Solomon (President) and Jungian colleagues,

At the approach of the Chinese New Year of 2010, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude, on behalf of the Chinese Association of Analytical Psychology, to IAAP and all the Jungians and peers who have been showing concern and solicitude for the WenChuan Earthquake in China.

On May 12, 2008, a magnitude Ms 8.0 earthquake struck Wenchuan, China. We, the Chinese Association of Analytical Psychology, made an immediate response and organized teams to go to the frontier of earthquake areas. We established seven workstations of "Garden of the Heart and Soul" to provide psychological aid and guidance. Successive volunteers of CAAP have been working there till now.

[editor's note: "It is also known as the Wenchuan earthquake, after the location of the earthquake's epicenter, Wenchuan County in Sichuan province.... 80 kilometres (50 mi) west-northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan...." Wikipedia]

The IAAP principals and many other Jungian colleagues sent immediate emails to express their concern and solicitude. Thomas Kirsch and Jean Kirsch provided the first financial support; Luigi Zoja and Eva Pattis Zoja, together with their children, came to the earthquake area to help us. Later, many other Jungian colleagues supported our work in various kinds of ways, including free on-line supervision, sending related books and so on. Our heartful gratitude should be conveyed to IAAP and all the Jungian colleagues again for your warm support. Now we are gratified to announce that our Jungian teams are the promptest in reaction, the most persistent and effective in work among all the professional teams participating in the psychological intervention in the quake region. Our effort and hard work have been fully reported by the media in China and abroad, and our teams have been honored by the local governments in Sichuan Province and the Central Government in Beijing.

I have always seen our work as self-redemption, or "Saving Ourselves." The voluntary work in Wenchuan has thrown us, Jungian psychoanalysis and sandplay therapy into real practice. At the same time, it has also provided us the opportunity to get in touch with and get inspiration from the Qiang Minority, one of the most ancient populations in Chinese culture, and its archetype.

Although we Chinese have always called ourselves the descendants of the Yan Emperor and the Yellow Emperor, the dominating influence has come from the Yellow Emperor and the Totem of the Dragon. However, the Yan Emperor had initiated Chinese agriculture, farming and medicine before the era of the Yellow Emperor, and his Image of Phoenix has been reserved in the Qiang Minority and their culture in the earthquake area. For example, the Chinese characters,

"beauty," "cultivate," "kindness," and "righteousness" are closely related and have some connections with the archetype of "the Qiang Minority." A more ancient Chinese cultural ancestor as well as the creator of I Ching-- the Book of Changes, Fuxi, is also related closely to the Qiang Minority. As we know, the Chinese Characters themselves are readable archetypes.

From May 12, 2008 till January 25, 2010, around 300 people, members of the Chinese Association of Analytical Psychology, and students majoring in Analytic Psychology, have been working successively in the quake region. Meanwhile, we have set up 16 workstations of the "Garden of the Heart and Soul" in orphanages in Mainland China from 2006. We are bound to continue our work on the public welfare as far as it is possible.

The year of 2010 is the Year of Tiger in Chinese culture. Chinese people consider the tiger as the king of the mountain and animal, and in it contains the connotation of confidence and courage. I would like to use the following image of the Chinese ancient character for