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Juliana Hatfield Might Be In Love: Carl Jung

By the time Juliana Hatfield had reached her mid-20s, she’d become the poster girl for ’90s indie rock. She was looked upon as the thinking person’s alternative to the riot-grrrl phenomenon, and the future seemed rosy. Hatfield had formed revered combo the Blake Babies, launched a red-hot solo career, played bass on the breakthrough Lemonheads album and gained national attention when she told Interview magazine she was still a virgin and wasn’t too worried about it. The backlash from those without much of an attention span was inevitable. In the ensuing years, Hatfield has honed her art and produced a wealth of stirring, self-confident albums. Peace & Love, out next week on her Ye Olde label, is an utterly sincere revelation that proves well worth the wait. Hatfield will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our exclusive excerpt from her 2008 memoir and our brand new Q&A with her.

carljung

Hatfield: Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud were contemporaries. Freud is arguably the more famous and influential, but I always thought Jung made a lot more sense. Freud sexualizes everything—places way too much emphasis on the libido as a motivating force—and that, to me, is limiting and annoying. But Jung’s idea of the unconscious—of our true, deep Selves—went way deeper than sex. Spirituality, dreams, art and history were just as important to who we are as biology. Jung wasn’t just another egghead clinician. He constantly put his own theories and techniques (dream analysis, active imagination, drawing/painting/writing, etc.) into practice in his own life. He practiced what he preached. In Jungian analysis, I learned to pay close attention to my nighttime dreams, because, as Jung said, dreams are giving us important coded information about things we might be confused about in waking life. Jung also reinforced my instinctive belief that exploring my emotional problems through creativity/art is an extremely worthwhile pursuit not just for me but for anyone struggling with identity problems. Or any problems, really. Jung came up with the concepts of the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, synchronicity and lots more. It all makes so much sense to me. I have become a happier person over the years—more at peace and at home with myself, thanks to Jung’s writings.