About

The Book

Gaia, Psyche and Deep Ecology: Navigating Climate Change in the Anthropocene is an original depth-psychological approach to the environmental crisis. It draws on the author’s professional experience as an applied physicist, consulting scientist and strategist engaged with renewable energy and climate change, and subsequently as a Jungian Analyst. His ground-breaking synthesis of Gaia Theory, Analytical Psychology and Deep Ecology reveals crucial synergies that offer a new and potentially transformative worldview.

Starting from the Pauli-Jung conjecture, which suggests that the material and mental domains are complementary aspects of a deeper unified reality, the unus mundus, the author contends that the structure and dynamics of the natural world and of the psyche, as understood through Gaia Theory and Analytical Psychology respectively, are congruent because the two models are different maps of the same territory. The remarkable parallels thus identified between the ego and humankind, and between the Jungian Self and the world, bring fresh insight to the interrelated dangers of our “monotheism of consciousness” and of the Anthropocene epoch that constitute a mid-life challenge for our increasingly global civilisation, and perhaps even our species.

The environmental, social, political, economic and, at their common root, psychological implications of this turning point are radical and profound. Our extraordinary past success can be understood archetypally as heroic development which, the author argues, has succumbed to paralysing hubris and must now be transformed into sustainable individuation if we are to survive the Anthropocene. In this context, the theory and principles of the long- range Deep Ecology movement appear to offer the most rigorous and effective psychological and material approach. Significantly, they are also shown to mirror the shift of the centre of the personality from the ego to the Self in the individuation process within Analytical Psychology. These synergies show how and why we must re-vision our anthropocentric worldview if we are to live harmoniously and sustainably as equals in and with the natural world.

This book should be of interest not only to specialists in psychology, ecology and philosophy, but to all who realise that “business as usual” is no longer an option.

The Author

Andrew Fellows is a Jungian Analyst (AGAP/IAAP), deep ecologist and writer with private practices in Zürich and Bern. He holds a Doctorate in Applied Physics, and had many years of international professional engagement with renewable (especially wind) energy, sustainable development and energy policy. His special interests include the relationship between mind and matter, the anima mundi, the mid-life transition, the new sciences, and the use of Analytical Psychology to understand and address global collective problems, in particular climate change. More details are on his analytical practice website.