Dear members of the depth psychology community,
Like many of you, I was stunned by the outcome of the U.S. Presidential election yesterday, November 8, and have spent the day mourning for so many things that feel like they have been lost. As a woman, I am keenly aware that the moment for electing our first woman president has evaporated, but on a much deeper level, I am also profoundly distressed by the election of someone who is so clearly disrepectful of women and lacks compassion and understanding for so many who are marginalized, including other minorities, other species, and planet itself. I wonder how all these deep feelings, including anger, are going to be manifest in coming weeks, months, and years.
Like some of you, also, I seem to bounce between feeling numb and being distraught, even questioning on some level what role I play in all of this, and whether the calling I feel to make depth psychology more accessible in the world actually does a bit of good on some many levels. And yet, I know I must have hope: hope for our future, for our young people and generations to come; for everyone who is suffering and will continue to suffer in the face of a political system that favors certain groups over others.
We live in a world that is as challenged as it has ever been, and yet I maintain a powerful faith in the patterns at work in a world where change is the only constant. I know there is something bigger at work. I am certain I see only a narrow slice of what's at work. I believe in the idea that nature is constantly reaching out to us to pull us back from the brink of extinction (an idea I first encountered in Jerome Bernstein's groundbreaking work, Living in the Borderland.) Some part of me wonders if Donald Trump had to be elected because it will serve as a catalyst to something new; because people will be more innovative in creating change, be inspired to action in a different way, collaborate together with those they may not have engaged with before.
Ten years ago I experienced a profound awakening of my own—so powerful it sent me into what Stan Grof aptly terms "spiritual emergency"—basically, when something spiritual happens that sends one spiraling into emergency. Somehow, at that time, I believe I managed to tap into something bigger than me, a pattern at work in which I play a part and which is playing out not only for the good of each of us individually, but for us as a collective, a species which is resilient, conscious, and able to evolve and learn and love one another. What I experienced then was a taste of what we truly are as divine souls, and the stunning realization that as earthly beings caught up in human bodies and conditioned by culture outside our control, we have truly "settled" for something we can't begin to grasp. Each of us is different, and perceives our lives on earth in different ways, and we each must find our way to carry the torch for new beginnings, for hope in humanity, for belief that we can truly evolve as a species. I think being willing to participate in community is one of the ways these things can manifest. I hope you believe that too.
If anyone feels moved to share your own thoughts and feelings about all of this, please feel free to respond below. If you have criticisms or comments on political parties or policies, maybe your forum is elsewhere. If you wish to provide a depth psychological response or lens, or simply an authentic contribution (it could even be in the form of art or poetry), please respond below, and let us each hold one another in love, compassion, and a willingness to hold the tension as much as we possibly can.
Replies
Good afternoon Skye – thank you for your great responses and poignant direction. To describe the healing journey towards ease, removal of manifest symptoms of self and collective abuse in the collective psyche and world body... is a fabulous one. I considerate myself a natural artist endowed genetically, plus a core passion. In junior high school, my career path presented with the offering by my art teacher and her belief my talents warranted an art scholarship, however, as life circumstance, callings would have it, my passion in the arts remains at the heart and soul of me, but was not my bread and butter career, service position.
At this time in my life, I have the momentum to bring myself, share and expand my participation in additional grassroots movements…always towards the healing of core trauma impact wounds…willingness to share my life’s work and research …originating at birth [footling breech, NDE] birthright calling, thrust with propulsion into a front-line and life long service of critical care within the fields of nursing, counselling + Psychotraumatology. I remain internally and externally motivated towards core, inner child and nascent beings expressions and voices being heard previously silenced and grossly misunderstood and underestimated.
I agree with you there is a readiness for both an InDepth, plus a virtual [OnLine] approach to working through and always towards the healing of life-threatening challenges facing humanity. I join you wholeheartedly with your suggested depth community direction. Peace + Love Linda
Thank you Brinda
...and to this lovely giant moon, hidden in the fog here where I am..trusting in the invisible power of her nearness.
Thank you!
Indeed, so true,I discover that compassionate action is the correct response to fear.
In keeping with the thread, theme "on my needle" that is pricking at the very finer, core of my being "Liberating the Magical Child Within," my tears shed on Veteran's Day [Remembrance Day] passed, however, it was a weekend, and civil unrest remained in my neighbours streets [lots of media coverage], plus spread to other places in the world.
President Obama is following protocol aimed at a smooth transition and Senator Clinton is actively grieving [blame stage] her loss. Collectively, mass "active" street protestors are a presence to behold and they are demanding that authorities [all of us] around the world take note, pay attention, and address some of their unmet needs, unresolved issues, and frustrations from the past emerging in the now.
For me, I see the street children of yesteryear who are now adults once again taking to the streets! I see them as a re-emergence. Childhood legacies of neglect and abuse, still intact and carried deeply inside for decades now, but taking their stories in tow and back to the streets. For thirty years, I have followed and tried to be helpful regarding the silent exiled children of America.
Are you watching the news and do you see the demonstrators faces? Do you see any magical child within any of them - the nascent beings? I see some crying, but so many are yelling - profanities…bringing forth the expression of their own internal hostilities, untold stories, unresolved issues – thwarted fight and flight triggered and resurrected from their childhood memory banks, leading them back…into the streets for our present day culture to behold. Who cares - we do?
Too many children continue to experience domestic and now cultural violence...so much struggle to exist, running into the streets to flee 'home' and do they find this felt sense of home out there in the street? We refer to them as emancipated young adults and many rely on social services, the charities [i.e. Covenant House] for their on-going existence that rests upon the shoulders of the ‘United Way’ and many other good Samaritans type organizations – seeking donations of money, time or talent - participate in some way to provide street children with the refuge and humanitarian aid... these lost souls failed to receive at home in their childhoods.
After listening to stories of childhood neglect and abuse for half a century, this is what I now know - the only thing that has changed is the child’s name. We still have too many homeless street children. What I want to know is why has North American civilization accepted the “taking to the streets” as an option for our children, emancipated young adults and why has reactionary street protests become the culture norm?
This premature movement of generalized emancipation is one of the aftermath effects of the social experiment of the fifties - the ‘Father Knows Best’ case scenario which is over, and family life, as I once lived has died during my lifetime. Too many violent acts committed, both at home and on the streets are deplorable, and I wonder, “Who looks out for and sees the faces of the magical child within?”
If we are fortunate enough to survive childhood, we take all our experiences along with us from the cradle to the grave – with choice [or not]. Most children launch [leave home], and set sail on the greatest adventure – life in distress buried deep. We all meet other people for a reason, season [or two] or a lifetime. Lifetime relationships are rare. Sometimes, we are messengers. Sometimes we are mirrors, and on rare occasions we are both for each other. There is much mystery and diversity inherent in the human condition.
How well infants and children are nurtured, kept safe and secure, and can depend upon others to meet basic needs – the feed me, want me, need me, and love me “core” essentials blueprint – affects the remainder of life. It is essential infants and children receive the due care and attention they need in order to grow, develop, and mature with a sense of confidence, ability to trust oneself, and others in their homes, schools, communities, countries...the world. We remain interdependent for the remainder of our lives.
The aftermath affects of childhood neglect and abuse fill numerous documents and some facts are undeniable and predictable (See for example, Vincent Feliti’s work on Adverse Childhood Experiences). Surviving unwanted or abusive experience[s], especially during childhood, violates, betrays, and deeply wounds on all levels. Shattered childhood trust buried deeply in silence becomes a malevolent, malignant force to contain and deal with later in life.
Silence is a cornerstone of domestic violence and abuse and the secrets buried deep at core levels are trans-generational in nature - traumatogenic, meaning we are imprinted, blueprinted with a genetic predisposition to pass on our wounds [patterns] into future generations.
I am following the street children who have been taking themselves to the streets for over thirty years now and doing my best to help some of them heal the wounds that inevitable has the power to bind us, if we do not change our ways and thinking regarding the care and protection of nascent beings!
This past weekend It was so nerve wracking, painful watching the reactionary "taking it to the streets" protest [doom + gloom nasties], I could hardly wait for my US neighbours to get back to work and get this flood of news coverage [radio, TV air waves] out of the air we all breathe.
We all play our part, there is so much recovery work to do. Thank you friends for this holding space as I tend to my own particular piece for as long as I am helpful - the needle and thread of the exiled, silenced, neglected, abused and more times than we want to admit - missing and murdered children.
Peace + Love Linda
Linda, I appreciate the reminder of the magical child within. For me child abuse, among other human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, is the most soul shattering and poignant representation of humanity's overall self-abuse. What healing must occur to ease and remove the evidence and manifest symptoms of self-abuse in the collective psyche and the world body?
Ian, my website (www.skyeburn.com) is under reconstruction. When the new site is launched (in a couple weeks) you can find links to articles exploring the connection between art-making and leadership, which I wrote on behalf of The Flow Project, as well as a list of earlier philosophical essays. In general, in addition to Jungian theory, I have found chaos theory and systems thinking helpful in understanding the relationship between the individual and collective psyche (especially the concepts of fractals, holons, and self-organization). For specific books and articles that have shaped and contributed to my thinking, I encourage you (and anyone else) to contact me directly by e-mail through my website.
When I began The Flow Project, I did a comprehensive literature review to discover other authors focusing on the connection between art-making and leadership, which was useful in identifying and positioning TFP contributions. My work on the social applications of depth psychology has not previously called for a literature review, just enough to develop my own ideas. If there is interest in growing the field of depth psychology to encompass the societal applications, I would be happy to participate in a literature review to discover who is doing the work and what is being said, as well as to identify places where understanding is lacking. As examples, Mary Watkins' article on shame, which Bonnie shared earlier, Thomas Singer's work on cultural complexes, and Karin Jironet's work could be included.
TFP uses a combination of grounded theory to analyze research data (using N*Vivo software) and action research to discover applications. A similar process could perhaps be used to analyze the reviewed depth psychology literature to discover core elements, principles and practices, and concerns.
As an artist, I am aware the work has a life and intelligence of its own. If depth psychology wants to establish itself as a resource for social policy and governance, in addition to being a resource for individual self-development, it will happen through an alliance. It will happen through momentum developed on the grassroots level, in the cells of the world body. The archetypal forces at work in the world cannot be understood in their full complexity from a single point of view. The archetypal patterns unfolding globally in the dynamic of culture require multifaceted analysis, developed and grounded through the working-out of diverse perspectives and interpretations. Wise intervention requires weighing factors and needs more than one voice to weigh-in. Cohesive strategies that offer more than fragmentary solutions must be vetted by a community of experts who contribute to the commonwealth of experience and enunciate concerns that must not be overlooked. I sense readiness for a depth psychology approach to resolving the life-threatening challenges facing humanity, but only time will tell if the work wants to go in this direction.
Bonnie, thank you once again for providing this forum.
Thank you for this forum, Bonnie and everyone here,
We are caught between hope and despair at this moment. Something new must be born out of the chaos. I am grateful that this thread is here. I just stumbled upon it. We need the threads to weave a web of new hope in the despair. Lighting our individual candles in the darkness, as a community dedicated to understanding, compassion and to soul, we can move through these time, we stand on the brink of a new paradigm. It is terrifying as we must surrender to the times and live moment by moment by instinct, intuition and by connection with one another. Grateful to be with you all at this Kairos moment.
Indeed, these times can't be defined literally nor intellectually but must be lived and experienced
so as to bring to consciousness what is still raw, coarse, undefined, unknown and unaccepted yet.
Besides Jung, we have also some magnificent authors, mentors whose visions are most invaluable specially common to our times...like let’s find the thing that’s worthy of us and give ourselves to it. I am talking about Passion and Creativity. To break the grief with grit, I am thinking mostly of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on Creativity, Angela Duckworth on Grit, etc...Kairos, Chaos, Pluto, Saturn, Mercury, Neptune, Uranus...all concerned in these times of this Scorpio/Taurus Full Moon as from yesterday. The Moon has not been so close to us...the last time was some 70+ years back! The Old has to go back to be reshuffled and renewed, so to speak...One great example, for us, Mothers with kids, that can be viewed as inspiring, no?
Angela says that she has one ultimate concern for her professional life as well as being committed to being an extraordinary mother to her two daughters“... my top-level, life-organizing goal is, and will be until my last breath: Use psychological science to help kids thrive.”
Lighting my candle, too, Eva! Thank You!
Being a person educated in psychology and a career in technology I've witnessed the displacement of work from people to machine. It has provided me an income and security unavailable to many whose jobs have migrated overseas. The insecurity present in job loss was experienced when I was 55 years into my journey. After 25 years of corporate "loyalty", continued growth from computer operator to network engineer, and salary that would be rewarding. It took a year to secure employment, and the depression that emerged was profound. Fortunately employment became available, and the insecurity present during unemployment provided an insight to what those unemployed in industries that have migrated abroad. Personal as well as theoretical application is a part of my experience.
It's this angst that Depth Psychology helped me to cope with my shadow, and not succumb to the images found in depression. The painted images and written words by Jung helped sustain a relationship with them as alive, and living in and through me. Absent access to this knowledge would have made depression so daunting that projection would be my only defense. In the midst of this projection blame for others could become all consuming. When messiah comes along, speaks words in a manner appealing to my vulnerability, can I actually access rational thought for my emotional condition. Birds of a feather flock together, no drunk likes drinking alone, and once oppressed only to become oppressor.
Given this as backdrop, then my response will be join in resistance to the dark images presented during the campaign. Steve Schmidt, a Republican campaign strategist expressed concern that facism doesn't emerge because it's powerful, but because democracy is weak. (http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-news/watch/trump-refuses-to-say-he-will-...) Popular vote versus Electoral College. DNC conduct to take sides and then have e-mails made available to wiki-leaks. Experience of a foreign power intentionally influencing an american election. The world, as captured here, running the gambit of emotional reaction attempting to gather sufficient data for some rational evaluation. Democracy can't exist with just one person, but requires participation by those desiring a government of the people, by the people, for the people. Corporations being granted the rights of a person layed the foundation for oligarchy to get a foot hold.
In the event democracy goes dormant to occupy a latent existence in the unconscious, then the collective psyche can accept the promise that only DJT can solve the problem. How easy, simple, and so little effort on my part. Jobs will soon be coming back to america. Not just jobs, but well paying manufacturing jobs with benefits and retirement! It's a promise good enough to get elected, but will it be achieved in global terms. Only time will tell, but in the mean time let's be doing something to speak to the people.
Religious activists began to infiltrate the republican party in the middle 80's. Focus on the Family with James Dobson, Randall Terry with Operation Rescue (often used war imagery on the radio), and Lloyd John Ogilvie adopted a political direction to their radio programs. Possibly an appropriate, adequate, and substantive response can provide an opportunity for those whose imagination conjures the image necessary to respond.
Enough said, and my appreciation for the heart felt contbibutions that lead me here.
Great post Bud - very enlightening. Many thanks for your moving words and insights re: the impact of job loss (and accompanying income insecurity) on the psyche. It is much under-emphasised as a core anxiety by many who have never experienced it. The idea that anger/frustration projected externally might be a defense against depression/psychic dissolution is food for thought indeed. As a child I witnessed my father grapple with job insecurity in mid-life, and the psychic scars of that experience brought me to depth psychology.I know what you are talking about and it is the reason we should never underestimate the economic inputs to the 'shadow' or to the unconscious generally. The unconscious is always, in part, social.
Such life challenges are particularly difficult to process for men taught to find self-worth in work, economic independence and the ability to provide financially for their families. Neoliberalism TELLS them it is their fault, that they are failures, to blame, etc. - to cover up its own shortcomings and hidden agendas (i.e. wealth transfer on a massive scale upwards has been the global story). It blames its victims. We hear this kind of shaming all the time - particularly via the conservative press/media (at least here in Australia).
Undoing that narrative in therapy is tough going for many - and finding meaningful work is probably the better cure. I am really thankful that you got through it and can pass on your experiences/thoughts/strategies etc. to others. Your insights are also profoundly relevant to what we've been discussing, since casualisation, downsizing/job losses, degradation of workplaces conditions, stagnant wages etc. have been the story of middle and lower income Americans (and workers in many other countries) for decades. A thought: was Donald Trump elected, in part, as an instinctive attempt by millions of Americans to unconsciously ward off serious mental health problems arising out of economic distress?? Put that way the deeper story of the election begins to look very different indeed. Likewise, the strategies needed to ward off the coming fallout for other groups in society. Desperate instinctive hope is a powerful motivator and group unifier, and anyone, or any real world failures, that might take that hope away may not register for the 'hopeful/faithful' ones for some time, since denial of reality is being used to ward off personal psychic collapse/engulfment.
Thank you Skye. Trump consciously recognized and tapped the ever growing socioeconomic disenchantment of the disenfranchised law abiding and patriotic majority in America. He rode their discontent all the way into the White House. He definitely did not create the mess and perilous condition America finds itself in today. Making him the scapegoat and demon for this problem is a nonstarter.
The original three leading republican contenders all ran on anti establishment tickets. Trump. Cruz. Carson. And together vote wise in the primaries they totally kicked butt. On the other side Bernie Sanders also ran on an anti establishment ticket. If the DNC did not have a lock on the outcome of the primary delegate selection process it is more than likely Bernie would have been the Democrat candidate. The discontent in America is ubiquitous. Meaning many Sander's Democrats wanted change as well, but regarded Trump's right wing approach to making those changes shockingly unacceptable and downright frightening.
We are at a turning point in history. Our barbaric undisciplined and untamed human nature emanating from Gaia if you prefer is threatening to unleash another cataclysmic bout of chaos and destruction on humanity. The myth of the warring twins might better encapsulate and explain what lies behind this threat of the catastrophic resurgence of the Unconscious forces in the America today.
Stop the demonizing. The people who voted for Trump have been disenfranchised from participating in the pursuit of the American dream. For the most part they are decent law abiding citizens who want to peacefully recapture their position and place in America today. Their desperate and hopeless situation must be addressed before the real demagogues come forth from within their ranks and attempt to forcefully retake their inalienable rights as American citizens. That would represent the emergence of real fascism.
Those who are shocked and revulsed by the upsetting of the political applecart and are not members of the status quo/establishment are situated on the left and politically correct side of the spectrum. These advocates constitute the other sibling in the warring twins constellation. And their battalions are already beginning to be mobilized to march in the streets of America today. This side promises to create the brotherhood of man if you put them in power. When the untameable element of human nature thwarts their idealistic view of human nature they will then resort to using whatever force is necessary as they did in the Soviet Union to retain their power. The psychic malady that created the great European holocaust circa 1914 to 1945 with over 100 million killed is threatening to emerge again. The warring twins...
Jungian's should be careful when taking sides in this great psychic reckoning. They should be attempting to define and analyze the crisis that is confronting America and ultimately our civilization. Balancing the opposites and restoring equilibrium to the civilizational psychic equation is the optimum solution. War is the alternative. I don't think either side will like the outcome of the later solution.
I've thrown in a few more statistics to show the state of the situation for the majority of Americans today.
$50,000 a year will get you living in a illegal basement apartment . Average rent for a ONE bedroom in NYC ? $3400 per month .
Family of 4 with $68,000 income qualifies for 'public housing ' in NYC
My Obamacare bill is bigger than most peoples mortgage !
Median income of Americans 65+ is $19,167
“Jungian's should be careful when taking sides in this great psychic reckoning. They should be attempting to define and analyze the crisis that is confronting America and ultimately our civilization. Balancing the opposites and restoring equilibrium to the civilizational psychic equation is the optimum solution. War is the alternative. I don't think either side will like the outcome of the later solution.”
I graciously return this projection while suggesting that indepth psychology requires that we bring the conflict within.
The warring twins
Within
CJ Jung from the RB: “This war (the great war) has pitilessly revealed to civilized man that he is still a barbarian ... But the psychology of the individual corresponds to the psychology of the nation. What the nation does is done also by each individual, and so long as the individual does it, the nation also does it. Only the change in the attitude of the individual is the beginning of the change in the psychology of the nation"
Forty years on the path, me. And yet I am humbled and thoroughly rattled awake by what now seems to be (after the initial shock and despair) the beginning of the end of one world order. For me, I believe what Hillman, Edinger, and so many others have predicted—that this transition to conscious individuals reflecting outward to the world integration and wholeness could take 100-200 years. Eva, that is my hope. Today I feel extremely heartened now only by the postings on our forum and the support of my local community, but a growing awareness of gratitude that I am alive to witness and work with inwardly, the Event of a week ago.
I feel fortunate to read on this forum so many wonderful inward-inspired and emotional truths words from both men and women. Overall, I feel our ancestor Jung would be proud.
Love to all, Pamela
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