Soul - Blogs - Depth Psychology Alliance2024-03-28T13:14:15Zhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/SoulSeeking Personal Transformation? Soul-Centered Coaching Offers Powerful Possibilitieshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/seeking-personal-transformation-soul-centered-coaching-offers-pow2022-11-09T03:01:58.000Z2022-11-09T03:01:58.000ZBonnie Brighthttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/BonnieBright<div><p><a href="https://depthinsights.com/soul-centered-coaching/#meeting" target="_blank"><img class="align-full" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10877916655,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10877916655?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a><strong><a href="https://depthinsights.com/soul-centered-coaching/#meeting" target="_blank">Reach out today to see if there is availability</a> </strong>for free sessions of soul-centered coaching with an advanced practitioner</p><p><strong>Soul-Centered Coaching</strong></p><p>The word “psyche” actually means “soul” in Greek (Hillman, 1989), and the Greek philosopher Heraclitus posited the importance of the soul as long as 2500 years ago (Hillman, 1995). C. G. Jung, widely acknowledged alongside well-known pioneers like William James and Sigmund Freud as one of the founders of the field of psychology, emphasized the importance of soul in his work—so much so that the Index to Jung’s <em>Collected Works </em>devotes seven columns to the heading “soul.”</p><p>"Soul-centered coaching" is a term I adopted early in my client practice to describe the process of guiding and mentoring anyone who is looking for personal transformation by engaging <strong>somatic, symbolic,</strong> and <strong>shamanic</strong> approaches. Based on tenets of <strong>Depth psychology</strong>, founded in large part by Sigmund Freud and Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung in the early 20th century; on <strong>Transpersonal psychology</strong> which emerged in the late 1960s, founded by Stanislav Grof, Abraham Maslow, and others; and on <strong>Archetypal psychology</strong>, created by contemporary Jungian, James Hillman (d. 2011), soul-centered coaching seeks to help individuals reconnect with their authentic self, overcome programming that no longer serves, and uncover their gifts and calling in his life time.</p><p>As a certified transpersonal (soul-centered) coach, I have found the field of depth/transpersonal coaching to be an exciting and stimulating practice that offers opportunities for profound self-exploration, learning, and transformation. Unlike many forms of coaching, which rely on cognitive-behavioral techniques to shift attitudes and habits, soul-centered coaching is based on both psychological and spiritual tenets that empower both coach and client to connect with deeper, more creative, and more peaceful and powerful aspects of ourselves through engaging with the unconscious.</p><p><strong>Accessing the Unconscious</strong></p><p>Thanks to Jung and his colleague, Sigmund Freud, contemporary coaches and psychologists have developed an understanding that both the personal unconscious (Freud’s theory that each of us is affected by everything we experience and may have repressed or suppressed), and the collective unconscious (Jung’s (1969) notion of the “whole spiritual heritage of mankind’s evolution”(para. 342), which encompasses the soul of humanity at large, and is “born anew in the brain structure of every individual” (para. 342) ).</p><p>Both the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious play a critical role in our developmental process and our capacity to break through to a new understanding of the soul. So, if depth and transpersonal psychologies engage the soul, and soul is what helps us make meaning of our suffering, then depth and transpersonal coaching offer a soul-centered approach that relies on plumbing the depths of the unconscious (both personal and collective) in order to make meaning and help clients transform.</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10877922087,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10877922087,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10877922087?profile=RESIZE_400x" width="350" /></a>In practice, soul-centered coaching not only helps clients to overcome limiting beliefs, difficult emotions, and negative reactions that can stand in the way of happiness and success, it also helps them create new possibilities in their lives (Dangeli, 2018). As a relatively new field, it draws on a variety of theories and techniques embraced by soul-centered (transpersonal) counseling, including mindfulness, meditation, intuition, somatic practices, ritual, and shamanic perspectives, among others (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2016). This unique combination of transpersonal ideas and focus makes transpersonal coaching a deeply creative process that stimulates and engages each individual on multiple levels of mind, body, and spirit.</p><p><strong>*** Opportunity to Try Soul-Centered Coaching***</strong></p><p>If you feel called to the idea of working with a soul-centered coach, many of the advanced students in the 1-2 Year Certificate Programs in Soul-Centered Coaching Psychology at the Institute for Soul-Centered Coaching and Psychology offer sessions free of charge or at low introductory rates in order to complete requisite practicum hours with real clients. If you are interested in awakening to new truths about who you really are as a “spiritual being having a human experience,” or if you are seeking to break through old patterns, increase your creativity, and achieve greater freedom, joy, and serenity, please <strong><a href="https://depthinsights.com/soul-centered-coaching/#meeting" target="_blank">reach out today to see if there is availability</a> </strong>for you to benefit from this exciting, transformative, and deeply soulful modality: Soul-Centered Coaching</p></div>Launch something new …and take the step that’s big enoughhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/launch-something-new-and-take-the-step-that-s-big-enough2017-11-22T22:30:00.000Z2017-11-22T22:30:00.000ZKim Hermanson, Ph.D.https://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/KimHermansonPhD<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142466657,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="250" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142466657,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" alt="9142466657?profile=original" /></a>When people are ready to launch something new (…a workshop, a business, a creative work of art), they’ll sometimes take steps that are too small for them. This often stems from a fear of expressing their true vision. It also happens when they’re concerned about spending money on something that has an unknown outcome (…when we launch something new, we are by definition stepping into unknown territory).</p><p>For example, my client Mary wrote up a workshop description that she’d been talking about for months. She was finally launching her own work into the world…bravo! But she ended up “hedging” in the writing of it. Instead of sharing her true vision, she wrote something more conservative and restrained, something that seemed safer and more acceptable. Something that was more similar to what <em>other</em> people in her field were doing, rather than the original and unique work that she has to offer.</p><p>Sarah, a visual artist, took the wonderful step of renting studio space but ended up settling for a studio that was too small. In our session, what became clear is that her soul really wanted a studio that would be big enough to display several large canvases at once, so that the energies and themes would interact and play off one another. What Sarah really needs right now is SPACE. She won’t always need space, but right now, her work needs big space.</p><p>Of course, it’s <em>great</em> that both Mary and Sarah took these steps. But those steps aren’t going to be fully satisfying (or workable in the long run), because they weren’t <em>big </em>enough. Marsha moved into a small studio, and then realized it wasn’t a match for the work she was being called to do. She ultimately packed up everything and moved again. Mary had a nice experience teaching, but the participants didn’t get to see what she <em>really</em> had to offer because she was hiding it. She missed an opportunity to grow her <em>own</em> work.</p><p>I don’t want to diminish the importance of taking steps, but the truth is this: Often, when we don’t take the <em>big step</em> when it’s in front of us, it ends up costing us <em>more</em> time, energy, money and resources.</p><p>If you’re wondering about the size of the step that’s in front of you right now, please join me for my upcoming teleclass with <a href="http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/events/launch-your-soul-s-calling-with-the-power-of-metaphor">Depth Psychology Alliance</a>: </p><p><a href="http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/events/launch-your-soul-s-calling-with-the-power-of-metaphor"><strong>Launch Your Soul’s Calling: Tapping Core Shamanic Energies & Guidance</strong></a></p><p><strong>December 8th, 1 – 3 pm PST. $45 includes recording of the class.</strong></p><p><strong><a href="https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eetxct228cd8c467&oseq=&c=&ch=">Click here to register!</a></strong></p><p></p><p>In the teleclass, you’ll be able to metaphorically see the vision and experience the energies of what your soul wants to create. You’ll have the added advantage of being able to work with me individually with your vision..</p><p>When we work with metaphor, we enter the sacred third space that lies beyond our mind’s <em>perception</em> of our work or situation. In third space, we know and can <em>profoundly feel the deep truth of what wants to be created</em>, and our alignment with it.</p><p>I invite you to take a pause from your busy life to feel/sense/see your own deep creative energies and how they want to move and express right now<em>.</em></p><p>So your next step will be big enough for you.</p></div>Chicken or Egg?https://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/chicken-or-egg2016-02-28T08:00:00.000Z2016-02-28T08:00:00.000ZJennifer M. Sandoval, PhDhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/JenniferMSandovalPhD<div><p></p><p>An interesting question to me is the chicken or egg question. I get distracted by this question. What comes first, cognition or affect, thought or emotion? Do I choose to feel what I feel at some level, or does it just happen to me? How autonomous am I in determining the quality of my own life? Do I have emotions, or do they have me?</p><p>Historically, as we know, Plato thought that emotions were just one component of the mind, along with desire and intellect. Aristotle on the other hand, made emotions a central part of our identity, and thought character was determined by our ability to <i>learn</i> to feel a certain way in the face of particular events. And Hume further elevates emotion – “reason is and ought to be the slave of the passions.”</p><p>In Judeo-Christian thought there is one God who created the universe, such that everything created by God is outside of and separate from Him. God creates something, and then lets it exist externally to Himself. God <i>created</i> the tree, God is not <i>in</i> the tree. The way we understand our universe and ourselves is through the perception of external objects.</p><p>Along these lines, William James famously proposed that emotions occur as a result of physiological reactions to external events. According to this theory, the perception of an external stimulus leads to a physiological reaction, which <b>is</b> the emotion. James thus maintained, for example, that "we feel sad because we cry…and not that we cry…because we are sad " (James 1884, 190).<a href="#_edn1" title="">[i]</a></p><p>Spinoza, on the other hand, says there is just one reality, one substance, and we are it. We are made of the same stuff as God and not separate from Him. The concept of our existence is not one that is arrived at through <b>external</b> sense perception but through an act of <b>inner</b> understanding.</p><p>The question of external and internal seems important here. Are we discrete personal beings, constantly reacting to external sensory stimuli and trying to cope with that? Or is it the other way around? Does what is inner determine how we perceive the outer? </p><p>In 1912, Freud talked about the use of normal projection as establishing the image of the external world. Grottstein notes that in fact “the external world is actually built up as projections of our perceptions and beliefs about our <i>internal</i> world” (Grottstein, p. 141). <b>In this way, projection makes perception.</b> All of this is unconscious, of course. The typical human experience is of living in and being at the effect the world, not creating it. But according to the psychoanalytic model, we create our world, forget that we did, and then react to our creation as if it created us. Cognitive theories such as SPAARS take their cue from this model – we have an unconscious set of core beliefs or schema that determine our perceptions and emotional experience and how we see the world.</p><p>According to Symington, as we all know J the point isn’t about <b>what</b> we feel at all – but rather <i>how we feel</i> about what we feel. Do I hate the feelings I am having, the thoughts I am thinking, or the way I am behaving? Such hatred is the primary cause of mental illness – it is the source of all splitting and projective identification. But as James Hillman says, “we need no deliverance from evil if we are not imagined to be evil in the first place.” (1975, p. 29).</p><p>When I was in college I was deeply affected by a book called <i>The House of Spirits</i>, by Isabel Allende. It is an epic story spanning four generations, tracing the post-colonial social and political upheavals of the Latin American country in which the family lives – most likely Chile, as many believe the book is a <i>roman</i> <i>à clef</i> about the family of Salvador Allende. Anyway, in the book, a main character, a young and beautiful woman named Alba, is taken as a political prisoner by a brutal regime. She is repeatedly raped, tortured, mutilated, and kept in a cage. Her fingers are cut off. She soon loses her will to live and one night is visited in a dream by her grandmother, Clara. Alba begs Clara for death, and Clara tells her that death is inevitable, not to worry about that. The extraordinary thing would be to <i>live</i>. The next morning when Alba awoke she began excitedly speaking with the other captives, encouraging them to have hope and to choose life. This made a huge impression on me. Alba sees the dream figure as more <i>real</i> than the guards who torment her. Alba’s body is brutally broken and tortured, but look at that, her spirit is undiminished. Look at that, <i>she is free.</i></p><p>Someone in Alba’s state of mind probably wouldn’t panic if she saw a bear coming towards her! J She is so free she is likely ungoverned by even the most primitive of impulses or schema. The external world has lost its grip and influence over her. Despite a tortuous trip down into the depths of hell, into the darkest and most terrifying chasms of experience, Alba emerged intact, untouched, inviolate.</p><p>I bring up this example because the emotional and cognitive transformation she experienced is not easily accounted for in the theories I’ve brought up so far. Physiological impulses stemming from sensory perception, splitting and projecting which fashions the world to which I react, conscious and unconscious cognition…it seems that I am forgetting something…</p><p>Carl Jung had an idea. From his work “Psychology & Religion” (1938, London: Yale University Press):</p><p>It is, to my mind, a fatal mistake to consider the human psyche as a merely personal affair and to explain it exclusively from a personal point of view. Such a mode of explanation is only applicable to the individual in his ordinary everyday occupations and relationships. If, however, some slight trouble occurs, perhaps in the form of an unforeseen and somewhat extraordinary event, instantly instinctive forces are called up, forces which appear to be wholly unexpected, new, and even strange. They can no longer be explained by personal motives, being comparable rather to certain primitive occurrences like panics at solar eclipses and such things…The change of character that is brought about by the uprush of collective forces is amazing. A gentle and reasonable being can be transformed into a maniac or a savage beast. One is always inclined to lay the blame on external circumstances, but nothing could explode in us if it had not been there. As a matter of fact, we are always living upon a volcano and there is, as far as we know, no human means of protection against a possible outburst which will destroy everybody within its reach. (pg. 17).</p><p>Savage beasts and volcanoes, yeah!! What Jung is talking about, of course, is what happens when one is seized by an archetypal complex. So here we have another answer to the cause-and-effect question. Instead of emoting as reaction to an external world, or sourced by an internal schema, we are instead vehicles of expression caught up and inside of autonomous complexes. Our emotions are not ours, they are not personal, but collective, archetypal. These internal figures – Shadow, Ego, Animus, Great Mother, Self, etc. - “These are the archetypes, the persons to whom we ultimately owe our personality. In speaking of them, Jung says “we are obliged to reverse our rationalistic causal sequence, and instead of deriving these figures from our psychic conditions, must derive our psychic conditions from these figures.” (Jung, CW 13, par. 299, 62). In other words, the idea that each of us has a personal independent psyche is backwards. I don’t have a soul inside of me, soul has me inside of it. According to Hillman, we live and move in psyche. The external forms we see originate in our imagination. They come and go, but soul is ever-present. When I ask the question of why I feel what I feel, I come closest to my <i>reality</i> when I see <i>through</i> the form to the idea behind it, the content <i>within</i> and expressed through the form, the vastness and beauty of soul. In Alba’s dream, Clara made an appeal to the <i>content</i> within Alba. While there is nothing so blinding as perception of form, Alba was able to see through it. By listening to the archetypal dream figure, she grasped that her reality, her true feeling, was not given by her fragile and broken body. In that moment of salvation, she identified with Soul instead.</p><p>The beauty of looking at affect through the lens of archetype is the lack of judgment inherent in this view. It is not personal, but in allowing it to be present in me, it becomes a part of me. I am being moved by a collective autonomous force, and rather than resist, judge, or hate my feelings, I can look instead in awe at the mystery of the psyche and even feel joy for my participation in it. To think that my tiny ego could refuse or stem the massive tide of archetypal complexes is…well, egotistical. To make welcome the movement of the archetypal complex through me requires my humility.</p><p>So then getting back to the question of whether I have emotions or they have me. I think the answer is yes and yes.</p><p>I will give a personal example. I have been living on my own for the first time in my life, and at times I feel overcome with sadness. Out of the blue my stomach begins to hurt and my chest feels tight. I think, “Wow, I am sad.“(William James!). Sometimes I look at the pain from a cognitive viewpoint and ask myself what the thoughts are behind the sadness. Is this about the profound changes in my life and the loss of relatedness? Do I have a “faulty” core belief how I am perceiving my situation? I could look at those thoughts and work through them. I could even try to fix the external situation that seems to be causing my sadness – maybe call a friend. Often I am tempted to resist the pain and wiggle out of it by distracting myself with other things or ideas. And sometimes I hate the sadness and attempt to rid myself of it either by trying to talk myself out of it – “I am so fortunate, I have no reason to be sad” or going into a numb state. But I could also look at my feeling from a depth perspective. I could acknowledge that this pain coursing through me may not be personal. I could watch my sadness, personify it, interact with it, permit its existence in me, allow it to come through me and move me. Is it wanting something from me, or for me? This is the route I took one day, and as I was walking aimlessly along State Street in Santa Barbara, allowing this sadness to possess me, I looked up and recognized one of only two people I had met in the two weeks since I had moved there! A retired man who reminded me of my father, he allowed me to interview him for a class assignment. He had been walking out of a coffee shop to lock his bike, and if he had not come out at that exact moment, I would have walked on by never seeing him. I was astounded by the synchronicity. He kissed me on the top of the head and I followed him in to share a pot of tea. We talked for two hours – he told me of his troubles with some of his friendships – and we helped each other.</p><p></p><p>-July 1, 2009, Santa Barbara, CA</p><p></p><p>Freud, S., (1912), Totem and taboo. <i>Standard Edition</i> 13:1-163</p><p>Grottstein, J. S. (1985). <i>Splitting and projective identification.</i> London: Jason Aronson, Inc.</p><p>Hillman, J. (1975). <i>Re-visioning psychology.</i> New York: HarperCollins.</p><p>Symington, N. (2002). <i>A pattern of madness</i>. London: H. Karnac (Books) Ltd.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><div><br clear="all" /><hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" /><div><p><a href="#_ednref" title="">[i]</a> One problem with this theory is that it cannot give an adequate account of the differences between emotions. In 1962, Stanley Schacter and Jerome Singer injected subjects with epinephrine, a stimulant of the sympathetic system. They found that the subjects tended to interpret the arousal they experienced either as anger or as euphoria, depending on the type of situation they found themselves in.</p></div></div></div>Trauma, Don't Paint it Prettyhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/trama-don-t-paint-it-pretty2015-06-25T23:30:00.000Z2015-06-25T23:30:00.000ZSilvia Behrendhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/SilviaBehrend<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142452657,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142452657,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-full" alt="9142452657?profile=original" /></a><a href="http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blog/new#"></a></p><p><span class="font-size-3">I recently started a new painting, using a canvass big enough to use up some old paint. It was to be a study of yellows, with burnt sienna, vermillion red and other odds and ends I had accumulated over the years. So I mixed the old paint with walnut oil, hoping to reconstitute it enough to have it slide on the canvass. I quickly discovered that is not how it works. I ended up with thick leaden lines that killed any life in their vicinity. So, I left it for a while, thinking I would see it with new eyes next time I could go to the studio. But when I walked into the studio a week later, I was filled with a desire to destroy the canvass, to paint over it, to slash it, to throw it out.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">Something held my hand back. Some whisper of inspiration, some angel of knowing, took my hand instead to an old rag and turpentine. I used the soaked towel and tried to take off all the paint, start over with a clean slate. I wiped and wiped, each time removing more and more of the lifelessness until no more would come off. What remained was a patina of deep golden yellows, like a mellow maple floor, walked on for generations. The dead lines were gone, but there were traces, like old scars of old wounds, faint but ever present, that became the roots and branches of new life.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">That painting taught me about trauma in a new way. To be human is to suffer the vicissitudes of betrayal, loss and grief. Not everyone suffers horrific trauma, assaults to the self that are unbearable, but many do. But no one is served by trying to gloss over the pain and suffering and lull us into the belief that all things can be overcome, that the trauma will disappear, that all will be well.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">We want to deny that some things will never be completely healed and made whole. We want to say that everything that happens has a reason and a purpose under heaven. Even if terrible things happened, there is meaning to be made. But that is not the case, and we see it in the woman pushing a grocery cart with all her belongings down the street. We see it in a child who winces at loud noises in an airport bathroom, as well as in the returning soldier who stands in line at the drugstore, mere days after having been in battle and is startled by a sudden noise.. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">That we can make a life out of suffering too cruel to name is a miracle. As Dr. Conforti says, resilience is a secular miracle. We can learn to live with the damage but we can never deny that the damage happened. We can accept that for the rest of our lives we will have to be careful, to resist those places which hurt us, to build walls when necessary, and to say, no, I can’t go there. I know this because I have been participating in the Trauma and Healing Certification Program offered at the Assisi Institute. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">What we are learning from leading scholars and clinicians who specialize in trauma and healing is that the power of the trauma, whatever its description, leaves a sheen on the soul that affects the way we experience the world. The contours of the trauma can be seen by the way the person moves, behaves, believes, by the way so many of us find ourselves taken over, yet again, by the re-enactment of the trauma. Father sold you out, you sell yourself out. Mother kept you close, you never live your life. </span></p><p><span class="font-size-3">So how do we manage not to fall into despair, the repetition of alienation, violence or the theft of a good life? There is no technique, no panacea, but a real moral response to sit with and be present to someone’s suffering without trying to make it better. When we witness the horror without flinching, when we abide with the unspeakable and don’t try to turn into it into a positive ‘learning’ experience, we let the other know that we won’t run away. That it is possible to be human, that there are those who will not betray, abuse or abandon. The healing that is possible takes place in the alchemical container of soul witnessing soul. Like the painting, we carry the many layers of our life without denial, without pretense and make the best life we can.</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"> </span></p><p><span class="font-size-4"> </span></p><p><a href="http://www.depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blog/new#"> </a></p></div>Spaceshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/spaces2014-02-04T16:23:18.000Z2014-02-04T16:23:18.000ZJane Platkohttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/JanePlatko<div><p></p><div class="header-cap-bottom cap-bottom"><div class="cap-left"></div><div class="cap-right"></div></div><div class="tabs-outer"><div class="tabs-cap-top cap-top"><div class="cap-left"></div><div class="cap-right"></div></div><div class="fauxborder-left tabs-fauxborder-left"><div class="fauxborder-right tabs-fauxborder-right"></div><div class="region-inner tabs-inner"><div class="tabs section"></div><div class="tabs section"></div></div></div><div class="tabs-cap-bottom cap-bottom"><div class="cap-left"></div><div class="cap-right"></div></div></div><div class="main-outer"><div class="main-cap-top cap-top"><div class="cap-left"></div><div class="cap-right"></div></div><div class="fauxborder-left main-fauxborder-left"><div class="fauxborder-right main-fauxborder-right"></div><div class="region-inner main-inner"><div class="columns fauxcolumns"><div class="fauxcolumn-outer fauxcolumn-center-outer"><div class="cap-top"><div class="cap-left"></div><div class="cap-right"></div></div></div><div class="columns-inner"><div class="column-center-outer"><div class="column-center-inner"><div class="main section"><div class="widget Blog"><div class="blog-posts hfeed"><div class="date-outer"><div class="date-posts"><div class="post-outer"><div class="post hentry"><div class="post-body entry-content"><div><div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-85A68GKC1VA/Uu1X8JntycI/AAAAAAAAAK8/BfmU82a4Juw/s1600/IMG_1493+(2).JPG"></a>In the predawn I am sitting in the cushioned wicker chair next to the window in the dining room, my new spot to watch the light rise in the sky. I look over at the doorway that opens to the front hall with the wall sconce by the stairs, at the patterns of pearly light and steely shadows against the white stucco walls, and I am captivated by the space. The wide angles of the doorframe open to the dark living room, a slice of stairway ascending to the right. I draw it, photograph it and describe it in my journal.</div><br /><div><span class="font-size-2"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142448855,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="750" height="906" class="align-left" style="width:110px;height:122px;" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142448855,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9142448855?profile=original" /></a></span>I move into it. Not physically. But the way one moves into a timeless moment that is numinous. And those moments, I believe, surround us.</div><br /><div>I am reading Donald Kalsched’s book <i>Trauma and the Soul; A psycho-spiritual approach to human development and its interpretation.</i> Kalsched, a Jungian analyst, describes an “intermediate space between the worlds in which we are all most alive.” The “worlds” that he writes of are the worlds of consciousness and the unconscious. He refers to them in many contexts—as the inner world of imagination and the outer material world of facts, as the sacred and the profane. Kalsched acknowledges that there are many doorways that can lead us into mysterious interior spiritual realms and posits that we can evolve into both worlds, concluding “If we are going to ‘individuate’ in the true meaning Jung gave to that term, then we must let ourselves grow from these two roots.” </div><br /><div>In many respects this book offers a theoretical amplification of my memoir. It mirrors my final dream of a mother/child, Demeter/Persephone dream figure who “embodies the mysteries of abundance and poverty, of attachment and separation, of the reds, and the blues,” and who “carries my soul.”</div><br /><div>Kalsched’s focus is on trauma, and on dissociation as a soul-saving defense which keeps “an innocent core of the self out of further suffering in reality by keeping it safe in another world.” In my first chapter I write about an experience that I remembered from the age of four.</div><br /><div> “My guess is, it was soon after we moved into the house when I began to disappear in the windowless hall between my bedroom, my parents’ bedroom, the bathroom, and the entrance into our living room; since I still needed to stand on my stool to see into the medicine cabinet mirror.</div><br /><div>…All I can say is, in that hallway I left my body.</div><br /><div> …What I am trying to describe is what I believe to be my earliest reportable experiences of dissociation, a splitting off of consciousness. A vacant self.”</div><br />I go on to describe other altered states that I experienced as a child, transcendent states as well as the dark terrors of the night.<br /><br /><div>The tracks of the unseen (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/In-Tracks-Unseen-Memoirs-Psychoanalyst/dp/1492251135/ref=zg_bs_2427_54">In the Tracks of the Unseen</a>) are the tracks of my soul. My memoirs are stories of trauma and the healing that comes from holding the tension of the opposites, part human, part divine, in a third space, a liminal space from where looking into the front hall with the wall sconce by the stairs in the predawn can be transcendent.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>In the gardenhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/in-the-gardne2014-07-15T21:30:00.000Z2014-07-15T21:30:00.000ZSilvia Behrendhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/SilviaBehrend<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142448085,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142448085,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="244" class="align-full" alt="9142448085?profile=original" /></a></p><p></p><p>In the garden</p><p>I bury the remains of the mothers -</p><p>The fish whose bones line the roots of my tomatoes-</p><p>That is how I pray</p><p> </p><p>I kneel in the soft earth and look</p><p>Through the lattice of dark green leaves</p><p>There, yellow as buttercups in the sun,</p><p>Incipient fruit</p><p>Await the annunciation</p><p> </p><p>I can already sense the bulging clusters</p><p>I take my well-sharpened scissors</p><p>And make space for the new life</p><p>Carefully pruning away the excess</p><p>To leave the essential</p><p> </p><p>Isn’t it so with life?</p><p> </p><p>I did an experiment once</p><p>I let the tomatoes grow wild</p><p>Leaves and suckers,</p><p>Fruit and flowers</p><p>In a profligate jungle</p><p>It was a beautiful mess</p><p>But I didn’t get many tomatoes</p><p> </p><p>Life needs us to tend it</p><p>To feed and to prune</p><p>To discern what hinders</p><p>And what allows growth</p><p> </p><p>It is a science and an art</p><p>that must be practiced each year anew</p><p>You cannot take it for granted</p><p>Each plant needs to be seen for itself</p><p>Not just a tomato plant</p><p>But this one</p><p>With the stem leaning this way or that</p><p>And my job is to sculpt it so its natural way</p><p>Can produce the most tomatoes</p><p>Not only for me and my table</p><p>But for the sheer joy of the plant itself</p><p>"This is how I grow best".</p><p>Me too!</p></div>Sorting the Boneshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/sorting-the-bones2014-06-06T14:52:13.000Z2014-06-06T14:52:13.000ZBarbara Platekhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/BarbaraPlatek<div><p></p><p><i>“This is our meditation practice as women, calling back the dead and dismembered aspects of ourselves……”–</i>Clarissa Pinkola Estes</p><p> </p><p>In her dream, a woman finds a pile of bones out behind the place in which she is living. This is a disturbing image–with its suggestion of a crime have been committed, an act of brutality, or harm having been done. Although the dream does not provide information about the actual events that occurred, it marks a dark history. The remnants of that history–the bones–have been left in a heap.</p><p>The particulars of this dreamer’s life are not mine to share. But I can attest to the fact that many of the women that I see in my therapy practice have been harmed in some way. Our culture does not protect the feminine well. Women experience injuries to their bodies, their minds, and their souls. Many carry these wounds silently within themselves–shame or lack of support keeping them quiet–pretending that everything is okay.</p><p>The psyche is not fooled.<span id="more-118"></span></p><p>Despite our best intentions, one day the soul lets out a cry and we dream of bones behind the place where we live–behind the façade, the persona. Something breaks through to the surface (prior to this dream, in fact, this woman had had another dream in which something buried was being dug up). Something wants our attention, our love and our care. The psyche brings us an emotional truth in our dreams.</p><p>And so the bones are above ground–no longer buried in the depths of the unconscious. This woman has made a discovery within herself. She is now aware of the pile of bones behind where she lives. The bones are up. Whatever issue they represent has now come to the surface.</p><p>It is at this point that healing can take place.</p><p>It is not possible to heal when something remains buried, underground, away from consciousness. Only the discovery of the bones–the discovery of our own injury–can allow us to find our way back to ourselves. Once we have seen the bones, we can no longer pretend or turn away. We can begin to retrieve and process our memories, our history. We can feel our grief and anger and allow our feelings to flow. Most importantly, perhaps, we can tell our stories and feel our pain and be witnessed.</p><p>But first the bones must be sorted. For this dreamer they are all in a heap. In other words, experiences, memories, feelings are all jumbled together. Processing a pile of bones is not an easy thing to do–it can feel overwhelming, frightening, or numbing.</p><p>That is why the bones need to be sorted. Sorting is a particularly feminine activity. It has its own rhythm and timing. In the tale of Eros and Psyche, for example, Psyche is given the task of sorting an enormous pile of seeds. Sorting allows us to process and make sense of–make meaning from–our experiences.</p><p>Each bone in the pile has a story to tell. Each bone must be examined and held and put in its proper place–related to in a way that feels emotionally authentic. This sorting takes time. It cannot be rushed. There is no formula for how long it takes to grieve injury or pain. We need to honor the bones–to sing their songs and ritualize their place in our lives. They mark our wounds and our hurts. They also form a key part of who we are in our wholeness and our humanity. We need to come into right relationship with our bones.</p><p>Only then can we give them the resting place they deserve.</p><p> </p></div>How Many Climate Scientists Does It Take?--Media, Perception, and Soul Losshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/how-many-climate-scientists-does-it-take-media-perception-and-sou2014-05-22T01:46:08.000Z2014-05-22T01:46:08.000ZBonnie Brighthttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/BonnieBright<div><p><span class="userContent"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.depthpsychologylist.com/Depth-Psychology-Practitioners-Blog?mode=PostView&bmi=1555857"><img width="350" class="align-right" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9142445697,original{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="9142445697?profile=original" /></a>American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton identifies our very human tendency to ignore difficult realities and overwrite them with thoughts and beliefs that are more palatable as "psychic numbing." This allows our ego to distract itself enough that it doesn’t have to engage with inner and outer voices and images and movements that go beyond the mainstream consciousness (in Shulman-Lorenz & Watkins, Toward Psychologies of Liberation).<br /><br />When we witness instances of ecocide (ecological suicide) in the world around us, take note of how wasteful and damaging our consumer-oriented culture has become, or are faced with dire news about how climate change is devastating our planet and threatening life as we know it, we are affected in both body and psyche.<br /><br />Aspects of the psyche which we require to be healthy and whole get displaced at seeing the destruction; they split off and take cover in a sense, because it’s easier than admitting and knowing we each have some part it in it. This creates a condition of what some indigenous cultures regard as “soul loss,” a sort of psycho-spiritual deficit, which leaves us individually (and collectively) in a state of depression, malaise, and a general loss of vitality. In fact, in Modern Man in Search of Soul, Jung (1933) diagnosed our entire culture as suffering from loss of soul.<br /><br />In his essay, “The Viable Human,” (in Deep Ecology for the Twenty-first Century, Shambhala), theologist Thomas Berry wrote, “Our present dilemma is the consequence of a disturbed psychic situation, a mental imbalance, an emotional insensitivity.” Ecocide and our contribution to climate change make it nearly impossible to feel “at home” on our planet in today’s world. Many of us are consciously or unconsciously experiencing anxiety at the destruction we’re inflicting on the earth.<br /><br />In his excellent and comprehensive book, Psychoanalysis and Ecology at the Edge of Chaos: Complexity Theory, Deleuze|Guattari and Psychoanalysis for a Climate in Crisis offers an interesting look at some humorous ways comedians and others engage us in the environmental debate, in the end, he notes many of us turn to denial because the possible outcomes are so grim and so vastly unknown that we just can’t wrap our brains (or our emotions) around the issues.<br /><br />Dodds writes.. <a href="http://www.depthpsychologylist.com/Depth-Psychology-Practitioners-Blog?mode=PostView&bmi=1555857" target="_blank">Click here to continuing reading</a><br /></span></p><p></p></div>Nature Dreaminghttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/nature-dreaming2013-04-09T15:22:31.000Z2013-04-09T15:22:31.000ZBarbara Platekhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/BarbaraPlatek<div><p>I dream about foxes living on my property—a silver fox and a red fox. In the dream, I do not see them, but I know that they are there—mysterious presences that come through the woods and occasionally make themselves known. In the waking world, I have seen the red fox. Once, in the dead of winter, I looked out my dining room window and saw it walking on the surface of our frozen pond. The contrast of color was startling—its bushy rust colored coat framed by the white and gray tones of the ice-covered pond and the deep verdant green of the pines trees on the shore. It was not until after the fox had disappeared into the trees that I realized I had been holding my breath. The impact of its visit gripped me deeply and allowed me to feel a sense of connection with the land upon which I live. These moments of connection are rare and precious. They enable me to move out of my head and feel an ancient and profound link to the natural world from which we are all born.<span id="more-95"></span></p><p>According to Jung, as a civilization we have all but lost this primal connection to nature, much to our detriment. As he remarked, “in the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with the instincts, the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us.” He believed that “the earth has a soul,” and warned against the tendency of consciousness to move too far from its roots in nature.</p><p>In his own life, Jung spent a great deal of time and energy immersed in the natural world. He would sit and play at the water’s edge, carving streams and tributaries as a way to bring respite from the matters of the day. He constructed his tower at Bolingen so that he could be alone with the quiet and solace of nature. Existing without running water or electricity, he would commune with the spirits of the place, carve images in stone, and take long walks throughout the region.</p><p>While it seems at times difficult to imagine—living as we do in a world in which the Goddess, nature, and the earth, are treated so poorly—“the old mother of days,” as Jung sometimes called her, still exists within the unconscious. The deep wisdom of nature is available to us all through dreams, for example. Here, in the many layers of the psyche, we can encounter her healing medicine. Even if we live outwardly in a world devoid of natural life—city-dwellers, perhaps—we can find sources of connection within the living psyche.</p><p>Every dream is, in fact, an encounter with nature and an attempt to bring our personalities into greater alignment with the authentic life of the soul. We are constantly bombarded by messages about who we should be. In much the same way as time spent in nature can help restore a sense of perspective and allow us to fee more whole, so can dreams refund us to an experience of what is right and true for our lives.</p><p>As Jung said:</p><p>Whenever we touch nature we get clean…People who have got dirty through too much civilization take a walk in the woods or bathe in the sea. They may rationalize it in this or that way, but they shake off the fetters and allow nature to touch them. It can be done within or without. Walking in the woods, lying in the grass, taking a bath in the sea, are from the outside; entering the unconscious, entering yourself through dreams, is touching nature from the inside and this is the same thing, things are put right again.</p><p>To really attune to the wisdom of the dreaming mind we need to slow down and listen deeply. Nature will speak to us if we allow her a voice. Paying attention to our dreams requires a turning inwards—toward ourselves and our inner landscape—staying alert for whatever inklings we may find there.</p></div>Scientific study, cognitive behavioral techniques, self-help books, and political action will not do the trick.https://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/scientific-study-cognitive-behavioral-techniques-self-help-books2012-01-02T01:07:28.000Z2012-01-02T01:07:28.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"><br /><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=66" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nt81quQ7OMc/TrcP4WeTMbI/AAAAAAAAAsw/r1rpxpJmBJY/s200/9781926715421.jpg" width="135" alt="9781926715421.jpg" /></a></div><p><span class="font-size-3">"Scientific study, cognitive behavioral techniques, self-help books, and political action will not do the trick. We will not achieve the fundamental level of change and understanding that is called for unless the archetypal, transcendent, sacred and mythical dimension of the psyche is engaged. The sense of the sacred Carl Sagan saw as necessary to save the environment will not be developed. Our educational systems will not be able to teach from a deep, holistic, integrated perspective unless they embrace an ecopsychological framework. Without a mythic perspective, hubris and inflation with “our” powers and the religion of science will make John’s revelatory visions a reality."</span><br /><span class="font-size-3">--<i><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=10&products_id=66" target="_blank">Dairy Farmers Guide to the Universe Vol. 1</a></i></span><br /><br /></p><table cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><div style="text-align:right;"><div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/" target="_blank"><img src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nATleKs9sog/TWyUiukeZdI/AAAAAAAAAe4/v4xKNAuVkNc/s1600/logo.gif" class="align-center" alt="logo.gif" /></a><b>Featuring an eclectic mix of worthy books including </b><b>Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge </b><b>Fiction, Poetry, </b><b>and a growing list of Alternative titles.</b> </div></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div><div><div style="text-align:center;"><b><br /></b></div></div></div><p></p></div>jungbook, Deep Blues, Suspended Animation, Go West Young Lady . . .https://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/jungbook-deep-blues-suspended2011-03-31T06:16:13.000Z2011-03-31T06:16:13.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><b>Now on the Fisher King Review:</b><br /><br /><b>jungbook</b> . . . No, it's not another one of those online social clubs where you have to befriend family, friends, colleagues, or anyone else for that matter. <b>You don't even have to sign in!</b> <a href="http://www.jungbook.com/">Read more</a> . . .<br /><br /><b><i>Deep Blues: Human Soundscapes for the Archetypal Journey</i></b> by Mark Winborn. Deep Blues explores the archetypal journey of the human psyche through an examination of the blues as a musical genre. The genesis, history, and thematic patterns of the blues are examined from an archetypal perspective and various analytic theories. Mythological and shamanistic parallels are used to provide a deeper understanding of the role of the bluesman, the blues performance, and the innate healing potential of the blues. <a href="http://www.fisherkingreview.com/2011/03/fisher-king-is-jigging-in-deep-blues.html">Read more</a> . . .<br /><br /><b>Suspended Animation and The Spirit of Active Imagination</b>. <a href="http://www.fisherkingreview.com/2011/03/suspended-animation-and-spirit-of.html">Read more</a> . . .<br /><br /><b>Go West Young Lady!</b> Love – Sex – Naiveté – Family – Values – Commitment – Betrayal . . . Patricia Damery weaves a seductive tale about life’s insoluble contradictions. A Midwestern farm girl leaves the confines of her family heritage and is transformed by life’s vicissitudes. Snake stories, symbols of transformation, are cleverly intertwined in this highly entertaining novel as Angela, the heroine, undergoes numerous rights of passages, and comes to terms with life - her life – exactly where, when, and how it unfolds. Highly recommended, Snakes is deeply rooted in Mother Earth—and Soul. <a href="http://www.fisherkingreview.com/2011/03/go-west-young-lady-news-release.html">Read more</a> . . .<br /><br /><b>Spring Book Sale</b> at the New Fisher King Press Online Bookstore. Many titles are marked down 20% or more and you can receive an <b>additional 10% off</b> the total cost of your order during checkout by using the following redemption code: <b>loyalty</b> Shop at the <a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/">Fisher King Press Online Bookstore</a><br /><br /><a style="clear:right;display:inline;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;" href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/"><img style="display:block;height:100px;margin-bottom:10px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-top:0px;width:110px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_66tG-ibjAoU/StmAZLTraMI/AAAAAAAAASs/kmBy84VNLJ8/s200/fkplogo110x100.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" border="0" name="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" alt="fkplogo110x100.jpg" /></a>Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles.<br /><ul><li>We Ship Worldwide.</li><li>Credit Cards Accepted.</li><li>Phone Orders Welcomed. Toll free in the US & Canada: 1-800-228-9316 International +1-831-238-7799 skype: fisher_king_press</li></ul></div>Opposites, the Creative Instinct, and Our Unique Identity, article by Lawrence H. Stapleshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/opposites-the-creative2010-05-16T00:30:00.000Z2010-05-16T00:30:00.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><span style="font-size:x-small;">article by Lawrence H. Staples</span><br /><br /><b>the problem of the opposites</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">Jung recognized that the problem of the opposites is one of the most formidable obstacles to psychic integration. Even when we are able to integrate opposites there remains substantial tension between them. If the integration is so complete that the opposites literally merge, consciousness, as we know it, disappears. Consciousness of life depends upon the tension of opposites. So the problem is to bring them close together without a total merger in which one or the other of the opposites would lose its identity. This is indeed a challenging task.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">To complicate, but also clarify, the problem of the opposites, I would like to share with you a quote from Jung that contains what for me is his most profound insight on the subject of guilt and its relationship to human existence. Jung said, “The one-after-another is a bearable prelude to the deepest knowledge of the side-by-side, for this is an incomparably more difficult problem. Again, the view that good and evil are spiritual forces outside us, and that man is caught in the conflict between them, is more bearable by far than the insight that the opposites are the ineradicable and indispensable precondition of all psychic life, so much so that life itself is guilt.”<span style="font-size:x-small;">(1)</span> It is important here to note that “side-by-side” for Jung does not mean a merger, mutual absorption, or synthesis of opposites.</div><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Guilt-Twist-Promethean-Lawrence-Staples/dp/097760764X?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969"><img class="align-right" width="104" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=097760764X&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&width=104" alt="q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=097760764X&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&width=104" /></a><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=097760764X" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=097760764X" /><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">The idea that life itself is guilt is based upon conceptions of how human consciousness works. As noted earlier, consciousness itself depends on the existence of polar opposites. Guilt, therefore, which attempts to keep us from our “evil other,” is closely related to the formation of the opposites in our psychic anatomy.</div><br /><b>the creative instinct</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">Fortunately, there is a powerful tool that can help us resolve the problem of the opposites. This tool is creative work. Creative production in art, as in life, depends upon bringing two opposites, the masculine and the feminine, into close enough proximity to produce a “child”(i.e., a book, a symphony, a painting, etc.) without losing the identity of the opposites that created the “child.” When we begin to do creative work, we connect to the deepest forces that govern all creation. It connects us to God, to the self within, to put it in Jungian terms. Reflected in our language is the Judaeo/Christian idea and belief that God and the creator and sustainer of all existence are one. The words God and Creator are in fact interchangeable in English as well as in other Western languages, such as French and German. The ultimate product of this process of psychological, inner creation is a stronger ego that increasingly approximates a reflected image of the Archetypal Self, which is whole and contains all of the opposites.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">The Archetypal Self, or God, represents the totality; no stone is left out, all the stones are included in this totality. But a colossal lie stands in the way of achieving this totality. This is not about the existence or non-existence of the opposites, the dark and the light. We know they exist. The lie is in labeling one side exclusively good and the other side exclusively bad, as we tend to do. We know that creation is enabled by the existence of, masculine and feminine opposites. If we make one side good and the other side bad, we reject one of the essential players in the creative drama.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">There is an instinct deep within us, although difficult to access consciously, that tells us that embracing the one-sided formulas for salvation, including the Christian advocacy of the exclusive primacy of love, will actually keep us from the totality of our selves. It is an instinct that actually is our salvation. It emanates from our duality. It tells us that we must love and hate everything at the same time. We must love the dark and the light and we must hate the dark and the light. Wired as we are, light has no meaning without the dark and dark has no meaning without the light. Each of these depends on the other for its existence. Without the one, there can be no consciousness of the other, and nothing exists for an individual if he is not conscious of it. If we are unable to maintain simultaneously in consciousness both our hate and love feelings, we cannot protect ourselves if we are abused—physically, psychologically, or sexually—by those whom we deeply love and those whom we need to trust.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">It is our duality that causes us to be drawn inexorably to movies (e.g., Crash, Lawrence of Arabia, or A Civil Action) or to great art, literature, or music (e.g., the opera Tosca or the play Hamlet).<span style="font-size:x-small;">(2)</span> In Tosca,<span style="font-size:x-small;">(3)</span> we see Scarpia, on his knees, praying in church, while leering lustfully at Tosca. In the movie, Crash,<span style="font-size:x-small;">(4)</span> a policeman saves the life of a black woman whom just days before he had humiliated and mistreated. We see Hamlet indecisive and cowardly one day, and the next brave and sure. In Lawrence of Arabia,<span style="font-size:x-small;">(5)</span> Lawrence risks his life to save a man who he deliberately kills shortly thereafter. In A Civil Action,<span style="font-size:x-small;">(6)</span> a greedy, money-driven, ambulance-chasing lawyer finds a cause for which he is willing to sacrifice his career and fortune. And then there is Peter loving Christ one moment and denying him the next. There is a Jekyll and Hyde in all of us, in all people. We are drawn, as if against our wills, to these conflicting portraits. We are drawn to them and have feeling for them because we see ourselves in them, whether we know it or not. We are drawn to images that reflect ourselves, but protect us from the direct experience. To know that we have the same base feelings in us as Scarpia, right along side all of our goodness, is difficult to bear. We are drawn, nevertheless, to these characters and images because nature seems to have planted deep within us a developmental process that, through the agency of feeling, attracts us irresistibly closer and closer to our opposites. It attracts us to our opposites so that we can come together with them, side by side, in an embrace of creativity that leads us eventually to wholeness. As we experience in literature, art, and life, we are ineluctably attracted to realness, to three dimensionality, to wholeness.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">Life might be easier, simpler, and less painful if our one-sidedness could be a sustainable reality instead of a wish. But, there are always two sides, regardless of whether we are conscious of them. The solution to this dilemma involves finding a way to honor both sides of ourselves in consciousness. This is the answer, but it is not easy to hold on to it. It involves a creative solution to one of life’s most difficult problems. The answer lies in a creation that depends upon intimate contact of two opposites without either being lost or subsumed by the other.</div><br /><b>our unique identity</b><br /><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">Ultimately, the creative act of self-development results in the formation of our unique identity. It is the most particular manifestation of our self. We all have a unique identity, not just Picasso or Einstein or Beethoven or Frank Lloyd Wright. We are not conscious of our unique identity until we have done a lot of work on our selves. People who study art, music, literature, or architecture can identify the painter’s, composer’s, author’s, or architect’s work without seeing a signature. They know that the painting was by Caravaggio or Manet, or that a piece of music was written by Stravinsky or Wagner, or a book by Hemingway, or that a building was designed by Louis Kahn or Frank Lloyd Wright. The creative product of the artist is his signature, and we recognize it because we have studied his work.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">Each of us also has a unique signature. But, we must pay attention to our selves and do our own work in depth, if we are to recognize our own signature. We must do this for the same reason we must study artists to know their works. Thus, an important part of the work of discovering our selves is creative production and in-depth analysis. With time and effort we can come to know and recognize our own special signatures. Our physical identity is more readily visible and accessible than our psychic identity. There is always something unique in our physical identity; for example, the parents and siblings of identical twins can usually tell them apart. We have mirrors and can see our physical selves.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">It is far more difficult to “see” our psychic selves. There are no psychic mirrors readily available to us, unless we had exceptional parents who could fully, without harsh judgment, reflect our selves back to us. We may still be able to see our psychic selves if we find a therapist who will do for us what our parents could not. <br /> <br />Creative work can also help us see our selves. Creative work is a mirror that can reflect our selves back to us if we pay enough attention. Therapists can help us in this regard, by helping us interpret our creative work.</div><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">In his book, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Restoration-Self-Heinz-Kohut/dp/0226450139?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969">The Restoration of the Self</a><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0226450139" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0226450139" />,<span style="font-size:x-small;">(7)</span> Heinz Kohut wrote at length about psychically wounded people and the therapeutic methods he used to help them. He found none more effective, or so essential, as creative work. He found, importantly, that it made no difference whether the creative work was deemed good or artistic by any standards. The simple process of doing creative work helped restore the self. It is as if nature plants within us a built-in remedy for our worst affliction, the affliction of being separated from large parts of ourselves. We experience this separation as a kind of inner civil war that divides us internally. It produces the pain and suffering inherent in any civil war, whether in our internal world or outside. It seems that the human urge to do creative work, to use all our stones to heal and restore our wholeness, is a compensatory impulse and blessing that arises from the psychic civil war that wounded us. In my own work as a psychoanalyst, I have witnessed the truth of Kohut’s findings. I have watched patients grow in wholeness as they began to work creatively in a variety of media that helped them recover and restore cut off parts of themselves.</div><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Soul-Art-Quest-Wholeness/dp/0981034446?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969"><img class="align-right" width="104" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0981034446&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&width=104" alt="q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=0981034446&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&width=104" /></a><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981034446" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0981034446" /><br /><div style="text-align:justify;">Creative work actually serves as a kind of inner parent that compensates for the flawed parenting we may have had as children. Creative work mirrors us in a way we were often not mirrored by our parents. Creative work mirrors us for the simple reason that we can see projected in it, if we look and interpret carefully, our own psychological and spiritual selves. Mirrors in all their manifold guises help restore the wounded self.</div><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">1 Jung, C.G., Collected Works 14, par. 206<br />2 Shakespeare, William, Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Grosset & Dunlap, New York.<br />3 Puccini, G., Tosca.<br />4 Crash Paul Haggis (director/writer/producer), Lion’s Gate Films (2005).<br />5 Lawrence of Arabia, David Lean (director), Robert A. Harris and Sam Spiegel (producers), Columbia Pictures (1962).<br />6 A Civil Action, Steven Zaillian (director), Walt Disney Studios (1999).<br />7 Kohut, Heinz (1983), The Restoration of the Self, New York, International Universities Press, especially pp. 53-54, 10, 17-18, 40, 158 and 289.</span><br /><br />This article by Lawrence Staples is an excerpt from <em>Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Wa</em>y.<br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;"></div><div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Lawrence H. Staples, Ph.D. is the author of the popular <i>Guilt with a Twist</i> and the recently published</span> <span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style:italic;"><br /> <span style="font-style:italic;">The Creative Soul</span></span><span style="font-style:italic;">: Art and the Quest for Wholeness<br /><br /></span></span> <a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/zencart"><img name="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349544124198700274" border="0" style="display:block;height:117px;margin:0px auto 10px;text-align:center;width:320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_66tG-ibjAoU/Sj1mCbEkRPI/AAAAAAAAANI/YivaAa9HG9g/s320/StaplesTitleStrip-Flat.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349544124198700274" alt="StaplesTitleStrip-Flat.jpg" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align:center;">on sale now for $17.95 ea or $30.00 for the pair!<br /><br /> in the US call 1-800-228-9316<br />International call +1-831-238-7799<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align:center;"></div></div>“the psychological problem of today is a spiritual problem, a religious problem . . .” —C.G. Junghttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/the-psychological-problem-of2010-05-05T03:30:00.000Z2010-05-05T03:30:00.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><br /><div style="text-align:center;"><div style="text-align:left;"><div style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;text-align:center;" class="separator"><a target="_blank" href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/amazon.html"><img class="align-left" width="216" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_S3Th_ECN-pI/S4nYxCAL9uI/AAAAAAAAALM/IXOrkNZnLpQ/s320/9781926715018_Lo.jpg?width=216" alt="9781926715018_Lo.jpg?width=216" /></a></div><blockquote><div style="text-align:center;"><b>“the psychological problem of today is a spiritual problem, a religious problem . . .”</b></div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:xx-small;">—C.G. Jung, <i>C.G. Jung Speaking: Interview and Encounters</i>,</span><br /> <span style="font-size:xx-small;">“Does the World Stand on the Verge of Spiritual Rebirth?”</span></div></blockquote><br />A psychological and spiritual reckoning, <i><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Farming-Soul-Initiation-Patricia-Damery/dp/1926715012?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969">Farming Soul</a><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715012" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715012" /></i> questions theories and assumptions that date back to the early 1900’s and the days of Freud, assumptions which have too often separated spirituality from psychology. Suffering the trials of her own individuation process, Patricia Damery finds answers through a series of unconventional teachers and through her relationship to the psyche and to the land—answers that are surprisingly deeply intertwined.<br /><br />One strand of <i><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Farming-Soul-Initiation-Patricia-Damery/dp/1926715012?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969">Farming Soul</a></i><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715012" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715012" /> is about redeveloping a relationship to the land—Mother Earth—being rooted in a particular place and being guided by the tenets of <a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Agriculture-Course-Birth-Biodynamic-Method/dp/1855841487?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969">Rudolf Steiner’s Biodynamic agriculture</a><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1855841487" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1855841487" />. Another strand is about Patricia Damery’s professional path of becoming a Jungian analyst, which includes the exploration of four aspects of the body: the physical, the etheric, the astral, and the mental. We are acquainted with and have similar assumptions about the physical body, but we are mostly unfamiliar with the three supersensible bodies. Jung and two of his closest and well-respected colleagues, Marie Louise von Franz and Barbara Hannah, address the subtle body in their writings, but analytical psychology (and psychology in general) has avoided this aspect of Jung’s work. <br /><br /><i><a target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Farming-Soul-Initiation-Patricia-Damery/dp/1926715012?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969">Farming Soul</a><img width="1" height="1" border="0" style="border:medium none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715012" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715012" /></i> is a courageous offering that will help to reconnect us to our deeper selves, the often untouched realities of soul, and at the same time ground us in our physical relationship to self and Mother Earth. <br /><br /><div style="text-align:left;">Patricia Damery is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and practices in Napa, CA. She grew up in the rural Midwest and witnessed the demise of the family farm through the aggressive practices of agribusiness. With her husband Donald, she has farmed biodynamically for ten years. Her chapter, "Shamanic States in Our Lives and in Analytic Practice" appeared in <i>The Sacred Heritage: The Influence of Shamanism on Analytical Psychology</i>, edited by Donald Sandner and Steven Wong, and her articles and poetry in the <i>San Francisco Library Journal</i>, <i>Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche</i>, <i>Psychological Perspectives</i>, and <i>Biodynamics: Working for Social Change Through Agriculture</i>.</div></div></div></div>