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).
When we witness instances of ecocide (ecological suicide) in the w
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Our Modern Cultural Mindset and the Forward Thinking of Carl Jung
One of my favorite quotes is this from Carl Jung, which addresses the reality of nature and our loss of contact with it. It also identifies a deep and burgeoning issue for humankind:“Man feels isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events, which hitherto had symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightnin
In a recent blogpost, I wrote some introductory thoughts about what I’m calling “Culture Collapse Disorder,” an eco-psycho-pathological disorder in which human-made stressors stemming from culture and development (and their correlating underlying connected psychological issues) are causing a drastic systemic imbalance, manifest by a critical rise in adverse conditions for earth and its inhabitants.
In short, the way of life most of us are living in modern consumer culture is simply not sustainabl
“Spirit is the inside of things and matter is their visible outer aspect” (Jung, in Sabini, 2005, p. 2).
“I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths of and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism….Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the
Most of us have had the experience of feeling stopped, stuck, or paralyzed in our lives, unable to progress, to access creativity, meet deadlines, sometimes even to manage basic obligations. Being immobilized is hardly pleasant, but it is absolutely a hallmark of impending change, and it behooves us to understand both the problem and the power of paralysis.
Years ago, I did some meaningful research into the myth of Medusa, the legendary Gorgon who turned people to stone when they looked at her. W
Earth’s inhabitants are in peril largely of our own making. We are, consciously or unconsciously, systematically destroying the our homeplaces, habitats, ecosystems, and above all, the only home we collectively know: Earth. Reports are emerging daily about the implications of human impact on our environment, presenting dire warnings about pollution, urban development, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, natural disasters, and displacement.
The tally of global losses grows daily as we perpet
Carl Jung & Jungian Topics: Dreams,Archetypes, Symbols
Individuation: The Process of a Lifetime: Jung defined it as "the process by which a person becomes an "in-dividual…” http://www.jungiananalyticpraxis.com/individuation_lecture.htm
Book review: What Story Are You Living? By Carol Pearson and Hugh Marr> Are all stories are derived from archetypes? http://psychcentral.com/lib/2010/what-story-are-you-living-2/
Depth Psychology and Myths Today: The mystery that surrounds us feeds the myths we make
Carl Jung & Jungian Topics: Dreams, Archetypes, and Symbols
Dreamwork as a rewarding spiritual practice by Jean Raffa: http://bit.ly/gPWY9r
Before the Meyers-Brigg (MBTI) Jung developed personality typologies. What’s yours? Free online test: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Vampires embody all aspects of the darker side of human nature. It’s what Freud called the Id and Carl Jung called the Shadow: http://www.chateaugrrr.com/featured-guests/martin-v-riccardo
Carl Jung’s ideas on the f
In honor of current events in Egypt, an excerpt from a recent work of mine:
“Perhaps we are like stones; our own history and the history of the world embedded in us, we hold a sorrow deep within and cannot weep until that history is sung” (Griffin, 1992, p. 8).’
Like many of us in western culture, I am aware of an underlying and ongoing search for meaning in life, looking for roots and a sense of groundedness in which I can locate myself and come into greater understanding and relationship with b
Depth Psychology is the study of the Unconscious, an inquiry into what we don’t know by looking at how psyche emerges in symbols, mythology, art, & dreams and how we live out the repressed, the silenced, & the marginalized in our personal lives and in the culture at hand. It explores our relationship to soul, and includes ideas from anthropology, cross-cultural studies, ecology, philosophy, theology, indigenous cultures, the arts, and more. Early pioneers of the field are Sigmund Freud and Carl
I want to write today about what it means to me to be a depth psychologist in today’s world. I read about and feel in my bones the polarization in our country: democrats v.republicans, liberals v. conservatives, religious fundamentalists v. “New Agers”, and the list goes on. What it essentially comes down to is “me v. Other.”Whoever we are and whereever we stand is the “me.” Whomever the other person is that stands in a different place in the world in such a way that we c
