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“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Just in time for Halloween, I wanted to write about my most favorite fairy tale character for whom this blog is named, Baba Yaga. If you do not know her, you should. She makes several important appearances in Russian folklore, most notably inVasilissa the Beautiful.

Baba Yaga is a fearsome, bloodthirsty hag. She rides through the Ru

I'd like to share a brand new written interview with Charlene Jones, Alliance member and psychotherapist, who offers a private practice in Ontario, Canada. Charlene is one of over a hundred Alliance members listed as a depth oriented practitioner on DepthPsychologyList.com, available to the general public to search by location or type of services for free...

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Charlene Jones is a depth oriented psychotherapist specializing in addictions release, depression, crisis intervention, and marriage co

Is talk therapy going silent?

Not entirely, but the Saturday edition of the New York Times featured an article entitled “Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy.” This is very old news to anyone in the mental health field — as a patient or practitioner. But it’s good to see that The Times has noticed.

Here’s the heart of the story:

Recent studies suggest that talk therapy may be as good as or better than drugs in the treatment of depression, but fewer than half of depressed pa

Hi everyone,

I'm at work on an anthology with the working title Writings in Deep Psychology, and I thought I'd post a brief piece of it having to do with what constitutes "depth psychology." My anthology will include work from a number of pioneers, including Wundt (yes, Wundt: he did something for depth but most textbooks ignore it), Fechner (a tremendous nature mystic), William James, Pierre Janet, Freud and the Freudians, Jung and the Jungians, and work from Psychosynthesis, Humanistic-Existen

As a psychologist in training, I remember a deeply nourishing exchange with a supervisor that kindled my understanding of hope and healing. “Healing calls for hope. As a therapist, you’ve got to feel it for the patient. If you don’t, it would be best to refer them to someone you feel might be better for them. Maybe they simply would benefit from medication or need a neurological workup. Not everyone is ready for or needs therapy. But, if they come your way, check in with your feeling of hope. Is

Just Published by Fisher King Press

Jungian Child Analysis

Jungian Child Analysis brings together ten certified Child and Adolescent Analysts (IAAP) to discuss how healing with children occurs within the analytical framework. While the majority of Jung’s corpus centered on the collective aspects of the adult psyche, one can find in Jung’s earliest work clinical observations and ideas that reflect an uncanny prescience of the psychological research that would later emerge regarding the self and

The thing about living is light. It surrounds us, breathes through us – not in us but through us. The force of it is subtle as the New Mexico breeze I hardly notice under the hot summer desert sun then suddenly become acutely grateful for when under the shade of a hundred-year-old cottonwood tree.

 Light informs my psychotherapeutic work with patients who’ve suffered from complex childhood trauma, a terrible pain stemming from years of chronic abuse. There are horrid memories deposited in mind an

It’s fall and I don’t know if this is happening to you, but all areas of my life are pinging and needing attention all at once—work, finances, health (I’m determined to lose my 10 extra pounds), love (I’m surprised at this one…), my creative muse (wish I had more time to devote…), and family (I need to fly to Iowa to help clean out and sell the family house. When am I gonna have time to do that…?)

I’m feeling some overwhelm.

When we’re in fear, overwhelm, confusion, or exasperated that our goals a

I’ve always had trouble voicing things… speaking up for myself, calling out deception, and owning my own value and worth. When I was growing up, my mother would always tell me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I wasn’t sure that whatever I was thinking was nice, so I stuffed my thoughts and feelings.

Years ago, I heard a story about a Cesar Chavez farm worker meeting in the 1950s. The room was packed with men who were arguing loudly. And then an old woman who’d

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?

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 emotion

Hi All,

I'm making a documentary film about ecological adaptation and the transformation of modern myths from the limitless growth of free market economy to the archetype of loving home and taking care of the planet (which i frame as depth psychology in terms both ancient and postmodern).

Please watch the trailer at startsomegood.com/clnc

If this inspires you, please donate - pledges being at just $5 and every person that joins this community becomes part of the new story we are building together.

A recent seminar on Jung and Steiner and their contributions to an evolution of consciousness, held at the C. G. Jung Institute in San Francisco, was well attended by individuals schooled in both camps. This seems to be happening more and more: finding the common ground of these two men's great works.

Although contemporaries, Carl Jung and Rudolf Steiner never met. And although they did not have much good to say about the other, they shared a common philosophical ancestor, Wolfgang von Goethe. (R

Each night that we dream, we're gifted. Actually, we dream multiple times nightly but only remember a few. I'm never troubled by, and encourage patients to not be worried about not recalling every specific dream. It's impossible and unnecessary.

After over thirty years of doing dreamwork I'm convinced that dreams that are meant for us to remember, we remember. The rest do their work within like psychic housekeepers that come in after hours and take care of things without being noticed. Often, it'

There are many worthy arguments for the existence of ideals. These include the role of ideals as an organizing principle around which people with similar values can gather. Like goals, ideals motivate us.

We would have to be blind, however, not to acknowledge their danger. By definition, when ideals are our gui