Michael Brown, Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin, Andy Lopez – these are the well-known names. But to really understand America’s myth of innocence, we must see these tragedies in the proper perspective. Every 28 hours, an African-American or Latino is shot dead by a police officer, a security guard or a self-appointed vigilante (http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/1-black-man-killed-every-28-hours-police-or-vigilantes-america-perpetually-war-its). 43% of the shootings occur after incidents of r
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Carl Jung wrote, "Whenever the snake symbolism appears in dreams, then, it is always representative of the lower motor centers of the brain and of the spinal cord, and our fear of snakes denotes that we are not fully in tune with our instinctive lower centers; they still contain a threat to us."
The message in Jung's insight is that of fear and potential. When we're afraid, there's room for healing and growth. Snakes appearing in dreams inevitably frightens folks. I've never had a patient in dept
Part Two
Just let me get elected, and then you can have your war. – Lyndon Johnson
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was built on a foundation of lies. Contrary to what President Johnson claimed, there was no unprovoked “act of aggression” against the American destroyers that had been provocatively patrolling the area, and a second alleged incident never even took place. But the Johnson administration was looking for a pretext to escalate the war.
How could a liberal Congress pass this resolution? On
Part One
I laughed to myself…Here we go. I’m starting a war under false pretenses. – James Stockdale, flying over the Gulf of Tonkin, August 1964
August 10th. This month we note many anniversaries. Thirty-nine years ago Wednesday, Congress passed the voting Rights Act. Forty years ago yesterday, Richard Nixon resigned. August 28th is the 51st anniversary of the March on Washington.
But today’s anniversary is the most significant. Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Gulf of Tonkin R
The following article is on a subject in which most clinicians have no concrete training: recognizing abortion-induced PTSD. I wrote it in layman's terms for the general population with the intention of helping them be more sensitive to this prevalent but under-recognized issue, and letting them know this form of PTSD can be treated.
I hope you will find it helpful in your life and practice. You have my permission to make copies and to give or forward it to those the Lord lays on your heart.
W
I've decided to post this now after discovering a lovely poem by Silvia Behrend "In the Garden". What struck me was the synchronicity that I had written this on the same day Silvia posted her poem - I only discovered this when I opened my journal to add her poem to my own entry....
2014-7-15 Psychotherapy is a lot like Gardening
We live at a time in our history when the majority of energy is invested in quick fixes. It is interesting that not too long ago there were speciality variety acts called
Sometimes folks feel bad because it's too scary to feel good! Especially when there's been chronic trauma in a person's life, feeling good can be scary. The good can be at any moment ripped away. That's what chronic trauma does to the head, makes a person afraid that what's good and feels good could at any second be pulled out from under foot.
The inner saboteur generates misery and drama. A dark figure surfaces in dreams as one who wreaks havoc on what is good. It's a terrible thing to not be ab
Last night the city of London was plunged into darkness at 10pm. I'm sure many other places were too. The #LightsOut campaign was a way for everyone to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, on August 4th 1914. The idea was to turn out our lights and light a candle in memory of those who gave their lives.
Many of you will be aware of the prophetic dreams - nightmares - that Jung experienced which were tantamount to premonitions of war.
'By the time World War I had broken out in ea
Psyche: Your Inner GPS Navigation System
By
Donna May
I was walking this morning and came across the above sign. The road goes up and over a series of mountainous wilderness areas, ascending and descending through some of the most gorgeous terrain anywhere in the world. And it’s wild, truly “a road less traveled.” The territory is filled with mountain ranges, creeks, tributaries and one of the only remaining free-flowing rivers in the United States. Wildlife is everywhere. Sometimes in winter, the
I've been reading about soul and time.
One of the wisest descriptions I've come across is from poet John O'Donohue.
In this extract interviewer Krista Tippett asks him about time:
JOD: 'I think that one of the huge difficulties in modern life is the way time has become the enemy.
KT: Time is a bully. We're captive to it.
JOD: Totally, and I'd say seven out of every 10 people who turn up in a doctor's surgery are suffering from something stress-related.
Now, there are big psychological tomes written on
Fast and furious come the demands. They want time, attention, energy. People feel empty and turn your way. "They'll steal your soul if you let them....don't you let them," goes the contemporary folk song.
Problem is that there is often a psychic hole in us that permits people to make their incessant demands without us setting limits. We need to be needed. It's a dark abyss of a most nontransfomational sort to require the neediness of others in order to manufacture an ostensible wholeness in ourse
In the garden
I bury the remains of the mothers -
The fish whose bones line the roots of my tomatoes-
That is how I pray
I kneel in the soft earth and look
Through the lattice of dark green leaves
There, yellow as buttercups in the sun,
Incipient fruit
Await the annunciation
I can already sense the bulging clusters
I take my well-sharpened scissors
And make space for the new life
Carefully pruning away the excess
To leave the essential
Isn’t it so with life?
I did an experiment once
I let the tomatoes grow
Destiny's Fate
Destiny, Thou hallowed bride
Fate's groom has courted you till you sigh.
He has plunged his poisonous hand into your heart
And wounded your innocence till you smart.
He lusts for your soul you so fearfully proffer
Because you are torn between passion and honor.
Destiny, Thou hallowed bride,
Fate's groom has courted you till you sigh.
He has plunged his poisonous hand into you heart
And wounded your innocence till you smart.
He lusts for your soul you so fearfully proffer
Because you are torn
When head space gets clogged, a psychological complex has kicked in. it could be that we're unconsciously trying to please a mother or father figure. There's a chance that power needs or an old habit of tying into depressive attitudes has us by the throat and won't let go. Whatever is causing it, a complex clogs up head space and can pull us down into the dumps.
The good thing is that the dumps carry the seeds of potential change. It's like a built-in compost heap for the psyche. When we go down,
Part One
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. – George Orwell
I published an earlier version of this essay in 2014. Now, as we find ourselves inundated with lies, “alternative facts”, biased “fact checkers” and algorithm-manipulated news reports calculated to confirm our biases – all of which make some of us want to fall back upon familiar, “reliable” voices of traditional media – it seems even more relevant.
It’s easy enough to roll our eyes and ma
I’m pretty sure I am supposed to memorialize my experience, but I have been a bit fearful of doing so. It just dawned on me that I don’t need to fear looking crazy when I’m amongst a group of Jungian Depth Psychologist. IMHO you all are far crazier than me. LOL So I’ll start from the beginning and start a new thread. Hopefully, this won’t be too boring. I can assure you that it was anything but for me. The importance of the background information will become evident later. Thoughts, co
“This is our meditation practice as women, calling back the dead and dismembered aspects of ourselves……”–Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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–hav
In light of the recent shootings at Isla Vista/UCSB [Update June 5: Now adding Seattle Pacific University] as well as the hundreds of other gun violence incidents across the country and the world, I wanted to share/re-share some depth psychological resources and discussion around the topic. But first, some statistics courtesy of NBC News
- Every year in the U.S., an average of more than 100,000 people are shot, according to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence.
- Every day in the U.S., an av
