This Jungian Life

We have always been subject to the influence of others—it’s how we learn language, become socialized, cooperate and collaborate. It’s also how we exclude, denigrate, and assault others. Today, we are subject to unprecedented social influences. Multiplicities of media shape our ideas, identities, beliefs, and values--and foster connections and communities around the world. If tulip mania took hold in 17th century Holland—perhaps the original speculative bubble--today we have non-fungible tokens and cryptocurrencies. “Heretics” are now exiled via “cancel culture.” Cultural contagions and psychic epidemics are not new—they just come dressed in the flashy new garb of social media and telecommunication. Amid so many influences, it is newly necessary to engage in the discernment and differentiation crucial to individuation, the fulfillment of our innate potential. Consciousness cannot be held hostage to intellectual simplifications or emotional reactivity. Each of us can uphold social norms that rest on foundations

This is Shadowland, a new podcast experience from This Jungian Life that explores the lives of people who work and take refuge in the hidden places of our culture. Lisa, Deb, and Joseph collaborate with songwriter Wells Hanley, creator of I Wrote This Song For You podcast, to bring insight, compassion, and understanding to the darker side of human experience. Nietzsche wrote, “I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: but he who is not afraid of my darkness, will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.” In that spirit, we meet Kay, a 21-year-old single mother who works throughout the American southwest as a self-described prostitute. We explore how she found her way to that life, what she aspires to, and how she holds the complicated tensions between herself, her clients, and the current culture.  Here’s Kay’s dream that we analyze: “I am in a pet store with my best friend and my daughter, who is in a stroller. The woman proprietor went in the back. I saw an alligator in a cage eating a piglet and looked

On September 9th, This Jungian Life will launch a new podcast experience - SHADOWLAND. In this series, we meet soulfully with people who live and work in the hidden places of our culture. Walk with us and discover the voice of psyche on unexpected paths.

Recent events in Afghanistan have again put war at the forefront of collective consciousness. War’s destruction belongs to the mythic realm. Mars, the Roman god of war, was a primordial force whose altars were placed outside city gates. Although acknowledged, he was not accepted. His paramour, Venus, is warfare’s seductress, offering spectacle, pageantry, and glory. Like all the gods of Mt. Olympus, Mars and Venus live in us as opposing forces of aggression and eros. We are charged with holding the tension of these impassioned opposites and making them conscious, lest we project shadow onto designated enemies or wage war internally as neurosis. We can stand in the complexity of conflict, suspend action, and allow the gods a place inside our psychic city gates.  Here’s the dream we analyze: “I had a dream me and my boyfriend adopted a child and were living in a rundown apartment full of darkness that resembled a studio we rehearsed in. Then we went to the balcony to watch missiles falling and exploding in the

Guest Mark Winborn is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst who teaches in the U.S. and internationally. Author of three books and numerous articles, Mark is an active member of the IRSJA and the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich/Kusnacht. Psychotherapy is talk therapy—but what kind of talk are we talking about? The most fundamental medium of our knowing is language, and metaphor imbues language with music. To understand and engage another’s internal world requires language which speaks in harmony with the unconscious. Metaphor speaks beyond ego and traverses the realms between past and present, bodily sensation and feeling, conscious and unconscious. It infuses lived experience with connection and creates shared space for healing. Jung says, “Whoever speaks in primordial images speaks with a thousand voices; he enthralls and overpowers, while at the same time he lifts the idea he is seeking to express out of the occasional and the transitory into the realm of the ever-enduring.” Here’s the dream we analyze

We seem hard-wired to split the world into polarities: right/wrong, either/or, victory/defeat, Democrat/Republican. Infants and toddlers have not yet achieved the developmental capacity for complexity; they are believed to split their feelings toward caretakers into “good” and “bad,” depending on whether their needs are being met in the moment. Although it distorts reality, splitting reduces anxiety by locating the problem “out there,” allowing us to reject what we find aversive and affirm our own virtue, self-worth, and blamelessness. The capacity for ambivalence—the ability to hold opposite feelings—requires more differentiated cognitive skills and emotional range. Can we bear anxiety in the face of what seems intolerable without retreating to the fortress of one-sided (usually righteous) certainty? Doing so can increase capacity for objectivity, self-reflection, and ability to bridge the split.  HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE: “I was in a room full of people, not sure where or with who, but I suppose they wer

There are three major models of healing: medical, shamanic, and psychoanalytic. In the first, the doctor does it to you; in the second, the intermediary does it for you; and in the third, Jung’s dialectical process, we work together to discover “the curative powers in the patient’s own nature.” Just as every wounded patient has inner health, every healer has an inner wound. If consciously known and borne, the analyst’s wound serves the healing process. In Greek myth, Chiron symbolizes the wounded healer, a term Jung originated. A wise and noble centaur, Chiron suffered a painful, incurable wound—and inspired many a Greek hero to reach full potential. Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis attract wounded healers. A recent survey shows that 82% of applied psychology graduate students and faculty in the U.S. and Canada experience mental health conditions. We must be willing, like Chiron, to embrace the darkness of our painful places if we hope to help others embrace theirs.  Here’s the dream we analyze: “I had just m

Guest T. Susan Chang is a writer, podcaster, and teacher of tarot, the most commonly recognized modern form of divination. The archetypal symbols in the tarot’s 78 card deck offer gateways to meaning and mystery. Jung says symbols act as transformers—life energy is converted from a lower to higher form by the amplification that consciousness provides. Tarot divination is intended to break from the mundane and court the numinous. It asks that we set logic aside, surrender doubt, and step unafraid into the space between realms. As with dreams, whatever arises will tell us something we don’t know and can use. Jung said that the “redeeming symbol is a highway, a way upon which life can move forward without torment and compulsion.” By opening ourselves to the inexplicable, we set forth on that highway with the intent of discovering our unique pattern for personhood and purpose in the world.  A Two-Card Tarot Reading This week, in lieu of a dream interpretation, Susie agreed to do a two-card Tarot draw for all of u

Guest Oliver Burkeman states in his new book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, that “outrageous brevity is life’s defining problem.” At age 80, you’ll have had a paltry 4,000 weeks. Such brevity is breathtaking, so we create defenses against the reality of finitude. We distract ourselves with the belief that fulfillment lies in the future, that plans and goals prove purpose, and that we can achieve almost any number of things by being more efficient/motivated/healthy—or just overall exceptional. Paradoxically, embracing life’s limitations can open us to what Jung called “a new attitude”—an inner pivot from the daily grind to seeing and seizing life’s possibilities. Time is not our adversary, the present is not hostage to the future, and we can choose to be alive while we’re alive. Here’s the dream we analyze: “Had a dream about a close friend. She had committed a murder, and there was a police detective asking her questions. She had some sort of tracker device that she was holding in her hand

In Answer to Job, Jung states, “Whoever knows God has an effect on him.” If, as Jung claims, individual human consciousness affects God, what we are matters monumentally. When we serve our neuroses, the gulf between ego and Self widens. Pursuing individuation not only sets our personality in right order, it permits our personal experiences to enrich the collective unconscious – who we are is added to God. When Jung visited the Navajo, they told him they helped the sun, their father, cross the sky each day, a spiritual observance that sustained the world. Jung said, “I had envied the fullness of meaning in that belief and had been looking about without hope for a myth of our own. Now I knew what it was, and knew even more: that man is indispensable for the completion of creation, that in fact, he himself is the second creator of the world….” Human consciousness weaves meaning into the dance of life. Our psyches companion God crossing the sky each day and so participate in creation. As we confront the mystery o

Although the concept of archetypes has philosophical ancestors, Jung’s theory was developed over time and rested on a foundation that was scientific and empirical. Research and experiment enabled Jung to establish the autonomous activity of the unconscious. He was then able to posit archetypes as a predisposition to form representations of universal human experiences and mythological motifs, such as marriage, the hero’s journey, and death/rebirth. For Jung, archetypes are innate psychic organs that “have a positive, favourable (sic), bright side that points upwards [and] one that points downwards…” Archetypes manifest spontaneously. In the collective, they are the driving force behind mass movements; in individuals, archetypes manifest most frequently as dream images that feel numinous and ‘other.’ Jung says, “The impact of an archetype, whether it takes the form of immediate experience or is expressed through the spoken word stirs us because it summons up a voice that is stronger than our own.” The power of

We plainly pay attention, using the finite currency of time and energy issued in the 24-hour increments that add up to a life - well spent? We have choices and constraints about how we allocate our attention, and today’s world competes fiercely for it in unprecedented ways. No wonder, for power is the ability to command or hijack attention, even if it warps reality with untruths. Jung particularly valued the attentional dimension of “dreaming, or fantasy-thinking” experienced in reverie, dreams, and creativity. And like mothers, lovers, and psychotherapists, we can give others the unconditional attention that brings soul into being. All we have to do is practice paying attention to what we pay attention to.  Here’s the dream we analyze: “A large lesbian woman, Sally, has four adopted boys. Their home is the top floor of a brick industrial building (like a power station) in the shape of a square, with a quad in the middle. They are visited by Kirsty and Phil (hosts of British TV shows about property/home impro

In the first half of life, we strive to develop ego strength and achieve our dreams. To want, will, and work is worthwhile and adaptive--until a life dream, relationship, or identity fades or fails. Should we hang in and hang on - or let go? When does perseverance become pointless, or hope turn rancid in refusal to accept disappointment, defeat, or depression? In letting go, we relinquish our hard-won, heroic “I” and yield to an encounter with the unconscious. Jung says that although “I was afraid of losing command of myself…I let myself drop.” He came to realize that “This identity and my heroic idealism had to be abandoned, for there are higher things than the ego’s will, and to these one must bow.” Jung discovered, as may we, that in letting go something greater can meet and sustain us.  HERE’S THE DREAM WE ANALYZE: “I’m in a dining room. It’s in an older house with rooms like boxes for different purposes. There is the requisite brown wood dining room table. I’m not sure I should be in there. It feels old

In medieval times, the threshold was a plank that kept barnyard “threshings” outside the house. In the sciences a threshold is the limit of magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a definitive change to occur. In human development life stage thresholds are marked and recognized through ritual. In psychoanalytic work the symbol is the threshold—a visible but not literal representation that calls consciousness to apprehend a larger, unseen reality.  Science fiction, mythology’s modern descendant, has richly storied this process as transition into a new world. The ambiguity and disorientation of this liminal situation requires the sacrifice of old attitudes and willingness to surrender to a new reality—a space of potential enlightenment. The ultimate goal is to recross the threshold and bring the symbolic experience home to consciousness.  Here's the dream we analyze: “It is late at night and I find myself lying in a dark alleyway at the foot of a tall building. It seems I have just got married as I am

Jung’s earliest dream, at age three or four, preoccupied him all his life, “in an underground chamber, a giant phallus stood erect on a golden throne.” Majestic and luminous, it struck him with terror that intensified as his mother’s voice cried out in warning. Phallos, the central archetype of a man's psyche, was once worshipped as sacred. Its urgent, dynamic, and fertilizing power was split off with the rise of ascetic monotheism and banished to the unconscious. Misplaced and maligned, it surfaces as resentful passivity, fear of passion, confusion of values, and reluctance to take action. Phallos is neither reducible to physicality nor synonymous with the patriarchal structures that have alienated men from their vulnerabilities and locked entire cultures into rigid hierarchies. When properly understood, Phallos can revitalize a man’s spirit and set him in vigorous relationship to himself and others. When wounded, it palls his potential. Here’s the dream we analyze: “I’m in a taxi, on my way to an old friend

Although Jung’s theory of typology is the foundation of various personality assessments, it is important to appreciate its profundity as Jung’s theory of consciousness. The four functions of consciousness - sensation, intuition, thinking, and feeling--are governed by two attitudes, extraversion, and introversion. Jung defines extraversion as “an attitude type characterized by concentration of interest on the external object.” Since the movement of psychic energy is outward, extroverts find gratification in social and collegial interactions. Extraverts, therefore, need to distinguish individual goals from relational expectations and cultural norms lest they sacrifice inner reality to outer influences. A vital sense of life direction and the unconstrained pursuit of goals requires differentiating outer from inner and is central to Jungian theory. Knowledge of one’s typology can enlist consciousness in psyche’s quest for balance and wholeness.  Here’s the dream we analyze: “I am perhaps 4 or 5 months pregnant, a

Toddlers have ready access to no as they discover the power of me—the start of a lifelong process of differentiating self from all that is other. When are personal needs, desires, and selfhood the priority? When does caring about others, the need to belong, and toeing the line take precedence? Fear of social rejection, workplace retaliation, or family conflict can erode our healthy no, leading to resentment, an uncertain sense of self, and inability to answer the call to life. We also need to be able to say no to our own bad habits, rigidities, and avoidance of challenges. No is robust, and can open space for self-determination and authenticity. When we find our no we also discover that yes has been waiting for us, and it is alive and inviting.  Here's the dream we analyze: "I am enrolled in a graduate program in a beautiful tropical tourist destination. The first part of the dream I remember is getting the syllabus on the first day of one of my classes. The professor is male, in his 30s, slender and unassumi

We can’t help knowing that something bad could happen if we do X…or Y…or maybe Z. Like Odysseus steering his ship between sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, we must navigate between risk avoidance and recklessness. One keeps us out of life; the other jeopardizes wellbeing. In pre-modern times life in the external world was fraught with danger and risk; in the modern world, the consequences of risk are more often internal. Possible disappointment, shame or failure may feel intolerable, but not constitute actual disaster. Assessing risk requires willingness to engage inner conflict--and discern, then answer, the call to enlarged life. When Odysseus’ ship later sank, he clung to the roots of a fig tree. He, and we, have access to psychic roots that can support us. And the day came when the risk to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Anais Nin  Here's the dream we analyze: "In the countryside I find a baby crawling on the side of a road with some cars driving by. I saw t

There is value in examining your values, the powerful emotional and cognitive attitudes that underlie large and small life choices. Although values are initially acquired through family and institutions, an essential task of adulthood is consciously embracing traditional or individual values. Values are the wellspring of libido: they motivate action toward goals. Unless preferred values are in alignment with the underlying flow of energy, unconscious agendas may prevail. Our actions reveal our values, and dreams depict conflicts between conscious and unconsciously held values. The work of Shalom Schwartz, available in an online values assessment (see below), can help identify core values. When values are authentically aligned with goals, they allow libido to flow naturally toward action, and we feel at home with ourselves and right with the world.   Here’s the Dream We Analyze: “I am on my school oval, playing volleyball with my peers, though I am not a teenager anymore. I’m not very good at playing; I often

The terms introversion and extraversion, now cultural staples, originated with Jung and describe the overall direction of life energy. The widely used Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI), now available online, is drawn directly from Jung’s theory of personality types. Although extraverts direct their energy outward, introverts direct their energy inward. External-world relationships and events tend to pale in comparison to ideas, internal images and reflective processes. The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke expressed this idea pithily: “I am in love with you and it’s none of your business.” Introverts are not shy, reclusive, fearful, detached or avoidant—they simply find their inner world enlivening. Introversion places a high value on receptivity, quietude in a busy world, and relationship with oneself.  Jung, himself an introvert, valued the ability to claim inner life, freedom and independence.  Here's the dream we analyze: "I'm in the central square of my native city with my grandmother and my cousin (he