Career as a Journey of Soul program
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An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
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Combined bibliography (alphabetical by author)
A — L
Campbell, J. (2004). Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and personal transformation
Amazon: Joseph Campbell famously defined myth as “other people's religion.” But he also said that one of the basic functions of myth is to help each individual through the journey of life, providing a sort of travel guide or map to reach fulfillment — or, as he called it, bliss. For Campbell, many of the world's most powerful myths support the individual's heroic path toward bliss.
In Pathways to Bliss, Campbell examines this personal, psychological side of myth. Like his classic best-selling books Myths to Live By and The Power of Myth, Pathways to Bliss draws from Campbell's popular lectures and dialogues, which highlight his remarkable storytelling and ability to apply the larger themes of world mythology to personal growth and the quest for transformation. Here he anchors mythology's symbolic wisdom to the individual, applying the most poetic mythical metaphors to the challenges of our daily lives.
Campbell dwells on life's important questions. Combining cross-cultural stories with the teachings of modern psychology, he examines the ways in which our myths shape and enrich our lives and shows how myth can help each of us truly identify and follow our bliss.
Conforti, M. (2003). Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche
Goodreads: C. G. Jung emphasized the deep link to the physical world that exists for the collective unconscious and its archetypes. Our dreams and symbols, as well as the patterns of our behavior, are shaped by the fact that we are creatures of a material universe. Michael Conforti's research has been directed to understanding the nature of these links and patterns in the light of the new sciences - quantum theory, chaos theory, self-organization, and the new biology. Conforti's book successfully integrates this material to offer a new, exciting challenge to psychotherapy. It demonstrates that the study of consciousness cannot neglect the insights of the sciences and in doing so promises a unified view of mind and matter.
This book is revolutionary in the field of depth psychology. Move over old school...new school is coming with some friends! This book suggests and give compelling evidence that our choices are more than just learned behaviors and habits...that there is more at work in our lives like psyche influencing our lives. By describing and supporting his theories, Dr. Conforti give us a look into how the "new sciences" give evidence of unseen "fields" interacting with us and helping shape our lives and the world we live in. (Rebecca)
Dunne, C. (2000). Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul
Summary (Trove): This biography tells the story of one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. Carl Jung continues to be revered today as a true revolutionary who changed our views of psychology, introduced the West to Eastern spirituality and brought into general awareness such important concepts as archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity. This book chronicles Jung's journey of self-discovery from his childhood, filled with visions both terrifying and profound, through to his early adulthood when he pursued more material goals, to his rediscovery of spirituality at mid-life. It contains the tumultuous relationship between Jung and his mentor Sigmund Freud, the unconventional yet vital role performed by his student Toni Wolff, and the revelatory visions Jung experienced following a close brush with death. Jung emerges as a healer whose skills arose from having first attended to the wounds in his own soul.
Independent (Salley Vickers, 6 December 2015): The analytical psychologist CG Jung famously remarked: “Thank God I am Jung and not a Jungian”. As with his mentor and former colleague, Freud, his personal charisma and pioneering investigation of unconscious processes often attracted the wrong kind of disciple, prone to peddle the barmier aspects of his theory.
The sub-title of Claire Dunne’s (Wounded Healer of the Soul) does not inspire confidence: the term “wounded healer” has become something of a cliché in Jungian circles. Happily, the book resists any tendency to cultishness. Dunne allows Jung himself to provide the core of the text. The book follows his life and work with extensive and pertinent quotes from his own letters, diaries, his autobiography Memories, Dreams and Reflections and his vast psychological oeuvre. Alongside these illuminating portholes into the mind and imagination of this pioneer of modern psychological theory are photographs of Jung and his family and illustrative artifacts and paintings, many of the latter by Jung himself.
Unlike Freud, Jung was a practising psychiatrist. His work with schizophrenics took him into realms that Freud possibly feared, certainly resisted, and led to Jung’s decisive formulation of the theory of a Collective Unconscious, a universal resource as opposed to Freud’s more limited concept of a personal unconscious. The intense and increasingly testy relationship between the two is illustrated here in letters. The break with Freud was a crisis in Jung’s emotional as well as his intellectual life. “It is not a question of caprice but of fighting for what I hold to be true” he wrote “... I can only assure you that there is no resistance on my side, unless it be my refusal to be treated like a fool riddled with complexes.”
What Jung fought for was the recognition that the unconscious life is more than a dustbin of unwelcome or embarrassing sexual affects. Rather he came to see it as a rich and impersonal resource, where latent aspects of the personality may exist in potentia and which we encounter most commonly through dreams but also in spontaneous artistic endeavour and indeed erotic relationships. Dunne has produced an attractive evocation of Jung’s own developing understanding of what he came to call “individuation”, the process whereby we may evolve through respectful attention to the Self, which was his term for soul.
REGISTER FOR UNIQUE 6-WEEK INTENSIVE 2020 ONLINE COURSES
Course 1: Career as a Journey of Soul
An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
Easter, S. L. (2016). Jung and the Ancestors: Beyond biography, mending the ancestral web
SUNY Press: An exploration of the ways in which the ancestors, from the archetypal to the personal, influence us in the present and implicate us in lives of subsequent generations. At a time when interest in family ancestry has never been greater, Sandra Easter’s book introduces us to a powerful mode of psychological inquiry that engages the ancestors as living presences shaping who we are and the lives we live. Expanding the traditional focus of depth psychology beyond the realm of personal biography, the author finds evidence of the ancestors in dreams, visions, and symptoms of illness, and in nature and the land on which we live.
Interweaving theory and practice, and drawing skillfully on C. G. Jung’s work and personal reflections, the book is rich with real-life examples of women who, by establishing dialogues with the ancestors, have been able to work through personal and generational trauma and wounds, healing themselves and those in their ancestral lines. By exploring the unconscious psyche as the ancestral “land of the dead,” Easter argues we can also find greater meaning for our lives and better understand our own personal myth. Jung and the Ancestors is an important contribution to depth psychology, focusing on an area of Jung’s thought largely overlooked, yet rendered increasingly significant in the wake of the publication of The Red Book. Easter’s work will change the way you understand yourself and your relationship to those in your past and your future.
Hillman, J. (1989). A Blue Fire: Selected writings
A vitally important introduction to the theories of one of the most original thinkers in psychology today, A Blue Firegathers selected passages from many of Hillman's seminal essays on archetypal psychology.
Publishers Weekly: For Jungian psychoanalyst Hillman, who has won a following with such books as Re-Visioning Psychology, the psyche is a polytheistic battleground, words are carriers of soul between people and dream images are ``necessary angels'' demanding a response. Readers who have found Hillman's therapeutic approach impractical or abstruse will welcome this compact, highly readable anthology of his writings--edited in collaboration with Hillman and encompassing hard-to-find books, articles and lectures. The selections reveal Hillman as a systematic thinker who adopts an open-ended attitude toward the mind, seeking out mythic archetypes and fantasies at work in family conflicts, in politics, war, the workplace--and in the betrayals and raptures of love.
"One of the few truly original thinkers in psychology today. His archetypal psychology transcends more traditional psychology, blending myth, language, and imagination in psychotherapy." -- Los Angeles Times
“Rich and provocative....Mr. Hillman has an exciting, difficult, deeply cultured mind, one that ranges easily from the arcana of alchemy to the discomforts of a bus ride." -- New York Times Book Review
Hillman, J. (1996). The Soul's Code: In search of character and calling
Biblio: James Hillman, a former director of the Jung Institute who has written more than 20 books on behavior and psychology, delves into human development in The Soul's Code. Hillman encourages you to "grow down" into the earth, as an acorn does when it becomes a mighty oak tree. He argues that character and calling are the result of "the particularity you feel to be you" and knocks those who blame childhood difficulties for all their problems as adults . For James Hillman it is the central and guiding force of his utterly unique and compelling 'acorn theory' which proposes that each life is formed by a particular image, an image that is the essence of that life and calls it to a destiny, just as the mighty oak's destiny is written in the tiny acorn. According to Hillman, "The current American identity as a victim is the flip side of the coin whose head brightly displays the opposite identity: the heroic self-made man, carving out destiny alone and with unflagging will." Hillman's theories seem disarmingly simple, but he backs them with a careful, well-practiced intellect.
Amazon: Plato called it “daimon,” the Romans “genius,” the Christians “guardian angel”; today we use such terms as “heart,” “spirit,” and “soul.” While philosophers and psychologists from Plato to Jung have studied and debated the fundamental essence of our individuality, our modern culture refuses to accept that a unique soul guides each of us from birth, shaping the course of our lives. In this extraordinary bestseller, James Hillman presents a brilliant vision of our selves, and an exciting approach to the mystery at the center of every life that asks, “What is it, in my heart, that I must do, be, and have? And why?”
Drawing on the biographies of figures such as Ella Fitzgerald and Mohandas K. Gandhi, Hillman argues that character is fate, that there is more to each individual than can be explained by genetics and environment. The result is a reasoned and powerful road map to understanding our true nature and discovering an eye-opening array of choices—from the way we raise our children to our career paths to our social and personal commitments to achieving excellence in our time.
“[An] acute and powerful vision . . . offers a renaissance of humane values.”—Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul and The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life
Hollis, J. (2003). Finding meaning in the second half of life: how to finally, really grow up
What does it really mean to be a grown up in today's world? We assume that once we ‘get it together’ with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we've made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck - commonly known as the ‘midlife crisis’. Jungian psychoanalyst James Hollis believes it is only in the second half of life that we can truly come to know who we are and thus create a life that has meaning. In Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Hollis explores the ways we can grow and evolve to fully become ourselves when the traditional roles of adulthood aren't quite working for us, revealing a new way of uncovering and embracing our authentic selves. Offering wisdom to anyone facing a career that no longer seems fulfilling, a long-term relationship that has shifted, or family transitions that raise issues of aging and mortality, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life provides a reassuring message and a crucial bridge across this critical passage of adult development. (Booktopia)
Testimonials: Midlife is a time when people can lose their way and flounder. Jungian analyst James Hollis knows this terrain, describes it well and asks the important questions that can lead to clarity, maturity, and meaning - Jean Shinoda Bolen MD, author of Goddesses in Everywoman and Gods in Everyman
The Search for Meaning in the Second Half of Life contains the writing of a gentle and insightful soul who does not bog down in analytical dryness, but speaks to and teaches from the heart. A combination of genuine vision and genuine humanity is a rare and valuable gift, and readers will find both in this work. - Larissa Pinkola Estes PhD, author of Women Who Run with the Wolves
James Hollis is the most lucid thinker I know about the complexities and complexes that interfere with living a full life. His broad background in literature, philosophy, and Jungian psychology is everywhere present in this important book, which, as it strips away illusions, posits the soul-work that's necessary for the difficult task of making our lives meaningful. He's one of our great teachers and healers. - Stephen Dunn, Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet
James Hollis' new book is a work of soul-making. It brings solace and wisdom to those of us who finds ourselves in a dark wood, in the second half of life. - Edward Hirsch, author of How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry
REGISTER FOR UNIQUE 6-WEEK INTENSIVE 2020 ONLINE COURSES
Course 1: Career as a Journey of Soul
An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
Jacobi, J. (1959). Complex, archetype, symbol in the psychology of C G Jung
As an associate of C. G. Jung for many years, Jolande Jacobi is in a unique position to provide an interpretation of his work. In this volume, Dr. Jacobi presents a study of three central, interrelated concepts in analytical psychology: the individual complex, the universal archetype, and the dynamic symbol.
Editorial note: The concept of archetypes and its correlate, that of the collective unconscious, are among the better known theories developed by Professor Jung. Their origins may be traced to his earliest publication, “On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena” (1902), in which he described the fantasies of an hysterical medium. Intimations of the concepts can be found in many of his subsequent writings, and gradually tentative statements crystallized and were reformulated until a stable core of theory was established.
Michael Fordham - review extract: The book is rather more than pure exposition and defence of Jung; in the section on archetypes particularly, there are references to comparable studies such as those made by the Gestalt psychologists and some continental biologists, and there is a section on the development of Jung's concept of the archetype showing how it has undergone considerable change over the last thirty years; it has expanded and in doing so has become more abstract. Besides this, in the section on symbols there is an interesting discussion on the relation between symbol, sign, and allegory that is not, I think, to be found in Jung's writings, at least they have not been collected together before or stated so clearly.. continues JAP 5, I.
Jung, C. G. (1933/ 1995). Modern man in search of a soul
A provocative and enlightening look at spiritual unease and its contribution to the void in modern civilization. Considered by many to be one of the most important books in the field of psychology, Modern Man in Search of a Soul is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology, including dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion. Additionally, Jung looks at the differences between his theories and those of Sigmund Freud, providing a valuable basis for anyone interested in the fundamentals of psychoanalysis. (Goodreads)
Review: Modern Man in Search of a Soul is a great introduction to Carl Jung’s theories of analytical psychology. The book is broken down into eleven essays dealing with topics of dream analysis, Freudian psychology, spirituality, and religion. Some consider Jung’s ideas radical because they take into account the soul. While many people believe that the soul exists, it’s impossible to prove it either way and thus begin the arguments. Taking this stance introduces an element of metaphysics into treating mental illness. Eighty years later, the school of psychiatry is still hesitant about treading in the dark forest of spirituality. Jung goes deep inside this forbidden territory and brings to light the nature of our darkness.
Much of this book deals with the subterranean part of our mind, the subconscious. The subconscious is a total mystery because it has either been ignored as irrelevant or purposefully avoided for being an ultimate source of our knowable. But it can only be ignored at the price of damaging our soul. This is reflected in the ever growing number of people seeking out psychiatric help, suicides committed, wars waged, and other forms of violence. Until we can bring a balance between the two half of our minds, the dark and light, we’ll suffer the spiritual decay that has become a cornerstone of modernity.
Jung keeps a complicated subject as straightforward as possible. The humility of this book is commendable. It invites conflicting points of views and inspires exploration into the unconscious for the good of humanity. Modern Man in Search of a Soul combines elements of psychology, philosophy, religion, spirituality, and metaphysics. Looking at today’s world, approximately eighty years after this book was written, Jung’s theories take on a prophetic tone which urges us to embrace the shadow part of our mind, for that is where the healing light will be found. (Guillermo Galvan)
Jung, C. G. (1934). The structure and dynamics of the psyche, in: R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C. G. Jung
Chapter extract 1: The discovery of complexes, and of the phenomena of assimilation caused by them, showed very clearly on what a weak footing the old view—dating back to Condillac—stood, that it was possible to investigate isolated psychic processes. There are no isolated psychic processes, just as there are no isolated life-processes; at any rate, no means have yet been found of isolating them experimentally.2 Only with the help of specially trained attention and concentration can the subject isolate a process so that it appears to meet the requirements of the experiment. But this is yet another “experimental situation,” which differs from the one previously described only because this time the role of the assimilating complex is taken over by the conscious mind, 131 whereas before this was done by more or less unconscious inferiority complexes. CGJ
Chapter extract 2: To the uninitiated ear, my presentation of the complex theory may sound like a description of primitive <read ‘primordial’> demonology or of the psychology of taboos. This peculiar note is due simply to the fact that the existence of complexes, of split-off psychic fragments, is a quite perceptible vestige of the primitive state of mind. The primitive mind is marked by a high degree of dissociability, which expresses itself in the fact, for instance, that primitives assume the existence of 145 several souls—in one case, even six—besides an immense number of gods and spirits, who are not just talked about, as with us, but are very often highly impressive psychic experiences. CGJ
Book review: A megadose of profound psychology - by Ross James Browne: ‘The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche’ is one of the better volumes out of the Princeton/Bollingen series of Jung's collected works, and is absolutely essential for any serious Jungian. I will go over the essays in sequence:
First comes an essay entitled "On Psychic Energy". This is the most difficult essay in this volume. Generally, Jung discusses his concept of the "canalization of libildo". This is interesting in that Jung tries to redefine "libido" by moving away from its traditional, purely sexual connotation. For Jung, libido is simply a generic form of psychic energy which can be redirected or "canalized" into both sexual AND non-sexual activities, such as religious rituals, dances, chants, and incantations. It is only when our intrinsic need for ritual is suppressed that we find our libido forced to direct its energies into sexual perversion. Although the concept is interesting, the writing style of this essay is rather vague and opaque, and if you find yourself bogged down, I strongly suggest you skip this first essay. Don't worry - it's all downhill after this essay. The rest of the book is much more lucid and readable.
Next comes an essay called "The Transcendent Function", which basically deals with the healing breakthrough which is the goal of the patient in psychotherapy. Next is an essay dealing with the "Complex Theory". This essay deals with word-association tests in which the experimenter observes the subjects reactions and hesitations when given a word that evokes embarrassing or painful memories. Both of these essays are very useful and informative.
Next we have about three more short but very profound and informative essays. Then comes the centerpiece of the book, a potent and spectacular classic of 20th century psychology entitled "On the Nature of the Psyche". This, along with "Answer to Job" is one of Jung's very best essays. It deals with an astounding range of topics, including the limitations and paradoxes associated with epistemology, and the dualistic and paradoxical interrelationship between subjective, inner psyche and the objective/outer world. This essay has much to say about the limitations of our subjectivity, and the degree to which we depend on other people and the outside world to attain consciousness. Jung does an excellent job in demarcating the thin line which divides the outer world and the sum of our subjective perceptions. Overall, this essay is a mind warping trip into a sea of paradoxical mysteries of the psyche.
After a short essay dealing with spirits, we come to a series of three great essays: "Spirit and Life", "Basic Postulates of Analytical Psychology", and "Analytical Psychology and Weltanschauung". These fantastic essays deal expertly with the delicate issue of fate and determinism vs. freewill, and the idea of achieving an objective attitude or "Weltanschauung". Jung warns against attempting to unite everyone under one objective attitude or "ism". This can only lead to repression, nationalistic, racist, and patriotic bias, and ultimately, war. According to Jung, when one nation unites under an "ism" or Weltanschauung which is erroneously believed to be objective and appropriate for everyone, we will end up with a repression of individual, diverse opinions at best, and at worst, will have a worldwide tragedy resulting from our quest to force this attitude on other people. (and yes, according to Jung's book, Democracy also counts as one of those "ism's" that we should not try to force on to other people). Of course this tragedy will be carried out under the banner of patriotism.
Next we have three more short essays which are very good, especially "The Soul and Death". After that, we have the famous essay, "Synchronicity", which is available by itself in paperback if you only want that. This is a fascinating essay dealing with paranormal psychic phenomena such as psychokinesis, ESP, and telepathy. If you want to see more details on this essay, see my corresponding review for the stand-alone paperback version.
Overall, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche is a monumental, epic work. A true magnum opus of psychology, I recommend this volume to anyone who is willing to take on a challenge for the pursuit of self-knowledge.
Jung, C. G. (1997). Patterns of Behavior and Archetypes, in: R. F. C. Hull (Trans.), The collected works of C. G. Jung
Princeton University Press: A revised translation of one of the most important of Jung's longer works. The volume also contains an appendix of four shorter papers on psychological typology, published between 1913 and 1935.
"Jung's discussions of the psyche's capacity to produce healing symbols are of vital interest to the practicing analyst concerned with late phases of treatment." -- American Journal of Psychiatry
REGISTER FOR UNIQUE 6-WEEK INTENSIVE 2020 ONLINE COURSES
Course 1: Career as a Journey of Soul
An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
Kipnis, A. R. (2013). The Midas Complex: How money drives us crazy and what we can do about it
Amazon: Money. It’s funny stuff. Cold, hard, and inert, yet it impacts our lives in dynamic ways. Many risk life and limb, work at jobs they hate, marry or divorce for it. Some people will even kill for Money. Most of us employ less drastic means to acquire this so-called medium of exchange. Even so, Money changes us like few other things. Money is one of the most powerful forces in human culture, yet most of us know very little about its psychological nature. In this book, with courage, candor and humor, Dr. Kipnis systematically peels back the veil surrounding the inner life of Money and offers us practical ways out of its myriad psychological traps. As a clinical psychologist who works with organizations, families, couples and individuals he notes that Money issues frequently emerge in his therapeutic work. However, psychologists have written very little on this topic and many therapists are unprepared to host their client’s Money concerns. Conflicts around Money are the number one reason that couples divorce, yet Professor Kipnis’ Midas Complex seminars for therapists remain some of the only such courses in the nation. This book now brings this discussion to a wider audience. Money is a subject often more taboo than talk about sex, death, religion or political affiliation. As Bob Dylan once sang, “Money doesn’t talk, it swears.” The Midas Complex breaks the ubiquitous prohibition against people revealing their real inner feelings about Money. It will aid readers in better understanding both their own and other people’s psychological relationships to Money. It will help readers better understand how Money drives our culture and it offers a number of helpful pathways toward positive change. Numerous studies point to erosions of American’s mental health as directly attributable to the financial uncertainties and economic disparities of our time. This book systematically examines our major, often dysfunctional Money-myths and the psychological forces that compel many of our economic institutions. Throughout this very well researched book, Dr. Kipnis points us toward the possibility of more functional and rewarding relationships with Money in every aspect of society and our individual lives.
Leonard, L. S. (1991). Redeeming the father. In C. Downing (Ed.), Mirrors of the self: Archetypal images that shape your life
This definitive collection explores the many rich images of the inner world and how their creative and destructive aspects help to make us who we are. Readers will learn how to identify these forces within, how to decide which to nurture and which to change, and how to tap into their power to live more deeply.
Review extract, by James F. Wood Sr.: This is an excellent book for students of depth psychology and those acquainted with the theories of Carl Jung. Editor Downing (religious studies, Univ. of San Diego) has assembled articles which focus on the archetypal images defined by Jung. These traditional archetypal images are used to reveal an inner look at the psyche, thus providing ``a mirror to the self.'' Despite a good introduction to Jungian psychology in the opening chapter, readers lacking some familiarity with Jung may find the volume inaccessible. For large psychology collections.. continues.
Leonard, L. S. (2010). Something told me not to give up. In R. Henderson & J. Henderson (Eds.), Living with Jung: 'enterviews' with Jungian analysts
Spring Journal: In this volume of Living with Jung: "Enterviews" with Jungian Analysts, Robert and Janis Henderson present interviews with eighteen Jungian analysts, many of whom, in addition to their private practice, are involved in the development of Jungian training programs around the world. The interviews span not only the broad sweep of the history of Jungian psychology, from Zürich to points beyond, but also the shifts in emphasis that have taken place in the practice of Jungian analysis over the years. As these Jungian analysts reflect on their personal stories for the outside world, they "de-mythologize" not just themselves and their profession, but Jung himself.
The interviews take the form of free-ranging conversations that cover a wide variety of topics, from spirituality, aging, and death, to sexuality, marriage, family, women's issues, politics, religion, healing, and the spread of Jungian training and practice worldwide. For Jungians and interested non-Jungians alike, this is a rich repository of information about the Jungian world, never before brought together in one place.
"Being interviewed by Robert Henderson is like spending an hour in analysis." John Beebe, MD, Jungian Analyst
Lerner, M. (2017) The psychopathology of the 2016 election. Tikkun Journal
Extract 1: When reactionary movements gain public support, liberals and progressives simply dismiss them as products of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, or stupidity rather than trying to understand what is missing in the Left’s message. It is so much easier to demean those with whom we disagree than try to understand their legitimate grievances even if the ways they articulate those grievances are irrational and scary. Yet until we do that, these forces will grow, even if Donald Trump loses by a landslide in the November 2016 election. This is because if he loses, his loss can be attributed in part to the peculiarities of his personality and style of presentation, which have alienated fellow Republicans. These are often the same Republicans who themselves have been advocating policy directions and ideas that are just as militarist, racist, sexist, in favor of the one percent, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic as those championed by Trump. So let’s look deeper. Michael Lerner .. continues
Extract 2: The triumph of selfishness as common sense creates a huge psycho-spiritual crisis and a society filled with deeply scared and lonely people. The resulting psychological distress can lead to addiction and depression, and in some cases suicide. And it generates a spiritual crisis in two ways. First, people want to live meaningful and purposeful lives but find themselves trapped in unfulfilling jobs that provide few opportunities to exercise their intelligence, creativity, desire to cooperate with rather than compete against others, desire to feel that they have done something of value with their time on this planet, and their desire to contribute to the larger society. Second, they unwittingly integrate the values of the capitalist marketplace into their personal lives. These values stand in stark contrast to the spiritual values that teach people to see each other as fundamentally valuable sacred beings who are created in the image of God and who deserve to be treated as valuable in and of themselves, rather than merely as means to satisfy other people’s wants and needs. Michael Lerner .. continues
Extract 3: For Sanders’s movement to still be successful, the Left needs to draw on the model and wisdom of the women’s movement that created small consciousness-raising groups that both helped women see the ways in which their personal struggles were in fact a product of the patriarchal society in which they lived and empowered them to challenge the systems and structures that undermined their freedom and power. Our Network of Spiritual Progressives’ consciousness-raising groups would likewise help people understand both how their personal struggles are often largely (not totally and always) a result of the capitalist system in which they live and not due to their own shortcomings and failures (think of a 12-step program to overcome capitalism) and also help them explore what a world (both their work worlds and their personal lives) would look like if they were governed by the New Bottom Line, as well as teach the empathy skills so desperately needed to reach across the political and cultural divide. Michael Lerner .. continues
Continuing Professional Development
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M — Z
REGISTER FOR UNIQUE 6-WEEK INTENSIVE 2020 ONLINE COURSES
Course 1: Career as a Journey of Soul
An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
Martin, C. R. (2009). Looking at type: your career: using psychological type to find your best-fit career
The standard for MBTI feedback in career counseling, this book describes how type is useful in career selection, linking type to interests, values, skills, decision making, and action planning. Teachers and MMTIC facilitators will also find this resource helpful to students approaching high school graduation to gain insight into job responsibilities and career paths more likely to be personally satisfying. Contains career descriptions for each type and lists the most and least chosen careers from research on type and career selection. (Amazon)
Myers-Briggs: Knowing your personality type, as measured through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® instrument, can help you with career planning at every stage: from your choices of subjects and majors in school to choosing your first career, to advancing in your organization or changing careers later in life.
People often find difficulty defining what kind of work they want to do or why a given field makes them comfortable or uncomfortable. Personality type is a practical tool for investigating what works for you, then looking for and recognizing work that satisfies your preferences. Knowing your MBTI® type may, for example, prove helpful in deciding what specific areas of law, medicine, education, or business a person prefers. A person with a preference for Introversion may find he or she is happier doing research, while a person who prefers Extraversion may favor a field with more interaction with people.
Work environments influence how comfortable you are at your job. Someone with a preference for Introversion, for example, who is required to do a lot of detail work or think through a problem, may find it disruptive to be in an environment that is too loud or where a lot of interaction is required. When you know this about yourself, you can make arrangements to do your work in a more suitable location or at a time when there is less activity and interference.
Even when circumstances make it necessary for you to do work that you have not chosen or which you must do as part of your overall job description, knowledge and understanding of type can help you discover and use your strengths to accomplish the work. When you find an unsatisfactory job fit, you can examine the reasons and seek solutions based on your preferences.
When you do have an opportunity to take a new path in your work, type can help you analyze the fit of your type with your past work and consider what new direction can best fit with your preferences. (myersbriggs.org)
Meade, M. (2010). Fate and Destiny: The two agreements of the soul
Michael Meade re-teaches the words we think we know - genius, destiny, fate, soul, gift, fame & infamy - and introduces us to our own soul's interior meanings and our unique life's divinely -printed designs. Ancient and modern stories are woven together to remind us of destiny's purpose.
In this highly anticipated book, renowned mythologist and storyteller Michael Meade explores the complex and mysterious territories of the human soul with daring and hard-won wisdom. Drawing on folktales and myths from many cultures and spiritual ideas from the East and West, he leads us to an undeniable truth: that the only story we came here to live is our own. Meade shows how the limitations of family and fate form the inner threads from which our individual destiny must emerge. He explains how our wounds can become doorways to our deepest gifts, and how our greatest efforts in the world are intended to lead us to a treasure divinely seeded within us before birth. Fate and Destiny speaks directly to young people looking to find a genuine path in life and trying to awaken to the dream they carry inside. It offers penetrating insights for those caught in life s inevitable struggles and shows how the wisdom of elders depends upon re-membering the spirit of eternal youth. As one story puts it, god has only one question to ask you at the end of life: did you become yourself? Weaving stories within stories, lacing pertinent psychology within cultural analysis, and mixing autobiography with myth, Meade opens the territory of fate and destiny to new interpretations and deeper meanings.
Weaving stories within stories, lacing pertinent psychology within cultural analysis, and mixing autobiography with myth, Michael Meade opens the territory of fate and destiny to new interpretations and deeper meanings leading us to an undeniable truth: that the only story we came here to live is our own. At the age of thirteen Michael became a lover of myth. That love kept unfolding. Now he is a great elder in our tribe, and this book is the flowering and the fruiting of the seed-story of this unique individual. His genius is a generous gift to us all. — Coleman Barks
Carefully re-teaching us words we think we know: genius, destiny, fate, soul, gift, fame and infamy, Michael Meade introduces us to our own soul’s interior meanings and our unique life’s divinely imprinted designs. I love the threading of these teachings with stories from Meade’s own remarkable life. It is a relief to witness the glory of an awakened elder, here. There is brilliant medicine in this book. — Alice Walker
Michael Meade is a genius in his winding through mythological themes. Fate and Destiny is written with his typical fierceness and truth-telling. — Robert Bly
Michael Meade is one of our most brilliant and visionary teachers and this profound book is a life-line to the soul. I truly hope your good fate brings you to read this book and be transformed by its wild blessings and wisdom. — Jack Kornfield
Fate and Destiny offers an inspirational and brilliant perspective of how the gifts of the soul reveal the child prodigy in us; which fuels our destiny and offers a counterbalance to an increasingly unbalanced world! Once again Michael Meade brilliantly weaves together ancient and modern stories that entail fateful interventions to support not forgetting destiny’s purpose. — Angeles Arrien
Palmer, P. J. (2000). Let your life speak: listening for the voice of vocation
With wisdom, compassion, and gentle humor, Parker J. Palmer invites us to listen to the inner teacher and follow its leadings toward a sense of meaning and purpose. Telling stories from his own life and the lives of others who have made a difference, he shares insights gained from darkness and depression as well as fulfillment and joy, illuminating a pathway toward vocation for all who seek the true calling of their lives.
Parker J. Palmer (Madison, WI) is a writer, teacher and activist whose work speaks deeply to people in many walks of life. Author of eight books--including the bestsellers Courage to Teach, Let Your Life Speak, and A Hidden Wholeness--his writing has been recognized with ten honorary doctorates and many national awards, including the 2010 William Rainey Harper Award (previously won by Margaret Mead, Paulo Freire, and Elie Wiesel). He is founder and senior partner of the Center for Courage Renewal, and holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.
Review (Goodreads): ‘Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation’ is an insightful discourse on discovering one’s true self and vocation.
Many of us would be familiar with the experience of striving to live up to the expectations of others. We may even have made career choices or decisions that are far removed from who we really are. Parker J. Palmer invites us to reclaim the gift of our true selves. What I truly appreciated is Parker’s honest sharing of the detours he had taken before he found his true calling. It was good to learn that doors that are closed provide guidance too. Parker shared how opportunities that were denied him opened doors to others that enabled him to use his natural gifts and tap his potential. According to Parker, ”True vocation joins self and service.” He quoted Frederick Buechner, another of my best loved authors, who said that true vocation is “where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep needs.” How wonderful! There is certainly truth in this.
In one of six chapters, ‘All the Way Down,’ Parker wrote movingly about his clinical depression and what helpful responses looked like to a depressed person. It was eye opening to learn how the support some well-meaning friends extended to him (e.g., simplistic religious or scientific 'fix it' explanations) sadly drove him deeper into depression. He shed light on the kind of respectful support that brought healing. This chapter alone made this book extremely powerful and worthwhile.
My favorite chapter is the last titled, ‘There Is A Season.’ Parker used seasons as a metaphor for the movement of life. The cycle of our life mirrors the four seasons of the year and Parker wrote about the unique beauty in each season in language that was exquisite and elegant. He said, "The notion that our lives are like the eternal cycle of the seasons does not deny the struggle or the joy, the loss or the gain, the darkness or the light, but encourages us to embrace it all - and to find in all of it opportunities for growth.”
Parker has a gift of distilling the insights he gained from difficult circumstances and challenges he encountered. In introspect, he was able to recall them to himself and to us with a good dose of humor. There was a hilarious account of his first Outward Bound experience and a moment of epiphany that crystallized for him a life motto, which I too can use: "If you can't get out of it, get into it."
Again, as in the first Parker book I read, On the Brink of Everything, I refrain from quoting too much from this book in hope that others will read it for themselves. At only 115 pages, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation is a tightly written book full of wisdom and gentle reflection on the importance of being true to who we are and living the best life we can. Highly recommended. (Laysee)
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Paris, G. (1986). Pagan Meditations: The worlds of Aphrodite, Artemis and Hestia
This book is Paris' contribution to ‘imaginative’ feminism.
Review excerpt: Ginette Paris’s Pagan Meditations is a gem of feminine wisdom sparkling with the inner light of the author’s own deep convictions as a woman. Her rich personal experience and her wealth of knowledge as a social psychologist give this work an impressive scope. It radiates with a feminine power that reaches into the psychic life and spiritual inner workings of each person as well as the community of culture. She calls her spellbinding approach an ‘imaginative feminism.’ With this she is able to weave together the objective wisdom and spiritual power of the archetypal perspective, as well as the mystery and artistry of the Eternal Feminine into a feminism worn weary by desiccating polemics and poisonous invectives on its political altars.
This is an important book for both men and women at this pivotal time in cultural history when the Goddess is being reclaimed and invoked by collective effort to help prepare us to meet the New Age and its challenges. At this crucial point Ginette Paris ‘has sought in our cultural past whatever could be useful in nourishing the new gender identity and a renewed set of values for us to live by’ (p. 197). Through tapping ancient sources she has succeeded in resurrecting a world view of the feminine that confronts the very spiritual and philosophical roots of the old patriarchal age and some of our most pressing social issues and problems. — Julie Bresciani (1987) Quadrant 20(1), 102-104.
Review By David L. Miller: Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Review: Her truly remarkable work on the mythemes of three Greek religious figures is frankly feminist in perspective, but imaginably feminist and polytheistically so. ‘We are all Greek,’ she writes (p 3), and she means by this to include the aphroditic, artemisian, and hestian aspects of men as well as women (p 192).
Paris writes: ‘There are as many feminisms as goddesses’ (p 199) and she adds: ‘I do no think of polytheism as superior to monotheism – that would be contradictory’ (p 198). True to these assertions, the text avoids literalisms and nominalisms. …Sensitive to the fact that ‘it is uninteresting if one only wishes to imitate the Greeks’ (p 172), indeed, was uninteresting as imitatio Christi, Paris’ purpose is to make mythemes available ‘as a focus for questioning ourselves [individually and socially], for creating images’ (p 172). …
The word ‘meditations’ in the title is apt and should be read in the sense associated with Martin Heidegger and Marcus Aurelius. When Heidegger contrasted meditative with calculative thinking in his ‘Memorial Address’ for Conradin Kreutzer in 1955, he claimed for the former the qualities of an ‘openness for mystery’ and a ‘releasement toward things,’ i.e., a humility in the face of the anxiety for certainty and control which could be correlated to a sensitivity for the body experience, qualities Heidegger thought were lacking in the encroaching sociologizing and scientizing of an-aesthetic life and thought in the academy.
That Paris’ work is meditative in this Heideggerian sense is especially seen in the way she handles the myth/ history problematic. ‘The entanglement of history and myth is only embarrassing, “ she writes, “when we try at all costs to hold to the facts rather than to the spirit’ (p 157). … Such modality leads Paris, and the reader, into a sensus communis that is reminiscent not only of Heidegger’s characterization, but also of the actual quality of text in the case of Marcus’ Meditations.
Like Marcus’ writing, this work is an essay…Indeed to this reviewer that the essay may well represent the mode, more and more, of thinking on the frontier as well as on the margins. One may recall other recent works: Anne Carson’s Eros, an Essay. James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games, and Susan Sontag’s, essay on Roland Barthes. These move the marbles. Besides Marcus Aurelius, there are Emerson, Montaigne, and the zuihitsu of the fourteenth-century Japanese writer Kenko … Paris’ book belongs to this company of the scholarly essay… This book is not without passion and body … In fact, this meditative essay, in the view of this reader, demonstrates its author’s saying: ‘More complexity, fewer complexes.’
Paris, G. (1990). Pagan Grace: Dionysos, Hermes and Goddess Memory in daily life
With this book Paris continues the work of PAGAN MEDITATIONS in reviving individual, cultural, and social life by reawakening their archetypal roots.
Author website: The gift of grace, coming to us as beauty, cannot be ordered or owned, only acknowledged and served. When events take on a mythical dimension and reverberate in the soul, then we feel grace.
The three images of divinity amplified in this book express the often unconscious pagan grace present in our daily lives. Dionysos brings joy to celebrations and protects the sexual potency of man. Ginette Paris looks again at soul-making through the body, at the Eleusinian Mysteries in light of the culture’s drug and alcohol problems, explores the God’s twin faces of liberator and tyrant, and revisions role-playing under Dionysos’s aegis.
Lively as mercury, subtle as word play, and as indispensable as commerce or conversation, Hermes’ grace is today called communication, involving the necessity of deceit and the seductiveness of rhetoric. His connections with the healing arts provide a sorely needed balance to contemporary medical practice.
Mnemosyne’s grace is the remembrance of things past, the details of recollected happiness. the author disentangles the different values of oral memory, literacy, and computer memory, all along allowing Memory’s daughters, the Muses, to influence her writing, her feeling, and her thought.
A lively book that continues the work of Pagan Meditations in revivifying individual, cultural, and social life by reawakening their archetypal roots.
Review excerpt: Paris writes from an intensely personal perspective in bringing the ancient deities to life. She does not profess to be an authority on Greek mythology, but her gift is the sharing of the ways in which the gods and goddesses have touched her. At the same time, she finds a more general value in the personification of abstract concepts such as communication, reason, or passion, as well as clinical terms such as ego, defense mechanism, or complex. …
The metaphorical gods and goddesses are embraced under a notion of ‘pagan mentality’; they simultaneously express flaws and attributes, in stark comparison to the Judeo-Christian divinities of perfection and totality (p 65) — Marybeth Viglione (1992) The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal 10(4), 65-74.
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Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
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Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
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San Roque, C., Dowd, A., & Tacey, D. (Eds.). (2011) Placing psyche: exploring cultural complexes in Australia - selected chapters by Russell, D., Tacey, D. and Waddell, T.
Placing Psyche is the first in a series of books (Analytical Psychology and Contemporary Culture Series, edited by Thomas Singer) that will explore the notion of cultural complexes in a variety of settings around the world. The continent of Australia is the focus of this inaugural volume in which the contributors elucidate how the unique geography and peoples of Australia interact and interpenetrate to create the particular 'mindscapes' of the Australian psyche. While the cultural complexes of Australia are explored with a keen eye to the specificity of place, history, context, and content, at the same time it becomes obvious that these cultural complexes emerge out of an archetypal background that is not just Australian but global. This collection shows how cultural complex theory itself mediates between the particularity of place and the universality of archetypal patterns. — Oceania Newsletter No. 65, March 2012
Contents: 1. The Nullarbor: Contact Zone as Imaginal Space, by Peter Bishop; 2. The Lemon Tree: A Conversation on Civilisation, by Craig San Roque; 3. The Rapture of 'Girlshine': Land, Sacrifice, and Disavowal in Australian Cinema, by Terrie Waddell; 4. The Feeling of Salt, Water, and Land, by Patricia Please; 5. Finding the Fish: Memory, Displacement Anxiety, Legitimacy, and Identity, by Amanda Dowd; 6. Lost for Words: Embryonic Australia and a Psychic Narrative, by David B. Russell; 7. Language Is My Second Skin: Speaking and Dreaming between Germany and Central Australia, by Ute Eickelkamp; 8. Taking It with Me: A South African's Cultural Complex in Aotearoa New Zealand, by Chris Milton; 9. A Question of Fear, by Alexis Wright; 10. Sorry, It's Complex: Reflecting on the Apology to Indigenous Australians, by Melinda Turner; 11. The Australian Resistance to Individuation: Patrick White's Knotted Mandala, by David Tacey; 12. Sydney - 'A City of Truant Disposition': East West 101 (The 2008-2011 Knapman Wyld Australian TV Series), by Craig San Roque and Kristine Wyld."
Related research (2019): Glenn Morrison, Charles Darwin University, Journal of Intercultural Studies, 40(1) {T&F}
Walking, Frontier and Nation: Re/tracing the Songlines in Central Australian Literature
Abstract: Central Australia is widely characterised as a frontier, a familiar trope in literary constructions of Australian identity that divides black from white, ancient from modern. However, recent anthropological and literary evidence from the Red Centre defies such a clear-cut representation, suggesting more nuanced ‘lifeworlds’ than a frontier binary can afford may better represent the region. Using walking narratives to mark a meeting point between Aboriginal and settler Australian practices of placemaking, this paper summarises and updates literary research by the author (2011–2015), which reads six recounted walks of the region for representations of frontier and home. Methods of textual analyses are described and results appraised for changes to the storied representation of Central Australia from the precolonial era onward. The research speaks to a ‘porosity’ of intercultural boundaries, explores literary instances of intercultural exchange; nuances settler Australian terms for place, including home, Nature and wilderness; and argues for new place metaphors to supersede ‘frontier’. Further, it suggests a recent surge in the recognition of Aboriginal songlines may be reshaping the nation’s key stories.
Keywords: Walking, frontier, central Australia, literature, Aboriginal songlines, place and space, palimpsest
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Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
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Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
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Savickas, M. (1997) The spirit in career counselling: Fostering self-completion through work In Connections Between Spirit and Work in Career Development, Bloch, D. P. & Richmond, L. (Eds.)
With increasing urgency, people are seeking more personally satisfying nd meaningful work lives. This volume responds by offering career development professionals new ways to address this yearning by drawing on the research and wisdom of many different approaches, from psychology to systems theory to quantum mechanics.
Covering both theoretical issues and the pressing everyday concerns of the individual employee, the eleven chapters in this book explore the vital human desire to find meaning and integration in work. Presenting positive strategies for addressing and balancing the needs of individuals, their families, and the workplace, Connections Between Spirit and Work in Career Development offers professionals a set of practical tools for helping clients achieve their goals.
Amazon: In an age of organizational restructuring and career uncertainty, with upward mobility becoming less and less attainable, how do people find meaning and fulfilment in their work? This book addresses this critical question, offering valuable, concrete suggestions to career development professionals working with clients who long to infuse their work with values.
Featuring the insights of leading counsellors and career development practitioners, educators, psychologists, clergy, and management experts, the eleven chapters in Connections Between Spirit and Work in Career Development explain how money, age, gender, and spirituality affect job satisfaction.
The authors examine changes that enhance the sense of wholeness in a career, offering illuminating examples showing how people have achieved the goal of balancing work, family life, relationships, and spiritual practice. Responding to the rapidly changing terrain of contemporary work life, this volume presents an extraordinary range of tools and options for career development professionals in their work with their clients.
Chapter summary: This chapter begins with an explanation of how spirit moves a life and character charts its course. Attention then turns to how individuals can use work as a context for self-development and manifestation of spirit. The next section explicates how counseling that cares for the spirit can help clients use an occupation to become more complete. This is followed by a description of a career counseling model centered in client stories that show spirit. The next section discusses how to turn spirited preoccupations into social occupations. Finally, a concluding section asserts that occupational manifestations of spirit that produce individual achievements should in due course become social contributions.
Shalit, E. (2002). The complex: path of transformation from archetype to ego
Goodreads: The reality and power of the unconscious is central to Jungian psychology as well as to several other paradigms in art, psychology and philosophy. And it is our complexes that act as dynamic intermediaries in the life-long dialogue with the unconscious, determining the ways in which archetypes and instincts communicate with and enlarge ego-consciousness. Similarly, the ego can only find a meaningful relationship with the unconscious through an ongoing exploration of the complexes. In day-to-day terms, that means understanding the interrelationships between the shape our individual perception of those energies. Erel Shalit provides us with a conceptual scaffold that allows an examination of the inner structures and assumptions that underpin our actions, discussions, loves and hates. If we are hopeful of building an overview of our personal and collective heritage and thus gain some measure of self-determination, it is our responsibility to enter into the dim light of our inner framework and learn its layout.
Review by Mel Matthews (2008) Oedipus denied... not so quickly!
Whether we know it, or not, whether we care to or are able to admit it, every human being is influenced by psychological 'complexes'. In The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego, Erel Shalit explains the difference between an 'autonomous complex' and an integrated complex. Shalit explains, ‘The fundamental task of the complex is to serve as a vehicle and vessel of transformation...’ In other words, Psychological complexes are necessary aspects of our being and when we are able to recognize and develop a dialogue or an ongoing conscious relationship with these complexes, these aspects of our humanity can be expressed and honored in a healthy and often creative manner.
A complex becomes troublesome when it is denied and splits off from our greater whole, as is the case with the Oedipus myth. In studying and deciphering the symbolic meaning of the Oedipus myth, Erel Shalit explains how a complex that has the potential to bring us into living a fuller, more conscious existence, is often denied and splits off into an 'autonomous' complex. Denying a complex, an aspect of who we are, does not cause this entity to go away. Instead, the denied castaway becomes 'autonomous' energy and unconsciously continues to live a life of its own, often wreaking havoc that is acted out in a host of neurotic symptoms.
In recognizing and welcoming home these prodigal complexes, vital pieces of our beings, we are able to reclaim lost aspects of our souls, and in turn unblock the stymied flow of psychological and creative energy that often gets dammed up and diverted into neurotic symptoms and suffering.
This publication addresses far more than just the Oedipal Complex. Dr. Shalit also delves into the Father Complex and the Mother Complex in both negative and positive forms. Clients' dreams and case studies are also discussed to bring theory into more concrete and practical terms.
For those interested in psychology, myth, religion, and philosophy, but even more so to those who might be suffering from a host of neurotic symptoms, including addictions or obsessive compulsive tendencies, I highly recommend 'The Complex: Path of Transformation from Archetype to Ego' as well as Erel Shalit's most recently published book ‘Enemy, Cripple, & Beggar: Shadows in the Hero's Path’. (Amazon)
Review by R.S.L. (2002) How Complex is Complex?
In order to understand the driving forces of our life we are compelled to identify the archetypes as they manifest themselves in our dreams and associations. Our complexes are acted out in human form through behaviours inspired by these archetypes. By the therapeutic process of examination of these behaviours we are able to diffuse and disarm these archetypal images thereby enabling new types of behaviour to evolve.
Erel Shalit gives a fascinating explanation of the mechanisms of the complex and translates his understandings by examining Franz Kafka along with other patients of his which clearly exemplify the process by which one faces,identifies and diffuses the elements of the shadow which drive one's life.
Just as the complex is "the messenger of the gods, or the archetypes, rather than the ego, Erel (which means angel who goes down from the heavens to contact human souls) Shalit is the messenger of a concept so complex yet made so accessible to our understanding by his methodical yet poetic description of the very motifs which grip our total existence. (Amazon)
Review by Ross James Browne (2011) Brilliant work on important subject for both psychology and theology!
This is a fantastic work which is useful for both psychologist and theologian. Shalit describes the complex in terms of death anxiety, sexual complexes, and inferiority complexes. These complexes work together to create a sense of desperation and dissatisfaction which eventually propel higher evolution and good works. According to Jung, ‘the perfect have no need of others’ (p 28). Therefore, ‘only through imperfection, and recognition of it (by encountering our shadow), can we constructively relate to the divine spark within’ (p 28). This epitomizes Shalit's message, which is that the complex, even when seemingly negative, has a way of forcing us to reverse our inferiority and achieve security, and this eventually leads to evolution (but only after a detour through the shadow). ‘The complex's engine is initially driven by the power of death-anxiety’ (p 30). This statement reminds us how closely connected ontology, systematic theology, and depth psychology are. Anyone who has read Heidegger will see the connection between the death-anxiety complex and his being-towards-death - a concept which also comes up frequently in Paul Tillich's Systematic Theology. ‘Complexes are the carriers of life energy’ (p 31). This goes back to Jung's concept of psychic libido energy which can be diverted into a number of pursuits both good and seemingly bad. The complex simply provides life energy which propels all actions, and if we have a mystical sense we will realize that all of these complex-driven actions are ultimately Good. In fact everything is all good. We realize this as soon as we understand that even negative experiences have a way of producing food for the soul, and the soul will eventually use this food to evolve into a loving and compassionate individual. (Amazon)
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An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
Singer, T., & Kaplinsky, C. (2010). Cultural complexes in analysis. In: M. Stein (Ed.), Jungian psychoanalysis: working in the spirit of C. G. Jung
Written by 40 of the most notable Jungian psychoanalysts — spanning 11 countries, and boasting decades of study and expertise — Jungian Psychoanalysis represents the pinnacle of Jungian thought. This handbook brings up to date the perspectives in the field of clinically applied analytical psychology, centering on five areas of interest: the fundamental goals of Jungian psychoanalysis, the methods of treatment used in pursuit of these goals, reflections on the analytic process, the training of future analysts, and special issues, such as working with trauma victims, handicapped patients, or children and adolescents, and emergent religious and spiritual issues. Discussing not only the history of Jungian analysis but its present and future applications, this book marks a major contribution to the worldwide study of psychoanalysis.
Review by Rose Kumar MD: This book is a masterful work that unfolds Carl Jung's genius in a profound and clear manner.
For anyone who has interest in Jung's work, the featured in this book have expressed his wisdom with clarity and purpose. As a seeker of truth, I found this to be challenging, refreshing and clear. (Amazon)
Authors: … The notion of cultural complexes was long implicit and even occasionally mentioned in the literature of Analytical Psychology, but it was not until the twenty-first century that Sam Kimbles and Tom Singer put the essential building blocks of Jung’s original complex theory and Henderson’s work on the cultural unconscious together that the potential impact of this theoretical extension of analytical psychology could begin to be appreciated and more widely applied (Singer and Kimbles 2004). Singer, T., & Kaplinsky, C. continues …
This new addition to the body of Jungian theory has the two following very important applications, which this paper will spell out using separate examples: 1. It offers a unique perspective for understanding a particular layer of the psyche of individuals who find themselves in conflict around their personal and group identity, which inevitably creates internal and external distress. 4 2. It also provides a unique perspective for understanding the structure and content of the group psyche and especially for elucidating the nature of conflicts and attitudes among groups towards one another. This perspective focuses on the level of the collective psyche where we can consider the mind and behaviour of the group as a body. Singer, T., & Kaplinsky, C. continues …
Concludes: About personal complexes, Jung wrote: "Our destinies are as a rule the outcome of our psychological tendencies" (Jung 1913/1967, para. 309). The same can be said of cultural complexes. Our personal and cultural complexes are the hand that fate has dealt us. Jung said rather bluntly in another context: "We all have complexes; it is a highly banal and uninteresting fact.... It is only interesting to know what people do with their complexes; that is the practical question which matters" (Jung 1936/1976, para. 175). How we play the hand that fate has dealt us and what we do with our personal and cultural complexes determines who we become as individuals, groups and societies. Singer, T., & Kaplinsky, C.
Stein. M. (ed.) (2010). Jungian psychoanalysis: working in the spirit of C.G. Jung
This collection of essays by leading Jungian experts and analysts edited by Stein, author of The Principle of Individuation and Jung's Map of the Soul, offers an up to date look at Jungian psychoanalysis, its history, and its current place in therapy today. Jungian Psychoanalysis, or Analytical Psychology, developed from C.G. Jung's extensive study of the unconscious as well as his broad approach to psychoanalysis. Today's Jungian Psychoanalysis has evolved into a very open and highly diversified school of psychological thought and therapy.
Review [author: Małgorzata Kalinowska ; translation: Tomasz J. Jasiński]: Jungian Psychoanalysis, edited by Murray Stein, is probably the best contemporary compilation on the subject available. It is an excellent illustration of the complexity and diversity in modern clinical applications of C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology, tracing its development through various post-Jungian schools of thought. The very phrase “Jungian psychoanalysis” reflects the process of coming back to the roots and it seems to be aimed at reconciliation between different controversies in Jungian society. They touch on the issues like the one whether the practitioner of Jungian psychology should be called “Jungian analyst” or rather “Jungian psychoanalyst”. It is under the later rubric that the reader can find in this volume essays by authors of both classical, archetypal approach, and those identified with the so-called developmental school in analytical psychology, close to the attachment theory or Kleinian school.
Areas covered by this volume involve clinical aspects of numerous ideas, such as: transformation, individuation, theory of complexes (including cultural complexes), techniques of analytic work (dream analysis, amplification, active imagination, typology, imaginal work, sandplay, body movement work), analytic process (analytic frame, containment, holding, mentalization, subjectivity, transference and countertransference, analysis of projections, fantasies and defenses, gender and sexuality, numinous experiences), modalities of work (analysis of children and adolescents, working with trauma, ethical attitude, religion, research, social dreaming matrix), training, training analysis and supervision.
We highly recommend this book to all those interested in practical application of the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung and in contemporary Jungian thought. [Polish Association for Jungian Analysis]
Stevens, A. (2001). Jung: A very short introduction
In this concise introduction, Anthony Stevens explains the basic concepts of Jungian psychology, and examines Jung's views on such themes as myth, religion, alchemy, 'synchronicity', and the psychology of gender differences. It explains clearly the basic concepts of Jungian psychology: the collective unconscious, complex, archetype, shadow, persona, anima, animus, and the individuation of the self. Anthony Stevens examines Jung's views on such disparate subjects as myth, religion, alchemy, 'synchronicity', and the psychology of gender differences. Jung's individual theories remain amongst the most fascinating of 20th century psychologists. This introduction will prove popular among a wide range of listeners within and outside the psychological fraternity.
This is the most lucid and timely introduction to the thought of Carl Gustav Jung available to date. Though he was a prolific writer and an original thinker of vast erudition, Jung lacked a gift for clear exposition and his ideas are less widely appreciated than they deserve. In this concise introduction, Anthony Stevens explains clearly the basic concepts of Jungian psychology: the collective unconscious, complex, archetype, shadow, persona, anima, animus, and the individuation of the Self. He examines Jung's views on such disparate subjects as myth, religion, alchemy, `sychronicity', and the psychology of gender differences, and he devotes separate chapters to the stages of life, Jung's theory of psychological types, the interpretation of dreams, the practice of Jungian analysis, and to the unjust allegation that Jung was a Nazi sympathizer. Finally, he argues that Jung's visionary powers and profound spirituality have helped many to find an alternative set of values to the arid materialism prevailing in Western society. (Oxford University Press)
Review by M. T. Crenshaw: Jungian writers are usually complex beings with complex language, a high level of education, abstraction and symbolic understanding. Probably that is why the attract like-minded people, but not everybody wanting to know a bit about Jung is prepared for the complexity and depth of Jungian everyday talk. If you know nothing about Jungian Psychology and want to start from the foundations without having to go through bothersome highly complex language, this is your book.
This basic introduction has everything you need to know about Jung, the man, how his life and personality shaped his contribution to Psychology and Science in general, the basic concepts and themes of Jung's approach to the human psyche, mental illness, psychoanalytical practice, his troublesome relationship with Freud and his supposed pro-nazism. The chapter on Dreams perhaps the weakest part, mostly because the dreams chosen from Jung seem a bit complex and too symbolic for a book that tries to be approachable and addressed to the general public. The language used is concise, approachable with the bare minimum technicalities, yet, with enough depth to make you understand the basics on which to build your knowledge about Jung and Jungian Psychology. (Amazon)
Review by Deborah Forgan-Smith - An ability to connect with Creativity; The strengths of this short book are its distillation of Jung’s major themes in an easy to read format. The author Anthony Stevens can be congratulated for articulating succinctly his scholarship of Jung. Through him, I gained insight into Jung’s personal strengths and weaknesses, as well as his development and relationship with Freud. His theory that we inherit ancestral wisdom innately and that this is given form in our dreams and subconscious was thought provoking. (Amazon)
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Whitmont, E.C. (1991). “Archetypes“, “Complexes”, “Archetypes and Myths” and “Archetypes and the Individual Myth” In: The Symbolic Quest: Basic concepts of analytical psychology
This book explores the use and development of man's symbolizing capacities-those qualities that make him distinctly human. Dr. Whitmont describes the symbolic approach to a dream, which takes into account a symptom's meaning in reference to an unfolding wholeness of personality. He then presents the view that the instinctual urge for meaning is served by the symbolizing capacities, and that this urge has been repressed in our time. In the field of psychology, this symbolic approach is most fully exemplified by the theories of C. G. Jung. The author's contribution includes many differentiations and speculations, especially concerning the problems of relatedness. (Princeton University Press)
Amazon: In this highly acclaimed work Edward C. Whitmont explores C. G. Jung's revolutionary discoveries about the archetypal world and the self, offering practical insights into the process of healing and transformation. (back cover)
"[Whitmont] has succeeded in what can only be called an act of creative translation. . . . The general reader will get what has not been available before, a clear and lucid statement of the Jungian position, that life has a pattern of wholeness which can only be comprehended symbolically at this moment in time." (Los Angeles Times)
"Whitmont...enriches the meaning of the myth of the self by taking us beyond the language of 'disease' and 'symptom' into another language world, the world of 'dis-ease' and 'symbol' and 'therapeia'." (Inward Light)
Woodman, M., Danson, K., Hamilton, M., & Allen, R. G. (1993). Leaving my father's house: A journey to conscious femininity
Background: Marion Woodman: Pioneer of Conscious Femininity and the Psychology of the Soul (body, culture, meaning, mind, play) - Chiara Viscomi, MA. HealthyPsych, January 31, 2017
Jungian analyst, author, lecturer, teacher, and poet Marion Woodman, LLD, DHL, Ph.D., has made it her life’s work to explore how to cultivate the rose of the soul, even when it’s being singed by the fires of suffering. Using her own healing process as a template, she has developed her own unique, pioneering, and innovative take on Jungian analysis, seeking to bring the body into the therapeutic equation, and women’s psychology to the forefront.
Woodman has a knack for describing profound concepts about the body, soul, and psyche with a surgeon’s precision and a poet’s lyricism. Woodman is a prolific writer of books considered to be classics in the field known as feminine psychology. She also developed BodySoul Rhythms®, a therapeutic approach that incorporates expressive arts (such as maskwork and voicework), dreamwork, movement, and ritual, as well as the sacred feminine. A permanent collection of Woodman’s manuscripts, lectures, and correspondence is housed at the OPUS Archives at Pacifica Graduate Institute.
The crux of Woodman’s work is what she calls “conscious femininity” — bringing the unconscious to light, and shedding limiting cultural pressures that devalue women and universal “feminine” qualities such as vulnerability, compassion, and intuition (qualities that belong to all humans). This shedding process frees one up to explore and embody the wisdom found in the inner life, via exploring dreams, archetypes, creativity, and the deep callings of the soul.
According to Jungian analyst, dance therapist, and Marion Woodman Foundation faculty member Tina Stromsted, Ph.D., “Her work seeks to heal the psyche/body/soul split in people affected by a society predicated on patriarchal values that prioritize perfection, productivity, and goal-directed behavior.” This article will explore the core tenets of Woodman’s work that help to heal that split, divided first into therapeutic techniques and then theoretical concepts…. continues
Overview: In Leaving my father's house: A journey to conscious femininity, the renowned analyst and author provides deep insight into the process required to bring feminize wisdom to consciousness in a patriarchal culture--as struggle in which many women are more fully engaged today that ever before. Presenting the personal journeys of three wise women as maps, she points the way to the state of inner wholeness and balance she calls ‘conscious femininity.’
Review - Sandy: An amazing book for women journeying through a deeper understanding of themselves. Again, Woodman does her mysterious work of weaving insight into a solid mantle of healing. Listen to the words that released my tears:
‘While consciously holding the still point in Love, we can observe the opposites swinging through us without swinging with them. We can observe the power of the mother, who yearns to hold onto her child, letting go; we can observe the sexuality of the gypsy who wants life to serve her transforming into a love that is ready to serve life. We can remain invisible if necessary, feel ourselves being moved to a new conscious position, and sustained by Her, hold that new still point. Here mother and gypsy are one in the Bride. Gradually, we know that Her light in matter is Love. Like perfume, it permeates everything. Experiencing that Presence once changes our perception forever. Perhaps this is the real meaning of the coming to consciousness of the feminine. It must come slowly or our hears would break. In our Mother's house are many more mansions than we can yet dream of.’ (p 364)
‘Never become too holy or too spiritual...Let the spirit align itself within you. Become what humanity can be. Nothing more and nothing less. There is no such thing as spiritual development or Higher Self or Greater Self or Lower Self. There is nothing to find, nowhere to go, nothing to reach up to. There is, however, Life, human life capable of Being itSelf. And that is already present in every moment of every day. ... only if you have the courage to be ruthlessly honest with yourself will the veils of illusion be removed, allowing you to meet the Self of your dreams...It is the temporal self participating with the immortal Self. By surrendering yourself to love, you participate in the creation of your life, moment by moment. Never assume, though, that surrendering is a passive letting go...true surrender is a disciplined act of love requiring many personal sacrifices..’ (Goodreads)
Review - Tristy: This book is so brilliant and so powerful. It's essentially about rising up out of the chains of the patriarchy and re-connecting with the deep, powerful wisdom of the conscious, mystical feminine.
My favorite analysand highlighted in the book is artist & writer Rita Greer Allen. She was a sculptor and wild mystic and she shares her very real and honest journal pages in this book. Her thoughts and feelings are expressed with such an admirable depth and honesty, while still being playful and completely hilarious. Her words and journey to mysticism through her art and life is so inspiring to me. From her descriptions of having hot sex with her husband (they are both over 60!) to her ever blossoming feminism, I find her words lifting my spirits on very dark days. I just read one of her journal passages about firing and smoking two large, sculpted wings in her kiln. She raku-fires her sculptures, and it is a very risky process, where you must hope it comes out how you want, but you must also let go and let the outcome be whatever it is going to be. She had already gone through a harrowing experience firing the head of this angel/guardian and she is starting to fear that the wings may be ruined. I now quote from the book:
"Why put them through the danger of the fire?" and then, I heard, as though it spoke, the voice of the guardian-head: ‘Each piece must go through the fire. The cowl, the wings, the pneuma, the source, the flow. All must go the way that I have gone. Each may crack in the process, as I have cracked. But look, the crack has healed. I did not break. Without the fire, the piece is untested, unlived, raw. Each must go through the fire.’ I fired the wings, first one then the other, and each emerged with some shading from the smoke in the most beautiful way. Whole. Complete. (Rita Greer Allen, September 17, 1985)
All the women go through a powerful individuation process and leave their "Father's House," which essentially means leaving the chains of patriarchy. My favorite individuating healing path is through art and creativity, but there are other paths offered as well. I just adore the empowerment of this book. (Goodreads)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
From: ‘The Little Gidding’ - the last of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets
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Course 1: Career as a Journey of Soul
An introduction to the depth psychology of vocation (Apr - Jun)
Course 2: Archetypal, Mythic and Cinematic Perspectives
What’s your archetypal story? (jun - Aug)
Course 3: Complexes as Pathways to Vocation
Callings seeded in childhood, ancestral or cultural wounds (aug - Sep)
Course 4: The Re-enchantment of Work
Walking on the edge between worlds (Oct - dec)
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