In the Fall start up, whether we are aware or not, our imagination is powerfully activated. We can imagine the greatest possible outcomes for ourselves or our children, and we can often imagine the most threatening and scary outcomes.
The busy-ness of this season can make it hard to find time to reflect on very much at all. Yet, there may be some very profound things that we need to consider. Real anxiety is often associated with this time. If I do need help…
Children, and the symbol of the child, produce an incredibly strong emotional/instinctual response in us. And I think that there is scarcely any time of the year when the potential for that archetypal response gets more activated than in the "back to school" season.
Often parents of school age kids feel a need at this time for help with anxiety -- for many very good reasons. But others feel restless and anxious as well, whether they have children or not. ...What does Fall evoke ? We may need help…
I realized by using the high notes of the chords as a melodic line, and by the right harmonic progression, I could play what I heard inside me. That's when I was born. ~ Charlie Parker In this quote, jazz great Charlie Parker describes a…
What isn't as well appreciated is that, often, those same old patterns that keep women from their individuation can keep men from individuation, just as effectively. These stereotypes even contaminate certain types of individual therapy.
Male individuation is the uniquely individual path that underlies individual therapy for men. Often, discussions about "therapy for men" lapse into really regrettable stereotypes that would be completely unacceptable in discussions about therapy for women. Is there a way beyond this?
In “Individual therapy, Individuation & Masks, 2“, I dealt with the “overly thick” persona or social mask — but can the mask also be overly thin? A number of my readers have pointed out in responses to that earlier post that it most certainly can — and that’s an individuation issue! Not…
The persona (Latin for "mask"), or social self that the individual shows to the world can become so artificial and entrenched that no one -- including the person wearing the mask -- knows who the individual really is.
Jung saw that we all conceal our true nature to at least some extent , and identified it with a particular structure in the personality: the persona, which means "mask" in Latin. Mask is an deep thing in all of us.