Jungian Psychotherapy and Listening
Listening is fundamental to all good therapy. Really, it's the key thing in meaningful human interaction of all kinds. Listening represents the power of someone else taking our story seriously.
Listening is fundamental to all good therapy. Really, it's the key thing in meaningful human interaction of all kinds. Listening represents the power of someone else taking our story seriously.
From a Jungian symbolic perspective, animals, and dogs in particular, often symbolize the bodily and instinctual dimensions of human life. When they appear in our dreams, for instance, dogs can often symbolize our instinctual side. This may relate to the sexual side of our nature,…
The self is something greater than, and distinct from, the ego,and it is something that plays a very active role in the psychological life of the individual. I often see it at work when I have the experience of working with individuals who have simply…
I was fortunate enough last Saturday to see Soulpepper Theatre's production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Lots of people know the story of Willy Loman, the disintegrating salesman at the centre of the play, and the drama of his decline and eventual death.…
Symbols can have tremendous emotional power. When they resonate with us, they can affect us right down to our very core. And sometimes, after we really encounter them, they can even change us, right down at the center of who we are.
Work-life issues are not properly analyzed in terms of financial cost-benefit or markets. They are only properly analyzed in terms of individual decisions, and in terms of what the individual values in his or her life. Individuals can't offload their responsibility to find a personal…
In this post, I would like to try and say something about the places in which I believe I really found some sources of resilience. If I had to point to one single characteristic of this small group of therapists that helped me more than…
The story of rescue of the miners trapped at the bottom of the mine at Copiapo, Chile embodies resilience,to a remarkable degree. The world's media have been following the fortunes of the miners with tremendous verve and intensity. From a psychological point of view, why…
Here is a video which I re-tweeted recently on Twitter. I decided to post it on my blog because I think that it gives a particularly revealing portrait of the psychiatrist CG Jung in his latter years. The video is taken from “Face to Face”,…
What is your attitude towards doing therapy? Is it something that you would ever consider? Is it something only for severely damaged people, or “sick” people? Or is it something that may be of importance for ordinary, everyday people? In recent years, many peoples’ attitudes…