This Jungian Life Podcast &#8211; Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

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If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Splitting, Polarization & Conflict Nov 21, 2019

Show notes

⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠It happens all the time: people and problems split into opposing camps, whether the conflict is internal, between partners, in a family or—as we know all too well—between political parties. When positions become polarized conflict ensues, whether between mind and body, partners and families, or value systems and religious affiliations. What makes it possible to reach across the chasm between entrenched extremes? The Jungian concept of holding the tension of the opposites allows energy, like electricity, to flow between both poles; each can have its full say. Instead of remaining mired in fixity or moral judgment, curiosity may open the way for a new attitude that transcends the polarities.

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Healing the Negative Father Complex Nov 14, 2019

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⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠The archetype of the father is associated with gods, kingship, and other images of authority and order. As the image of a “personified affect” fueled by an archetypal core, the father complex is powerful. In its negative aspect it may arise from a father who was experienced as absent, emotionally unavailable, passive, critical or abusive. Jung’s father complex influenced his adult relationship with Freud, to whom he wrote, "Let me enjoy your friendship not as that of equals but as that of father and son." Although the eventual break with Freud caused Jung years of inner turmoil, he later realized that they were also the deep source of all his subsequent work. Similarly, Charlotte Bronte and her sisters were able to use their father wounds for their literary creativity. Although healing the father complex can be difficult, taking on this inner task can provide energy for living more fully, freely, and individually.

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Anger Nov 07, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Anger is a core human emotion. Newborns express instinctual cries of protest, and many a mythological god has wreaked archetypal havoc. Cultural norms around anger range from keeping a stiff upper lip to highly extraverted forms of expression. There are overall differences in how men and women tend to express anger; differences in temperament as well as situational stressors contribute to the intensity and frequency of angry feelings. Anger, like other emotions, is a source of information: it tells us when we feel violated in some way, and is linked to self-preservation. If fiery feelings can be understood first as a call to containment and self-reflection rather than reaction, it can fuel strategic thinking, emotional maturation and productive action.

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Ghostly Encounters Oct 31, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠People have reported experiences with ghosts from antiquity; Jung documented his encounters with mysterious sensed presences. How do we make meaning of such experiences? Are they visitations from external beings? Could they be related to unconscious reactions to toxic substances, auditory subtleties, or erratic electromagnetic fields? Neurological evidence links the stimulation of specific brain regions to feeling a ghostly presence. Stress, extreme hunger, physical hardship, loss, isolation, sleep deprivation, and mental illness also correlate to ghostly experiences, perhaps related to a lowered threshold of consciousness. Although there is no scientific proof of ghosts, age-old belief in soul survival extends credibility to the existence of ghosts. Jung offered no definitive answer to this question but felt that since the unconscious possesses subtle powers of perception it could project a visionary picture of a psychic situation. Ultimately, experiences of ghosts are, like dreams, psychic facts.

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Medicating Psyche Oct 24, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠The question of whether, when, and what psychoactive medications may be helpful is both big and ambiguous. Mental distress has always been strongly influenced by cultural filters and subjective perceptions. Whereas a person might once have sought to placate a god, sufferers today may turn to medical management rather than mining their psychological symptoms for meaning. In his autobiography Jung describes his years of mental turmoil—and that they became “the prima materia for a lifetime’s work”; his Red Book documents his encounters with the unconscious in compelling and artistic detail. There is much evidence of the potential suffering holds for self-awareness and psychological depth – and it is also important to acknowledge that judicious use of today’s medications can relieve unnecessary or pointless suffering. No matter where on the spectrum of severity emotional illness may lie, psychotherapy, medication, lifestyle, and relationships can all play a role in recovery and growth.

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Empathy Oct 17, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Empathy, the ability to feel into the suffering of another, is an intrinsic part of being human. We have such a capacity to imagine others’ experience that we react physiologically and emotionally to painful situations even in film. We are surprised, sometimes shocked, when the empathy we expect in a given situation is not forthcoming. Although empathic deficits create wounding, an overly empathic stance can also be problematic, fostering psychic stasis. Jung related empathy to the causal, or “mechanistic” aspect of analysis, in which painful past experiences are traced to their origin in order to more fully integrate feelings, expand consciousness, and depotentiate a complex. However, Jung also emphasized the “abstract,” or “final-energic” direction of traumatic experience, which is more objective and relates to achieving a state of equilibrium. We are thus asked to hold the tension between empathy for feelings—our own or another’s—and a more objective stance toward meaning, choice, and action.

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When Therapy Ends Oct 10, 2019

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⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠A planned, collaborative termination is the ideal way to bring a depth-oriented therapeutic process to a close. The client may have resolved a problematic life issue and/or have achieved an abiding sense of wholeness. When both partners feel the client’s sense of completion and readiness for a new phase of life, this kind of termination can feel like a graduation, albeit with the poignancy farewells also entail. There are also less satisfying endings for both therapist and client. The fit between therapist and client may not be good enough to form a strong bond; illness, death or a geographic relocation may derail the process; interpersonal conflict may fail to be resolved; or financial difficulty may impose a premature ending. Jung compares a depth psychological process to combining chemicals in a vessel: although the goal is change in the service of individuation, both people are always affected.

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We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.⁠

If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of ⁠⁠⁠⁠Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams⁠⁠⁠⁠ from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.

Grief & Bereavement Oct 03, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

The death of a loved one is a loss that is part of the human condition and is universal. The Stranger -- mortality -- confronts us with a new need to accept the reality of our loss and pain, a process that can include ambivalent feelings. Relief and anger can be mixed with love and grief. Altogether, we must adjust to an absence where once there was presence, relearn how to experience the world of relationship, and perhaps take on new life responsibilities at a time of emotional turmoil. Ego may find itself first helpless, then bereft of the soul and spirit needed to reweave life and meaning. There is also the need to balance one’s continuing internal connection with the deceased and the task of moving on with one’s life in a fulsome way.

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INFERTILITY: When the Mother Archetype Fails to Constellate Sep 26, 2019

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DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Medical technology has given the problem of fertility a scientific veneer. Our Promethean ability to manipulate gestational mysteries has wrested power from what was once the domain of the gods. Fulfillment of the promise of pregnancy seems to lie within reach, although it may entail incurring financial debt and enduring intense emotional cycles of desire, hope and disappointment. Holding the tension between the fire of psychic activation and physical incarnation is an age-old theme. Many fairy tales begin with a couple going to great lengths to fulfill their longing for a child, only to then confront the shadow aspects of desire. Human fertility is not limited to the physical gestation of a baby. Its essence, creativity and futurity, also includes ideas, energy, and goals. New life does not come from the conscious side of the personality alone.

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