This Jungian Life Podcast - Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, Lisa Marchiano

Latest Episodes:

Early Abandonment Jul 11, 2019

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Experiences of physical abandonment are depicted in stories old and new as ways of out-picturing traumas of early relational abandonment. Jung articulated the archetypal foundation of what later psychologists came to call attachment theory. In an infant’s primal state of identification with a mothering other, lack of caregiver availability and attunement constitutes psychic abandonment. This is depicted in fairy tales like Hansel and Gretel and the more recent film, Pan’s Labyrinth. Both image of the inner world of the emotionally abandoned child: the archetypal world first comes forward to protect the abandoned child, only to become persecutory, like the witch in Hansel and Gretel. Abandonment may become internalized, manifesting as denial of one’s own feelings and needs. Getting in touch with one’s longing for a loving other, and grieving early loss is often the road to redemption.

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Cults Jul 04, 2019

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Although cults occasionally make the headlines through tragedy or scandal, the defining features of cults are inherently human and manifest on spectrums of both severity and size. The word cult is derived from culture. While culture refers to the overarching characteristics of a society, cult refers negatively to a marginalized subgroup. Cults tap into universal human feelings and desires, such as the need to belong and resonance to parental influence. Although as adults we are no longer dependent on family and tribe for physical survival, our psychological needs for safety and attachment remain powerful. Deb, Lisa, and Joseph consider today’s polarized political divisions, the power of a rock concert or Fourth of July parade, and other ways in which the tension between the opposites of belonging and individuation manifests.

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Burnout Jun 27, 2019

Show notes

⁠⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Burnout is a relatively new term for job-related distress or an ongoing life situation that is unsatisfying, defeating, and creates a sense of despair. Burnout robs us of our sense of control and agency—we feel unable to change the troubling situation. Burnout can also be related to our internalized parents, moral convictions, and sense of duty. We can count on fairy tales, our psychic skeletons, to provide wisdom on resolving age-old human situations, even if they are couched in new terminology. In Rumpelstiltskin a young woman is told she must turn straw into gold, a mission-impossible situation. The Water of Life depicts a dying king, representative of a masculine ruling principle, who needs healing water to renew the psychic situation. We may, like the maiden faced with a roomful of straw, need to find new possibility and empowerment—or discover the inner well within that provides new water for a parched attitude. Accessing one’s internal sense of vocation, purpose and meaning has always been—and remains—necessary and attainable.

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Voyages Jun 20, 2019

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⁠⁠DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Although the word voyage connotes a sea journey, this episode considers a voyage to be an intentional trip of any kind. A voyage can range from a vacation in Vegas to a pilgrimage to a sacred site. Such journeys may be solitary, or, like the famed pilgrimage in The Canterbury Tales, in the company of fellow travelers. We tell our stories to others and to ourselves, companioned by our own inner images and/or others. Voyages take us to unfamiliar places, and a changed external environment stimulates projections, judgments and reactions. Free of the constraints of cultural norms and internalized values, a new landscape provides an opportunity to experience ourselves as a stranger to others -- and perhaps to ourselves. When at last we return home we are changed, perhaps transformed.

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Tears Jun 13, 2019

Show notes

DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠We all shed tears. We cry when we are sad, but also when we are glad, surprised by beauty, love, or touched by other deeply felt and uniquely human experiences. Tears, and our access to them, are part of what makes us human, and when we cannot find our tears we have lost a vital link to feeling, whether for another or a part of ourselves. In their negative aspect, tears can signify the falseness of crocodile tears or affective hardening and bitterness; teardrop tattoos represent experiences of violence. In this episode Deb, Lisa and Joseph circumambulate various aspects of the significance of tears, using the touchstones of fairy tales, alchemy, myth, religion and more to uncover the importance of tears, especially in their redemptive, or whole-making, aspect.

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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.

Episode 62 - The Psychology of a Victim Jun 06, 2019

Show notes

We can experience powerful feelings of empathy for those who are victims of trauma in all its heartbreaking dimensions. It is difficult even to consider a shadow side to this already dark aspect of human experience. Nevertheless, it is important also to consider the difference between lived experiences of victimization and meaning-making narratives that not only can become calcified, but self-reinforcing. If entrenched, narratives of victimization can become part of one’s identity and suppress life energy. Lisa, Deb and Joseph differentiate the emotions involved in suffering, mourning and acceptance from more reified states of powerlessness. They describe how the presence of a wisely witnessing other can help with healing, empowerment, and finding the path ahead to a more liberated sense of self.

Dream

I am being held in a prison against my will and I am sharing a cell with a male colleague from work. The cell is very cold and silent. The whole place feels very sterile. When I look out of the window, I realize we are imprisoned on the moon. My male colleague is talking to me with an intensity in his expression. He is demanding a lot of my attention and he says he wants me and needs me and that he has been having dreams about me- but I am trying to focus on getting out of the cell. Hesays it’s too late, and we are going to be executed in the most cosmic way- by being ejected into a black hole together.

References

Eye Movement Desensitization Movement (EMDR)

Episode 61 - Individuation May 30, 2019

Show notes

Individuation, the central concept of Jung’s psychology, is the foundational image and aspiration of Jungian psychoanalysis – and life. It is the theme of many a fairy tale, the sought-for treasure of a quest, and the “juice” that makes symbols compelling. Individuation has an innate developmental arc and a psychological trajectory that allows us to bring conscious intention to our own individuation process. However, vital transformational events are not simply occurrences ego alone can command; they are ultimately mysterious. They arise independently from the unconscious and what Jung termed the Self, the center, circumference and true center of the personality. In this episode Joseph, Lisa and Deb circumambulate and amplify the concept of individuation and images of the Self.

The Dream:

In the beginning of the dream, it's morning. I'm waiting for my father in the house where I grew up. We are about to drive halfway across the country to look at graduate schools. It is nearing afternoon and we still haven't left the house. I know from previous experience that it takes more than a full day of driving to reach our destination, which leaves me feeling anxious.

Now my parents and I are in the car heading down the highway. From the backseat, where I used to sit, I'm looking outside. We reach an empty stretch of road surrounded on either side by farmland. The sky is overcast- halfway between rain and sunset; I notice a few geese flying across the road from the left of my line of vision in a small V-shaped formation. Once they have reached the other side they circle back, flying in the opposite direction; they have doubled in numbers and form a more unified chevron.

I am standing in a field with my girlfriend. We are watching the dark shapes of the geese bobbing in the dusk. Suddenly they start to glow, one by one, as if each is carrying on their bodies a neon orb, similar to a brake light. I look down in the mud by my shoes and see a broken red light, one that could fit on a bike; I tell my girlfriend that the cracked object must have come from the geese. She agrees with me, which I find very reassuring.

Episode 60 - Psychological Dismemberment: Why We Can’t Stay Connected May 23, 2019

Show notes

Images of physical dismemberment are often used in fairy tales, dreams and art to depict psychological fragmentation, numbing and other forms of disconnection. Such cut-offs, dissociations, and splits may be related to earlier relational trauma, and constitute defenses against experiences perceived as too overwhelming for consciousness to absorb or even acknowledge. Experience can be dissociated, or dismembered, behaviorally, emotionally, bodily, and by denying memory or knowledge of events. Jungian Analyst Donald Kalsched posits an inner dynamic that is both protective and persecutory. Such understandings can point the way to a healing process of re-membering those parts that have been cut off, thereby giving disowned feelings and experiences a fully felt place in consciousness.

The Dream

"In this dream, I remember being in a building that reminded me of a hospital or perhaps an asylum. It was very clinical looking (i.e. lots of steel and glass, white and silver walls / trim, people in smocks or scrubs). I was walking up a small stairway and looked through a doorway to see blood and body parts on the ground in front of me. Somehow I know that it was two separate bodies, but I do not know who they belonged to. When I saw the body parts, I was anxious and had to stop myself from passing out inside the dream because I had a feeling that whoever did that to the bodies could be nearby. As I gathered myself, I began to walk away from the bodies very calmly to avoid drawing attention to myself. As I walked away I saw a man, probably in his fifties or sixties, also a stranger, carrying a silver platter with more body parts. As I passed him, he said hello and smiled as if nothing were out of the ordinary. I then ran out of the building and vaguely remember running through a maze that had been set up on a basketball court until I was outside the building in a small grass field. The building was made of brick and seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. It had that look that many academic buildings have on college campuses."

References

Kalsched, Donald. The Inner World of Trauma, Routledge, 1996.

Gaiman, Neil. The Graveyard Book, Harper, 2008.

Little, Margaret. Psychotic Anxieties and Containment: An Analysis with Donald Winnicott.

Henderson, Joseph L. and Dyane N. Sherwood. Transformation of the Psyche, Routledge, 2003.

For an image of The Golden Head

Episode 59 - Offense and Outrage May 16, 2019

Show notes

Anything that disappears from your psychological inventory is apt to turn up in the guise of a hostile neighbor, who will inevitably arouse your anger and make you aggressive. It is surely better to know that your worst enemy is right there in your own heart.

~CG Jung, Vol 10, para 456

Very often the ego experiences a vague feeling of moral defeat and then behaves all the more defensively, defiantly, and self-righteously, thus setting up a vicious circle which only increases its feeling of inferiority. ~CG Jung Vol 9ii, para 34

We all take offense, from feeling miffed at a thoughtless but cutting comment to being suffused with righteous rage. Others may fail to meet our expectations, agree with deep values, or hold us in positive regard. These experiences can spark effective and defensive reactions, since what offends us often lies in our shadow and is incompatible with how we wish to be perceived. Taking offense also occurs at a cultural level. “Offenders” can be publicly excoriated, exiled from a group or organization, or denied the right to deliver a speech. The experience of offense can be a call to differentiate between a feeling and actual harm—and to meet the implicit challenge of holding the tension between the comfort of being “right” and an opportunity to engage in growth.

The Dream:

My neighbor, a 20-something guy who works in the "alternative healing" field, and who I don't usually talk to much, was being friendly, chatting with me about his band and their website. Then he was telling me about a lemon tincture he was taking. He would mix it with blood and drink it. He said I should go to his house and get some and try it, and that if I didn't have any blood, I should order some. He said this as if I could call a delivery service and the blood would show up at my door in no time. I inwardly balked at the idea of drinking blood. I told him I would mix it with water instead, and he said no, that blood was the only way to do it. He said, "Trust me. It's way better with blood." I didn't say so, but I was shocked that he was drinking blood. To me, it was just too crazy and weird and gross, even if it did have some kind of miraculous healing properties. I was willing to try the tincture, but not in blood, though I didn't tell him this.

Episode 58 - The Art & Practice of B*tchiness May 09, 2019

Show notes

In this episode, the archetype of the bitch is explored using fairy tales, mythology, and popular culture to shed light on this colloquial, pejorative term. The term is applied most frequently to assertive women - and to men acting in a way deemed "feminine" - who are either not sufficiently in touch with their own authentic power or seem overly invested in power dynamics. What is the secret of authentic feminine power?

We reference the myths of Cassandra, Persephone, Inanna, The Frog Prince (Grimm), and The Devil Wears Prada (film), Spirited Away (film), Boys in the Band (film).

The Dream:

"I’m walking into a room in which there’s a group of men standing around a table, most of them are looking intently at it. I see there is a map spread across the table. One of the men looks up from it, and nods toward the table, inviting me to take a closer look. In the middle of the map, there’s a round symbol I’ve never seen before, and this is what has the group so rapt. I’m not sure what it is, but I get the sense that it is very important, so I lean in to examine it closely. It’s a circle inscribing a sort of rivet/mushroom/umbrella shape. On one side of the stem are two squares, and on the other side is one square. I wake up with a sense of urgency and immediately go to draw the shape."

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