Identity | Brian Collinson

Entries Tagged as 'Identity'

The Not-So-Simple Task of Simply Being Honest, Part 1

August 25th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Identity, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, Shadow, depth psychology, inner life, persona, psychotherapist, truth, unconscious

We all like to feel that we know ourselves, and that we are fundamentally honest with ourselves, but is it so? Sometimes deliberate not-wanting-to-know keeps us from being conscious of things that we really need to understand for our own individuation process. To set yourself on the course of being fundamentally honest with yourself is to set yourself on the path of encounter with the unconscious.

Let’s Keep Jung’s Red Book Away from Spiritual Hucksterism

July 21st, 2010 · 5 Comments · Carl Jung, Identity, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, Shadow, The Self, archetypal experience, archetypes, collective consciousness, collective unconscious, unconscious, wholeness

Jung’s Red Book, which I wrote about in an earlier post, has created quite a stir in certain circles, and has been very well popularized. It has had quite an impact in cultural and literary circles, and has gained a lot of attention in the media. The Red Book documents Jung’s own profound psychological struggle in a manner so eloquent and deep that it is difficult if not impossible to describe. However, those of us who love Jung need to be careful not to portray it as some kind of divine revelation composed by a semi-divinity which answers all questions. Jung was very human, and he continually invites us to fully enter our own humanity.

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part III: Heart Trouble

July 11th, 2010 · No Comments · Carl Jung, Current Affairs, Identity, Individuation, Jungian psychology, Lifestyle, Meaning, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, collective consciousness, collective unconscious, depth psychology, inner life, persona, popular culture, soul, symbolism, unconscious, wholeness

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part III, Heart Trouble
…I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad.�
“They say that they think with their heads,” he replied.
“Why of course. What do you think with?” I asked him in surprise.
“We think here,” he said, indicating his heart. [Italics mine]
Conversation between Ochway Biano, Chief of the Pueblo Indians and [...]

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part II

July 2nd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Film, Identity, Individuation, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, The Self, creativity, inner life, popular culture, soul, spontaneity, wholeness

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part II, The Armoured Self, My Prison
In the course of thousands of years of mechanical development, the mechanistic concept, from generation to generation, has anchored itself deeply in man’s biological system. In so doing, it actually has altered human functioning in the direction of the machine-like…. Man has become biologically rigid. [...]

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part 1

June 22nd, 2010 · 2 Comments · Film, Identity, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, inner life, mythology, persona, popular culture, soul, unlived life, wholeness

When I was 9 or 10 years old, I was an insatiable Iron Man fan. I used to race to the local drug store every day to see if a new issue of my hero’s adventures had hit the stands yet. I still admire Stan Lee and those who developed the Iron Man character: he [...]

Work and the Heart

May 15th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Hope, Identity, Jungian analysis, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, Wellness, soul, wholeness, work

An article from the Globe and Mail of 12 May 2010 , “Working regular overtime linked to increased heart attack risk” raises some very serious questions about the way that we’re living now:
http://bit.ly/99TwPg
The article cites a study published in the European Heart Journal, which finds that employees who regularly put in 11- to 12-hour days have an [...]

Crisis

May 8th, 2010 · No Comments · Anxiety, Carl Jung, Identity, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, collective unconscious, complexes, depression, depth psychology, inner life, psychological crisis, soul, stress

Sometimes we can be overtaken by things that happen in the psyche. Such events can leave a person in a very vulnerable place struggling with intense anxiety, depression or stress. Often these psychic events are triggered by events in our outer lives. Nonetheless, it is their psychological impact, the things that they cause to happen [...]

Stuck

April 4th, 2010 · No Comments · Hope, Identity, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Psychology and Suburban Life, complexes, compulsion, depth psychology, inner life, soul, wholeness

One of the common experiences that brings people into therapy is the feeling of being “stuck”. This is an expression that people commonly use to describe the experience of being brought up again and again against some psychological issue that seems incredibly difficult or even impossible to resolve.
Sometimes this sense of “stuckness” can concern some aspect or [...]

The Symbolic Power of Home, Part 1: Michaelle Jean

March 16th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Current Affairs, Home, Hope, Identity, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Mississauga, Oakville, The Self, archetypes, depth psychology, soul, suburbia / exurbia, symbolism

I think that many Canadians’ imagination and empathy has been caught by news stories of our Governor General, Michaelle Jean, who has been in the news here quite a bit this week.

Her Excellency is herself a native of Haiti who came to Canada at age 11 in 1968. In the last few days, she has returned to [...]

Here in the Middle Years of Life: Is That All There Is?

February 28th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Anxiety, Hope, Identity, Meaning, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychotherapy, The Self, depression, depth psychology, inner life, life passages, midlife, soul, stress, suburbia / exurbia, therapy

The great jazz artist Peggy Lee performed the following beautiful, highly disturbing yet haunting song in 1969, at midlife, in her 50th year:

I doubt that questions get much more real than those in this song. And the question that Peggy Lee sings about here is of the type, that, for many people, can become achingly urgent at [...]

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Brian Collinson

Journeying Toward Wholeness