CG Jung | Brian Collinson

Entries Tagged as 'CG Jung'

Stress, Power, Resilience — and Myth, Part 2: Getting Real

October 25th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Anxiety, depth psychology, Existential crisis, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Meaning, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, stress, therapy

I’d like to share a personal experience of mine through which I became changed, and, I believe, much more resilient. It’s not that I’m trying to suggest that I’ve “got it all figured out”, or that this set of experiences gave me “the key to life” — mine or anybody else’s. But I do believe that this was an experience that affected me deeply, that it cost me a great deal, and that I genuinely grew through it. Resilience is directly connected to our convictions at the deepest level about our lives — our basic trust. And sometimes life can shake what we believe about our own individual lives to the very core. I had occasion to learn this in a period between my mid-20s and early 30s.

Stress, Power, Resilience — and Myth, Part 1

October 10th, 2010 · No Comments · Anxiety, Carl Jung, depth psychology, Hope, Meaning, mythology, Oakville, power, Psychology and Suburban Life, resilience, stress, trust, work

There are many things in the 2010s that can easily make people feel powerless. In addition, the majority of us struggle, or have had to struggle with our own inner wounds. What we each need to meet our lives is what psychologists increasingly refer to as resilience, the power to “roll with the punches” that life throws. Where do we find it? How can psychotherapy or Jungian analysis help us?

A Video Portrait of Jung

October 1st, 2010 · 2 Comments · archetypal experience, Carl Jung, consciousness, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, personal story, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, soul, therapy

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”, an excellent interview program hosted by John Freeman of the [...]

What Do You Think About Therapy?

September 27th, 2010 · No Comments · Carl Jung, depth psychology, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, therapy

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 have changed — a lot! There was a time, not [...]

The Not-So-Simple Task of Simply Being Honest, Pt 2: Shadow

September 14th, 2010 · 3 Comments · Carl Jung, depth psychology, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Shadow, soul, The Self, unlived life, wholeness

As I indicated in Part 1 of this post, if we really get serious about the task of being honest with ourselves, sooner or later, we are going to run into what Jung calls the Shadow. The Shadow represents all those parts of ourselves that we do not, or do not want to, acknowledge as [...]

“They Want Google to Tell Them What They Should be Doing”

September 6th, 2010 · 8 Comments · Carl Jung, decision, freedom, Individuation, Psychology and Suburban Life, Self

Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of Google said recently, “I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.” But is he correct? Do we actually want Google to tell us what to do?

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

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

Under the Surface of Suburbia

August 20th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Carl Jung, collective consciousness, depth psychology, Halton Region, Home, Individuation, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, soul, suburbia / exurbia, unlived life, wholeness

Under the surface of suburbia, life is the same here as it is anywhere else. The endless communities of single family dwellings stretch out and stretch out, beyond where the eye can see. Yet beneath the appearances, there are a myriad of individual lives. People are moving through life towards their individual destinies, with happiness or with discontent, with sorrow or exultation, with unresolved pain and grief, or with yearning. Each of us is a story, and each of us is a journey, and that the only real freedom is in finding our own true nature.

Sarah Palin, “Mama Grizzlies” and the Mother Archetype

August 15th, 2010 · No Comments · archetypal experience, archetypes, Carl Jung, collective consciousness, depth psychology, mother archetype, parent-child interactions, popular culture, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, symbolism, unconscious

Andrea Huffington commented recently in the Huffington Post on Sarah Palin’s use of archetypal imagery in the political ads that she has recently run with incredible success online. Huffington seeks to use the concepts of Jungian psychology to analyze Palin’s message. In my opinion, it’s a fruitful approach.

Escaping the Grip of Regret, Part 2: The Power of Regret

July 29th, 2010 · 2 Comments · complexes, compulsion, decision, depression, depth psychology, guilt, Hope, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, midlife, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, regret, soul, The Self, therapy, unconscious, wholeness

In my last posting, I tried to open up the whole subject of regret, and the powerful and sometimes crippling place that it can occupy in our lives, and how we can be held in slavery to regret of all the choices we could have made differently, or courses of events that could have turned out differently. In this posting, I’d [...]

Brian Collinson

Journeying Toward Wholeness