Jungian Psychology | Brian Collinson

Entries Tagged as 'Jungian psychology'

Jungian Therapy for Anxiety & the Overly Driven Person

January 26th, 2012 · 2 Comments · Anxiety, driven person, Jungian, Jungian therapy, therapy, therapy for anxiety

It’s actually painful to be an overly driven person, as both Jungian therapy and therapy for anxiety in general recognize. When any of us allows ourselves to get caught in this way, we run a great risk of chronically devaluing our inner life, and our true worth

Individual Psychotherapy & Hope: 4 Jungian Truths

November 10th, 2011 · 2 Comments · Hope, individual, individual psychotherapy, Jungian, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy

Hope is key to individual psychotherapy — especially for the Jungian therapist. It is always true that the hope of the client is going to be essential to the healing process of the psyche. But, especially in an age like ours, with the continual struggle that many face to keep hope alive, hope becomes even more crucial. 1) Hope from Within, [...]

9/11, 2011, & Jungian Bereavement & Grief Counselling

September 14th, 2011 · 1 Comment · bereavement, grief, grief counselling

Ten years on, changes in the ways 9/11 is commemorated can teach us a great deal about bereavement, about grief counselling, and about the transformations and processes of grief. For some 9/11 grievers, a kind of healing has come with the passage of time.

Jungian Psychotherapy & Personal Growth

July 15th, 2011 · 1 Comment · growth, individual psychotherapy, Jungian, Jungian psychotherapy, personal growth, Psychotherapy

Personal growth is a term that has taken on quite a conventional meaning — but the reality may be something quite different. Often, when people talk about “personal growth”, you sense that they have a very clear and definite idea of what everybody has to go through to grow. A definite roadmap that every person has to follow. Actually, growth is much more individual than that. Each person has a unique path that they have to uncover and follow.

Psychotherapy and Renewal: Persephone’s Big Comeback

April 5th, 2011 · No Comments · analytical psychology, archetypal experience, Carl Jung, depth psychology, inner life, Introversion, journey, Jungian, Jungian analysis, life passages, mythology, personal myth, personal story, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, renewal, Self, soul, therapist, therapy, unconscious

The Persephone myth conveys a natural movement in psychological life For Persephone, it is only as she is detached from her familiar world, and descends to the Underworld that she can bring the blessing and the gift of the seasons, of new green life, and fecundity. Sometimes the encounter with life’s circumstances and with the unconscious can seem like a sudden plunge into darkness and descent into the underworld. But the underworld has its own gifts that it brings. Only those who can accept those gifts, and eat the food of the underworld, can bring the gift of life and fertility back to the “surface world” of their everyday lives.

Jungian Psychotherapy and the Reality of Grief

March 4th, 2011 · 3 Comments · analytical psychology, archetypal experience, depth psychology, grief, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life journey, Meaning, parent-child interactions, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, symbolism, wholeness

The intensity of grief as an experience is something shared by almost all human beings. Its devastating character echoes down through the aeons, affecting nearly every life in every generation. Clearly, anyone who has a grief reaction of any intensity is never going to forget the loved one, in any emotional sense. The yearning for their presence is always going to be a part of the bereaved person’s life. To find a place of security and acceptance to process these feelings is essential.

Consciousness, Unconscious Mind and Neuroscience

January 14th, 2011 · 5 Comments · brain science, cognitive science, consciousness, depth psychology, Jungian, neuroscience, Psychology and Suburban Life, Self, The Self, unconscious

I thought that I would do a brief blog post on a couple of quotations that relate to the whole mushrooming area of the science of consciousness and the unconscious mind, as it is being approached within the rapidly expanding new fields of neuroscience and cognitive science.

Jungian Psychology Looks at Leslie Nielsen

December 2nd, 2010 · No Comments · analytical psychology, Current Affairs, Jungian, persona, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Shadow, unconscious

Neilsen’s characters played in some hilarious ways with what Jungians call persona and shadow. It’s as the character of police Lt. Frank Drebin that most people will remember Neilsen. Drebin always presented with absolute deadpan seriousness, completely the stereotypical image of a serious policeman while surrounded by situation after situation of the most gobstopping absurdity.

Stress, Power, Resilience and Myth, Part 3: In Myself

October 31st, 2010 · 7 Comments · depth psychology, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, personal myth, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, resilience, Self, soul, therapy, wholeness

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 any other, it was this: they really, really knew how to listen. My therapeutic journey has enabled me, ultimately, to find a kind of acceptance of my life. Insofar as I can make any meaningful sense of psychologists’ use of the word “resilience”, this is it.

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.

Brian Collinson

Journeying Toward Wholeness