The Self | Brian Collinson

Entries Tagged as 'The Self'

Psychotherapy, Self Acceptance, & Dealing with Shame

July 10th, 2011 · 3 Comments · dealing with shame, Psychotherapy, Self, self acceptance, shame

There is a power in shame, sometimes greater than in any other emotion. We confront shame when our dignity is lost, when we have gone beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable or tolerable, when we are profoundly alienated from other humans because of who or what we are.

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Tags:Jungian analysis·The Self

Jungian Psychotherapy, and Our “Typical”, Atypical Self

March 13th, 2011 · 2 Comments · analytical psychology, Identity, Individuation, inner life, journey, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, personal growth, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Self, self-knowledge, The Self

How do you compare to the “most typical person” in this video? When it comes to the categories the video looks at, perhaps your conclusion, like mine is that “The most typical person in the world is not like me, in many respects.” But might there be some deeper ways, which don’t fit into the categories in the video, in which you and any one of these “typical people” are alike? At another level, what is it that gives you your particular identity, that makes any of these “typical” people and you both unique individuals?

Psychiatrists and Psychotherapy?

March 7th, 2011 · 4 Comments · analytical psychology, dialogue, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychopharmacology, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, self-knowledge, talk therapy

Psychiatrists in the United States have turned away from “talk therapy” or psychotherapy with their clients because it was too time-consuming. Now the focus of psychiatric practice is most often very short meetings. One psychiatrist interviewed by the Times sees some 1200 patients for 15 minute consultations about medications that are sometimes several months apart. While the economics and other factors are somewhat different in Canada, they are not all that different.

Saying No: Jungian Psychotherapy, the Self, and Compliance

February 9th, 2011 · 5 Comments · analytical psychology, archetypal experience, boundaries, C. G. Jung, depression, depth psychology, ego, Existential crisis, Identity, Individuation, life journey, Lifestyle, parental complex, personal growth, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, Self, The Self, therapy, unconscious, unlived life, wholeness

The self is something greater than, and distinct from, the ego,and it is something that plays a very active role in the psychological life of the individual. I often see it at work when I have the experience of working with individuals who have simply reached the point where they cannot accommodate the inappropriate needs of others any further.

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.

Twitter, Personal Growth, Self Discovery and Self Creation

January 7th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Jungian, life transitions, personal growth, Psychotherapy

If you’re interested in quotations on Twitter that concern psychotherapy, Self and personal growth, as I tend to be, you start to notice a very interesting to-and-fro of ideas about what it is to grow as a person. There is a deep division into two distinct camps on a very fundamental question concerning the nature of the Self. We could call one school of thought the “Self Discovery” camp, and the other, the “Self Creation” camp. Whose view of growth is the right one?

Jungian Psychotherapy on Job Search and Self Search

December 15th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Identity, Individuation, Jungian, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, Self, self-knowledge, The Self, vocation

Does Jungian psychotherapy with its emphasis on the Self have anything to do with job search? I emphatically believe that it does. The issue of job search actually takes us right inside some deep inner questions, if we let it. If we are open, it will lead us to ask questions like: “What is it that I really, most deeply, want to do?”; “What is most meaningful to me?”; and, “What is my vocation?”. To even begin to answer those questions, a person must start to get to know his- or her- self.

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 [...]

Persisting Imprints of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

September 16th, 2010 · 1 Comment · Anxiety, post traumatic stress disorder, psychological crisis, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, stress, Trauma

There has been a considerable amount of valuable recent research on changes to the brains of Americans as the result of 9/11, as a recent article on the Discovery website reports. The article relies on the research of Judith Richman and colleagues published in 2008 in the American Journal of Public Health , which concluded, among [...]

“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?

Brian Collinson

Journeying Toward Wholeness