Brian Collinson

Journeying Toward Wholeness

Uneasy: Help for Anxiety Through Depth Psychotherapy

January 20th, 2013 · Anxiety, depth psychotherapy, help for anxiety, Psychotherapy

When it comes to help for anxiety, depth psychotherapy can change our understanding and enable healing in depth.

help for anxiety

 Telling Someone to “Just Relax” Doesn’t Work

People with hypertension or other stress-related medical conditions often get told by medical personnel to “just relax”.  That’s much harder to do than it sounds.  While such advice is intended as help for anxiety, very often inf severely anxious or driven people it creates increased anxiety — “getting anxious about being anxious”.  Or else, people rage, either: 1) at themselves, because “I can’t even do a simple thing like relaxing”, or, 2) at external circumstances.

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Everyone Wants to Eliminate Anxiety; No One Wants to Understand It

As Dr. Cara Barker, the author of the “World Weary Woman” study reminds us, in medical literature on driven and/or perfectionist personalities,

“…the emphasis is on symptoms as negative, something to be eradicated.  Anger and anxiety are viewed as toxic, rather than in terms of what they might be trying to communicate.”

Here’s where depth psychotherapy provides unique help for anxiety.  It stays with the key question, “What might anxiety be trying to communicate about my life?”

Jungian Analyst Marion Woodman on “Healing as Making Whole”

Anxious Dreams

Anxiety will often manifest itself in dreams.  In fact, it’s often the anxious dreams that we remember, because they are the ones that wake us up, as Dr. Donald Broadribb reminds us.

Depth psychotherapy can often use dreams as important help for anxiety, because dreams often point to the root situation in the life of the individual that is creating the anxiety.   For instance, if an individual is dealing with a recurring dream that he or she has had since childhood, this may often indicate that the particular anxiety that the person is experiencing now is connected in some substantial way with anxieties or issues that have been present in a person’s life for an extremely long time, and that need to be explored.

The importance of dreams as a help for anxiety can be that they take us into the deeper meaning of the anxiety, and past the place of simply viewing it as a symptom.  Nonetheless, there are many other possible approaches to the meaning of anxiety.

The Meaning of Anxiety Symptom

In our culture, people are socialized to deal with difficulties by applying more and more effort to them.  Often latent, unexpressed perfectionism keeps us pushing harder and harder to solve the problems in our lives, and that keeps increasing anxiety levels.  Often, this is rooted in a deep-seated feeling that we are simply not good enough.  We are often not inclined to look inside ourselves until we encounter anxiety and pain so intense that we can’t use our ordinary strategies to defend against it.  Then we’re forced to realize that effort of will is not going to solve our problems; we really need to get in touch with what’s going on in our heart.  At that point, depth psychotherapy provides the most effective form of help for anxiety.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

905-337-3946

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PHOTO: Attribution Some rights reserved by danisabella  Video: © Marion Woodman ; inspirationandspirit

 

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Winter of Our Discontent: Winter & Burnout Treatment 1

January 13th, 2013 · burnout, burnout treatment

What we call “winter blahs” may be a seasonal reflection of burnout, and the need for burnout treatment.

burnout treatment

January and February are months when many are aware of experiences similar to burnout.  Often people can become fully aware of burnout-like symptoms that have been semi-conscious for a long time.

Burnout often relates to work, but can be much broader, often representing a whole disengaged and discouraged stance in life.

Emotional Exhaustion

Post holidays, it’s common enough for people to experience a sense of emotional exhaustion.  Leading burnout expert Dr. Christina Maslach defines this as physical and emotional depletion  resulting from excessive job and/or personal demands and continuous work related stress.

The intensity of the holiday lead up causes many to feel that they are depleted.  Personal and work demands can be just too much.

Often people anticipate the Christmas period with great enthusiasm as a respite from extremely demanding routines.  If for whatever reason the Christmas season isn’t able to fulfil those expectations, we may experience exhaustion and depletion.  Many find themselves lacking the necessary energy to engage the challenges of everyday living that return to confront us in January.

Reduced Sense of Personal Fulfillment

Often people experiencing burnout find that things which we hoped would be fulfilling, or that were fulfilling at a previous point in life, are not now.

They are either not able to reach things that would bring a sense of personal satisfaction, or else we have gotten to the point where those things seem like they just don’t matter

Feelings like these are a very common experience in the midlife transition , and, often throughout the second half of life, but can certainly occur at other points in life, too, and they point to the need for burnout treatment.

Struggling to Deal with My Life

Demands and commitments all come rushing back after the New Year.  I may find that I don’t have the energy or vitality to cope with everything on my plate.  It may be that everything just seems too overwhelming, or that I can’t find the motivation to take on all that lies in front of me  in the long march toward spring.  My struggles may stem from a deep level of emotional exhaustion, or from the awareness that my way of life or the values that I have lived for to this point are not serving me nearly as well now as they once did.

I’m not generally a fan of country music, but this song by Alabama is very eloquent:

“All I really gotta do is live and die” — and that’s the real art…

How Can I Re-Engage?

If need burnout treatment, the first step in the process is to genuinely take self-care seriously, and to show myself genuine compassion.  It may well be that my burnout is telling me something essential about the fundamental attitudes in my life.  Burnout treatment in depth may entail a process of encounter with the undiscovered aspects of the self, and a discovery of the symbols and values that really matter to me at the present stage in my life.  This is the fundamental work of the depth psychotherapist.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
PHOTO: © Astrid228 | Dreamstime.com  VIDEO: “I’m In A Hurry” © The Alabama Band and BMG Music, 1992

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A Jungian Psychotherapist & Suburban Life 1: Insights

January 6th, 2013 · Jungian, Jungian psychotherapist, psychotherapist

What would a Jungian psychotherapist say, specifically, about the meaning of suburban life?

Jungian psychotherapy

Well, having both practiced as a Jungian psychotherapist in suburban or “edge” cities and having extensively studied suburbias, it’s clear that individuals face particular challenges in living in this kind of environment, while remaining true to themselves.

Whatever else is true, the suburban places of my life, like Mississauga, Oakville and Burlington, have a unique character from the perspective of a Jungian psychotherapist.

That Funny Word “Suburban”…

A suburb, simply put, is a residential area that is neither fully urban, nor is it rural.  Often, the people who live in suburbia are people who hope to live closer to nature, or at least, with more space, than is possible in an urban setting.  Often, this kind of space appeals to people with families.

Living in the Suburbs Has Unique Pressures

From the perspective of a Jungian psychotherapist it’s clear that there are unique pressures on suburban dwellers.  Some of these are very tangible.

For instance, suburban dwellers often have a commute to somewhere in their metro area that substantially eats into their day.  Related to this is the fact that suburban folks pretty much need a car to do everything in their lives, and have to travel some pretty large distances to do the basics.  In most suburban communities you can’t get the goods and services you need via walking or transit.  So there can easily be a sense of disconnect from the physical environment, and from others living in the community.

A Jungian psychotherapist also knows that suburban community has two mirror opposite aspects: it can be both not enough and too much.  In the midst of suburban communities, people can feel incredibly alone.  Simultaneously, people can encounter immense pressure to meet collective expectations.  around lifestyle, levels of consumption. and being “like others” in the neighbourhood.  People can feel strong social pressure and feel extremely disconnected simultaneously.

The social pressure to be “like others” may result in huge financial pressure.

Being Yourself in the Suburbs is a Particular Challenge

At a certain point in life, often around the midlife transition, the challenge of living in a way that is uniquely one’s own takes on a level of urgency.

Jungian psychotherapist

Often, a way of life that once met certain key needs starts to feel like just “going through the motions”.  The need to find a way of living that is uniquely, authentically my own, may come from a pressing imperative — what a Jungian psychotherapist calls individuation.

Creative Individuation in the Suburbs

It can take a significant re-orientation to find a creative and meaningful life in the midst of a suburban lifestyle.  One must overcome the relentless pressure of advertising and marketing, which continually portrays commodity consumption as individual and creative, when it is often at heart abjectly conformist.  It can be an extensive process to get free of this and to get down to the discovery of what is uniquely me.  This is an essential aspect of the work of the Jungian psychotherapist in suburbia.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
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Individual Psychotherapy & Holiday Stress: Renewal

December 31st, 2012 · holiday stress, individual, individual psychotherapy, Psychotherapy, stress

Working with people in individual psychotherapy around holiday stress teaches you a lot.

 individual psychotherapy

Among other things, you realize that, on some level, many of us do actually expect some kind of renewal at this time of year.

Does this result from expectations nurtured by our particular culture?  Perhaps so.  But there is also the age old reality of the solstice, and the effect of shortening and then lengthening days on all of us.  SAD, or seasonal affective disorder shows that many of us are deeply affected by the power of the light.

The sun’s power diminishes as we near solstice, and then ever so slowly comes back.  The expectation of renewal is part of our being, as it was for our ancestors thousands of years ago.  Jungian individual psychotherapy regards that expectation of renewal as archetypal.

But What Kind of Renewal?

Those in the second half of life know it’s not possible to simply wipe the slate clean, and start life again.  This reality of holiday stress is bluntly affirmed by one of the most popular Christmas songs of the last 30 years, “Fairy Tale of New York” by Kristy McColl and the Pogues [WARNING: Offensive Language]:

It’s hard to imagine a more eloquent expression of lost hope and broken dreams than this song.  Why is it so popular — at the very season of renewal?  In my opinion, the answer rests on another aspect of the holiday season that I discussed in my last post: the deep yearning for reality that accompanies this season.  In individual psychotherapy, people often reveal that want to believe in the possibility of renewal in life — but, in our era, they refuse to accept a cheap sentimentalization that lacks any substance.  In truth, we simply cannot stand any more…

Humbug!

It’s striking that, given our wariness about sentimentality, we remain fascinated by another figure who embodies renewal at this season — Ebenezer Scrooge!  I recently attended Soulpepper Theatre‘s annual dramatization of Dickens’  A Christmas Carol, and was fascinated to watch the audience, and realize the power that this story has to draw us in.  Why does this story still resonate?

Part of the reason is its power to reach the Scrooge element within each of us.  We want to believe in new possibilities for the rigid, mistrustful wounded part of ourselves that could readily give up on the possibility of anything new or alive.  We want to believe in renewal.

The Archetype of Renewal

Renewal comes from acknowledging that wounded, shamed, weak, deeply disappointed part of ourselves as indeed ourselves, and showing it real compassion and acceptance.  It’s so easy to treat it with contempt, which can very readily turn into contempt for the weakness and brokenness of others.  If we can connect with and accept the Scrooge in ourselves, there is hope for connection with others, and, above all, with our own real lives.  This goal of recognizing  and accepting all that we are is the goal of individual psychotherapy in depth.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
Attribution   Some rights reserved ItzaFineDay ; VIDEOS: “Fairy Tale of New York” © Warner Music UK Ltd 1988 ; “A Christmas Carol” © Soulpepper Theatre Company

 

 

 

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Individual Psychotherapy & Holiday Stress: Reality

December 22nd, 2012 · holiday stress, individual, individual psychotherapy, Psychotherapy, stress

One learning I’ve had from from practicing individual psychotherapy is that some holiday stress stems from people’s attempts to find reality at the heart of the holidays.

individual psychotherapy

That sounds like a surprising thing to say.  But the yearning for real, meaningful experiences around the holidays actually runs quite deep.

The Realm of Kitsch and Bling

In the holiday season, we are surely living in the realm of kitsch, that style of mass-produced artifact that uses well-worn cultural icons or images. It’s a term generally reserved for

holiday-stress-kitsch

things gaudy or lacking in substance, designed to appeal to a wide audience at a shallow level.  Unfortunately, much of holiday art, design and decoration is kitsch, which contributes to holiday stress.  The same is true of much of holiday storytelling, especially in the mass media.

We fill the holidays with kitschy symbols and images of Christmas in our culture, and we also fill up the holidays with extravagant gifts, which can easily pre-occupy us during this period.  Yet, for many, the “bling” that accompanies Christmas feels hollow and empty.

Reality vs. Sentimentality

Many people experience holiday stress because of the way in which the season is shrouded in sentimentality, which might be characterized as appealing to shallow, uncomplicated emotionality at the expense of depth and real, individual humanity.  It’s not hard to find expressions of sentimentality tied to the key elements of the holidays.

Tired Symbols in Need of Renewal

The traditional symbols of the holiday season have lost some or all of their energy or vitality.  Jung would be the first to tell us that, when symbols lose their power and effectiveness in peoples’ lives, they must either be renewed or be replaced.  Over 40 years ago, Ian Anderson sang of the need in our culture for a renewal of holiday symbols, and of the need to get beyond the cloying sentimentality with which it has become encrusted.

What IS Real?

Individual psychotherapy shows that holiday stress often reflects our yearning for reality and genuine experience.  Few among us are really complete cynics about the holidays.  Even individuals without religious conviction look to them as a time of increased cooperation and goodwill among people, and, also, perhaps a hope for genuine connection with family members and friends.

Focusing on a sense of personal reality during the holidays relates to bringing a sense of reality and personal meaning back into our lives in general.  It’s always important to ask ourselves what in our lives carries a sense of deep meaning and reality.  Some of this may have to do with personal philosophy or meaning, worldview, or spirituality.  Some of it may have to do with deep and genuine connections and relationships with others in our lives.  Again, as individual psychotherapy knows, connection with those things for which we have genuine, deep passion is also essential.

Our yearning for reality during the holidays reflects our need for reality and substance in our lives in general, a key focus of individual psychotherapy that focuses on depth, like Jungian therapy.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
Attribution   Some rights reserved wellohorld ; VIDEO: “Christmas Song” from album “This Was” © Chrysalis Records Ltd 1968

 

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Individual Psychotherapy & Holiday Stress: Gifts

December 17th, 2012 · holiday stress, individual, individual psychotherapy, Psychotherapy

This is the season of holiday gifts, and, as individual psychotherapy well knows, gift-giving is often a major source of holiday stress.

individual psychotherapy

Does gift-giving create holiday stress for you?  Well if so, you’re in good company.  Anthropology tells us that gift-giving is a near-universal practice through the history of human cultures.

Gifts are Intensely Personal

Gift-giving — and especially gift exchanges – are immensely significant.  In cultures like the ancient Polynesian or the Haida First Nation, with its potlatch ceremonies, gift giving is tied up with maintaining and strengthening social bonds, maintaining social status — and it even has huge spiritual implications.

So this year, when you’re trying to decide what to get Uncle Fred, don’t be surprised to feel emotional complications and perhaps holiday stress surrounding the giving of gifts.  The anthropologist Marcel Mauss defines a gift as

“an object that contains spiritual elements and engages the honour of both giver and receiver.”
—
Haida Gwaii – Potlatch for New Chief Nang Jingwas

As individual psychotherapy shows, gift-giving is both personal and archetypal.  Among the Polynesians, or Haida, or even when considering the origin of Christmas gifts, the objects being exchanged don’t just have a monetary or physical value, but embody
a spiritual reality.  As Mauss says of Maori gift giving,”one clearly and logically realizes that one must give back to another person what is really part and parcel of his nature and substance, because to accept a gift from somebody is to accept some part of his spiritual essence, of his soul“.

Gifts are Archetypal

Gifts may seem like pretty mundane things, but they actually carry a significance so deep that it can properly be called archetypal.  Often in human culture, there is a higher spiritual agenda in gift-giving, and a deep feeling that the gift must be appropriate to the essence of the receiver, to who they really are.  The gift is an honouring and acknowledgement of who the receiver of the gift is, in their individual reality.

Our Gift Compulsion

The experience of individual psychotherapy shows that our culture is confused and conflicted about the meaning of gifts, in no small part because we are conflicted about the meaning of individual human existence.  In a culture in spiritual crisis, the meaning of human life is the acquisition of ever more expensive and splendid “stuff”, and not surprisingly, the meaning of gift-giving degenerates into ever-increasing pressure towards continually “bigger and better” gifts.

Our Need for Gift

The gifts that we and others need are not the most expensive or most luxurious, but the gifts that honour our true nature and substance.  To give such gifts, the giver must see who we really are.  Such a gift would bring us back to our souls, to self acceptance, and would connect us in profound ways with the giver.

What is the gift that you need, at this holiday season?  And, just as importantly, what gift do you need to give?  In its own way, individual psychotherapy at its best is profoundly concerned with these questions.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
Attribution   Some rights reserved Cali4beach ; VIDEO: Colin Richardson, Elan Michel, High Tech Totem

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Jungian Therapy & the Meaning of Dreams 7: Diamonds

December 10th, 2012 · dreams, Jungian, Jungian therapy, meaning of dreams, therapy

The meaning of dreams in which the motif  of “jewels” or “diamonds” appear can vary greatly – as Jungian therapy well knows — but these are often dreams of great

Jungian therapy

emotional power.  It is more than a play on words to say that the diamond is a multi-faceted symbol.

Jungian therapy often sees the diamond as a symbol of the self in its entirety.  But what the heck does that mean?

Precious from the Earth

Diamonds are created far within the depths of the earth.  In the normal course of events, a human being cannot make a diamond.  It requires the pressure and heat of the depths to do that.

Jungian therapy is aware that “the depths of the earth” often symbolize of the unconscious depths of the psyche.  A diamond symbolizes the reality of the self: it is forged without human intervention in the depths, just as the self is created in the depths, in the vastness of the unconscious, independent of the conscious mind and ego.

Indestructible and Forever

Diamonds are famous for incredible hardness and durability.  They symbolize the durability and resilience of the true self, and of the yearning that we all have for a connection to the lasting persistent nature of psyche, and of our own deepest identity  In the times of life when we often feel most fragile and vulnerable on the conscious level,  Jungian therapy knows a deep need of the individual is to come into contact with the reality and persistence of the self.  Often the meaning of dreams revolves around encounters with this reality.

The Many Facets of Diamonds

Diamonds have very complex shapes.  They often have many, many facets.  In this way, they bear a resemblance to the human personality, which has a multitude of dimensions and aspects.  Jungian therapy lives in the awareness that, like diamonds, we are multi-facetted — many facets not even being conscious.  To understand the meaning of dreams containing the symbol of the diamond, we must understand the multi-dimensional beauty and wonder of the diamond as an image reflecting the endlessly diverse and multi-facetted reality of the individual self.

Here is a video by Maple Leaf Diamonds .  If you can get past seeing the diamonds presented as mere “bling”, they portray the wonder and beauty of these strange stones, and the way in which they serve as an image of the wonder of the self.

Diamonds and the Life of the Self

What is the meaning of dreams where diamonds appear?  Jungian therapy emphasizes that the answer to this question must necessarily be very individual.  But it is highly likely that such dreams concern the fundamental reality of who we are.  Have you had a dream in which diamonds or precious stones appeared?  If so, we must wonder what such a dream might have been saying about your unique and infinitely varied self.  Often, it is only in the journey to wholeness embodied by depth psychotherapies such as Jungian therapy that we can begin to find out.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
© Gualtiero Boffi | Dreamstime.com   ; VIDEO: BHP Billiton Maple Leaf Diamonds

 

 

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Individual Psychotherapy & Holiday Stress: Relations

December 3rd, 2012 · individual, individual psychotherapy, Psychotherapy

Every year, I post something on individual psychotherapy and holiday stress.

individual psychotherapy

My intent in doing this is not to be a “downer”, but rather to plead with all of us to be real at this time of year.

Interacting with certain relatives in holiday situations can be a debilitating stressor.  Individual psychotherapy knows, that if there is any time of the year when we really need to “hang onto ourselves”, this is it.

Interacting with Some Relations is a Major Holiday Stress

Of the several issues that make the holidays difficult for my clients, the number one factor cited is encounters with relatives.

These can include encounters with just about any type of relative.  The biggest single factor that seems to contribute to anxiety, depression and overall discomfort is the prospect of spending extended time in the presence of a toxic relative – and feeling aversion, powerlessness or even complete defeat.

Why is Interacting with Toxic Relations So Difficult?

The reasons that certain relatives can be so problematic are very diverse, and depend on the individual’s situation.

The most extreme factors are situations of abuse.  Such abuse can be verbal, physical or sexual.  Here, the individual may risk re-traumatization by even seeing the person, or being in their presence.  Such trauma situations must be approached with extreme caution.

Some relatives endlessly inflict shame. This may be connected with overt verbal abuse, or it may not.  A related experience may be that a relative makes me feel negligible or inferior.

Often, any or all of the above may relate to the inability of a given relative to let me be who I am in my own right — even a little.  This can be painful in the extreme, and it may lead to feelings of deep misgiving and foreboding as Christmas approaches.

Is There Any Chance for Healing?

In individual psychotherapy people often find themselves asking if there is any chance for repair of such a relationship.  It is not uncommon to find oneself oscillating between optimism and pessimism on this point.

Sometimes such repair may be a possibility.  Or, it may be that healing in the relationship with this relative simply isn’t an option.  In such cases, it may well be that the healing that has to go on in this situation is something that must go on inside of me, where I find ways to maintain my own boundaries, and keep valuing myself and living my life — the archetype of individuation.

Living in My Own Story

Whether I go into situations involving a toxic relative, or I don’t, there are some truths that I need to keep in mind.

The first of these is that my life is my own.  I belong to myself.  The perception of even the closest relative does not define who I am.  I have a right to live my life in a manner that respects who I am, and respects my needs.

Living in my own story – even amidst holiday stress – is a key part of the journey of individual psychotherapy.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
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The Jungian Psychotherapist & the Power of the Image

December 1st, 2012 · Jungian, Jungian psychotherapist, psychotherapist

If you work with a Jungian psychotherapist, he or she is going to want to know about the images at work in your life.

Jungian psychotherapist

For a Jungian psychotherapist, inner images have far more lasting and influential power over the way that you or I live our lives than do the concepts tossed about on a daily basis by the conscious mind.

Images?  What images?

The Image as Fantasy

What does Jung mean by an image?  As he says, “the image has the psychological character of a fantasy-idea… it never takes the place of reality, and can always be distinguished from sensuous reality by the fact that it is an ‘inner’ image.” [CW 6, para. 743]  So, he’s not referring to hallucinations, but to the images stirred up within us by fantasy, particularly unconscious fantasy.

Unconscious fantasies?  Do we have such things?  Yes.  How we react to people and situations, what we “project” or put on them is constantly conditioned by images that reside in the unconscious.  If you have ever had a violent emotional response to a person, place or thing come upon you out of the blue, it’s likely rooted in an unconscious image or fantasy.  Sometimes, we may even be aware of these images, or “fantasy ideas” being present in the background, as we confront various situations in our lives.

Images: Where Conscious and Unconscious Meet

As Jung says, “the image is an expression of the unconscious as well as the conscious situation of the moment.”  For the Jungian psychotherapist, those inner images coming up from the unconscious are interpreted and understood in a definite way.  They represent the way that our unconscious mental situation is interacting with our consciousness, as it deals with the situations in our lives.  If we can surface these images, we can understand a lot about what is going on within us as we encounter the situations in our lives.

Jungian psychotherapist

The Power of the Image Goes Beyond Language

Often incredible emotional power is associated with inner images and fantasies, and they can often be associated with a major complex. Consider an individual who has the semi-conscious image of sitting down across the kitchen table from his abusive, alcoholic father, every time he sits down in his bosses office, .  Or, on the other hand, the individual who cannot help the images of his lost first love that arise every time he sees his children’s nanny.  Individuals confronted with such compelling inner fantasies may find that the emotions generated in the situation powerfully affect their responses to life situations.

What are the Images in Your Life?

Becoming conscious of inner images may be a major, very important piece of soul work.  It can be very important to be aware of how these inner images affect the way that we experience and respond to outer reality.  What are the emotionally charged images that underlie the characteristic situations in your life?  Working with a Jungian psychotherapist is, in part, a journey into the emotionally charged images that structure our lives.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

Click below to arrange a no obligation initial session:

   
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Jungian Therapy and the Meaning of Dreams : Houses

November 27th, 2012 · dreams, Jungian, Jungian therapy, meaning of dreams, therapy

Jungian therapy abounds with house symbols, because they are often central to the meaning of dreams — the house is one of the most common dream symbols.

Jungian therapy

It’s a very rich symbol, archetypal in fact.  Humans seek a secure place that is fundamentally their own in which to live, whether it is the troglodyte’s cave, or the King’s palace.

Our earliest home is the maternal womb, and all our subsequent physical homes carry its shades and tones.  In mythological traditions from all over the world, our first home is a paradise, and we are ever seeking to return to it.

 The House as Symbol of Personality

In dreams, the home often symbolizes the dreamer’s entire psyche or personality.  Is the dream house well-kept, or does it appear neglected?  Is it made of solid stuff or shoddy materials — and thus perhaps in need of renovation?  Does the house seem well proportioned?  Are its internal spaces cramped or spacious?

House as “Space” I Occupy

In waking life, some houses clearly symbolize and embody the people who live in them.  So it is in the dream symbolization of the inner world, where houses reflect the person that they contain / are.  Often a house can have different levels, which may reflect different periods of time, or different aspects of the being of the dreamer.  There may be different “rooms” in the house; some familiar, and some unknown, waiting to be discovered.  Jungian therapy knows that the meaning of dreams about houses partakes in the house as a universal symbol, and also in the experiences of the individual relative to the house.

Emotional Power of the House Symbol

Jungian therapy

Houses engender deep emotions in their occupants.   We can have a loving and intimate relationship with a house — or sometimes what seems like an anger or even hate-filled grim struggle.

Dream houses may reflect our inner psychic state — or we may project our inner psychic conflicts onto our outer house in the waking world.  Most of us know the terminally “house proud” individual, whose identity has completely fused with the outer house.

Jungian therapy fully recognizes the deep feelings at play around the house.

The Inner Housing Crisis: Where Will I Dwell?

jungian therapy

We all have to dwell somewhere; this is a truth in the inner world, as much as the outer.  And, as in the outer world, so in the inner: our house has characteristics, and our relationship to it is changed by our choices.

Often it’s a matter of greatest importance for an individual to pay attention to their inner “house”.  Its dimensions and proportions often fill our dreams.  Jungian therapy is very attuned to the theme or motif of the house in the dreams of the individual — especially at times of tension or crisis.  In addition to many other therapeutic techniques, work on the house as part of the meaning of dreams can be a powerful element in Jungian therapy.

How has the symbol of the house appeared in your dreams?

Next in series: Jewels

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

Oakville, Burlington & Mississauga Ontario

1-905-337-3946

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Attribution  Noncommercial Some rights reserved Andypiper ; hockadilly ; chicagogeek  | VIDEO: “Awesome tree houses” by ricsil2037

 

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