Jungian analyst | Brian Collinson

Vibrant Jung Thing Blog

Dealing with Shame During Midlife Transition

September 17th, 2012 · dealing with shame, midlife, midlife transition, shame

Dealing with shame is one of the most demanding aspects of psychological work, and, in midlife transition, we can often face this struggle most acutely.

Psychoanalyst Helen B. Lewis tells us, “The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation”. In midlife transition, when people begin to seriously look back at their lives and review them, the experience of shame can become acute, even excruciating.

Taking Stock: A Conscious & Unconscious Process

Beginning with midlife transition, people often begin to take stock of their lives in new ways. This is a tremendous opportunity to open up new possibilities, and find new paths, but it can also be very hard. It’s not an uncommon thing to find that aspects of one’s life cause considerable shame. Often, such a feeling can even seem unbearable. Dealing with shame can become a real problem.

A Fundamental Problem with Who I Am

It’s one thing to feel that something I’ve done is unworthy, and feel full of guilt. This can be an extremely painful, difficult experience.

However, another, even more devastating thing can be to confront the feeling that what I am is fundamentally unworthy, valueless, negligible — sometimes during midlife transition, it can seem like this. This is not an experience that a person can just sit with, in a mellow way. It demands some kind of resolution, a change in consciousness, if I am to continue the forward movement of my life journey.

Refusing to Apologize for My Self

We must come to accept and cherish our own unique being. This is crucial psychological work, and a very demanding and important part of dealing with shame in psychotherapy.

As Marion Woodman once put it, in her uniquely powerful way, it’s essential for each of us to come to such self-acceptance, that we say, “This is what I am. You don’t like it? Tough. I refuse to perform for you anymore.”

Amour Fati

Jung spoke of amor fati, an ancient Latin phrase meaning “to love one’s fate”. We need to find this place in our relationship with ourselves… a very deep form of compassion for who and what we are. Jung also said, “The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” In a profound sense he’s right. We have to accept that we can never perform well enough to wipe out shame. We can only accept and have compassion for ourselves. That’s an important part of the journey of good psychotherapy.

[cta]

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by zoetnet

→ 2 Comments

Jungian Psychology Looks at Leslie Nielsen

December 2nd, 2010 · analytical psychology, Current Affairs, Jungian, persona, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Shadow, unconscious

“Surely you can’t be serious!”

“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

On Sunday last, comic actor Leslie Nielsen died at age 84. Like many Canadians I felt a special tie to Nielsen, because he was “one of us”. I especially enjoyed him in his comedy roles in Airplane and Naked Gun. From the point of view of Jungian psychotherapy, Nielsen’s characters played in some hilarious ways with what Jungians call persona and shadow.

Serious… but Absurd

It’s as the character of police Lt. Frank Drebin that most people will remember Nielsen. 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. His good looks and serious, professional demeanour enabled him to pull this off, at least until we are caught right up in the situation — and then the clown comes out.

Roger Ebert called Nielsen “the Olivier of spoofs” and said of his deadpan antics, “You laugh, and then you laugh at yourself for laughing.” That was always my experience of Nielsen, too. I found myself laughing almost in spite of myself during his movies, but also, as in all great comedy, finding something in him that was familiar, something that made me feel “at home”.

The Inner Frank Drebin

I know Frank Drebin. Part of me feels that I know him very well. I know that there’s a Frank Drebin in me. It’s that part of me that stays invested in my outer social role, even when the whole situation is falling apart. That part of me that continues to desperately try to believe in fictions when everything shows me that my fiction is not the case. That part of each of us that wants to look oh-so-competent when there’s actually a 3 ring circus going on around us — and it turns out that we are in the spotlight at center ring! We all have that part in ourselves that so desperately wants to “believe our own propaganda” about being totally good and competent and in control– and somehow deep down, knows it’s not true, and is damned if it will admit it.

Surprised by the Shadow

There are all kinds of parts of us that go into making up our shadow, as Jungians call it. That’s the entire dimension of ourselves that we don’t want to acknowledge exists. Part of that is the morally unacceptable parts of ourselves and part of it is those weaker, inferior or just less socially desirable aspects of ourselves that cause us to feel vulnerable or ashamed or just plain clown-like. But they are all aspects of us, and we need to accept and acknowledge them.

That’s where the Leslie Nielsens — and the Charlie Chaplins, Laurel and Hardys, Roberto Benignis, Robin Williams, John Candys and Jack Blacks — all come in. They help us to accept and even be kind to those parts of ourselves that we have trouble acknowledging.

Poor Old Persona

Sometimes our poor old persona goes on bravely, day after day, waving its flag that tells everyone that we are doing fine, and that everything’s under control — even when that’s sometimes the very last thing we feel, if we are honest with ourselves. Rest in peace, Leslie Neilsen, and thank you for helping us to laugh at our pretensions and our obliviousness, and to be kinder to our struggling selves. Surely you can’t be serious, Mr. Nielsen — and we love you for being anything but.

Caught in Our Own Schtick?

Have you ever one of those “Frank Drebin” moments? When all your seriousness and self-importance just comes apart? I remember once having to give a talk at a hospital. I bent down to pick up my projector, and –with a big audible rip! — the entire seam in the middle of the back of my pants split, from top to bottom! Shadow time! If you’ve had a similar experience, I’d welcome hearing from you via a comment or through a confidential email.

Wishing you every good thing on your personal journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

1-905-337-3946

PHOTO CREDIT: © David Fowler | Dreamstime.com

© 2010 Brian Collinson

Brian Collinson, 2238 Constance Drive, Oakville, Ontario (near Oakville / Mississauga border)

→ No Comments

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

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

Recently, I started a series of posts about the growth of resilience, which is a very key part of the work of psychotherapy. 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.

The Journey to Upside Down

At the time this experience occurred, I was a highly religious person, in a liberal Christian tradition. I had a very clear conception of my life: how things had unfolded according to plan, and how they would continue to do so into the future. I was recently happily married, and my wife and I had a baby on the way.

Then the baby arrived, and we learned that he was born pretty close to about as deaf as a child can be.

Suddenly, everything that I thought I knew about my life was turned upside down. Through this crisis, everything I had hitherto believed about the nature of God, the world, suffering, even evil, and what was meaningful in life was shaken to the core.

Now, I’m not foolish enough to think that having a deaf child is the worst that can happen to a person. Far, far from it. It can get unbelievably more painful and difficult than that, I well know. Nonetheless, when this happened to me, I was completely devastated. I literally did not know which way to turn, and, for a long time, I seriously doubted that I would ever be happy — or even ever smile — again.

Life Crisis

I also know that, as the years went by, I was also plunged into a more and more profound crisis of faith and life — an existential crisis, as they say. It was not so much a question of “why me?” With the crisis around my son’s deafness, it was as if scales had fallen from my eyes, and I was finally seeing for the first time the depth of the suffering in the world. In fact, I was seeing it very clearly and close up in the very people with whom I was working. It was deeply apparent to me now how many people were struggling with so very much more than they knew how to handle, or felt that they could handle. The question I found myself struggling with on the deepest level was much more, “How can there be a loving God, if this kind of thing happens to any one at all?”

By the time I was 30, I was completely shaken out of the very comfortable life path that I had seen mapped out for me. Nothing was left of it. It was apparent to me that life was never going to be possible with the old outlook I had once had. At about that time, I made some very major changes in virtually every aspect of my life — faith, career, relationships — and moved in a new direction.

Rash, Raw, Risky … Lost

I didn’t know what was waiting for me, and I was making all kinds of rash decisions, without regard for the risks. In many ways I was raw, and I wore my anger, my pain and my sense of betrayal on my sleeve, often for all to see. My despair and cynicism were probably at their height at this point.

What I didn’t know, and couldn’t see, was that something was changing inside myself. At the time, I could not have described to you what this change was, but it was real and it was deep. It would take years for me to even begin to understand what was emerging in my life. In my next blog post, Stress, Power, Resilience — and Myth, Part 3: A Story of My Own, I’ll attempt to share with you something of what that change really meant.

Have You Had This Kind of Experience?

I am sure that many of my readers have had to confront real adversity or real crisis in their own lives. I would respectfully welcome any of your comments on what it was like to cope with such things. How did such experiences change you? As always, I gratefully welcome any of your reflections.

Wishing you peace and resilience on your personal journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

PHOTO CREDIT: © Elena Ray | Dreamstime.com

→ 1 Comment

What Do You Think About Therapy?

September 27th, 2010 · 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 so many years ago, when going to a psychotherapist would have been a major stigma. If people knew that someone was going to see a “shrink”, to use that term, there would have been an attitude toward the individual which would have been positively demeaning. There would have been a whole series of conclusions drawn — many of them not very savoury — about the individual’s competency, maturity, “well-adjustedness”, and possibly even his or her sanity.

But now times have changed, and attitudes have changed with them. While you can certainly still find many people whose attitudes towards those who go to therapy would be miscoloured by prejudices and stereotypes, for most this is not the case. A lot of people are coming to realize that therapy — of the right type — can lead to a much more complete and fulfilling life, for people in general who are struggling with some of the normal processes of what Jungians call individuation, or the journey to wholeness.

I believe that this is particularly true of that form of therapy known as Jungian analysis. One of the characteristics of Jungian analysis is a fundamental affirmation of the uniqueness of each individual, in combination with the belief that each individual is on a unique journey to become the whole person that they carry as a latent potential within themselves. From a Jungian perspective, a great many people, perhaps the majority, could benefit from a thorough experience in therapy to help them clear away the roadblocks to becoming, and also to get a much clearer sense of who it is that they are, at the most fundamental level.

Certainly people come into Jungian analysis, often, because they have certain specific issues with which they want to deal. It is characteristically true that every human will encounter situations of wounding or conflict or loss of direction or orientation. That is simply part of the human condition. But what emerges in therapy, what constitutes the healing factor in it, is a growing awareness of the individual’s fundamental make-up, and of the journey upon which they have been embarked, all this time. Therapy, and Jungian analysis in particular, has the power to give a person a perspective that differs fundamentally on all kinds of levels from that with which the individual entered the therapeutic work. For many, therapy brings a depth to ordinary life that cannot be reached in any other way.

I’d welcome your comments and reflections on the role of therapy in our lives today. The position I’m taking is that therapy at the right time can benefit almost everyone. Do you agree with me, or do you have different perspective? Have you had any experiences with therapy, whether good or bad?

Wishing each of you the very best on your personal journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

If you’d like to receive Vibrant Jung Thing regularly, please subscribe using the RSS feed in the upper right hand corner of this page.

Website for Brian’s Oakville and Mississauga psychotherapy practice:

www.briancollinson.ca

Email: brian@briancollinson.ca

PHOTO CREDIT: © Cenorman | Dreamstime.com

→ No Comments

Jungian Therapy Looks Under the Surface of Suburbia

August 20th, 2010 · Jungian therapy, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, suburbia / exurbia, therapy

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. Everyone, so the story goes, is sharing the same life, wanting the same things, holding the same shared values. And everyone is at pains to seem happy and healthy, like their neighbours. Oakville, Mississauga, Burlington, Waterdown, Dundas… the list of communities goes on and on.

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 seeks something. He or she may have a name for what he or she seeks, or an image, or perhaps just an inchoate ache and a yearning. Some, perhaps slumber, not wishing to be reminded of life’s strong feelings, and what they evoke.

Each has an individual story, and, Jung tells us, a personal mythology, waiting to be uncovered. Each is unique, a bundle of subjective awarenesses that will never repeat itself in any place or time.

Under the surface of suburbia, we each seek to become the one whom we know we are destined to be. We wrestle with accepting what we are, and with the life-long project of finding others to accept and love us for who we are. We look with awe at the vastness of the universe, and recognize that we are small as dust. Yet somehow we know that what we are, and even that we are, is miraculous.

Some say the story is settled and known, and that the story is the same for everybody, and that it only needs to be told and told again, in the same old form, for every person in every town. But some say that the story is new, and needs to be written in flesh and blood in each individual life, and that each and every human has a particular part of the story that only they can write.

Some people say that 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. Carl Gustav Jung said this, and stressed that the invitation to embark upon the journey of our own real lives is always there, ready to be accepted.

I’d welcome your comments on this post, and on the whole subject of finding your own individuality in suburban life.

Wishing you every good thing on your personal journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

PHOTO CREDIT: © Jeff Whyte | Dreamstime.com

→ 2 Comments

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

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

It is now quite clear that 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 since its publication.

On the whole, those who appreciate Jung’s psychological work must necessarily feel good about this. Those of us who are passionately convinced that Jung has something profound to say about the human psyche and about life in our time cannot help but feel joy that his message is getting out more widely and deeply in our society.

However, it is hard at times to avoid the feeling that Jung’s legacy is suffering from an approach that is overly-commercialized. I don’t fault W.W. Norton for a moment for bringing the Red Book to publication, even though Jung himself was very clear that he did not want it published, at least not in his lifetime.

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. The world owes the Jung family, the Philemon Foundation, editor Sonu Shamdasani and W.W. Norton a huge debt for bringing the Red Book to the world. In the sincerest possible way, I thank them all.

But do we really need mystifying and sensationalistic messages associated with it, such as the following?

Jung’s Red Book is a magnificent record of his interior journey through the most profound crisis of his entire life. It is as if at every turn of the page Jung meets us, personally, with the same wrenching, implacable questions that he meets himself as he descends into his own depths. Who are you? What are you? What are the unknown elements of yourself?

Do we really need this profound encounter opened up for us on the lecture circuit? Or in webinars? Or in talk show formats with Jungian analysts and pop culture celebrities?

Can we honestly persuade ourselves that Jung would have wanted this? Frankly, who are we trying to kid?

As Jungian analyst Wolfgang Giegrich is at pains to remind us, Jung’s Red Book is not “The New Bible”. 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. It’s the record of a very human struggle by someone who was ready to encounter his depths and ready to try to acknowledge his weakness and the inferior and broken parts of himself. If we read the Red Book carefully, we’ll encounter Jung’s shadow. We may not always like that and may be uncomfortable or even shocked by it. Nonetheless, it’s a reminder that here was a human being much like you or me, who really wrestled with his darkness, and fought his way into it and through it to his own unique selfhood, and his own healing. And he invites us to do the same.

Have you had any experience with Jung’s Red Book, reading it or seeing one of the current exhibits? I’d love to hear about it if you have.

I wish you all the very best on your personal journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

VIDEO CREDITS: © W.W. Norton & Company; © Digital Fusion Creative Technologies Inc. These images are the property of W.W. Norton & Company and/or Digital Fusion Creative Technologies Inc. and are used here in the fair use context of critical discussion.

→ 4 Comments

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part II

July 2nd, 2010 · creativity, Film, Identity, Individuation, inner life, popular culture, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, spontaneity, The Self, 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. He has armored himself against that which is natural and spontaneous within him, he has lost contact with the biological function of self-regulation and is filled with a strong fear of that which is alive and free.

Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933)

In Part I of “Anxiety Behind the Mask” I began to explore the meaning of the pop cultural figure of Iron Man. As seen in recent movies, Iron Man is a symbol for the relationship in our culture between the social mask, known in Jungian terms as the “persona”, and the inner human. The Iron Man myth represents the yearning that the social mask be smooth and impenetrable, beyond weakness, mistake and humiliation. However, as we discovered, there is also great psychological danger in complete identification with such an impervious persona.

In this post, I’d like to open up that idea in a fuller way. In fact, the social armour which protects us can also be a prison. We can so easily develop a way of relating that is very smooth, glib, almost machine-like. It can be so effective that it can give me the strong sense that nothing is ever going to hurt me. It can lead me to “pat” answers and attitudes that accord with the standard views and attitudes in our social grouping(s), that completely avoid vital questions about how we feel and what we want.

Our armour can persuade others and even ourselves that we are sleek and slick, even sophisticated. But I can only ensure that I’m on top of things by ensuring that nothing is ever going to reach me, that nothing will ever break my stride. I need to keep whatever might disrupt my performance at a distance.

So we armour ourselves not only against others, but against ourselves. We do this by repressing any inner acknowledgment of our own inferior, weak, morally suspect or socially unacceptable parts – and the shame that often goes with acknowledging them. We eliminate our vulnerability, but at the price of our vitality and spontaneity.

I have heard innumerable people relate nightmares to me with themes that resemble the following:

I am in a labyrinth, or a dark, unknown place. I am being pursued by robots. They advance relentlessly, despite all my efforts to destroy them or fend them off. No matter how many I disable, they just keep coming… closer and closer and closer. I wake up, filled with fear.

Potentially a very disturbing dream, that reflects a very important reality in the psyche, about which we genuinely should be disturbed. In the words of Eric Fromm:

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.

In a certain important sense, this is also the danger of the present, as the dream above reflects. My armour, my social mask, may become robotic, particularly if I let it get to be thicker than it needs to be, as a result of my over-identification with my social role or roles. Then I may find myself cut off from the instinctual and spontaneous sources of life deep in the psyche, and may find myself overwhelmed by anxiety, depression or even psychosomatic illness. All are dangerous signs that the connections with the deep inner life of the human being are in danger of being severed.

To be continued in “Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part III: Heart Trouble

I’d welcome your reflections on the symbollic aspects of Iron Man and the trap of robotic social roles. Do you ever see others trapped in their social roles? Do you ever find that you are struggling to be your genuine self in situations? In relationships?

My very best wishes to you on your individual journey to wholeness and self-discovery,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

PHOTO CREDITS: © Marvel Entertainment, LLC These images are the property of Marvel comics and are used here in the fair use context of critical discussion.

→ 2 Comments

Depth Psychotherapy Heals

June 14th, 2010 · complexes, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, Science, unconscious, Wellness, wholeness

The research paper that I have linked to below is both striking and very important. It provides strong empirical evidence of the effectiveness of “psychodynamic psychotherapy”. That’s a technical term for those forms of psychotherapy, like the Jungian approach, which:

take the unconscious dimension of individuals seriously;
seek to relate to the unconscious in the therapy process;
focus on affect and expression of emotion;
identify recurring themes and patterns; and,
consider past experience.

In this study, Shedler’s “Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy”, evidence shows psychodynamic therapies to have a treatment effect as large as those reported for other therapies whose proponents stridently proclaim them to be “empirically supported” and “evidence based.” What is particularly noteworthy, though, is that people who receive psychodynamic therapy maintain therapeutic gains and appear to continue to improve after treatment ends. The study also tends to indicate that non-psychodynamic therapies may be effective in part because the practitioners who are the most skilled at using those methods bring techniques into their practice that essentially originated in the theory and practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy. The researcher makes it clear that any perception that psychodynamic approaches lack empirical support “does not accord with available scientific evidence.”

Shedler, Efficacy of Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (T-LAP 10-9-2009)

These results, while not entirely new, are very striking. They are worthy of very careful consideration by the therapeutic profession as a whole.

I’d gratefully welcome your comments and reflections on any of your experiences with Jungian or other forms of depth psychology.

My very best wishes to you on your individual journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

→ 1 Comment

The Symbolic Power of Home, Part 2: Where is Home?

June 10th, 2010 · Carl Jung, depth psychology, Halton Region, Home, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Meaning, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, Psychology and Suburban Life, Relationships, The Self, therapy, wholeness

In the first part of this series, I wrote about how the experience of connection to a specific place that is home can be powerful and profound. However, there are also many people for whom there is no connection to a sense of home. And, for any of us, there can be many times–perhaps long periods–when we feel that we have lost anything that resembles that connection.

There are many real people for whom the experience of not having a place where they belong is overwhelmingly powerful and poignant. We may not be that sort of person, may not feel that way. And yet, very often, there is something in the experience of these people that can profoundly resonate with us.

OK, I admit it: I am really dating myself with the video below. It’s from 1970, but, nonetheless, I’ve decided to include it, because I think that it represents a remarkable musical expression. The group is Canned Heat, a blues-rock band from California, and the singer/blues harmonica/group leader is a young man named Alan Wilson. In my opinion, Wilson’s singing here, in his inimitable blues manner profoundly touches on the experience of what it is to feel without a home. By today’s standards, the video is very rudimentary, and the band seems far from polished in its stage presence. However, as you watch and listen to Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson sing and play “blues harp”, it is hard to avoid the feeling that he is putting the whole of himself, the whole of the pain in his life, into those lyrics of endless wandering, “on the road again”.

“The first time I travelled on, in the rain and snow / I didn’t have no fare, not even no place to go…”

“My dear mother left me, when I was quite young / She said, Lord have mercy, on my wicked son…”

This is really an aspect of all of us. It’s an archetypal theme. Homer’s Ulysses on his seemingly endless 10 year struggle — and all he wants to do is get back home to Ithaca. Aeneas, in Virgil’s Aeneid, sole Trojan survivor and refugee from the sack of Troy, for whom there is no home to which he can go back–he must just keep on moving, that’s all there is.

As good as the human experience of home may be, there are those voices that would remind us that the welcome is never quite complete and total enough. In the words of the German writer and poet Hermann Hesse, “One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” But there is always a sense in which we are journeying onward.

The truth seems to be that our deepest yearning for home is something that cannot be fully met by an outer place, however wonderful. We may feel deeply connected to the place of our birth or family life, for instance, and yet something is missing, something for which we yearn. This is because home, the real home we are seeking is something within ourselves and our own being. Symbollically, it is the center of the mandala. Home is connection with the centre of our own being; it is to be accepting of and at home with the deepest part of the self. But to find that, we must undertake an inner journey.

Have you ever had a time in your life when you yearned for a feeling of security and rootedness? Do you know what it is to be “on the road”?

Are there people who make you feel at home with their warmth and acceptance, as Hesse suggests?

Have you had the experience of feeling at home in yourself, of accepting who and what you are, and accepting your life?

I’d gratefully welcome your comments and reflections on the archetypes of home and homelessness. What would it mean in your life in your life for you to truly “come home”?

My very best wishes to you on your individual journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

VIDEO CREDIT:

→ 3 Comments

When You Hit a Brick Wall

July 9th, 2009 · Carl Jung, depression, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, midlife, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, stress, The Self, unconscious, wholeness

Often people get to the point in life where they reach an impasse, and they don’t know how to solve a particular situation in their lives.

There doesn’t seem to be a way forward and there doesn’t seem to be a solution. Although this can happen at any point in life, it seems particularly prevalent at mid-life.

Often, the way one becomes aware of this is that you just realize that the way that you have been trying to solve a particular problem or deal with a particular life situation just isn’t opening anything up. What this tells you, at least in part, is that your attitude is no longer adapted to the realities of your life.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying something along the lines of “If you want it enough, and you’re unfailingly positive about it, what you want in your life will come” — the kind of message that you find in books like The Secret. I think that approach to life is quite naive, and I have seen a fair number of people come to real harm as a result of trying to live like that. Such an attitude can be really unadapted, and can lead you into a major collision in reality. I know of one person who left home and found herself absolutely destitute and friendless in Dubai as a result of that kind of thinking. From all that I hear, Dubai is not a great place to be penniless, and to try and get by on just a sunny smile.

Having an adapted attitude may well mean that there are certain realities that I have to let in and acknowledge. That may even mean that there are things that I have to grieve. What it may mean, above all, is that I have to change.

Let’s say that I’m a true died-in-the-wool “thinking type” person. So I try to approach all the problems and situations in my life in very rational, thought-out, dispassionate ways. Then perhaps one day I find myself deep in the grip of a depression that I simply can’t shake. It might well be that the only way that I’m going be able to come through the depression and feel alive again is by acknowledging my feeling side — all those years of unacknowledged and suppressed feelings. This is going to require a big change in the way that I see myself, and a lot of open-ness to dimensions of my life that I’ve previously done my very best to cut off. It isn’t going to be easy. Parts of me are really going to resist. But it may well be that it’s the only way that I’m going to get my real, meaningful life back.

Similarly, a person who is all about willpower and control may well have to acknowledge the parts of him- or herself in the unconscious that they can’t control. They may have to admit that the ego is going to have to acknowledge that it is “second banana” to the Self, and let things emerge from their dreams and from other parts of the unconscious, and take those things into account in the way that they live their lives. This might be quite difficult, but it might just give them a meaningful life again.

Many times “hitting the wall” has to do with coming up against the things that I really refuse to admit to myself. The key to the lock that I need to open, I hide from myself, because there is some truth about myself or my situation that I really don’t want to look at.

The only way past the wall is to be open to something new: the undiscovered self.

Please keep sending me your comments and your thoughts! I would welcome any of your reflections on the “walls” in your life, past or present.

My very best wishes to you on your individual journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson

Website for Brian’s Oakville and Mississauga Practice: www.briancollinson.ca

Email: brian@briancollinson.ca

Get “Vibrant Jung Thing” posts delivered to your email using the “FeedBurner” box in the left column!

→ No Comments

September 17th, 2012 · dealing with shame, midlife, midlife transition, shame

Dealing with shame is one of the most demanding aspects of psychological work, and, in midlife transition, we can often face this struggle most acutely.

Taking Stock: A Conscious & Unconscious Process

A Fundamental Problem with Who I Am

Refusing to Apologize for My Self

Amour Fati

PHOTO: <img decoding="async" title="Attribution" src="//l.yimg.com/g/images/cc_icon_attribution_small.gif" alt="Attribution" border="0" />Some rights reserved by zoetnet

December 2nd, 2010 · analytical psychology, Current Affairs, Jungian, persona, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Shadow, unconscious

“Surely you can’t be serious!”

“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley.”

Serious… but Absurd

The Inner Frank Drebin

Surprised by the Shadow

Poor Old Persona

Caught in Our Own Schtick?

© 2010 Brian Collinson

Brian Collinson, 2238 Constance Drive, Oakville, Ontario (near Oakville / Mississauga border)

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

The Journey to Upside Down

Life Crisis

Rash, Raw, Risky … Lost

Have You Had This Kind of Experience?

September 27th, 2010 · Carl Jung, depth psychology, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, therapy

August 20th, 2010 · Jungian therapy, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, suburbia / exurbia, therapy

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

It is now quite clear that 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 since its publication.

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

June 14th, 2010 · complexes, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, Science, unconscious, Wellness, wholeness

June 10th, 2010 · Carl Jung, depth psychology, Halton Region, Home, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Meaning, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, Psychology and Suburban Life, Relationships, The Self, therapy, wholeness

July 9th, 2009 · Carl Jung, depression, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, midlife, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, stress, The Self, unconscious, wholeness

Often people get to the point in life where they reach an impasse, and they don’t know how to solve a particular situation in their lives.

There doesn’t seem to be a way forward and there doesn’t seem to be a solution. Although this can happen at any point in life, it seems particularly prevalent at mid-life.

Popular Posts

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

PHOTO: Some rights reserved by zoetnet