psychoanalysis | Brian Collinson

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Dream Interpretation in Jungian Psychotherapy: The Roadblock

December 22nd, 2010 · dreams, inner life, journey, Jungian, Jungian analysis, life journey, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, persona, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, The Self, therapy, unconscious, wholeness

I thought that I would try and say a little bit in this post about how a Jungian approach to dream interpretation might look like “in action”. Here’s a dream motif that appears sometimes in psychotherapy, in one form or another. It’s one that at times will appear in the dreams of my clients. In rough outline, it goes something like what follows below.

A Dream Motif

The dreamer is trying to get somewhere. Perhaps the dreamer is in a vehicle, like a car, or on a bicycle, or possibly he or she is on foot. However, there is some obstacle. She or he might have to go down a narrow path in her car, and there’s a vehicle accident completely blocking the road. Or it might be that he or she has to climb an impossibly steep hill. However, when the individual starts to backtrack, something happens. Perhaps they are injured, or otherwise hindered.

In any event, going backward to retrace his or her steps is well-nigh impossible.

The specific interpretation of such a dream would be unique for such an individual, to be sure. However, there are still a number of important things that Jungian psychotherapy could say about its meaning.

1. The Individual is Not Going to be Able to Move Forward Travelling in the Current Direction

Very clearly, the dream is showing us that the dreamer cannot move forward. There is a barrier, either in the form of an insurmountable obstacle, or something that would take an impossibly large amount of energy to overcome. The dream is clearly giving the message that the direction that the individual is moving in, with respect to the situation that is being dreamt of, will simply not work. The individual may have been moving in this direction for a long time, or may have just started on this path. No matter: the import of the dream is the same. You can’t keep doing what you’re doing.

2. To Try to Go Back to a Previous State Will Only Cause Pain, Exhaustion or Loss of Vitality

However, that doesn’t mean that the dreamer can just go back to something that happened in the past. He or she cannot simply retrace his or her steps. There’s too much pain, or too many cuts of lacerations, too much loss of life-blood. The older way, the “regressive restoration of the persona”, as a Jungian would say, doesn’t work either. The person can’t do what he or she used to do. Life isn’t going to let him or her get away with it, at least not without paying a fearful psychological price. What may be recalled enthusiastically as “the good days” cannot be reproduced in the present moment. What is the individual to do?

3. Something New is Needed

A standard Jungian dream interpretation would be that the dream is painting a picture of a person in a dilemma. Something new is needed: a different way, or a different approach. This is not likely to come about as a result of the individual “just trying harder”. The individual is going to have to explore aspects of her- or himself that have been unknown and undeveloped. From the perspective of Jungian psychotherapy, the answer will have to emerge from the unconscious.

Is There Anything Across Your Path?

Have you ever encountered a dream of this type? Have you possibly had such a dream recently? As I stated, this type of dream is not particularly uncommon. With the right kind of dream interpretation, the unconscious shows us quite an apt portrait of a person’s psychological situation. If you’ve had this kind of “blocked path” experience, I would really welcome your comments below.

Wishing you a deep wisdom to know the way forward on your personal journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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

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Anxiety, Regret and Persona in “Death of a Salesman”

November 19th, 2010 · Anxiety, Father, Marriage, persona, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, regret, Self, soul, symbolism, unlived life

I love theatre, and I’m lucky enough to live in the Toronto, Canada area. We have a lot of excellent theatre hereabouts, including the wonderful Soulpepper Theatre, which is not nearly so famous as it deserves. I was fortunate enough last Saturday to see Soulpepper’s production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. which was arresting and raw. It’s a profoundly psychological play, in the ways in which it deals with anxiety, regret and “persona“, or the false self.

Lots of people know the story of Willy Loman, the crumbling salesman at the centre of the play, and the drama of his decline and eventual death. Clearly Willy is retreating more and more from reality and from life — but what pushes him into this?

Anxiety

Clearly, Willy and his family live in an atmosphere of intense anxiety. In the initial scenes of Act 1, Willy has returned from a business trip because he cannot concentrate when driving, and has nearly driven off the road. The interactions between Linda and Willy are full of an unacknowledged but agonizing anxiety that pervades the whole of the play until the tragic climax. An important psychological question, though, is, “What is the source of this anxiety?”

Grandiosity and Failure

I believe the answer is found in the tension between Willy’s grandiose and idealized image of greatness, and his own very real sense of failure to live up to this idealized image of himself, to be the “well-liked” man whose fame precedes him, and for whom all doors open. Willy does not dare become fully conscious of this profound sense of failure. He can only look at it indirectly, or acknowledge it glancingly in his interactions with Linda. It seems when he does do this, he expects to be re-assured by Linda, to be argued out of his feeling. Right through the play Linda enables Willy by shoring up his illusions.

Willy’s Persona

In Jungian terms, Willy is firmly in the grips of a persona (Latin for “mask”) or false self with which he identifies and tries to present outwardly to the world. But it is deeply at odds with who he really is, and his attempts to carry off this masquerade are costing him more and more emotionally and — dare we say it — spiritually. Willy is in a horrible dilemma: the only image he has of himself is as a “well-liked” salesman — and yet he knows that he has failed profoundly in realizing this ideal. However, there is no other sense of himself that he can find to hang onto, and so he is drowning.

Biff

So Willy does what parents often do in this kind of situation: he transfers all of his hopes for success and greatness to his sons, and in particular, onto his eldest son, Biff. However, whatever wounds Biff may be dealing with, he cannot ultimately bring himself to live out the unlived life and fantasies of his father. After initially succumbing to his father’s illusory picture, Biff refuses to enable his father further, saying “we’re a dime a dozen, you and I!” to Willy, which is the very thing that Willy cannot, will not accept.

Regret

The picture is further complicated for Willy by his profound regret, particularly for an incident in which he was discovered by Biff with another woman with whom he was having an affair in a hotel room. This incident has a profound and fateful effect on Biff. Miller’s dialogue masterfully shows how Willy can neither really face and be honest with himself for what he has done, nor can he release himself from the torture of his regret. Finally, this regret will lead Willy to a horrific act of atonement, which is intended to restore Biff to the path of “greatness” — as imaged by Willy.

“The Woods are Burning”

What is it to be consumed by false self, by persona? What are its inner psychological effects? I believe that playwright Arthur Miller captures this powerfully in one phrase that Willy uses several times throughout the play: “the woods are burning!” In dreamwork and in fairy tales, the deep woods, which are dark and where one’s view is limited, are often the image of the unconscious. The image of the woods burning, of a huge forest fire in the unconscious symbolizes the psychological reality in a profoundly eloquent way. The true self may be ignorred, and may be pushed into the unconscious, but not without powerful, often devastating consequences.

What about You and I?

The false persona and false self are real things in human life, not just art. It can be a devastating thing to live with a false sense of who one is, and without any real connection to the true self. I have had personal experience with the ways in which such an over-identification with the persona can bring a person into difficulties. I was fortunate to have the help of a good psychotherapist to get me through that extremely difficult period.

Staying as true to the real self as possible is an ongoing process in life, a genuine psychological work. This is especially true in a society like ours, which becomes more success and image-oriented with every year, or so it seems. Are these issues which you, too, have encountered in your life, or are addressing right now?

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© 2010 Brian Collinson, 2238 Constance Drive, Oakville, Ontario (near Mississauga)

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A Jungian Psychotherapist’s Symbol Book

November 11th, 2010 · analytical psychology, Carl Jung, dreams, Jungian, Psychology and Suburban Life, symbol

I’ve decided to do an ongoing series of posts on this blog that discuss particular symbols, and their significance for analytical psychology and psychotherapy. I want to do something that gives a sense of some key symbols that might appear in dreams, art and elsewhere in our lives, as perhaps Carl Jung would identify them. WHY do I want to do this?

Simply put, because symbols are very important in human life, and have an enormous capacity to enrich human life. They are also often poorly understood. For one thing, a symbol is not the same as a sign. To see what I mean, consider the following.

If you encounter this critter when you’re driving your car, there is really no mystery about it. The meaning that this thing is intended to convey could be put into one or two sentences, the chief of which would be, “When your vehicle gets to this point, come to a complete stop, and then proceed when it is safe to do so.” Or words to that effect. No mystery there.

A Sign Can be a Symbol

But let’s say that you encounter a vivid image of a stop sign in a dream. Its meaning in that context may be nowhere near as apparent or as cut and dried as it is when one encounters STOP as a road sign. Its meaning might well be a whole lot deeper, and it may carry a great deal more emotion — if for instance it is occurring in a dream that is about a key love relationship, or about a career that one has pursued for a long time, that is now threatening your health.

My example is a rather simple one, but I think that you’ll see my point. A symbol is not at all the same thing as a sign.

Definition of a Symbol?

What, really is a symbol? In my opinion, that’s a whopper of a question. I think that people have some sense of it, but it is extremely hard to put into words. Here is one definition, by Jungian analyst June Singer:

“the images which people create or discover as expressions of the not-yet-known”

Singer, June, Boundaries of the Soul, (New York: Anchor Books, 1994) p. xxxvii

This is not a perfect definition — it definitely has some holes in it. Yet I think its heart is in the right place, and it points us in the right direction.

Symbols Have Emotional Power

Symbols can have tremendous emotional power. When they resonate with us, they can affect us right down to our very core. And sometimes, after we really encounter them, they can even change us, right down at the center of who we are.

I hope to have some fun opening up for you some of the key symbols, from a Jungian perspective. My approach is probably not going to be systematic or comprehensive, but I hope that you’ll find value in the symbols that I bring to your attention.

Are You Concerned with Symbols?

Are symbols something that concern you, even if you don’t usually refer to them using that term? For instance, do you ever find yourself puzzling or turning over an image in a dream, and wondering “What the heck does that mean?”? I would be extremely interested to hear how symbols engage you. If you have a story or a reflection you’d like to share, let me know via a comment or through a confidential email. I’d like to keep this relevant, by discussing the things that matter to you.

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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© 2010 Brian Collinson

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

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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

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Website for Brian’s Oakville and Mississauga psychotherapy practice:

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

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

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein

We all like to feel that we know ourselves, and that we are fundamentally honest with ourselves, but is it so? Often we not only deceive other people — something we may or may not have very good reasons for doing. We also deceive ourselves. That is a problem, because 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 see what I mean, let’s consider one of the most common questions that is asked in this world. This question must surely also receive one of the highest proportions of deceptive responses worldwide:

“So… How are you?”

It is not merely that the answers given to the questioner in response to this question are knowingly false. It is, that on a deeper level, we very often are untruthful or inaccurate in what we allow ourselves to know in response to this question. If we were to reflect, we would realize that our answers are not only superficial, they are often untrue. For instance, we humans are quite capable of responding by telling people, “Fine, thank you!” when in fact we may be wrestling desperately with anxiety or depression. It is not merely that we are choosing to be deceptive of others. It is that we are choosing not to know — to deceive ourselves.

Sometimes the truth is very hard to look at, head on. We can become acutely aware of this when there are aspects of ourselves at which we would rather not look. For instance, it can sometimes take people a great deal of effort to look at their early life, and to acknowledge the ways in which it was filled with sadness. Or similarly, loyalty to parents may prevent a person from acknowledging that the relationship with that parent was, or is, a very difficult one. Again, because we often have such an ego investment in relationships, acknowledging that a marriage or a partnership may not be good for us may hold similar difficulties. Similarly, the capacity of individuals to rationalize or deny in situations of addiction or abuse are well known. And the whole realm of sexuality is frequently full of things that we would rather not admit to ourselves.

To set yourself on the course of being fundamentally honest with yourself is to set yourself on the path of encounter with the unconscious. In particular, being honest with oneself often sets one on a course for in-depth encounter with the shadow, in Jungian terms. In the next Part of this series, I will be examining this encounter with shadow in more depth.

Questions to Ask about Truth and Honesty in the Inner Life

What do I have a vested interest in believing about myself?
What do I have a vested interest in believing about other people in my life?
Are there things that I would really rather believe, that I have to admit are just not true?

I’d welcome your comments on this post, and on the whole subject of truth in our relationship to ourselves.

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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Escaping the Grip of Regret, Part 1

July 26th, 2010 · complexes, compulsion, depth psychology, guilt, life passages, midlife, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, regret, soul, therapy, unlived life, wholeness

Regret is a power that can bring you to your knees. A great many of us have experienced its power. Sinatra may sing “Regrets, I’ve had a few / But then again, too few to mention.” This sounds admirable and enviable, but over the course of a lifetime, most of us have to deal with some very powerful rendez-vous with the way it might have been.

Regret can be experienced at any point in life, but often at mid-life, regret can start to take on a particular intensity. As we go through the journey of life, the awareness that we have only a finite amount of life left, a finite number of possibilities open to us, can lead us to an exquisite hyper-sensitivity to the regret we have for all the choices we could have made differently, roads we could have walked, ways that it might have turned out that it did not. In other words, the life unlived.

How can we live with this awareness? We may attempt to shrug it off, pretend it isn’t there. But very often for us it is there, often at times like 3 o’clock in the morning, when all the spirits tend to come out. Not a few of our addictive and compulsive behaviours — including workoholism — can stem from attempts to run away from regret. But how can you or I run away from something so close to ourselves?

In my next few postings, I will be examining the phenomenon of regret, and the way it impacts us. It can have a huge grip on us. It can even imprison us, and embitter us beyond words. But, let me ask a question that might seem strange: Is there health in regret? It’s clear how regret can be a poison, but, oftentimes, the cure for the poison is made from the poison itself.

Does regret play a part in your life? Do you ever find the experience of regret both inescapable and painful? I’d welcome any of your comments on this post.

My Next Post: Escaping the Grip of Regret, Part 2: Understanding the Power of Regret

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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CG Jung’s Approach: Not for Everyone, but Essential for Some

July 16th, 2010 · Carl Jung, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, The Self, therapy, unconscious, Wellness, wholeness

Let’s face it: there are a lot of different forms of therapy / counselling out there. So, why would someone choose to work on themselves with a Jungian therapist, as opposed to another type of therapist? Well, here’s a list of 6 prominent factors, which certainly led me to do Jungian analysis, and which ultimately convinced me to become a Jungian analyst. These are not the only factors, but they are certainly 6 big ones.

6 Reasons to do Jungian Analysis

1. A Jungian approach emphasizes individuality, and plurality. Jung’s psychological work was always oriented to the particular individual. He felt that it was in our unique individuality that we are most human. He also was among the first in modern psychology to recognize that there is not just one way to be a living growing human being: there are a plurality of ways, as he recognized in his psychological types. So, I am unique, but also similar in some ways to other human beings, and very different from others. There is real strength and value, in my opinion, in the way that Jung is always calling us back to our individual psychological paths. Not everyone needs this kind of an emphasis — but it’s very significant and even essential for some people.

2. The Jungian approach recognizes that human beings are not just simply rational. Jung acknowledged that people have a rational component, and that some people — thinking types — are predominantly rational. But there is a whole lot more going on within us than just rational deduction. There is our feeling, our intuition and our ability to relate to the external world though our sensation. When we are stuck, the Jungian approach offers hope that other aspects of ourselves than our thinking may help us to find our way through.

3. The Jungian approach recognizes that, as people, we’re not just conscious. Unlike those types of therapy that just seek to deal with the impulses and aspects of our behaviour that are purely conscious, and that the ego, or waking mind is aware of, Jungian analysis seeks to get at those aspects of us that are not connected to consciousness, and seeks to make them conscious.

4. The Jungian approach is certainly not just about pathology. While many forms of therapy center in on identifying what is “abnormal” or “pathological” in clients’ behaviour, a Jungian approach focuses on the client as a unique individual. One of Jung’s favourite sayings was that the oak tree is potentially and latently in the acorn. In a similar manner he saw that what the deepest parts of the psyche of any individual, what Jung called the Self was striving towards was the expression and living out of the uniqueness and wholeness of the individual’s personality. To strive for this is not just about overcoming pathology and deficiencies: it is about growing, and becoming that which we have been destined to become.

5. Jungian analysis is about finding ways to live fully and abundantly without having “all the answers”. Jung and the Jungian tradition have always maintained that there are vast portions of the human psyche that we simply cannot fully understand. In the face of this, some forms of psychology simply opt for very simplistic answers that turn the individual human being into a mere machine or puppet. These approaches unfortunately leave the individual human being “beyond freedom and dignity”, as the behavioural psychologist B.F. Skinner freely admitted. By contrast, Jung’s approach emphasizes the uniqueness and individual dignity of each human being — and the fact that each of us represents something that fundamentally cannot be totally captured by the human intellect.

6. Jungian analysis is about the sense that, as individual human beings, we share a journey with all other human beings. Jung was ahead of his time in recognizing that each of us, while we are unique, also shares in a profound way in the journey that has been taken by the whole of the human race, in every place and time. This emphasis gives us a sense of compassion and connection to the rest of the human race, and also a sense of sharing in something in which every human since the beginning has shared. Jung always spoke about drawing on the resources of the “two million year old man” within us. To me, at least, it’s good somehow, to know that, in my own unique way, I share a journey with all other humans — I and many others find that a very grounding realization.

Does this kind of an approach speak to you? I’d be very interested to hear, and to see any comments that you might have on this post. If there’s an aspect of Carl Jung’s thought that really resonates with you, I’d be more than eager to hear.

How important to you is it to feel that your life is the unfolding of a unique and meaningful path?

My very best wishes to each of you as you make your individual journeys of wholeness and self-discovery,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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G20 Toronto: What the Heck Just Happened?

July 6th, 2010 · Carl Jung, collective consciousness, collective unconscious, complexes, Current Affairs, depth psychology, G20, Ontario, panic, popular culture, Psychology and Suburban Life, Toronto, Trauma, trust

On June 26 and 27, the leaders of the G20 nations and numerous other nations met in downtown Toronto. For many living in this area, what happened in the course of those two days has something of the character of a nightmare in the collective psyche of the City of Toronto, and indeed, the whole of the Greater Toronto Area [“GTA”] and much of Canada.

For those of you who don’t know Toronto, let me explain that it is one of the more decent and livable large cities on the North American continent. This is a city that is genuinely, vibrantly diverse, and one that is characterized by a great deal of openness and tolerance. As I started to write this post on Sunday, July 4th, the City’s 30th Gay Pride parade –North America’s largest — was taking place.

But you wouldn’t have recognized Toronto during the two days of the G20 summit. As many of you will be aware, we had burning police cars, police arrests for which there was apparently no actual legal authority, shop windows of not only large corporations but also small merchants vandalized, and a small minority of so-called “Black Bloc” rioters who effectively kept the voice of thousands who were legitimately exercising their right of free speech from being heard.

In a democracy, people often have widely divergent views. The exchange of those views can sometimes become very heated, especially when those of more left-leaning and more right-leaning perspectives encounter one another. And especially when the issues being considered involve concerns as fundamental as debt, poverty, economic health, globalization and the environment.

However, what occurred in Toronto over these two days was not any encounter of this kind. It was a fundamentally different kind of experience. People on all sides seem to have been caught up in fear and confusion. Over the last week, there has been a sense that the GTA is gradually emerging from some kind of fog, and coming back to itself.

I don’t think that it is an over-statement to say that the G20 events and their aftermath have affected many people in a manner that has the character of trauma. Just what it was in the course of the G20 that any particular individual found traumatic varied. It might have been the images of burning police cars, or the windows of shops broken in, or stories of individuals arrested and held without proper authority, or video images of overwhelming police presence. Regardless of which particular images or stories it was, the response of individuals to the G20 events seems to have been “This isn’t the Toronto I grew up in and trusted! What has happened to my city?”

In my opinion, that’s the right question. What happened to our city? More specifically, what happened to the psyche of our city? And it’s at this point, I believe, that CG Jung has some things to say that are specifically relevant. For instance, he states at one point in his Collected Letters:

Any organization in which the voice of the individual is not heard is in danger of degenerating into a subhuman monster.

I believe that this is the essence of what was wrong with the whole G20 summit experience in Toronto. The individual, and his or her meaning and significance, became completely lost. The whole event was completely disconnected from the life of the City of Toronto, and the experience of its citizens. Everything about the G20, and especially its titanic size, just serves to dwarf the significance of the individual. The forces grinding and clashing at such an event are so huge that the voice of the individual simply cannot be heard in any meaningful way.

A democracy cannot afford to do politics in this manner. At least, it cannot do so, and expect to remain a democracy. In my opinion, there is a deep need at this point in our history to bring political decision-making down to a more human scale. I don’t know whether that is a point that favours the right or the left, but it is a simple reflection of human psychological reality. If we lose the individual, we will find ourselves submerged in crowds and mobs which we cannot influence, governed by unconscious psychological forces that we cannot begin to control or even understand. That kind of mass psychology leads to disaster.

It’s up to each of us to take a personal stand to keep our political and social life fundamentally human, and to deliver a message to politicians, officials and others: individual persons–and only individual persons–count.

My next blog post will return to my “Iron Man” series, with “Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part III: Heart Trouble

I’d welcome your reflections on the G20 in Toronto. Do you agree with me that it took us to some pretty unsatisfactory places, or do you have another perspective on these events? Do you agree or disagree with me that now is a particularly important time to focus on the value and dignity of individual persons in our collective and political life? As always, I greatly value your comments and reflections — and you certainly don’t have to agree with me!

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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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

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Anxiety, Stress and Decisions

May 11th, 2010 · Anxiety, decision, Individuation, midlife, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, unconscious, wholeness

A great deal of stress and anxiety in peoples’ lives is associated with making major decisions that deeply effect personal life. Very often, people come into therapy because they are hung on the horns of a major dilemma, with a decision to be made between two or more possible decisions or paths to take.

As we all know, making a life-changing decision can be a time of real struggle. Often the choice may be of a kind from which there is no easy turning back. In such a situation, if the stakes are high enough on each side, the dilemma can seem insoluble, and the situation can seem absolutely paralyzing.

This is in part because, there is often no easy, logical set of steps to take in making the fundamental decisions in life. Decision-making is not nearly the logical, rational proposition that it is often portrayed to be, and that we would like to think that it is. This is true whether we look at individual or group decisions. I appreciated this article in the Financial Post newspaper of date, which concerned research into the psychological processes around decision-making demonstrates this: //bit.ly/cd0whp

In the course of an ordinary human life, there will be decisions that will be true forks in the road. These decisions will not be made easily, and making them may well have a very real personal cost. As one enters mid-life, the frequency of these difficult, uncharted decisions tends to increase. From the middle of life on, there will be more and more of an individual character to such major choices. As one really confronts one’s own unique identity, and one’s own unique values and sources of meaning, conventional cookie-cutter answers to these dilemmas will be less and less readily apparent and less and less helpful. If an individual is to find an authentic way to move forward at such a point, it will require genuine self exploration, and confrontation with the unconscious elements in him- or herself.

Coming to terms with the unconscious element of ourselves, and becoming aware of its presence and its effect on the direction of our lives is a transforming process. The self that makes the decision and moves forward will necessarily be somewhat different from the self that originally confronted the dilemma. Often it is the support provided by the container of depth psychotherapy that can make the difference between an end result that furthers a sense of despair and stagnation, and a resolution to the dilemma that provides a sense of greater unification and integrity of the self.

I’d gratefully welcome your comments on the decision process. Have you confronted times in the recent past where making a major decision or decisions has been a source of great stress? Have you ever had to confront decisions that had the feeling of being a genuine “fork in the road” or “crossing of the Rubicon” from which, once made, there was no turning back?

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist and Jungian Analyst

Main website for Brian’s Oakville and Mississauga practice: www.briancollinson.ca

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December 22nd, 2010 · dreams, inner life, journey, Jungian, Jungian analysis, life journey, Mississauga, Oakville, Peel Region, persona, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, The Self, therapy, unconscious, wholeness

A Dream Motif

The specific interpretation of such a dream would be unique for such an individual, to be sure. However, there are still a number of important things that Jungian psychotherapy could say about its meaning.

1. The Individual is Not Going to be Able to Move Forward Travelling in the Current Direction

2. To Try to Go Back to a Previous State Will Only Cause Pain, Exhaustion or Loss of Vitality

3. Something New is Needed

Is There Anything Across Your Path?

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

November 19th, 2010 · Anxiety, Father, Marriage, persona, psychological crisis, Psychology and Suburban Life, regret, Self, soul, symbolism, unlived life

Anxiety

Grandiosity and Failure

Willy’s Persona

Biff

Regret

“The Woods are Burning”

What about You and I?

PHOTO CREDITS: © Maik Schrödter | Dreamstime.com

© 2010 Brian Collinson, 2238 Constance Drive, Oakville, Ontario (near Mississauga)

November 11th, 2010 · analytical psychology, Carl Jung, dreams, Jungian, Psychology and Suburban Life, symbol

A Sign Can be a Symbol

Definition of a Symbol?

“the images which people create or discover as expressions of the not-yet-known”

Singer, June, Boundaries of the Soul, (New York: Anchor Books, 1994) p. xxxvii

Symbols Have Emotional Power

Are You Concerned with Symbols?

© 2010 Brian Collinson

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

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 25th, 2010 · depth psychology, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, persona, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, psychotherapist, Psychotherapy, Shadow, truth, unconscious

July 26th, 2010 · complexes, compulsion, depth psychology, guilt, life passages, midlife, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, regret, soul, therapy, unlived life, wholeness

July 16th, 2010 · Carl Jung, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, Psychology, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, The Self, therapy, unconscious, Wellness, wholeness

6 Reasons to do Jungian Analysis

July 6th, 2010 · Carl Jung, collective consciousness, collective unconscious, complexes, Current Affairs, depth psychology, G20, Ontario, panic, popular culture, Psychology and Suburban Life, Toronto, Trauma, trust

Any organization in which the voice of the individual is not heard is in danger of degenerating into a subhuman monster.

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

May 11th, 2010 · Anxiety, decision, Individuation, midlife, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy, soul, unconscious, wholeness

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