psychotherapy counselling | Brian Collinson

Vibrant Jung Thing Blog

Individuation, Individual Therapy & Work Related Stress

March 5th, 2012 · individual therapy, Individuation, stress, therapy, work, work related stress

People expect work related stress to be a subject for individual therapy, but think less commonly about work and individuation — especially for today’s pressurized workers. Individuation is the term Jung used to describe “the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology.” Particularly in the last 10 – 15 years, as anxiety has crept more and more into the work place, the experience of work for many people may seem to be about anything but genuine individual development.

Yet… Something in Us Seeks Wholeness — Even at Work

For Jung, the human psyche is always in process, seeking to bring all the parts of our self into relatedness with each other. Even at our work. In our work experience, with specific tasks, co-workers, clients, etc., some aspect of our self is confronting us, trying to come into awareness. There’s truth about ourselves that we need to take in — even in work related stress.

Vocation — What if It’s Not Just a Word?

Vocation can be overly spiritualized and dramatized, or trivialized, as in the so-called “vocational test”. But what if there actually is something specific that life and my own nature has suited me to do? That may be a matter of the job I do, or a vocation that I live out over and above my job.

Connecting Point recorded archetypal psychologist Jame Hillman on the subject of “What is Your Calling?”

Work Related Stress: Message from My Deep Self?

The fundamental question for individual therapy is, “What does my work stress tell me about my true self?” Perhaps in relation to fellow workers? Or about my trouble with saying “No” or setting boundaries? Or the ways that I have been kidding myself about the type of work that suits me, or about my own true abilities or inclinations? Or maybe my own deepest motivations, or compulsive need for success or status? Or my driven-ness or workaholism as avoidance of life? Or my fear to move on?

The Shadow in Working Life

My work may express who I really am, and allow me to give from my deepest self to the world. Alternately, it might be that I’m really alienated from myself at work, unable to show anyone who I really am or what I really care about, and that this disconnect is a real source of work related stress.

If shadow is the unacknowledged part of the self, what is in your shadow that concerns work?

[cta]

PHOTOS: © Maria Paula Coelho | Dreamstime.com

© 2012 Brian Collinson

→ 4 Comments

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part 1

June 22nd, 2010 · Anxiety, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, mythology, persona, popular culture, Psychotherapy, soul, wholeness

When I was 9 or 10 years old, I was an insatiable Iron Man fan. I used to race to the local drug store every day to see if a new issue of my hero’s adventures had hit the stands yet. I still admire Stan Lee and those who developed the Iron Man character: he was truly an iconic figure for a pre-adolescent boy in the mid-1960s. Well, it’s 45 years later, and Iron Man is receiving great attention — arguably much greater than in earlier days. “Iron Man 2” was the lead-grossing movie for much of the 2010 Spring season, and the Iron Man 1 and 2 movies are estimated to have grossed in excess of $935 million.

There is no question that the Iron Man figure captures the imagination of many in our culture.

What is the fascination that Iron Man exerts? Why is this figure a cultural icon—and not just for 9 year old boys? What is it that he shows us about ourselves as a culture, and the issues and problems that we collectively face? Please bear with me as I relate some of this modern myth – for it actually has a surprising amount of symbolic and psychological depth.

According to the story line, Iron Man is the alter ego of the wealthy industrialist Tony Stark (played in the recent movies by Robert Downey). In order to escape a situation where he is held hostage by some despicable outlaws, Stark fashions a suit of practically invincible armour, and overcomes his foes – all details covered in the original “Iron Man” movie. Stark then goes on to improve and enhance this very sophisticated flying suit of armour, to the point where it is mighty, mobile, and both beautiful and technologically advanced to an incredible degree.

In Jungian terms, Iron Man as a symbol for our relationship between the social mask, the persona and the inner human. It represents the yearning that the social mask be smooth and impenetrable: the fantasy of being beyond weakness, mistake and humiliation.

Undoubtedly, we need a social mask – we cannot just “let it all hang out” in social situations. The result would be chaos, and we would be extremely dangerous to ourselves and to others.

But how devastating must the underlying shame be, to lead me to wrap myself in the fantasy of untouchability, to strive for invulnerability, to ensure that nothing is ever going to touch me. We have to admit that it is a seductive fantasy–one that we might easily be tempted to try and pull off. Particularly in a culture like ours that so values external appearances.

We are so utterly afraid of our own vulnerability and weakness. We can so easily live in terror of our own true nature. It can be so hard to let ourselves be what we are, to know ourselves, and to let ourselves be known. Part of us is utterly convinced of the need for the pretense of invulnerability. Yet part of us knows what we really are.

Stark says, “I am Iron Man. The suit and I are one.” That’s great for a myth and a fantasy hero. Heroes in myth are always something other than simply human. However, complete identification with the persona, “the suit and I being one” would be a form of living death for a real human being. It’s easy for us to live in such terror of our vulnerable selves, those parts of ourselves which are not strong and beautiful. Yet they are there, and if we cannot acknowledge them, and give them their due, they will surface in very destructive ways, such as anxiety and depression, as symptoms of the underlying shadow self.

Somehow, we’ve got to come to terms with the human inside the armour, and to learn compassion and acceptance for that person, just as he or she is. We have to abandon perfectionism, and get beyond the toxicity of shame. Often, it’s just at this point that psychotherapy or Jungian analysis is a necessity.

To be continued in “Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part II: Imprisoned in the Armoured Self”.

I’d welcome your reflections on the nature of “social armour”, and the social mask. Have you ever experieced situations where, to your surprise, someone was suddenly vulnerable? Where you were?

I wish you every good thing as you travel on your individual journey to wholeness,

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

PHOTO CREDITS: © Turkbug| Dreamstime.com ; marvel.com

VIDEO CREDIT: ©Marvel Entertainment, LLC //marvel.com/movies/iron_man.iron_man_2

→ 1 Comment

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

[cta]

PHOTO CREDIT: © Ffennema |Dreamstime.com

→ 2 Comments

Welcome to the New Home of “Vibrant Jung Thing!”

May 5th, 2010 · Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy

Dear Readers,

With some great help, I’ve finally been able to move my blog onto my main website, which is something that I have been wanting to do for a very long time. I hope that you will continue to read and enjoy my posts. Having the blog on my main site makes it easier to see how the posts are connected to my counselling, psychotherapy and Jungian analysis practice.

I invite you to check out the “Welcome” page, to get a clearer sense of what I do as a therapist, and my particular concern for soul-making and wholeness, and especially what that means for people in suburban places like Oakville, Mississauga and Burlington.

I also invite you to look at the “About Brian” page for more information on me and my background and The Journey in order to get a sense of the kind of clients with whom I work.

So, for me, getting the blog to this point is the completion of a journey of sorts. My hope is that Vibrant Jung Thing will continue to be a resource that you can use on your journey to yourself.

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

[cta]

PHOTO CREDIT: © Missdolphin |Dreamstime.com

→ 1 Comment

Individual Therapy, Women, Men & Marilyn Monroe

March 7th, 2010 · Anima, feminine, individual, individual therapy, masculine, therapy

It’s very striking how the figure of Marilyn Monroe sometimes comes up in individual therapy.

Few people have gripped the imagination of popular culture as she has. An iconic and fateful figure for both women and men. A figure combining elements of both the erotic goddess and the cautionary tale. Her story is disturbing. In some important sense, she will not leave us alone.

A recent book, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe by J. Randy Taraborrelli sheds light on the last period before her death at age 36 in 1962. However, a CBC network television program, The Passionate Eye last fall aired an even more informative documentary, Marilyn: The Last Sessions , which described the last sessions that Monroe had with her psychiatrist Dr. Ralph Greenson. This psychiatrist allegedly engaged in a wide range of boundary-violating behaviour, including seeing Marilyn twice a day, and involving her in his family life. I wonder whether Greenson did not himself fall under the spell of the archetypal child-woman symbology that our culture had already imbued on Monroe.

Even today, Marilyn Monroe is an unbelievably powerful symbolic figure — for both men and women, and on all kinds of levels. In her persona and public image, Marilyn represents a female figure who is essentially conformed to the will of men. In her whole bearing, in her breathy-voiced, man-pleasing manner, she represents a very powerful manifestation of the “anima woman”, a woman who is so permeated on the unconscious level by her need to conform herself to the inner image of woman in male fantasy that it takes over her entire outer presentation. A woman who lives out her entire life in this mode is very often headed for a tragic outcome. Such seems to have been the fate of Marilyn, the fatherless girl who so deeply yearned for male approval and love.

Marilyn is clearly a powerful image of male-dominated womanhood, and is a tragic figure for women. What is not so often seen is how destructive a figure she can represent for a man, if she embodies a man’s “anima”, which is to say that receptive dimension of a man that enables him to relate to women and the feminine. How could a man dominated by such an image really have anything but contempt for his own receptive, feeling “feminine” dimension? Or anything but pity or contempt for the real women who occupy his life — if he sees them through the image of Marilyn, the child-woman?

Is the Marilyn Monroe type of feminity the only way in which our society or individuals in it can access the feminine? If it is through “Marilyn lenses” that we view the world, how can we have any feeling connection to the feminine parts of reality — nature, the earth, our own feeling and relational dimensions, even those parts of ourselves that are receptive, gentle and creative? If feminity can only be imaged as an absence of the masculine and its strength, then we are doomed to perceive only half of the world.

Our culture is desperately yearning for the healing that the feminine can bring, but that healing is nowhere to be found in the tragic symbology of the female pushed into a mold created by the male. In his 1975 film based on the “rock opera” Tommy by The Who, avant-garde film director Ken Russell captured our dilemma with a certain bizarre eloquence…”You talk about your woman…”

Tommy – “Eyesight to the Blind”

I’d gratefully welcome comments and reflections on Marilyn Monroe specifically, and, more generally on the place of femininity in our culture. How has the way our culture treats the feminine impacted you? I think that this is a very important matter, and I’d very much like to share with you about your views.

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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

[cta]

PHOTO CREDIT: © Konstantin32 |Dreamstime.com

FILM CREDIT: “Tommy”, Directed by Ken Russell, © Columbia Pictures, 1975

…………….

→ No Comments

Here in the Middle Years of Life: Is That All There Is?

February 28th, 2010 · Anxiety, depression, depth psychology, Hope, Identity, inner life, life passages, Meaning, midlife, Psychotherapy, soul, stress, suburbia / exurbia, The Self, therapy

The great jazz artist Peggy Lee performed the following beautiful, highly disturbing yet haunting song in 1969, at midlife, in her 50th year:

I doubt that questions get much more real than those in this song. And the question that Peggy Lee sings about here is of the type, that, for many people, can become achingly urgent at the middle of life.

For many people, especially in our tumultuous times, the middle years of life can come to feel like an endless process of coping with chaos. It can feel like life has become a time of just responding to one crisis after another: issues with maturing children, issues with the health of parents; job issues; issues of financial security. At times, life can come to seem endlessly wearying, and very much as if there is nothing to it, but “just going through the motions”. From such a place, for very many people, there can come a deep heartfelt cry: “Is this really all that there is to my life? Is this all that I get?”

This moment, the moment of this question, is highly important in the life of the individual. This is true, even especially true, if the time when this question arises is filled with depression, anxiety — even despair.

From experience with clients, I can almost guarantee that there will be no canned, pre-packaged answer to this question that will slake the desperate thirst of those who ask such a question. Only an answer rooted in the individual’s life will bring any peace, any hope, any meaning — any sense of value.

By an individual answer, I mean one that emerges from the very depths of the individual. Not something that the individual’s intellect or conscious mind has cobbled together, but something that emerges from the very depths of the person, from what they most fundamentally are. Something to which they can say “Yes!” with their whole being.

It is the task of good therapy (and of Jungian analysis) to assist the individual in finding the symbolic dimension that conveys meaning, to find the deep story or myth of an individual’s life. There are many in suburban places like Oakville, Burlington and Mississauga for whom the question “Is that all there is?” has become urgently real. I invite you to enter into the therapeutic journey inward, to find your own inner treasure.

I’d gratefully welcome comments and reflections from readers. Have you had the experience of wondering in this way “is that all there is”? How has that question affected your life? If you were willing to share this important and personal part of your life, I’d be deeply interested to dialogue with you.

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

Brian Collinson, Psychotherapist & Jungian Analyst

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

[cta]

→ 2 Comments

Between Childrens’ and Parents’ Needs: the Generational Anxiety Sandwich

February 15th, 2010 · complexes, compulsion, Current Affairs, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, parent-child interactions, parental complex, Psychotherapy, The Self, therapy, unlived life, wholeness

In this post, I would like to write about something that may have a sense of “taboo” about it.

For many of us in the present day world, a powerful struggle goes on in our middle years. There are greater and greater demands on our personal reserves of compassion, empathy, time, energy and money. These resources are streaming out in two directions, both towards our children, and also towards our parents, and possibly other aging relatives, who are living to a greater age than ever they have in the past.

As many people in their middle years try to meet the needs of the younger and older generations, they find themselves nearly impossibly stretched.

In such a climate, it can feel almost impossible to meet the needs of others. In addition, many people end up feeling like callous ingrates if they give any consideration to their own needs as people. “How can I consider myself?” one often hears people in this position say, “My parents gave me so much. I owe them so much–everything!”

The really difficult thing is when the inner complex gives such guilting messages to an adult child, when the parents have actually not been kind or supportive to their children. I experience this as a very frequent occurrence in my practice. Many times, people who have been seriously emotionally or physically neglected by their parents — or worse — are the very people who respond in the most dutiful and self sacrificing manner.

And then again, it is often those same people, dutiful to their parents, who turn around and are completely self-sacrificing to their children. And sometimes those children can be every bit as demanding unreasonable and narcissistic toward their parents as their grandparents are toward them. And often that same mass of guilt and obligation that whips these people into unreasonably self-denying behaviour toward their parents will do the same when it comes to their children.

The particular psychological forces that bring this about are as individual as the people involved in the situation. Very often, in dealing with these situations, healthy ordinary people need therapy to get to the root of the problem, and to free themselves from the crushing guilt. Guilt can be an extremely powerful emotion and motivator, and it is often necessary to confront it in the safe environment of therapy to be able to remove its power.

The other hugely difficult component of these intergenerational binds is that they often lead to enormous amounts of anxiety. This can prove as difficult, if not more so, than the guilt. However, what I am going to say next about that guilt may prove surprising, even shocking!

Which is, that it may actually be quite a good thing that the individual is experiencing the guilt! “Wow, Brian” you might be thinking, “what a horrible thing to say! …Speaking of callous!… How can you possibly wish anxiety on already-burdened people?”

Now, I don’t wish anyone unnecessary pain, and, all other things being equal, I would wish that no one would have to deal with excessive anxiety. But in a situation like this, I believe that it is often the case that the anxiety has a psychological purpose. Simply put, the intense anxiety makes us aware that there is a conflict, and that the status quo is simply untenable for the individual.

It may be that the guilt is intense for such a person, but the anxiety shows us that there is tension, that the needs of the self are not willing to just continue being put on the shelf and denied. The complex of guilt and obligation within us may spur us on to utterly altruistic self-destruction…but that complex is not all that there is to us. There is the part of us that recognizes that the purpose of human life is to become the person who is latent within us, that that is why we are here in this life. That part will allow us to make some compromises, but it will not allow us to completely sell ourselves out — not without our paying a very dire, wrenching psychological price.

It’s easy for many people to feel a strong impetus to self-sacrifice, but, psychologically speaking, it’s important to realize that there may be very real limits to the degree to which we can put our own needs on one side to care for and meet the needs of others.

This awareness might lead us to face an even more fundamental questions like, “How do I begin to live my own real life?” and “What is meaningful to me?” These questions takes us to the very heart of Jungian analysis, and true depth psychotherapy.

I’d gratefully welcome comments from readers on these issues, which affect very many of us. How have you experienced the “generational sandwich”?.

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

Brian Collinson

[cta]

→ No Comments

Does February Bring Any GIfts?

January 31st, 2010 · depth psychology, Hope, Identity, Individuation, inner life, soul, The Self, therapy

“April is the cruelest month” wrote the poet T.S. Eliot. When I first read that line as a teenager, my thought was, “Obviously, this poet wasn’t a Canadian!”

Anyone who has consistently lived through winters in places like Oakville, Mississauga or Burlington will probably tell you that “the cruelest month” is either January or February. I suspect that many would vote for February.

For many people, February can seem very bleak. The year-end holidays are far behind us. There is no major holiday to lighten our hearts, although we do now have “Family Day”. Snow or brutal cold –this year we have little of the former and plenty of the latter–can turn trips out into an ordeal. The days are lengthening, it’s true, but, at least in our part of the world, long strings of overcast days lead many people to feel starved for sunlight.

Does February bring us any gifts? How could it?…

One of the most difficult aspects of this time of the year can be that we tend to feel shut in, and shut up with ourselves. This can mean that we are left with what I often term the fundamental question of ourselves. That is, with how to be who we are and feel good about it. How to actively accept and cherish our lives, rather than just seeing ourselves as “one in a million”.

Many of the things into which we pour our energy at other times of the year are just not available now. Our response to that can be to curse the luck and hang on grimly until spring. Or, we could use the time to really encounter ourselves.

Here are some things that might be helpful to think about at this time. They’ve proved valuable to me, so I leave them with you for your consideration:

Have you ever told yourself the story of your own life? To sit down and actually write your own life story can be a truly revelatory thing to do.

Have you ever thought about what the happiest time in your life was? Have you ever thought about what was the saddest?

Who are the three most significant people that you have encountered in your life, other than parents or siblings. Why are they important to you? What does that tell you about yourself?

In what do you put your faith? This might be a formal religious belief, or a personal spirituality or philosophy, or it might be something quite different. What you fundamentally value can tell you a tremendous amount about who you fundamentally are.

It may be that, as you live with these questions, they take on a fundamental importance that leads you to want to explore new dimensions of yourself, with someone “on your side” to witness your journey. Certainly that was my experience, and that is what initially led me into psychotherapy and Jungian analysis.

I’d welcome comments below from readers on how any of these thoughts relates to your lives at this time of year.

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

[cta]

→ 1 Comment

Identity and Anxiety in the Film, “Up In the Air”

January 22nd, 2010 · Anxiety, Current Affairs, depth psychology, Film, Identity, Individuation, life passages, Meaning, midlife, persona, puer aeternis, unlived life, wholeness, work

Make no mistake, moving is living. -Ryan Bingham

“Up in the Air”, directed by Jason Reitman, stars George Clooney, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Clooney’s character Ryan Bingham is a full-time corporate down-sizer whose life consists of an endless stream of business travel (“322 days last year”). He moves from place to place, letting people go from corporate roles when their employers cannot stomach doing it. He has no permanent attachments to people, a desolate and hollow single bedroom apartment he never sleeps in, and he has accumulated 10,000,000 airmiles…

Up In the Air Official Website

Ryan Bingham’s life is in airports and hotel rooms and is filled with constant movement. The stability and security in his life, his secure base, is found precisely in those things that others find impermanent and impersonal. His finely orchestrated and choreographed travel routine, his mechanized method of moving constantly from place to place gives him re-assurance, and in an odd way a sense of belonging. Which is good, because Ryan has no permanent connections to anyone in his life.

Ryan also has a budding career as an motivational speaker. His message: “Make no mistake: your relationships are the heaviest components in your life…. The slower we move, the faster we die.”

Ryan is completely identified with his corporate role. His aircraft-bound life is an appropriate symbol of his existence on a deeper level. In the terms of Jungian psychology, Ryan, like Christopher McCandless, the subject of Into the Wild is a true puer aeternus (“eternal boy”). He floats above life in his social self, and never puts down roots into the deep soil of his genuine self. And he is danger of discovering that his life is tragic because there he has no remaining way to turn back.

In its own way, this is a very disturbing and provocative film, but it’s a very good one. It raises the question for each of us about how connected we’re willing to be to the real substance of our lives.

I’d welcome comments below from readers on anxiety, identity and work.

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

Brian Collinson

[cta]

→ 1 Comment

Journeying Toward Wholeness

Vibrant Jung Thing Blog

Anxiety Behind the Mask, Part 1

June 22nd, 2010 · Anxiety, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, mythology, persona, popular culture, Psychotherapy, soul, wholeness

Anxiety, Stress and Decisions

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

Welcome to the New Home of “Vibrant Jung Thing!”

May 5th, 2010 · Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy

Dear Readers,

Individual Therapy, Women, Men & Marilyn Monroe

March 7th, 2010 · Anima, feminine, individual, individual therapy, masculine, therapy

It’s very striking how the figure of Marilyn Monroe sometimes comes up in individual therapy.

Few people have gripped the imagination of popular culture as she has. An iconic and fateful figure for both women and men. A figure combining elements of both the erotic goddess and the cautionary tale. Her story is disturbing. In some important sense, she will not leave us alone.

Tommy – “Eyesight to the Blind”

Here in the Middle Years of Life: Is That All There Is?

February 28th, 2010 · Anxiety, depression, depth psychology, Hope, Identity, inner life, life passages, Meaning, midlife, Psychotherapy, soul, stress, suburbia / exurbia, The Self, therapy

The great jazz artist Peggy Lee performed the following beautiful, highly disturbing yet haunting song in 1969, at midlife, in her 50th year:

Between Childrens’ and Parents’ Needs: the Generational Anxiety Sandwich

February 15th, 2010 · complexes, compulsion, Current Affairs, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, parent-child interactions, parental complex, Psychotherapy, The Self, therapy, unlived life, wholeness

In this post, I would like to write about something that may have a sense of “taboo” about it.

Does February Bring Any GIfts?

January 31st, 2010 · depth psychology, Hope, Identity, Individuation, inner life, soul, The Self, therapy

“April is the cruelest month” wrote the poet T.S. Eliot. When I first read that line as a teenager, my thought was, “Obviously, this poet wasn’t a Canadian!”

Anyone who has consistently lived through winters in places like Oakville, Mississauga or Burlington will probably tell you that “the cruelest month” is either January or February. I suspect that many would vote for February.

Identity and Anxiety in the Film, “Up In the Air”

January 22nd, 2010 · Anxiety, Current Affairs, depth psychology, Film, Identity, Individuation, life passages, Meaning, midlife, persona, puer aeternis, unlived life, wholeness, work

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives

March 5th, 2012 · individual therapy, Individuation, stress, therapy, work, work related stress

Yet… Something in Us Seeks Wholeness — Even at Work

Vocation — What if It’s Not Just a Word?

Work Related Stress: Message from My Deep Self?

The Shadow in Working Life

PHOTOS: © Maria Paula Coelho | Dreamstime.com

© 2012 Brian Collinson

June 22nd, 2010 · Anxiety, Identity, Individuation, inner life, Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, mythology, persona, popular culture, Psychotherapy, soul, wholeness

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

May 5th, 2010 · Jungian analysis, Jungian psychology, life passages, Mississauga, Oakville, Psychology and Suburban Life, Psychotherapy

Dear Readers,

March 7th, 2010 · Anima, feminine, individual, individual therapy, masculine, therapy

It’s very striking how the figure of Marilyn Monroe sometimes comes up in individual therapy.

Few people have gripped the imagination of popular culture as she has. An iconic and fateful figure for both women and men. A figure combining elements of both the erotic goddess and the cautionary tale. Her story is disturbing. In some important sense, she will not leave us alone.

February 28th, 2010 · Anxiety, depression, depth psychology, Hope, Identity, inner life, life passages, Meaning, midlife, Psychotherapy, soul, stress, suburbia / exurbia, The Self, therapy

The great jazz artist Peggy Lee performed the following beautiful, highly disturbing yet haunting song in 1969, at midlife, in her 50th year:

February 15th, 2010 · complexes, compulsion, Current Affairs, depth psychology, Jungian analysis, parent-child interactions, parental complex, Psychotherapy, The Self, therapy, unlived life, wholeness

January 31st, 2010 · depth psychology, Hope, Identity, Individuation, inner life, soul, The Self, therapy

Anyone who has consistently lived through winters in places like Oakville, Mississauga or Burlington will probably tell you that “the cruelest month” is either January or February. I suspect that many would vote for February.

January 22nd, 2010 · Anxiety, Current Affairs, depth psychology, Film, Identity, Individuation, life passages, Meaning, midlife, persona, puer aeternis, unlived life, wholeness, work

Popular Posts

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives