Sinopsis
Eavesdrop on three Jungian analysts as they engage in lively, sometimes irreverent conversations about a wide range of topics. Join them for discussion of news events, family dynamics, personal issues and more as they share what its like to see the world through the depth psychological lens provided by CG Jung. Half of each episode is spent discussing a dream submitted by a listener. Lisa, Joseph and Deb went through their Jungian training together, becoming friends and developing working partnerships. Now they are engaged in a new creative venture with a spirit of adventure and hope you will join them.
Episodios
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Episode 40 - What's Unique about Jungian Analysis?
03/01/2019 Duración: 59minHow is Jungian analysis different from other psychotherapies? What are its major components and distinguishing features? And what makes it effective? Lisa, Deb, and Joseph discuss Jungian analysis as a nonlinear process that is not limited to problem-solving or reducing symptoms. Instead, Jungian analysis is grounded in an inherent capacity to grow into wholeness, a process Jung called individuation. Jungian analysis places a high value on all the processes and multiplicities of the unconscious, from symptoms to work with dreams, in order to facilitate the integration of denied or devalued aspects of the personality. The four particular stages of an analytic journey, which may overlap, are explained: catharsis, elucidation, education, and transformation—altogether an abiding fullness of being. The Dream: I’m in the front room of my home. It is a farmhouse with views from the room of rolling hills. I’m looking after my two young boys inside and the room is in chaos. An unexpected visitor enters the room, it is
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Episode 39 - Shrink Rap Radio
27/12/2018 Duración: 01h17minThis week we sat down with Dave from Shrink Rap Radio to discuss dream analysis. We hope you enjoy and happy holidays!
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Episode 38 - Holiday Madness
20/12/2018 Duración: 55minAs the holiday season approaches, we examine the tidal pull of the ancient, archetypal power of the solstice season. Because of this underpinning, together with the power of family narratives, roles, and complexes, the holidays can be fraught with intense feeling, from hope to regression to disappointment. We discuss ways to manage feelings, intention, and behavior. The Dream: "I am in a bathhouse (Turkish bath) and sitting immersed in the pool of warm water to my waist. I am sitting with my back to a rectangle column made out of black granite. I have my arms are stretched like a crucifix and my hands are holding onto the column that is behind me. The pool is made out of green granite. To my left there is an altar made out of cubic-shaped granite and on which sits a woman who is a sage, a seer, a fortune-teller, or a magician. She is wearing a long dress and is sitting crossed legged. My back is hot and dries the film of water on the column and as the column dries my back leaves marks on the column. The
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Episode 37 - Narcissism
13/12/2018 Duración: 01h07minThe myth of Narcissus constitutes the archetypal root of the character structure of narcissism. Aspects of narcissism run from the healthy developmental narcissism of a child to the toxic narcissism of the psychopath, but all have in common a lack of empathy, whether momentary or chronic. We offer some thoughts on how to tell if you are in a relationship with a narcissist and what to do about it. The Dream: My ex-wife moves back in together, and then she starts belittling (me) like she used to when we were together, which I don’t like. After she does it a few times, I determinedly tell her to move out, and then I remember that she moved into my house, not the other way around—I don’t have to allow her to stay.
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Episode 36 - Adulting: Leaving the Parental Path
06/12/2018 Duración: 01h01minWhat does it mean to separate from one’s parents and parental complexes—the attitudes and values that have been deeply instilled since infancy? How do we discern when we are in a parental complex, whether we are aligned with it or rebelling against it? What can we do to resolve the hold these complexes can have over us and become more of our unique, individuated selves? The Dream: I was in front of a white house. I felt like it belonged to me. Some creatures attacked. I remember two of them, one was blue and the other one red. The red one was called Prometheus. I also had allies with me, but I paid no attention to them as they were behind me. It was a fierce fight. We fought with the creatures and after awhile the creatures fled, except Prometheus. I fought with him, and in the end I subdued him, grabbing him by the head and speaking some kind of banishment to him. He collapsed. After the battle I withdrew to the house to rest. As I was catching my breath, I turned around and see Prometheus, now transformed i
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Episode 35 - Loneliness
29/11/2018 Duración: 01h14minLoneliness is a deeply human and universal experience. Lisa, Joseph and Deb examine it from multiple perspectives: as it may be experienced in young adulthood versus older years; as reflective of the need for attachment and relational security; as comparable to the alchemical metaphors of calcinatio and solutio; as a call to activation in outer and inner worlds; and as a psychologically toxic phenomenon. The dream: I dreamt I was haphazardly packing up my family’s things after a stay at a friend’s house. In the bathroom I find I have my period and have bled through all my cloth pads. My underwear in soaked and bright red. I am overwhelmed by the color and amount of blood. Could I use their washing machine, I wonder? After some thought I decide to make a pad with toilet paper. Then I head upstairs looking for my husband and kids. Going up I remember that we considered buying this house once but decided it was too big and needed too much work. It’s beautiful now. I go upstairs to the attic. There are deep rich
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Episode 34 - The Scapegoat
22/11/2018 Duración: 01h13minThe archetype of the scapegoat goes back to the ancient Hebrew ritual of using two goats to expiate the sins of the tribe. Sin, blame, and wrongness are also often attributed to others, and this practice – scapegoating – is addressed as it occurs in current culture, in families, and in individual psychology. The Dream: I hiked to a “primitive” tribal village. I went there as a researcher, perhaps an anthropologist. As I was standing talking to one of the men, an angry woman with a crying infant stomped toward our area and plunged her infant (backside first) into a plastic basin of water as if to drown her. Bubbles came from the infant’s mouth while under water. I started to run over there to rescue the baby, but the man (or something) held me back. The woman pulled the baby out of the water, looked at her face briefly, and then plunged her back into the water – this time face down. At this, I immediately ran to the baby and pulled her out of the water. I held her face down and pounded on her back in an attemp
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Episode 33 - Archetypal Dynamics of Gender Transformation
15/11/2018 Duración: 01h15minLisa, Joseph, and Deb circumambulate the difficult issue of gender reassignment. They discuss the significance of teen girls wishing to transition and the current tendency to foreclose the meaning of this and move rapidly into medical procedures, a process of concretization instead of curiosity and exploration. Lisa discusses previous examples of symptoms and their diagnoses in history, leading to an understanding of the influence of cultural factors on mental illnesses and diagnosis. Finally, gender reassignment is considered as a Promethean venture, and although it is now possible to challenge the gods of genetics, it is also truly awe-full. We suggest that gender transitioning, like much else, can be psychologically transformative only if there is a conscious relationship to it. Lisa's writings on the topic include three articles in Quillette: Misunderstanding a New Kind of Gender Dysphoria Transgenderism and the Social Construction of Diagnosis Trans Activism's Dangerous Myth of Parental Rejection This
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Episode 32 - Slobs
08/11/2018 Duración: 01h07minWhat happens when one is held captive by the mud of messiness? We try to understand sloppiness as a defense against overwhelming emotions, ongoing enmeshment in the primal maternal matrix, a regression to a younger and less differentiated self, and a tendency to overvalue objects as compensation for an inadequate ability to symbolize. The dream: I am swimming in an indoor public pool with others when waves begin to occur for no apparent or antecedent reason. I am in a pool that shouldn’t have waves. As the waves begin to bob me around, the water level rises dramatically, quickly. The water reaches nearly to the top of a cinderblock retaining wall that is protecting a sunny, sacred green forest glade with a shrine far down below. Another person I don’t recognize, also male about my age begins to chip away at the retaining wall, cracking, crumbling it until it gives way. Darkness rushes in violently, and I awake to see myself in the third person floating in dank, dark blue, murky water that is endless in form
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Episode 31 - Food Addiction
01/11/2018 Duración: 01h09minCompulsive eating is a complicated psychological and biological problem. Food addiction can be a way of defending against unmet needs by displacing emotional hunger onto food. We discuss how infant experiences with eating and soothing can shape one’s relationship to food in adulthood. Two fairy tales tell of parents with insatiably devouring babies and illustrate the consequences of failure to develop affect regulation and how that can lead to various vulnerabilities to addiction. The dream: My skin (not sure what body part) had green mold on it, like the intense green mold that grows on an orange. When I try to peel it off, I discover it is about a centimeter thick and that it comes away in spongy chunks leaving a very uneven skin surface—once again, like the contrast between peel, pith, and segments of an orange. I feel alarmed. I stop peeling worrying the whole structure will collapse.
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Episode 30 - Escaping Literalism
25/10/2018 Duración: 01h01minWe consider literalism as a normal state in childhood; children’s literalism can be funny and charming. We grow first into the ability to understand metaphor and conceptualize symbols and levels of meaning. Literalism can then serve as a defense against uncertainty, as ego’s resistance to any threat to its power, and as a refusal to confront unwelcome truths from the unconscious. A symbolic attitude, however, opens the inner world to adventure, mystery and creativity. The dream: I had a wild animal skin. At first, I thought it was a zebra skin but then I realized it something more rare and dangerous, the skin of a white tiger. I knew it was wrong and illegal to have it but I loved it and it felt so warm, comfortable, and safe to be inside of it.
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Episode 29 - ENVY & JEALOUSY: Hobgoblins in Relationships
18/10/2018 Duración: 01h03minThis podcast relates envy and jealousy to early developmental dynamics, with envy related to the dyad of mother-and-baby and jealousy arriving a bit later, when the child realizes that sometimes he is left out of his parent’s relationship with one another. Envy is related to early narcissism, a sense of inferiority and primal emotions, often resulting in the urge to destroy the envied person or object. Jealousy, because it is related to longing, can motivate a person to strive for what is desired. Rumi, a Persian poet, wrote about existential and universal aspects of longing for the divine, and how, inherent in the longing, lies connection. The dream: I was in a house, standing in the kitchen, an attractive and intimate young couple exits one of the rooms, there greet me and leave. The male is playful, the female is glowing they are happy. Beside me on the table is a red book, I felt as though I had written part of it. The number '22' and 'Libra' stand out. I look towards the front door, my ex fianceé walks
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Episode 28 - Boredom
11/10/2018 Duración: 55minBoredom is not depression or dissociation, sadness or loneliness…but what is it? We consider boredom from various perspectives: lack of access to one’s inner world, a relational deficit, a defense against unwanted feelings, a byproduct of reliance on technology to command attention, and lack of access to enlivening transpersonal energies. We surmise that the antidote to boredom lies in the ability to pay attention, as this can generate connection and meaning. The dream: I had a rather strange dream the other night where I was on a bridge. A very long bridge and on this bridge were statues of people. They were all in different positions but seemed like they were marching but frozen in place. When I intensely looked at one of them it started to move and break open free. I think I did the same thing to other statues and they moved. The next part of the dream I was at the beginning of the bridge and I saw that tall giant woman. It was an uncle’s wife, she is a doctor, very beautiful, and she looked like a queen
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Episode 27 - Dream Animals
04/10/2018 Duración: 01h09minIn this podcast, we focus on animals as symbols of instincts that have often been repressed in order to conform to cultural norms. When some aspect of our instinctual nature returns to us as a dream animal we can find ourselves fleeing, fighting, denying, or befriending an aspect of ourselves represented by that animal. Because animals have objectively known characteristics, dream creatures can provide specific clues about lost aspects of ourselves that we may need to reclaim. Finding the right relationship to our inner animals can contribute to our wholeness. The dream: I am in the kitchen in our house (the house is huge with very big kitchen and back door leading from the kitchen to what it seems like a farm yard) and trying to prepare some food. My father (who is not living with us in my dream and is separated from my mother) bursts in the kitchen. He is drunk and looking for food to eat. His dog is following him. The dog is very beautiful German Shepherd like, the long hair type variety and completely b
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Episode 26 - Betrayal
27/09/2018 Duración: 01h07minThe experience of betrayal is painful, confusing, and damaging to one’s basic sense of self and reality. The betrayer is often seized by feelings that demand gratification and involve self-deceit, abandonment of responsibility and empathy for the other. Are there ever times when betrayal is necessary for growth, either as the betrayed or the betrayer? Can betrayal be used as a call to deepened feeling, increased consciousness and more creative self-expression? The Dream: I was in a house that belonged to my parents, but it wasn't a house my parents have ever actually lived in. My boyfriend and I were fooling around in the bathtub. I was enjoying myself but he warned me that we were making a mess. I turned around and saw that we had somehow flooded the bathroom with several inches of water. I started to panic about how angry my parents were going to be. There was a radio on the floor that was an actual radio that my dad owned when I was a child. I was afraid to step out of the tub and into the water because I
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Episode 25 - The Psychology of Divination: a depth approach
20/09/2018 Duración: 56minDivinatory systems have been used for thousands of years as a source of help and direction to people wishing to resolve situations of personal uncertainty. Jung used the I Ching for 30 years before he met Richard Wilhelm and found confirmation of its usefulness in Wilhelm’s translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower. We explore the value of divination through the I Ching and the Tarot, and link this to the concept of a unified field that can facilitate a healing relationship with the Self. The dream: "I’m sitting on a concrete ledge. A few feet below is mud. A loved, beaded bracelet slips off into the mud and begins to sink. I know I cannot reach it. The feeling of anger and frustration toward myself and the situation distracts me for so long that when I regain clarity I realize it’s late, and I am far from home. I also become aware of a family of brown bears below, a mother and two cubs, father some distance away. The need to get away from the bears and find a safe place to sleep takes over. I look behin
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Episode 24 - Motherhood as a Journey of Individuation
13/09/2018 Duración: 54minThe experience of motherhood evokes powerful feelings, ranging from joy and bonding to anger and rejection. If we can develop a conscious relationship with these feelings, we meet both denied aspects of ourselves—our shadows—and experience the pleasures and enrichment of mothering that serve the individuation process. You can learn more about Lisa's work on motherhood here. The Dream: I was visiting the home of a friend who doesn’t exist in the real world. She lives with her mother in a house near woods in another state. She’s very talkative and a good friend but is ill and can’t work. We hung around the house and laughed and talked, can’t recall what about—shared history, I guess. I was sure this was not my first visit and we’ve known each other a long time. To stress again, the person in the dream is nobody I’ve ever met in real life. We connected well but I had to go. I wanted to call her but didn’t have a phone number. She said she would email me. I woke with a sense of confusion that my friend didn’t a
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Episode 23 - Indecision
06/09/2018 Duración: 49minMany people have difficulty making decisions, whether large or small. Among other factors, the psychology behind the fear of making a decision can be related to fear of making a mistake, lack of motivation, suppressed anger and aggression, and difficulty accepting the limitations and ordinariness of adulthood. The Dream: Last night I had what felt like an important dream. I was in a big new house. In one room I was just waking up with the cousin who is closest to me. The room was dark and filled with shadows. The other room was filled with light and I saw a woman waiting for me to wake up. We had both gone to the kitchen and as she got closer she was a girl I had a crush on in high school in very much detail. In high school I was always afraid to come talk to her—now she was coming to me. She was wearing my boxers and tank top and saw me and went right to the fridge and pulled out some tea. One of her friends was there too, whom I knew but didn’t know too well. We were all talking and having fun but with me a
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Episode 22 - Pressure to Conform and Differentiation
30/08/2018 Duración: 52minThe pressure to conform to familial and cultural values provides guidelines for each new generation – and can also stifle the uniqueness necessary not only to the individual but to family and cultural health. How can we discern when differentiation from established norms is in the service of meaningful growth and soul versus avoidance of necessary developmental challenge? This podcast engages this issue as both interpersonal and intrapsychic conflict. The dream: A recurring dream I have had for years. I am in someone else’s house and unable to find my way to my bedroom to sleep. I open doors and wander corridors. There are other people around. Sometimes I find my room to find other people in my bed. Sometimes the house is a holiday cottage or a university hall of residence, or a hotel or a huge rambling house. I never find a place to sleep. At Home in the World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging (Zurich Lecture Series in Analytical Psychology) by John Hill Link: http://a.co/gTkuyoP
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Episode 21 -- Living with a Crazy Parent
23/08/2018 Duración: 55minLiving with a parent who is seriously impaired can be traumatic and have lasting consequences. Fortunately, resources for healing and resilience are also available, and premature encounters with shadow can be a call to consciousness and yield gifts of effective and creative depth. The dream: My band mate and I are in an underground burial chamber which is dimly lit by torches. At some point we come across a large tomb/coffin. The coffin was black and was decorated with golden “stick figure” men with very large, erect penises. They looked a lot like prehistoric cave drawings of people. There was a smaller coffin inserted into the top of the larger, which could be removed and slid back. My band mate removes the smaller coffin and opens the lid; inside is the rotting, decaying body of an infant girl. It’s at this point in the dream I remember feeling particularly unsettled. At that point both of us knew we were supposed to be the two-wheeling this coffin out of wherever we were. We were supposed to be the funera