Jung and the End of the World: Can Depth Psychology Save Us?
This Jungian Life
In his new book, The End of the World, author and psychoanalyst JON MILLS considers the question of why humanity seems bent on self-destruction. We face famine, climate change, obscene wealth disparities, and threats of global war and nuclear annihilation. Yet the majority of us seem to prefer living either in denial, or in irrational, active opposition to reading the writing on the wall. This week Jungian analyst and co-host Lisa Marchiano interviews Jon about how we face up to impending catastrophe. Is there a viable alternative to the current situation in which we seem to be...
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Dark Forces in the Psyche: Our Self-Destructive Impulses
This Jungian Life
Why is it that we sometimes fail to rise to life’s most important challenges? Why do we instead procrastinate, withdraw, self-sabotage, or feel unable to move toward the life we want? This week, at a listener’s suggestion, Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart explore the concept of anti-libidinal forces in the psyche: those self-destructive impulses that oppose growth, pleasure, and forward movement. We discuss the ways this phenomenon has been addressed within the profession, including Freud’s death drive, Melanie Klein’s concept of the bad breast,...
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Psyche in the Age of AI
This Jungian Life
Our lives have already been altered by rapidly expanding access to artificial intelligence (AI). In this week’s episode, we consider how this latest technological revolution might be reshaping the human psyche. Hosts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart are joined by a special guest, the author and Jungian analyst Christina Becker, to explore the psychological impact of AI’s incursion into our work, home and relationships. One of the major AI use cases has been for advice, self-reflection and companionship. Some users are even referring to this as “therapy”. This raises thorny questions:...
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The Labyrinth: Soul’s Winding Journey
This Jungian Life
The labyrinth is a powerful metaphor for psychological development and the path of individuation. This week Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart consider how twists and turns in the path of life (especially in early adulthood), ask us to confront uncertainty, anxiety, and the unknown. Ego may crave a straight, well-planned path, but life inevitably offers something else: a fiendishly difficult labyrinth. If we want to get the most out of the journey, we’ve no choice other than to give it all we’ve got. Through the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, we...
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LOW ENERGY: Where Can We Source the Drive to Take Action? (Re-Publish)
This Jungian Life
Many people just can’t rally to do what’s necessary and improve their lives. Is it possible they just don’t carry much vitality, or is some inner conflict blocking their access? We share personal stories of ‘energy loss’ and offer insights into purposelessness. Carl Jung tells us inner energy flows according to its own laws, but if we can’t harness it? Expect to learn why some people are naturally low-energy, which aspects of your psyche might be leaking energy, how over-aligning with cultural norms can cut off access to instinctive vitality, where we can look for solutions,...
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A Jungian Sense of Place: Bollingen and The Tower on the Marsh
This Jungian Life
Carl Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz and Christiana Morgan all dedicated time, soul and imagination to a peculiarly Jungian form of architecture: the stone tower. This week host Deborah Stewart is joined by Dr. Martin Gledhill, an architect, author and Jungian scholar, and filmmaker Hilary Morgan, the granddaughter of Christiana Morgan, an eminent American psychologist who collaborated with Jung on some of his most important work. Deb, Martin and Hilary explore Jung’s Bollingen Tower and Christiana Morgan’s Tower on the Marsh, discussing the profound expressions of psyche through place. Both...
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The Age of Aquarius: A Jungian View of a Changing World
This Jungian Life
Jung suggested in Aion that humanity is moving from the great symbolic Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. Join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano, Deborah Stewart and Joseph Lee, as we ask what it means to live through the turbulence and vitality of this period of transition. Jung pioneered the idea that human consciousness unfolds in great symbolic ages. The shift from one to the next is not a smooth or pleasant experience. As Jung saw it, each new age emerges through a process of decline, breakdown, and renewal, a process that can bring with it frightening levels of...
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Cassandra: A Jungian Interpretation
This Jungian Life
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a Trojan princess and priestess of Apollo who was given the gift of true prophecy, along with the curse that no one would ever believe her. She warned the Trojans not to bring the famous wooden horse inside their city walls, but her prophecy was ignored and the city fell. In this episode, we discuss the psychological meaning of the Cassandra story from a Jungian perspective, exploring the painful experience of recognizing a deep truth but finding that others cannot or will not hear it. We examine how the Cassandra archetype can intrude into a person’s life,...
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Chance Encounters: When Life Calls Us to a New Path
This Jungian Life
Chance encounters can change the whole direction of our lives. A casual chat with a stranger at the bank, a book that beckons to you from the shelf, or a last-minute lunch invitation might lead to transformative consequences. This week, join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano, Joseph Lee and Deborah Stewart as we circumambulate the phenomenon of the chance encounter. For Jungians, these moments are more than happy accidents. They may be understood as encounters with the deeper ordering principle Jung called the Self, which disrupts the ego’s plans and invites us toward something...
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COAGULATIO: The Alchemy of Settling Down
This Jungian Life
COAGULATIO marks the psychological moment when possibility takes shape. Uncertainty recedes as we commit to our choices, and life slows and “thickens” into stable commitments and a predictable path. Join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Joseph Lee as we continue our exploration of Jung’s alchemical stages. This week, we discuss the concept of coagulatio, or the solidifying of what was once liquid. Coagulatio involves settling into a path, a vocation, a relationship, or an identity. Yet these stages of solidification also carry with them loss. Incarnating something in the real...
info_outlineCompartmentalization is like a home electrical panel that separates power into different zones. It allows us to separate the charge carried by ideas, feelings, and actions without risking system overload. Compartmentalization lets us express concern about climate change yet fly overseas for a family vacation or care about animal rights and ignore factory farming. Such incompatible values and incongruent reasoning usually bypass the zone wired for emotional activation, allowing many daily activities and attitudes to operate smoothly. At the other end of the spectrum, compartmentalization can become denial, hypocrisy, or pathology, as when someone professing religious dedication engages in immoral or illegal practices. Our psychic wiring operates automatically much of the time in the interest of waking life governance, protecting us from the circuitry overload of indecision, doubt, and disorder. We also have the capacity to reflect on our values and activities, bringing them to consciousness and choice.
Here’s the dream we analyzed:
“I am seeing this scene from the sky. There is a city in a desert. This city looks like a Mihrab or a prayer rug. It is like a niche, and it has a circle in its center. In my dream, at the top of this niche, there is a hidden or a secret door. Only some can go through this door, which opens to an exclusive world/chambers. I see a Monk in black robes going through the city and through this door. Then I hear, “the name of this city is Minoo.”
[In all of the ancient world, including South Asia, when they spoke of “City,” they meant Minoo. Cities in dreams are also Minoo, an old Farsi word that means the heavens or realm of spirit. Mihrabs in ancient Persia were the birthplace of the Sun. They were caves where the goddess Anahita, the great water deity, gave birth to her son Mithra. Anahita was the original virgin mother, some scholars believe. These Mihrabs were often caves with water running through them and were temples of worship of Mithra and his mother.]
REFERENCES:
Carl Jung. Memories, Dreams, Reflections. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FYZK52/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_RP4X5WF6HJTZXKNS280D
Mihrab: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihrab
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