This Jungian Life Podcast

We 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 attit...

This 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 ob...

Boredom 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...

In 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 pr...

The 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 fee...

Divinatory 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 lin...

The 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 vis...

Many 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....

The 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...

Living 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 com...

The mother-in-law is not only the subject of many a joke but the subject of fairy tale and myth. Conflict between the older and younger woman lies in the archetypal realm, as both struggle to come to terms with differences, age, and the power of both youth and age. The Dream: Somehow my baby’s right arm has come completely out of her socket and is completely detached. I try to put it back into her...

In archery, sin refers to missing the mark, whereas transgression involves violation of a cultural boundary. But missing the mark or crossing a line can have positive effects as well as negative consequences. The dream: I am outside, in the yard of an old, but well-maintained house. The house is off-white, but I couldn’t say if it was gray off-white or beige off-white. There are other people here...

Creative depression demands that we suffer a journey into the deep wells of the psyche in quest of new life. It differs from other kinds of depression in how it is imaged in dreams, its antecedents in the person’s life history, and in relationships. The Dream: I was gardening and all my seeds were failing. The plants they were producing looked old and withered as they broke the soil. I went to a w...

Lying, hiding and sneaking are examples of trickster behavior, discussed as they occur in political and personal spheres. When is this behavior in service to individuation, and when is it in service to regressive, or unconscious, aspects of the psyche?  The dream: I had a dream a couple of days ago where I was cut in half by a shaman. The setting of this dream occurred in my backyard. The shaman w...

As three analysts, we explore the archetype of “the gun” from a Jungian psychological view and seek to understand it’s influence in the collective psyche of Americans. Guns play a big role in American mythology from the American Revolution to cowboys and first-person shooter games. Guns are symbols of heroic power—but mythology also sounds a cautionary note about what can happen when humans arroga...

How can we understand the superficial label assigned to masculine behavior in today’s meme-driven style of discourse? The Dream: I am walking on what seems to be mountainous hills. A little ahead of me is what feels like my teenage daughter and a friend. It’s kind of like twilight. Then I see a giant size footprint on the hillside. Huge, like a natural wonder-of-the-world type of site. I point at...

Jung was one of the primary theorists who added to our understanding of the psychological significance of dreams, and working with dreams is often a central part of an analytic process. What is the Jungian understanding of why we dream? What does it mean if we don't dream, and what are some ways of learning to work with dreams? We discuss things one can do to help with dream recall, and ponder whe...

Jung pioneered the technique of active imagination, a process by which the ego engages with imagery and content generated by the unconscious. Active imagination can help us understand our dreams, and lead us into new psychic situations. On today's episode, we share some personal examples of active imagination, discuss some suggestions of how to engage in it, and explore what active imagination has...

“We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.” CG Jung Anxiety is one of the most common complaints that bring people into therapy. While it can be difficult to differentiate anxiety from healthy fear we all agree that finding an ally to stand with us makes a big difference. We explore the many underlyin...

Why do Jungians care about fairy tales? What is their relevance in analysis? How do they differ from myths, and why do they matter to us still? Find out what fairy tales have mattered most to our clients, and why Lisa gets cranky when people criticize fairy tales for being sexist.   Here's the Dream We Analyze "I dreamt of a big cockroach. It was standing like a human and it was going to be transf...

Synchronicity is a concept that has fascinated thinkers across disciplines for decades, and few have delved as deeply into its nature and implications as the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung. According to Jung, synchronicity refers to meaningful coincidences that defy rational explanation but that feel infused with a sense of significance or destiny. But how do we recognize such coincidences, and what...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, True Blood. Vampires are perennial stars in popular entertainment. How can we understand vampires psychologically, and what does their tremendous popularity tell us about our culture? This week, we look at the transformation of the vampire archetype, explore how vampires live in all of us psychologically, and trace the return of the feeling function in modern va...

Sex? Money? Passion? Intellectual companionship? Kids? What are factors to consider when choosing a life partner? Should you be practical, or follow your heart? How is this decision different for men versus for women? We offer some ideas.   Here's The Dream We Analyze: "I was in my parents’ house. My mother was showing me some renovations she had done in the bathroom. Suddenly, in the mirror, I sa...

The standard psychiatric understanding of auditory hallucinations is that they are a symptom of serious mental illness, and ought to be treated with antipsychotic medication, but could there other ways of understanding this phenomenon? Can such symptoms ever have meaning in their own right? We explore whether voices could sometimes be the psyche's attempt to heal itself. In the show, we mention th...

Is alcohol dependence a misplaced expression of a spiritual thirst, or a collapse into a regressed and infantile state? We discuss Jung's involvement in the establishment of Alcoholics Anonymous. Jung's letter to Bill W. Here's the Dream We Analyze: "I’m accused of something I’m guilty of: loving the pharaoh’s daughter as she was my own. There are pictures and notebooks on my bag that prove it. So...