How does the experience of divorce lead to personal transformation and self-discovery? The journey of divorce is emblematic of a profound personal transformation, often unveiling the paradoxical nature of human relationships where deep trust and love coexist with the potential for betrayal and disillusionment, reflecting the intrinsic human struggle between connection and individuality. This individuation process during and after divorce constellates a metamorphosis, where confronting the...

How can combining psychedelics and Jungian psychology enhance our understanding of psyche? Psychedelics may help us access deep layers of the unconscious, revealing aspects of psyche that are often inaccessible through traditional psychoanalytic methods alone. Jungian analysis, with its focus on archetypes and the collective unconscious, provides a framework for interpreting and integrating the complex, symbolic experiences often encountered in psychedelic states. The combination of...

Jung's concept of the collective unconscious emphasized the universal psychological substrate common to all humans. While he acknowledged the effects of the cultural unconscious, his work, at times, fell into the trap of perpetuating oversimplified and racially prejudiced stereotypes. Jung's writings that refer to Africanist peoples, in particular, suffer from offensive assumptions. Dr. Fanny Brewster, Jungian analyst and author, searches for the healing cultural elements in the dreams of the...

Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, calls us to brood and turn within. Retreating to the unconscious is a psychic wintering, calling our life force down into our archaic patterns. It can trigger a sorrowing that helps us adjust to inevitable losses, just like the forest that silently drops its foliage without lament. At the nadir of darkness, light is reborn, and each successive day grows longer. Ancient and modern rituals celebrate the light’s triumph over darkness. No matter our...

Yascha Mounk is a political scientist and author focused on the challenges facing liberal democracies and the rise of populism. As a Johns Hopkins University professor and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, he critically examines identity politics in modern society. His influential works include "The People vs. Democracy" and "The Identity Trap." In an era where identity politics reshapes global narratives, the urgent need to balance diversity with universal human values...

The great catastrophe of Jung's generation was the rise of Nazi Germany and WWII. His insights into the collective psyche of nations remain relevant today as we grapple with war and violence worldwide. Prepare to discover how collective hysteria and moral downfall lead to loss of individual responsibility and susceptibility to authoritarian control, whether collective guilt and the psychological impact of evil affects not just perpetrators but entire societies leading to collective moral...

"The monsters that chase you in dreams are not trying to hurt you. They just want to reunite with their creator………...… that's you, dummy."   (Quoted from an unnamed Jungian analyst overheard at a cocktail party.)   Today, we analyze four nightmares submitted by listeners: BBQ Cats, Blood Red Sky, Tsunami, and Malevolent Presence.   Our dreams are always trying to correct our waking personality. They are a kind of psychospiritual medicine tailored just for us. When we avoid healing advice...

What wisdom do fairy tales hold about childrearing in our modern world?   Briar Rose is the foundation for the familiar fairytale Sleeping Beauty. It addresses the complicated consequences of unconscious parenting. While it is understandable we wish to protect our children from harsh realities, too much shielding can hobble them later in life. We may hide our shadow from ourselves and our children, but it will irrupt uninvited one day, casting the family into chaos. Instinctive reactions...

What hidden messages make Disney cartoons so impactful and enduring? Disney cartoons were groundbreaking. They introduced synchronized soundtracks in 1928, and today, they create extravaganzas that sweep audiences into tears and laughter, offering role models of virtue. Archetypal themes, often drawn from fairytales, thrum through the storylines appealing to the archaic levels of our psyche. Prepare to discover where Hermes is hidden in one of the characters, how childhood trauma activates...

Aaron Balick is a psychotherapist, speaker, consultant, educator, and author of The Psychodynamics of Social Networking. Social media invites snap emotional reactions, muddling clear thinking and escalating global tensions. It feeds on our anger, oversimplifying complex problems which blocks our ability to empathize. Nuanced explanations are demonized as if seeking to understand was an affront. If we learn to pause and reflect, we can overcome social media's divisive influence and discover...

Today's technology allows us to be seduced by the possibility of fame and celebrity tempting the ego to claim what does not belong to it.  In earlier times, fame was garnered slowly through work in the arts, scholarship, religion, and the military. Today, unprecedented, almost instantaneous communication has made fame a commodity in itself. Novelty performers, entertainers, influencers, and sports stars—especially if young and glamorous—can become the victim of "audience capture."  Fame...

If we lean into strange experiences with gentle curiosity, we may discover a level of psyche that acts directly on objects. Many of us have uncanny coincidences like thinking of a friend at the exact moment they ring us on the phone, but what about physical things breaking apart for no reason or luminous apparitions at our bedside? We often explain them away to reduce our anxiety, but Jung found them fascinating. He maintained a scientific attitude while accepting strange phenomena he could...

Lisa, Deb, and Joe, Jungian analysts and co-creators of This Jungian Life podcast, have introduced thousands of clients to an inner world with unexpected resources.  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. Jung tells us inner energy flows according to its own laws, but if...

Deb and Joe are Jungian Analysts, authors, training analysts, and co-creators of This Jungian Life Podcast. [Lisa was away lecturing this week.] Most of us feel anxious at the thought of reliving the complicated and often painful experiences of our youth. When we receive a school reunion notice, we might be tempted to ignore it. Yet, on an archetypal level, we are drawn to re-unifying our current and past identities. If we accept the invitation, we may find unexpected joy and forgotten...

Don Kalsched is a Jungian Analyst, an expert on treating trauma, author of two books, The Inner World of Trauma and Trauma and the Soul. Jung discovered our inner world is populated by various imaginal figures representing powerful psychological forces. If we treat our minds as democratic spaces, it can safeguard us from internal and external authoritarian influences. Prepare to discover the parallels between a balanced mind and a healthy society, whether viewing internal conflicts through...

Defense mechanisms function as unconscious psychological strategies we deploy to navigate reality and sustain a consistent self-image. They act as a shield, guarding against feelings of anxiety, shame, and vulnerability. They are feeling states that prompt us to avoid contact and trick us into thinking they protect us against emotional harm. Ancient philosophers recognized the human tendency to evade uncomfortable truths. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, he vividly depicts individuals...

The Selkie swims ashore at night, sheds her seal skin, hides it, and delights in her human form. In Celtic lore, she is the wild feminine soul, a creature of land and sea, innocent and beautiful, who cannot thrive in domesticity. In folklore, the seal-folk are discovered by humans. Their natural, joyous spirit, grace, and affection invite contact. Humans are drawn to them, but if they touch, parting is unbearable. Many a young man, desperate to maintain the life-giving embrace of nature,...

The archetype of Initiation is primordial, and its force guides our transformative transitions. For Jung, this change reshapes spiritual, emotional, intellectual, behavioral, and social dynamics. Rooted in his anthropological studies, Jung emphasized the vital role of formal ceremonies in fostering separation from parental influences and facilitating integration into adult communities. These ceremonies marked a clear transition from childhood and established an essential connection with the...

[Spoiler Alert.] In the opening scene of the Barbie movie, listless little girls dressed as drab Dust Bowl mothers play at ironing as they tend plastic babies until a gigantic cosmic Barbie appears on the landscape in a vogue pose. Her presence inspires the girls to smash their dolls and cast off their pretend chores in a whirl of rageful frustration. While this scene spoofs 2001: A Space Odyssey, it unknowingly dramatizes an archetypal event in the collective American psyche. In 1959, the...

As Jung’s anthropological studies expanded and his international travel exposed him to new cultures and ideas, he was taken by the concept of ‘loss of soul.’  A collapse of energy, a strange sudden alteration of personality, or episodes of blinding rage could signify a loss of soul from a shamanic perspective. The soul carries the animating and regulating forces as well as memory. In most traditions, it was expected to fly away upon death, much like the Egyptian Ba, depicted as a bird with a...

Sharon Blackie calls us to the ancient archetype of the Hag as a figure of unapologetic emergence from cultural pressures that lock us into outworn roles and limiting beliefs.  Drawing upon her transformative experiences in menopause Blackie grounds the mythic figure of the old woman who fashioned the world in her fierce determination to dissolve and reconfigure her professional and personal life. Identifying and rejecting cultural pressures to look and act a certain way as she ages, she...

The essence of friendship is visible in its linguistic root: ‘to love.’ Cicero wrote, “Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief." In modern times the art of friending seems lost. We have replaced shared experiences with Facebook posts and quell our loneliness by scrolling.  With high spirits, we three revisit our first meeting and reflect on the discovery of kinship between us. Our experiences of trust, reciprocity, and shared...

Imposter syndrome constellates the gut-wrenching fear of being exposed as a fraud no matter how much we have learned or the successes we have demonstrated. In 1978 two researchers identified and explored a painful phenomenon among some high-achieving women. Despite their high levels of success, they were convinced they were not as competent, intelligent, or skilled as others might think. Instead of identifying with their capabilities, they often attributed their success to luck, personal...

The uses and abuses of ChatGPT artificial intelligence language model have taken the collective imagination by storm. Apocalyptic predictions of the singularity, when technology becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, frighten us as we imagine a future where human intelligence is irrelevant. Prof. Michael Littman joins us to contextualize the advancement of artificial intelligence and debunk the paranoid rhetoric littering the public discourse. Michael has made groundbreaking research...

"Death of the Great Man" by Dr. Peter D. Kramer offers a glimpse into the character disordered alpha narcissist. It is more than a satirical political commentary on Donald Trump. It points us to a broader discourse on power dynamics in the collective psyche, the potential for authority to corrupt our humanity and the dangerous ways we escape from freedom by surrendering self-responsibility.   The unique blend of psychiatric insight and literary narrative brings an unusual depth to the work....