C.G. Jung believed that deep within each psyche, there is an inner other, an opposite sex spirit that stands between the ego and the archetypal unconscious. He called this entity the anima for men or animus for women (Stein, 1998). To illustrate opposing and dynamic features of the psyche I now invoke the Roman god Janus, as the ancients did,...
Social media has increased global connectivity and created a super social online world. However, while technology has increased the speed and volume of communication, it has also compressed personal and interpersonal expression. Images are flattened by screens and writing is abbreviated by character limits. Forced brevity diminishes nuance and creates a condition for increased polarization. Being hyper social is not...
Attachment theory, notably established by John Bowlby and further developed through object relations psychology, by Donald Winnicott and others, revealed that an infant’s sense of security and developmentally increasing ability to self-regulate originates in a secure bond with their primary caregiver. These theories posit that if secure attachment is established and sustained from the beginning of a child’s life, it...
Below ordinary awareness, held within personal and collective layers of the unconscious, there is a psychic reservoir of dormant, forgotten, repressed, and yet revealed images and beliefs. One might imagine the unconscious as a deep, dark caldron containing a mysterious brew with swirling bits of stories, scripts, and symbols that originate from past and present lived experiences, cultural norms and...
“Mythology is a psychology of antiquity. Psychology is a mythology of modernity.” (Hillman, The Dream and The Underworld, 1979, p. 23) In the classical Greek myth of Eros and Psyche (Apuleius, 2nd century), Psyche- ‘Soul,’ a beautiful young maiden, attracts popular adoration and worship and thereby also attracts the ire of the goddess of beauty, Aphrodite-Venus, who is bitter that devotion...
In the Sumerian myth of Inanna’s Descent (c. 4000 BCE – c. 3100 BCE), the goddess of love and war goes below ground to the Underworld to visit her sister – or shadow aspect – the dark goddess, Ereshkigal. As she descends, she discards the objects and ornaments of her authority. She is then flayed, and her skin is hung...
“Culture is its own limitation. Culture represents a particular adaptation, a particular level of psychological maturity. What happens when the capacity of the individual to expand the framework exceeds the cultural capacity? The two come into conflict. Where the individual potential for development exceeds the cultural limit the need for new meaning erupts.” (D. Stephenson Bond, 1993, Living Myth, p....
The first myths were passed orally, from generation to generation, and visually, painted onto cave walls. Prehistoric myths conveyed essential ancestral guidance for surviving hunter-gatherer lifestyles that followed the seasonal migrations of animal herds and wild vegetal food sources. Fascination with life’s processes of birth, death, and reincarnation – the Great Mysteries – developed into primary mythic themes. These stories...
“Loss and grief are initiations into a changed landscape, reminding us that everything is passing. By dying before we die, we are able to accept this fact and embrace this amazing chance we have to be alive.” (Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow, 2015, p. 124) I have been thrice initiated into the Mystery of Death through the losses of...