Spiritual · Archetypal · Mythological
“Were it not for the leaping and twinkling of the soul, man would rot away in his greatest passion, idleness.”
―C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
Spiritual, Archetypal, and Mythological Realms
…interweave throughout human experience. Archetypes arise repeatedly through fairy tales, mythologies, and even tarot cards, such as The Crone, The Wise Father, The Fool, and The Child. In mythologies such as the dark night of the Soul, or The Odyssey, an individual comes face to face with their own problems, known as their Shadow in Jungian circles. The journey becomes one of spiritual awakening as processing the painful roots of anxiety, depression, and repeating negative patterns unearths the buried treasure in the psyche. For each part of us that we hold in Shadow, energy for future growth can be harvested once we process the material into consciousness.
Persephone: This painting was created in response to an extended depression, metaphorically experienced as a journey through the underworld. The name of the piece came without having conscious awareness of whom Persephone was in mythology. Persephone is the goddess of the underworld, who undergoes transformation from an unknowing maiden, into a powerful deity through encounter with darkness.
Archetype of Persephone
Archetypal and Mythological Awareness
…create a sense of solidarity in experience, a feeling of being known, safety in the sense of the journey having been traveled before. Therapists trained in archetypal, or depth psychology can imbue the client’s fearful sense of aloneness and uncertainty with crucial meaningful interpretations and direction. Sometimes we all need to be reminded of our connection even to our own ancestry as intense experiences push us off-course and we lose our bearing.
“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.” C. G. Jung
For adults and children, Sandplay creates a space for the patient’s inner world to speak, as hands-on psychological work.
Sandplay: Sandplay Therapy is one more portal for accessing the unconscious. This tray was spontaneously made without any directive from the therapist. The constellation of 5-turtles in the center sends a powerful message, as the archetype of the number 5 carries meanings of independence, adventure, freedom, and reconciliation. The number 5 also represents the human Self, being a combination of the 2 arms plus 2 legs plus the head. The center of the sandtray is widely regarded as symbolic of the Self, and in this, the 5-turtles represent a groundedness in earth and instinct, perhaps in a mothering of the Self.
Sandplay Example
Archetypal Presences in Life
Whenever we have an overwhelmingly one-sided view, we know we are in the grip of an archetype. This carries with it an association with the realm of the divine, for only gods and goddesses contain such pureness. Humanizing one-sidedness is one of the tasks of depth therapy. Once we realize the imperfections and inconsistencies of ourselves and others, we withdraw the one-sided projections we placed onto others, recognizing our own Shadow material in the process. Because pain is inevitably involved in the releasing process, depth therapy is for seekers and people who want to deeply explore their wounds.
Symbol Making
…allows the unconscious to have a voice in the process. This image began with a rose petal taken by a client from the funeral of a young mother. The client glued the dried flower onto a metal disk and brought it into therapy. The therapist’s awareness of synchronicity and of Jung’s association of the rose being “the lotus of the East” led the client to grieve other unresolved losses bubbling underneath the pain of the funeral. The completion of the work was the painting of a sun-like figure over the flower mandala. Although association to The Sun on its own can be an archetypal inflation, in this case the juxtaposition signified illumination of a previously unconscious need to grieve resulting in positive energy for growth. Self-knowing can be a painful process, and in this case it reinitiated a prematurely-deserted grieving process. Once complete, it became in service to relieving a prolonged depression.
“[R]eal liberation comes not from glossing over or repressing painful states of feeling, but only from experiencing them to the full.… By accepting the darkness, the patient has not, to be sure, changed it into light, but she has kindled a light that illuminates the darkness within. By day no light is needed, and if you don’t know it is night you won’t light one, nor will any light be lit for you unless you have suffered the horror of darkness.”
―C.G. Jung, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
“By refusing to allow the grief work that would make mourning creative, dissociation sets up a repetitive state of despair that devours itself, takes on a life of its own, and leads back to itself ’eternally,’ leaving the soul in permanent alienated captivity.” (Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma)
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• Jungian Perspective on the Tarot (Level 2), Ken James; C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
• Religions Nature of the Psyche, Lori Tyler; C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles
• Fairy Tales in Jungian Work, Marlene Frantz; C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles
• Sandplay: Archetypes and the Transcendent Function, Shannon Yockey; C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles
• Jung'sTypology, Steven Galipeau; C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles
• Endurance, Transformation and the Power of the Imagination: A Weeklong Seminar, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Donald Kalsched, Connie Zweig, Ashok Bedi, Sylvia Brinton Perera, Monika Wikman, Thomas Elsner; NY Center for Jungian Studies