Stephen Farah, Author at Applied Jung

What Story are You Telling (?): a Peek Behind the Scenes of Personal Narratives.

I want to share an exercise with you that I have found to be quite illuminating.[1] This exercise, seemingly very simple (almost simplistic), provides a powerful tool to examine the nature of the story you are telling. This exercise can help you to: Locate yourself and your narrative. Discover what archetype/s you are constellating in your personal narrative. Better understand what it means (i.e. how it feels and influences) to constellate an archetype in your narrative and sense of identity. Perhaps most importantly...

February 4, 2013

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Jungian Themes, Narrative Analysis, Practicallyindividuation, meaning, personal narratives, stories6 Comments

The Master: sex, love and scientology

I recently watched the film The Master, a the second time with Anja (the love of my life). [1] It is an exceptional movie, well worth a second viewing. The first time I saw it what captured me were the outstanding performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. The film and the acting have been received with widespread critical acclaim and the biggest opening day ticket sale revenue of an art house film in the States. I would say the performance...

January 3, 2013

By Stephen FarahBook and Movie Reviews, Individuation, Jungian Themesfilm, individuation, love, relationships2 Comments

This Meaning Making Business

Anja is currently reading Les Lancaster’s Approaches to Consciousness[1] and she told me that, according to Les, we have all been “Jewish-ified” :-)[2]. This idea is based on a claim that in bringing psychoanalysis to the world, Freud was really re-imagining the Jewish tradition of the spoken Torah. As I understand it, the Rabbi’s business was (is) not only the transmission of teaching contained in the Torah, but also an ongoing exposition of his dialectical...

November 23, 2012

By Stephen FarahConsciousness, Jungian ThemesFreud, individuation, meaning2 Comments

Man on Wire: Living without a Safety Net

I had the opportunity recently of watching the documentary Man on Wire[1]. This was actually the second time I got to watch this, the first time I saw it was a couple of years ago, when it first came out. To the best of my knowledge, this is the same team that gave us Searching for Sugarman. In Man on Wire, as with Sugarman, what emerges is the story of an extraordinary life; a life which inspires...

October 15, 2012

By Stephen FarahBook and Movie Reviews, Individuation, Jungian Themesindividuation, meaning4 Comments

Searching for Sugarman: a study of the Individuation Process

Sugar man met a false friend On a lonely dusty road Lost my heart when I found it It had turned to dead black coal Silver magic ships you carry Jumpers, coke, sweet Mary Jane Sugar man you're the answer That makes my questions disappear Sugar man 'cos I'm weary Of those double games I hear Sugar man, Sugar man, Sugar man, Sugar man, Sugar man, Sugar man, Sugar man Sugar man, won't you hurry 'Cos I'm tired of these scenes For the blue coin won't you bring back All those colors to...

September 27, 2012

By Stephen FarahBook and Movie Reviews, Individuation, Jungian Themesindividuation, Jung, meaning18 Comments

A Roadmap of the Soul

Although not our natural state, I believe in the possibility of a truly meaningful and fulfilled life. A life lived with a sense of profound excitement and awe; a life where the depth, complexity and beauty of the cosmos live in us. I don’t suggest that suffering is not a reality, or that I have personally reached such an elevated state of consciousness. I suggest rather, that much suffering we do endure is illegitimate and that: a meaningless existence, boredom, lack of purpose, a...

September 4, 2012

By Stephen FarahJungian Themes, Symbolscomplex, consciousness, Freud, individuation, Jung, meaning1 Comment

The Myth of the Sexually Aggressive Male

We are all familiar with the conventional ideology of the sexually aggressive dominant man and his sexually submissive female counterpart. Naturally in contemporary western society this ideology has been challenged. How successful such a challenge has been is open to debate. The purpose of this post though is to explore this contemporary ideology on the assumption that it remains for the most part paradigmatic. I had the opportunity recently to attend a public debate presented by the Wits Centre for...

July 27, 2012

By Stephen FarahMyth, Philosophicallygender, prostitution, sex4 Comments

The Primal Scene in the 21st Century is about Money not Sex

The idea of the Primal Scene was given to psychology and 20th Century Culture by Sigmund Freud the father of Psychoanalysis[1]. The Primal Scene is the first time you discovered your parents having sex and understood what you are seeing, hearing or becoming aware of in any other form, even if just through your intuition. The idea here is that sex, certainly at the time Freud was writing but even today, although possibly less so, was a taboo...

July 12, 2012

By Stephen FarahArchetypes, Jungian Themesmoney, primal scene, sex7 Comments

Let’s talk about Sex baby, let’s talk about You and Me.

This is a topic I have given some thought to; more than most probably, not as much as some. I have wanted to write about it for some time, but some vague sense of respectability and Puritanism has stayed my hand. Anyway after Anja hit the ball out the ballpark with her last post, I thought what the hell- I’ll up the ante (no pun intended). The Tension of Opposites Sex is possibly the perfect metaphor for the opposites we carry...

June 27, 2012

By Stephen FarahIndividuation, Practicallyindividuation, sex12 Comments

Consciousness and Freedom: Jung, Sartre, Steiner.

Freedom, that is the idea of freedom, the possibility of freedom, is a topic which strikes me as worth considering. It is, after all, arguably, the most important question philosophy can ask; and a defining parameter in our understanding of what it means to be a human being. The question simply put is this: Can an individual make choices which are not wholly determined by a prior casual chain? Is it possible, like Kant’s hypothetical God, to initiate a first act, an...

June 9, 2012

By Stephen FarahConsciousness, Philosophicallyconsciousness, Jung, radical freedom, Sartre, Steiner9 Comments

Author - Stephen Farah