Individuation

Four Steps to Transformation in Jungian Psychology and Gnostic Alchemy

I have been doing some research into the Mysterium for our upcoming Jungian Mystery School this year on the theme of the Unus Mundus. This combined with some prior research I have done on the “Four Stages of Transformation”1 has allowed me to map the corresponding stages of the Mysterium Coniunctionis2 onto the four stages of depth psychology that Jung describes in an earlier text and onto the four stages of the Magnum Opus, i.e., the four stages of transubstantiation...

Symptom or Symbol?

Carl Gustav Jung makes a clear distinction between a symptom and a symbol.[1] In this post I explore the distinction, how we might distinguish between symptoms and symbols, and what the implications of this are for the daily practice of individuation. I am currently leading a group of students on a one hundred day practice of the Microcosmic Orbit meditation as given in the mystical Taoist text The Secret of the Golden Flower.[2] The text, specifically the...

Individuation as a daily practice and ethic

Individuation is the principal psychological and ethical imperative of Jungian psychology, and, in this respect, it goes well beyond a narrow clinical or pathological application. Although Jung was a psychiatrist, his research and work as a physician of the soul goes well beyond the crucible of analytical practice. Concern for the soul of the subject does not stop at dealing with mental disease or facilitating normal functional adaptation of the subject to the world. Whilst addressing the pandemic of mental...

The psychological practice of confession

This post deals with the topic of confession, its psychological and spiritual value, how to understand the idea and purpose of confession in the psychotherapeutic context and the importance of collective or objective context in the act of the confession. In addition to offering some background and theory on the act of confession, I will offer you some ways of thinking about why you might consider adopting it as a personal practice and a structure within which you can frame...

The Red Book (Liber Novus)

FINDING PHILEMON: A STUDY OF JUNG’S RED BOOK (LIBER NOVUS) Author:            Carl Gustav Jung Original title:   Liber Novus ("The New Book") Translator:      Mark Kyburz, John Peck, Sonu Shamdasani Publisher:        Philemon Foundation and W. W. Norton & Co. Publication date: 2009 Pages   404 ISBN    978-0-393-06567-1 OCLC   317919484 Dewey Decimal 150.19/54 22 LC Class           BF109.J8 A3 2009

Synopsis

By Shane Eynon, PhD Centre for Applied Jungian Studies

Part I - Background

The ‘Red Book’ is a red leather‐bound folio manuscript crafted by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung between 1915 and about 1930. It recounts and comments upon...

Michael

Michael Eblen Farah my brother, died on the 4th of June this year, 2019.[1] Whilst a shock, his death was not entirely unexpected. He had a high risk of mortality at the time of his death and in the two or three years preceding it. He battled his entire adult life with depression and generalised anxiety disorder; and, few years ago, was also diagnosed with adult ADHD, which was certainly consistent with his behaviour and lifestyle. These issues,...

The Individuating Aspects of Physical Disability

My name is Ryan Adamczyk. I've been living in Charlotte North Carolina for 7 years and work as a mental health therapist. I graduated with my Master's degree in Counseling Psychology from the Adler School of Professional Psychology in April of 2010 and earned in my PhD. in Depth Psychology in June of 2018. For more information about my therapy practice follow this link.

Introduction

Life is full of opportunities to walk the path of individuation. In Archetypes and the Collective...

Confession

Secrets or inhibited emotions, analogous to repressed sins that lead to neuroses, must be confessed to enable the patient to regain his wholeness.[1] As you stand on the threshold of a new year[2] there exists, at least symbolically, the opportunity for renewal. A renewal of desires and ideals. An opportunity, modest as it may be, to reimagine yourself. To put this in the Jungian lexicon, an opportunity for soul retrieval. A fancy way of saying, a chance...

The role of problems in the individuation process

I have been a student of Jungian psychology for two decades. My field of study, in addition to Jung’s primary texts, the Collected Works, included other pioneers of depth psychology: Freud, of course, Adler, Lacan, Klein and Fordham, among others. I have also studied a vast amount of the secondary literature. I have during that time, in the spirit imparted to me by my first Jungian mentor, Châtillon Coque, actively applied the Jungian principles or theoria[1], in the pursuit...

Love me, so that I can love myself: A Western identity crisis

I recently watched a thought provoking TED Talk by Yann Dall’Aglio, a French philosopher. His talk was about the current Western approach to love. There is no doubt that we all want to be loved, not only romantically, but also by family, friends and peers. Yann makes compelling observations about the way this “desire to be loved” has impacted on modern Western society, and that it is not necessarily in a positive way; in fact he reveals a rather disturbing and...