Have you ever met one of those couples, where the one is just perfect and fantastic and their partner is a walking disaster? One is incompetent, inappropriate, a total bitch or bastard, etc. Yet their partner is charismatic, socially skilled, an all round good person. And you think to yourself what on earth is he doing with her (or vice versa). Whilst I was doing research on Persona, I came across a story told by Jung which illustrates this very well. […]...
This a guest blog from Lorís Simón Salum, the creator and director of the multi award winning documentary Ensoulment, which we screened in Johannesburg and Cape Town during April 2015. You can visit the website www.ensoulmentfilm.com for more information on the movie. A Message from Lorís Simón Salum Even though there might not be anything left to be said about my 21-22 year old self after you watch Ensoulment, there is one thing I rarely speak...
This is the second part of two posts on the Classic version of Jung’s Anima and Animus theory in which I condense the information from Marie-Louise von Franz’s book Anima and Animus in Fairy Tales [1]. This post focuses on the malevolent, destructive, dysfunctional Anima and how that affects a man and also attempts to address the approach to take in order to integrate the Anima and thus render her benevolent and constructive. In the classic version of Jungian psychology, the...
In preparation for our Anima and Animus Module on the Conscious Living Programme, I re-read Marie Louise von Franz book “Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales”[1]. Whilst it is a fascinating read, I can’t say that I enjoy reading her, since her writing style is very difficult to follow. I decided to extract the invaluable information from “Animus and Anima in Fairy Tales” into two concise posts that explains the process of integrating the Animus and Anima. This...
One of the most interesting and provocative archetypes we encounter in Jungian Psychology is that of the Anima and Animus. The Anima/Animus relates to our inner or soul life. Not soul as understood in metaphysical terms as something which lives on beyond our physical existence but rather soul as in the inner force that animates us. These soul definitions stem from a time, when Jung was doing this work, where the gender roles were more traditionally and clearly differentiated. So some...
Tasha Tollman reviews an Introduction to Jungian Psychology. In Introducing Jungian Psychology, Dr Robertson provides the reader with the overall feel of Jungian psychology, sketching out a basic outline of the concepts and providing modern day examples.The book introduces the concepts of conscious, personal unconscious and collective unconscious as Roberston unpacks the structure and dynamics of the psyche; the meaning of dreams; personality types and archetypes before presenting Jung’s more abstract concepts about the processes that interact as one struggles...
At the very heart of psychoanalysis is the issue of transference- counter transference. Transference is a technical term describing a somewhat mysterious phenomenon that occurs when the patient 'transfers' their relationship with one or both of their parents onto the psychoanalyst. We are dealing with this topic in the November Foundation Module, and I want to share just a little about it with you. When we say they 'transfer' this relationship, what is meant is that, this is done unconsciously. On...
