Reductive or synthetic interpretations

In psychotherapy, we use either the reductive or the synthetic approach to understanding the psyche.  The reductive approach tries to trace every symptom back to one's childhood which is helpful to some new clients who have not developed a strong ego.  The synthetic approach asks the question of why a particular experience develops now in this time in one's life.  Why this dream now, why this panic attack now, etc.  These questions serve to find the meaning in our lives hidden in our dreams, fantasies, and daily happenings which may appear in a symptom.  Freud believed that the unconscious held pathological energies while Jung believed that the unconscious was a self regulating system which attempted to bring us back in balance.  Often when a client is new to therapy work, reductive understanding are best but later, a synthetic approach helps the client assess the direction of his/her life.  Perhaps it is time for a change in life; perhaps the psyche is challenging one to reconsider or to change perspectives or develop a new world view.

Eros and Logos

Once again, I am reflecting on eros and logos:  masculine and feminine.  I have some confusion about these:  I know eros is about relating.  I get caught in the value of sharing my emotions with those I care about.  My dreams seem to be saying something to me about having too much feminine in my masculine, by that I mean still in the unconscious which means I still project too much feminine outside of me.  Lots to think about.

Terror images

For the last two nights, I have been plagued by terrorizing thoughts and images.  During my sleep, and naturally I woke up with these thoughts still assaulting me.  I was interested in how Jung would talk about what we have called the terrorist.  Pat turned to talking about the apocalypse and how images of the end of the world or drastic images of terror come about when the ego has too much control in the psyche and the Self wants to make itself more apparent.  Isn't that interesting?  I have been sitting with the awareness of how much I want to control things and how it is not really in my control.  Hence the images of terror.  Time to let go and let other forces take control.

Complex

Last night I was plagued by thoughts and feelings of being wrong.  A complex had been touched, and I was thrashing around in its contents.  As soon as I realize that a complex has been touched, the sooner I am out of the vortex of control.  Complexes get touched by daily events or daily interactions, and if I am not careful, I am in the midst of an emotional storm.  I have lost my perspective and I am saying and doing things that I have no interest in pursuing.  So last night was a struggle with sleeplessness and worry.  Now, I have a sense of what happened and I can be more at peace with the experience:  realize and learn from it rather than totally fusing with it.

New perspectives

We have just spent four days in Brattleboro, Vermont at the Assissi Institute.  It was different from what I am used to.  In my work here in Hartford, I am focusing on what the Self says to me via my dreams.  The goal is to be more in touch with what the Self (God) wants than what the ego needs.  The conference spent quite a bit of time on field theory, orients, and focusing on the meaning of the images we get.  I certainly agree that keeping as close to the image as possible is important rather than going directly to interpretation.  However, I didn't feel Jung much except in Pamela Donleavy's presentation.  There were references to physics, biology and the like, but I wasn't sure how that related to psyche.  I believe other fields complement psychology but I don't know that we have to ground ourselves in physics or biology to attend to the task that we have as psychologists.  I have lots to think about and assimilate as I try to find where I stand in relation to all that I know.

My dreams before I went involved new directions, new world views, and certainly the conference stimulated some thinking in that direction.

Peter Birkhauser

Quote from Peter Birkhauser:  “I experience a power within myself which is not the same as my conscious ego.  It has forced me to adopt a path quite foreign to my conscious attitude, a path which totally contradicted my will and everything I considered important.  Before I was able to obey this power, I first needed to be crushed and almost destroyed.  I often felt it was a pity this process had taken so long, but now, looking back over thousands of dreams and the sacrifices of a long, hard development, I can see how valuable the experience has been.”  (1975 in conversation with Dean Frantz)  This quote says it all for me.

For those who do not know this artist, he has some beautiful paintings which express the images from his deeper self.

Change is  hard.  Letting go of old friends, making new ones, changing my attitudes, my judgments, and my world view.  In the process of all these changes, my house shatters; my vision of myself is no longer the same.  And...now I must begin to rebuild a new house, a new attitude, adopt a new set of beliefs, and take another step in my new clothes and from my new house.  I feel tired today from all these changes.  Of all the people I know, change is hard for me.  It is exciting and new, that is for sure, but to rebuild myself again...today it seems like to big a job for me.  I discovered last night that I don't fight fair.  I guess I was still in the process of thinking that a fight is to be won:   not an educational experience where I might learn something new about myself and learn to listen in a new way.  At my age, fighting is not a worthy expenditure of time.  Listening and learning are valuable investments of my time.  I am not as insecure that I have to defend myself anymore:  my ego is strong enough for the learning that I need to do to happen.  So I am in the process of changing.  Who will reform out of these changes?  I can hardly wait to find out.

walking in a circle

I am still circumamulating around the tree in my moccasins reviewing all my individual parts.  Some parts of my personality need to quiet down and even go on vacation while other parts, I am inviting to take a more active part in my daily life.    I have been having lots of trouble with my iphone lately so I wonder if the communication between my consciousness and my unconsciousness is missing the mark.  It is difficult to translate the symbols in my dreams to the meaning they may have symbolically.  At this point in my life, I am aiming for a symbolic life.  Rather than taking my outer life and my inner life at face value, I am trying to get a sense of the meaning the images in my dreams may have.  Also difficulties in my outer life, I am attempting to understand symbolically.  This helps when I find myself projecting all over someone or something to step back and reflect on what meaning this has for me now.  At my age, I need to stay aware of how I project and take those projections back to me.

History

This blog is actually a continuation of my former blog which was trueerror.blogspot.com.  I am not certain how to make those changes available to other readers so this will have to do.  I am beginning anew on this blog.  My dream life has slowed down some, and I feel relieved because I was almost out of breath trying to catch up.  This breather is allowing me to be more aware of projections and to begin to take them back.  It is difficult to so so because my/all projections seem to be true.  And they might be:  as Jung says, unless there is a hook, the projection doesn't happen.  However, a projection is a chance for me to take it under advisement and find the part of me that is exactly like that.  My dream this morning allowed me to take a look at some parts of me that are very judgmental, and begin to take responsibility for them.  It may be time to let them go because they are not serving me well.

Possessing the animus

My latest thoughts have been concentrated around what it means to possess one's anima or animus.  In my case, it would be my animus, and that means becoming aware of my judgments, my opinions, and my strong views.  These may be places where my animus possesses me rather than my reflecting on my thoughts and discerning what to take seriously and what is either a projection or unproductive thinking.  My thoughts often take up a large part of my awareness, and my psyche is busy thinking up all kinds of things.  These thoughts are not always useful:  instead they may be dark thinking.

P.S.  I was blogging under trueerror @comcast.net, and so that blog no longer exists:  rather I will pick up here, and begin anew.