If the “outside,” as we in modern western cultures generally consider the physical world, is manifesting rather worrisome phenomena in the form of conflict, destruction of nature and home places, and racial and income inequality, we can draw a connection from what is occurring in the physical world to what must be occurring on an inner level, and therefore witness symptoms in the psychological realm as well. The physical symptoms that are manifesting lie within a larger set of underlying issues, which, in turn, are psychological symptoms of an even larger and more fundamental issue: the sense of separation and […]
Continue reading »Author: Bonnie Bright, Ph.D.
Bonnie Bright, Ph.D. holds M.A. degrees in Psychology from Sonoma State University and Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, where she also completed her doctorate. She is a certified Archetypal Pattern Analyst™ and Transpersonal Soul-Centered Coach, using Somatic, Symbolic, and Shamanic perspectives to guide clients through spiritual awakening, integrate mystical experiences, and overcome creative blockages. She founded the Institute for Soul-Centered Psychology and Coaching™ in 2020.
Bonnie is accredited through the International Association of Coaches, Therapists, & Mentors (IACTM) and has extensive training in dream work, Holotropic Breathwork, and the Enneagram. She also completed a 2-year training in Indigenous African Spiritual Technologies with elder Malidoma Somé, has lived with indigenous Shipibo people in Peru as part of a shamanic initiation to learn medicine and healing modalities , and has worked with shamans and healers in the Africa, and North and South America.
In 2010, she founded Depth Psychology Alliance™, an online organization with over 5,500 members, and served as Executive Editor of Depth Insights™ journal for six years. Bonnie is the editor of "Earth, Climate, Dreams: Dialogues with Depth Psychologists in the Age of the Anthropocene" (2019) and "Depth Psychology and the Digital Age" (2016). Her journey into soul-centered work began with a mystical experience in 2006, which continues to inform her daily quest for awakening and helping others find their own path to soul.
Archetypal Aspects of Home
“Home” is a word weighted with affect and associated with rootedness, attachment, belonging, shelter, refuge, comfort, and identity. When our relationship to “home” is considered in the context of depth psychology, the study of the unconscious pioneered by Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung among others, it stands to reason that our individual notions of “home” may impact us rather profoundly. A severed connection with “home,” particularly with the earth that supports and nurtures us, produces physical, emotional, and psychological implications. That is to say, the lack of a connection with a “home” that offers us a sense of psychological […]
Continue reading »How Many Climate Scientists Does It Take?–Media, Perception, and Soul Loss
American psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton identifies our very human tendency to ignore difficult realities and overwrite them with thoughts and beliefs that are more palatable as “psychic numbing.” This allows our ego to distract itself enough that it doesn’t have to engage with inner and outer voices and images and movements that go beyond the mainstream consciousness (in Shulman-Lorenz & Watkins, Toward Psychologies of Liberation). When we witness instances of ecocide (ecological suicide) in the world around us, take note of how wasteful and damaging our consumer-oriented culture has become, or are faced with dire news about how climate change […]
Continue reading »Regarding Change: Holding the Tension Even When it Hurts
When challenges arise for each of us, it is easier to turn to denial or distraction rather than holding the tension of what’s arising long enough to allow the self-regulating function of the psyche to take over. C.G. Jung suggested that the opposing attitudes of the ego (which gets us through some tight spots, usually by choosing the path of least resistance) and the unconscious or greater “Self” (which has our personal growth and spiritual awakening at heart) can be mitigated and even transcended if we are willing to regard the reality of our struggle and hold the tension long enough […]
Continue reading »C.G. Jung: His Role in Depth Psychology
In honor of what would have been Jung’s 138th birthday, July 26, I’m sharing an excerpt from my essay on Jung’s role in Depth Psychology, “Occupy Psyche: Deconstructing the Jungian Shadow in Depth Psychology,” published in Occupy Psyche: Jungian and Archetypal Perspectives on a Movement (2012, Eds. Jordan Shapiro and Roxanne Partridge). The essay takes a look at how Jungian psychology relates to depth psychology and examines the influence of the larger-than-life persona of Jung on many of us who feel profoundly impacted by his work. It also cautions us, by the way, to regard the shadow cast by the legend Jung has truly […]
Continue reading »EcoApathy and Ecospychopathy: Opposite ends of a Dangerous Spectrum
Where does YOUR garbage go when you throw it “away”? Many societies have collapsed en masse over the course of human history due to over-consumption and extreme detrimental impact on the environment and ecosystems that supported them. However, the combination of our persistent unconscious and unchecked rates of consumption stemming from a rapidly growing population, our seeming lack of capacity to feel and respond to the need for balance in relationship to the planet, and our rampant exploitation of nature is alarming. It appears that never before have we had such a lethal combination in concert with such pervasive emotional, […]
Continue reading »Seeing the Shadow—The Importance of Depth Psychology in Leadership: An Interview with David A. Laveman & Bonnie Bright for Depth Insights™
In this written interview, Depth Insights™ host Bonnie Bright interviews David A. Laveman, who brings depth psychology insights into the business world to help executives and organizations to raise the bar on performance and deliver breakthrough business results. Here Dave shares how depth psychology plays a role in leadership, a critical aspect inside and outside the corporate world today. BB: Why is Leadership an area that Depth Psychology should care about? DAL: The answer is fairly practical. It begins by looking squarely at the conditions we live in as part of a global economy and international community. These conditions – broadly characterized […]
Continue reading »Holding the Opposites, Grounding in Earth to Cope with Difficult Times
When we are not grounded, not connected to our roots, terrible psychic issues occur, which lead to feelings of intense fear and anxiety, suggests Jungian analyst Judith Harris, in her book Jung and Yoga: The Psyche Body Connection. She quotes C. G. Jung, who, in his complex work, Mysterium Coniunctionus, establishes that the element of earth holds the exact central point between the tensions of two opposites. Grounding oneself in the earth results in feeling held by the archetypal Great Mother, rendering one nourished, nurtured, and whole. The center is the eternal, Harris states, and all that is contained within it is […]
Continue reading »Making a Masterpiece of Your Life: Summary of a Teleseminar by Thomas Moore
“To the soul, the most minute details and the most ordinary activities, carried out with mindfulness and art, have an effect far beyond their apparent insignificance.” —Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life Recently I had the chance to tune into a free teleseminar with author, religious scholar, professor and lecturer Thomas Moore of the book, Care of the Soul, fame. The teleseminar focused on how to make a masterpiece of your life. According to Moore, the word “masterpiece” harkens back to Renaissance, which he’s been studying for thirty years or so. It offers up beauty […]
Continue reading »The Myths of Mary Magdalene: An Interview with Kayleen Asbo & Bonnie Bright for Depth Insights™
In this written interview, Depth Insights host Bonnie Bright interviews Kayleen Asbo, cultural historian, musician, writer, and teacher on the topic of “The Myths of Mary Magdalene,” also the title of her upcoming webinar series. The first of that series, “The Many Faces of Mary Magdalene” is free to the public (must register to join) and takes place May 1, 2013, at 7pm PT. BB: How did you get interested in Mary Magadelene, and where did you begin your research? KA: My first memory of Mary Magdalene is as a five year old little girl, crying at the song “I […]
Continue reading »Nature Has No “Outside:” Navigating the Ecological Self
Nature Has No “Outside:” Navigating the Ecological Self “Spirit is the inside of things and matter is their visible outer aspect” (C.G. Jung, in Sabini, 2005, p. 2). “I can only gaze with wonder and awe at the depths of and heights of our psychic nature. Its non-spatial universe conceals an untold abundance of images which have accumulated over millions of years of living development and become fixed in the organism….Beside this picture I would like to place the spectacle of the starry heavens at night, for the only equivalent of the universe within is the universe without; and just […]
Continue reading »Working with Dreams: Depth Psychology Techniques of Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman
Working with Dreams: Depth Psychology Techniques of Carl Gustav Jung and James Hillman Dream work is ancient, it’s long tradition evidenced in the temples of Asclepius in Greece where individuals went to be healed through their dreams. Dreams have been an important aspect of many spiritual traditions, and even Freud considered the study of dreams to be his most important work. There are many methods of dream analysis. When working with dreams, it can be helpful to intentionally assess them from various aspects, including mythical, archetypal, alchemical, and collective, and to pay attention to which resonate most strongly emotionally and […]
Continue reading »Memory, Place and Story: How Connection to Land Connects us to Self
Some would argue our contemporary consumer-based, productivity-oriented culture contributes to a collective loss of memory—done of being connected to something larger than our everyday selves. As a society, we have become dislocated in time and disconnected from place, leaving us rootless, transient, and opting for sensationalism instead of spirituality; superficiality instead of soul. So much of this malady is due to our disconnect from nature, our bodies, and earth itself. We are no longer grounded in something real that gives us context to understand how our lives play out in a fabric of being, a pattern in living nature with […]
Continue reading »Ecopsychopathy and Sustainability: The End of Life as We Know It
What is Ecopsychopathy and What are the Implications to our Culture? In a recent blogpost, I wrote some introductory thoughts about what I’m calling “Culture Collapse Disorder,” an eco-psycho-pathological disorder in which human-made stressors stemming from culture and development (and their correlating underlying connected psychological issues) are causing a drastic systemic imbalance, manifest by a critical rise in adverse conditions for earth and its inhabitants. In short, the way of life most of us are living in modern consumer culture is simply not sustainable and the symptoms and resulting suffering […]
Continue reading »Culture Collapse Disorder: Can Depth Psychology Help Us Cope?
Earth’s inhabitants are in peril largely of our own making. We are, consciously or unconsciously, systematically destroying the our homeplaces, habitats, ecosystems, and above all, the only home we collectively know: Earth. Reports are emerging daily about the implications of human impact on our environment, presenting dire warnings about pollution, urban development, greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, natural disasters, and displacement. The tally of global losses grows daily as we perpetrate ecological destruction through our relentless consumption of the earth’s dwindling resources; through rampant use of toxins, chemicals, and pesticides; and through deforestation, erosion, and devastation of natural ecosystems, wetlands, […]
Continue reading »Ensoulment and Synchronicity: Concepts from “Cosmos and Psyche” by Richard Tarnas
Ensoulment and Synchronicity: Concepts from Cosmos and Psyche by Richard Tarnas In his 2006 book Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, Rick Tarnas suggests that the western mind has catapulted us away from a fundamental cosmos where everything was ensouled, alive, and animated by meaning and archetype. Our modern mindset is, instead, to attempt to control and manipulate our environment, making us the active subject in any interaction, and the things we see around us the passive object. Tarnas suggests “disenchantment” refers to the way the world is objectified, thereby denying subjectivity. “Objectification,” he contends, “denies to the world a subject’s […]
Continue reading »Engendering Innovation in Business, Organizations, and Individual LIfe: A Depth Psychological Approach
Everyone who’s interested in depth psychology knows that personal growth—what C.G. Jung called “individuation”—is a keystone of our existence in life. Learning to identify our shortcomings and places where we get “stuck” in patterns and processes that are not generative is a critical aspect. I switched career tracks when I “discovered” depth psychology several years ago, but I spent nearly 15 years of my life in the corporate world, observing how organizations can also “individuate” under the right leadership, especially when there is reflection on the archetypal (universal) patterns at play and understanding how to work with them. I […]
Continue reading »Rediscovering the Authentic Self: Jung’s Concept of Individuation in Depth Psychology
In his fascinating book, Coming to our Senses, historian and social critic Morris Berman introduces the terms alienation or confiscation as a “rupture in the continuum of life.” Alienation is experienced as the feeling of an abyss where a sense of self or self-identity is missing or where the self does not feel safe. Many psychologists have speculated that this abyss or gap in the experience of the self may be increased or intensified by a lack of positive mirroring in the infancy stage. Mirroring, which Berman defines as “the growth of self-recognition through the medium of other people” includes […]
Continue reading »On Magic, Shamanism, and Listening: The Collective Unconscious of C.G. Jung
“If we open our eyes, if we open our minds, if we open our hearts, will find that this world is a magical place. It is magical not because it tricks us or changes unexpectedly into something else, but because it can be so vividly and brilliantly.”–Chogyam Trungpa When I was a child, I longed for magic: actively, forcefully, wistfully. I spent thousands of hours reading books about witches and wizards and fairies and everyday objects endowed with supernatural powers, I read about kids who time-traveled or fell into other dimensions or discovered secret portals to other lives. I always […]
Continue reading »Are We Implicated?–A Depth Psychological and Cultural Take on the Fall of Lance Armstrong
I was out of town for a conference the weekend the two-part Lance Armstrong interview with Oprah broke and missed it entirely, but the fall-out is hard to miss. Normally I am a bit of a media addict, fascinated and equally reactive to what I consider to be a culture in decline, symptomatic even, of impending collapse. Our priorities seem so out of whack; our values in tatters, our goals absurd. I’m speaking for myself as well as the collective of course. Each of us is quite embedded in our values, beliefs, and behaviors–a result of our upbringing, education, […]
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