Category: Carl Jung

Leaning into Your Soul’s Calling: Self-Discovery and Your Inner Essence

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listen to the call of your soul

For millennia, wisdom traditions have beckoned us to pause, reflect, and delve into the deeper questions that govern our lives. In today’s fast-paced world, where the external often takes precedence over the internal, the concept of leaning into your soul’s calling offers a powerful path to rediscovering what truly makes meaning in life. This short article is inspired by a fireside talk I delivered on New Year’s Eve 2020, where I had the privilege of exploring these profound themes with a live audience whom I invited to consider one of C.G. Jung’s most essential inquiries: “The decisive question for man […]

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Shamanic Initiation, Descent, and Learning through Direct Experience of the Sacred

Shamanic initiation is a metaphor for the way we can take a soul-centered approach to life's challenges

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION VIA YOUTUBE HERE (approx 7 mins) A common and compelling component of both shamanism and Jungian or depth psychology is that each seeks to treat soul loss by retrieving and reintegrating vital essence that is missing. This must occur through direct experience; therefore, the underworld journey to retrieve the soul is one of necessity and initiation. Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung believed symptoms of soul loss, such as disorientation, lack of focus, or feelings of powerlessness, exist because a portion of psychic energy that is normally available to the ego has vanished into the unconscious; […]

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Coming Home to Your Self: Depth Psychology and the Symbolic Life

Learn about the 3-day Coming Home event, Jan. 16-19, 2020 Read the post below, or listen to an Audio version on YouTube by clicking the following image As spiritual beings having a human experience, each of us longs for meaning. “Humans are living stories, each imbued with an inherent message and a meaning trying to find its way into the world,” writes mythologist Michael Meade. However, without a sense of calling or capacity to live into the unique gifts we each possess, we can feel ourselves lost, alone, depressed, or despairing, not knowing how we belong in the world.  On […]

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Transpersonal Coaching Psychology: Bonnie Bright PhD Interviewed by Olga Ferreras

Bonnie Bright interviewed by Olga Ferreras about Transpersonal Coaching Psychology

As a certified Transpersonal Soul-Centered Coach and Mentor who uses archetypal, shamanic and and depth psychological perspectives, I am passionate about helping clients navigate the process of spiritual awakening through dreams, imagination, and somatic sensibilities. People I meet in my work are seeking a variety of creative solutions to help integrate psychedelic, breathwork, or meditative experiences; to move through creative blockages and limiting beliefs; to make (or deal with) significant life changes; and to open their lives to joy and transcendence. Huge thanks to Olga Ferreras for interviewing me about transpersonal soul-centered coaching here! Check out this relatively short (22 […]

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On Transpersonal Psychology: Science, Consciousness, Spirituality—Interview with Les Lancaster

LISTEN to the full interview with Les Lancaster here (approx. 35 mins) Though Les Lancaster has a long history as a neuroscientist, he has always been fascinated by mysticism and spirituality. He ultimately found a way to bring his two passions together through the field of Transpersonal Psychology, and currently serves as the Founding Director of The Alef Trust, an online graduate school offering transformational programmes and open learning courses for in consciousness, spirituality, and transpersonal psychology. Transpersonal Psychology is interested in what goes beyond on that small part of ourselves that we know as the “ego,” notes Lancaster. So […]

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Trauma, Transcendence, and Jung’s Notion of the Psychoid—Interview with Ann Belford Ulanov

Jungian analyst, Ann Belford Ulanov’s most recent book, The Psychoid, Soul and Psyche: Piercing Space-Time Barriers, explores Carl Gustav Jung’s concept of the “psychoid.” “Psychoid refers to unconscious processes that are unrepresentable in word or image,” Ulanov says. “We live them, but we don’t know about them. And they can make us feel mad, not angry, but crazy, and I believe they can also be a third source of healing.” Jung described the unus mundus, or “one world,” as more than psychological. It also has social, international, environmental, chemical, and cosmological properties. Ulanov is interested in the effects of experiencing the unus mundus, […]

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Encountering Sabina Spielrein: Forging Paths To and Through Powerful Women in Depth Psychology

In 2011, Sabina Spielrein became something of a household name due to the debut of a mainstream film called A Dangerous Method, starring well-known actors including Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, and Viggo Mortensen. The film purported to tell the story of Sabina Spielrein, a young woman psychiatric patient and acquaintance of the infamous doctors Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud, pioneers of the modern psychoanalytical and depth psychology movements. When Angela Sells, who earned her degree in mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, first heard of Spielrein in a class at Pacifica, something about Sabina captured her imagination. She began to research Spielrein’s life […]

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Archetypal Reflections: Dr. Keiron Le Grice on Jungian and Depth Psychologies

C.G. Jung contended that our personalities are made up of a multitude of archetypes, Dr. Keiron Le Grice, Chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies program at Pacifica Graduate Institute, reminded me when he recently sat down with me to share his insights into the field of depth psychology.  Each archetype asserts its own aims, moods, and ideas on our personalities, influencing our lives on a day-to-day basis. Jungian and depth psychologies, by aiming to make what is unconscious conscious, offer an entrance point into recognizing and understanding the various deep forces that move through us from one day to […]

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Yoga Meets Depth Psychology: Union, Consciousness, Healing

“The body is merely the visibility of the soul, the psyche; and the soul is the psychological experience of the body” —C.G. Jung “Yoga is most often understood as the union of the individual with the transcendental self, with what Jung terms the Self.” —Judith Mills   In recent years, the practice of yoga has made headlines in the mainstream media as parents in U.S. school districts challenged its inclusion in the curriculum at public schools, insisting it amounts to religious indoctrination and that it violates religious freedom.[1] In the U.S. today, while mainstream yoga is largely focused on physical poses and […]

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The Genius Myth: An Interview with Storyteller and Author, Michael Meade

When Michael Meade was thirteen, his aunt, seemingly by accident, bought him a book of mythology for his birthday. Though he felt profoundly aligned with the book and stayed up all night reading it, it would take another 20 years before it became evident it was his path in life, guiding him to his current calling as a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar in mythology and depth psychology. “The soul’s way of being is unique to each person,” Meade wrote in his acclaimed book, Why The World Doesn’t End. “It was seeded and sown within each of us from the beginning […]

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The C.G. Jung—Erich Neumann Connection: An Interview with Dr. Lance Owens

Dr. Lance Owens has dedicated the past thirty or more years of his life to studying C.G. Jung, whose willingness to engage with and understand his visionary experiences has transformed so many lives. Owens has also recently become profoundly interested in the life and work of Erich Neumann, who was arguably one of Jung’s most gifted students, and who eventually became a close friend of Jung’s. Through the influence of Jung, Neumann made his own creative and compelling contributions to the field of depth psychology through works such as The Great Mother (1955), The Origins and History of Consciousness (1954), and Depth Psychology and a […]

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The Therapy Room and the Interactive Field: Dr. Joseph Cambray on Becoming a Supervisor in Depth

Psychotherapy is pervasive in contemporary culture. Even if you’re not a therapist yourself, if you’re taking the time to read this post, chances are good that either you or someone close to you has been involved in therapy at some point in their lives. And, while you may feel you have a good understanding of what happens in the therapy room, there may be more than meets the eye. Do you ever wonder, for example, what has to occur in the therapeutic process so that the basic experience is what it needs to be for both the client and the […]

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Alchemical Active Imagination: Interview with Jungian Analyst Tom Elsner

Listen to the full interview with Tom here Watch the full interview here The brilliant use of alchemy as a symbolic language and process for psychological and spiritual development is arguably one of C. G. Jung’s greatest contributions to the field of depth psychology. While alchemy may appear to be a mystical—and mysterious—domain, Jung developed a powerful and inspired method for accessing it by entering into dialogue with the rich manifestations of the unconscious and applying it to our daily lives for transformation and growth. “True knowledge of oneself is the knowledge of the objective psyche as it manifests in […]

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Jung, Individuation, and Film (includes Audio Interview)

Ever since I met Dr. Glen Slater in 2008, I have known him to be a particularly passionate and knowledgeable advocate of film. I often see his film reviews in Jungian and depth publications, and his background in clinical psychology and religious studies—along with his interest in technology and culture—make his commentary especially valuable. In a recent interview, Glen and I sat down together for an intriguing depth discussion on Jung, individuation, and film. To begin, Dr. Slater notes, while we can think of individuation as coming to one’s deep self or unique character, it’s also the place where one […]

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Jung and Synchronicity: The Union of Nature and Psyche

C.G. Jung, one of the founding fathers of depth psychology, was a strong proponent of balancing rational thought with non-cerebral intelligence, insisting that consciousness inherently resides in the body and in the natural world around us.  In fact, he was quite taken by Austrian Nobel prize-winning ethologist Karl von Frisch’s notion of how bees communicated navigational information to their sister bees so that they could forage the best pollen around the hive. Frisch’s research suggested the “waggle dance” performed by bees was both intelligent and purposeful, demonstrating an organizational impulse that stemmed from the “bottom up”—that is, situated on an […]

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C.G. Jung: His Role in Depth Psychology

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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