Category: Culture & Society

Nurturing the Planet in a Time of Crisis: A Soul-Centered Approach to Climate Change

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hurricanes are increasing due to climate change. We need a soul-centerd approach.

If you follow the headline news at all, It’s virtually impossible not to know that over the past couple of weeks, hurricanes Helene and Milton have once again brought the global climate crisis into sharp focus. These devastating storms, which have ravaged homes, taken lives, and caused widespread destruction, are the latest in a string of extreme weather events that scientists attribute to our warming planet. As we witness the increasing frequency of such disasters, it’s natural to feel profound despair. In fact, just today, The Living Planet Report broke the alarming news that a staggering 73% of wildlife has […]

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Embracing Uncertainty Using Soul-Centered Psychological Perspectives (2-3-minute read)

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a soul-centered perspective can provide the strength and fortitude to stay calm in the midst of chaos, holding space for oneself and the world, not falling into panic

Life’s uncertainties can be overwhelming, causing fear and anxiety. But what if we could find a way to embrace the unknown and transform it into an opportunity for growth and self-discovery?

This thought-provoking article explores the wisdom of spiritual teachings and psychological insights to help us navigate uncertainty and find deeper meaning in our lives. From confronting our inner shadows to accepting paradoxes, this captivating read highlights the importance of managing anxiety and embracing ambiguity. Discover how uncertainty can be a transformative crucible, leading us towards wisdom and ultimately a more meaningful existence.

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Depth Psychology in Daily Life: Unconscious Projection in Work, Money, and Relationships

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Jungian psychology uses the idea of projection to describe how we use pre-conceived biases and lenses to manage or project our expectations onto others

Blog post by Dr. Bonnie Bright and Dr. James Newell Watch the Replay: Depth Psychology in Daily Life: A Community Conversation” with Dr. Bonnie Bright and Dr. James Newell Read Part 1 of this Blog series: Depth Psychology in Daily Life: Making the Unconscious Conscious in Work, Money, and Relationships Depth psychology is a field that explores the unconscious aspects of the human psyche, seeking to understand the underlying motivations and patterns that guide human behavior. By bringing these unconscious motivations, beliefs, and behaviors to light and integrating them into our conscious awareness, we can achieve greater self-awareness and personal growth. Because the […]

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Soul-Centered Resources in the Time of Coronavirus

In the midst of pandemic and these challenging times , I continue to believe there is an invitation!…not only for each of us individually to step into ourselves more fully—to face our fears, to eliminate what is no longer serving us, and to truly let our Soul Self take over the navigation of our brave and beautiful lives—but also for each of us to come into better relationship with the anima mundi, the World Soul, that knows we are all interconnected. While I have been writing on this topic for many years, I’m currently also personally taking my own time in this […]

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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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Earth, Climate, Dreams—The Book!

Announcing the long-awaited new book, Earth, Climate, Dreams: Dialogues with Depth Psychologists in the Age of the Anthropocene, based on the global symposium of the same name: Over time, humans in western cultures have undergone a profound restructuring of the psyche, resulting in a traumatic sense of separation from nature and the larger forces that sustain us. In modern day, this egoic isolation contributes to a growing set of challenges on ecological, psychological, and social fronts. Industrial development, technological advancement, the rise of consumerism, and increasing populations—combined with a tendency to prioritize science and rational thought over tending nature and […]

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Frankenstein’s Monster, the Plight of our Planet, and Seeds of Hope—Interview: Robert Romanyshyn

In this hour-long interview, Robert Romanyshyn and Bonnie Bright discuss Frankenstein, the Monster, and the plight of our planet. Focused on Romanyshyn’s new book, Victor Frankenstein, the Monster, and the Shadows of Technology: The Frankenstein Prophecies (May 2019), the pair engage in depth psychological perspectives on culture, crisis, poetry, imagination, embodiment, community, and dreams, among other important topics. >View the full VIDEO dialogue (1 hour)>View a 5-minute excerpt>Access the full AUDIO dialogue See below for a written transcript

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Spiritual Implications of Psychosis: How a Spiritual Perspective Can Provide Health Benefits to Mind and Body—Interview with Dr. Tanya Luhrmann

Is schizophrenia a “severe mental disorder,” as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO)? How might changing the perspective of the traditional western medical model, which labels certain symptoms as strictly pathological, ultimately transform those who are suffering? The Hearing Voices Movement (HVM) which originated in Europe teaches people with schizophrenia to respect their voices and to treat their voices as persons, says Dr. Tanya Marie Luhrmann, whose research seeks to understand the phenomenology of unusual sensory experiences often linked with schizophrenia. C.G. Jung used the imagination to work at the borderlines between dissociation and psychosis… Sharing some ideas that […]

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Depth Psychology: Empowering Multicultural Women in the Wider World—An Interview with Media Mogul Nely Galán

Depth Psychology: Empowering Multicultural Women in the Wider World As a Latina and a self-made media mogul who has produced hundreds of television shows, headed a TV network, and generated a significant amount of income, Nely Galán ironically felt an odd sense of relief when the economy crashed in 2008, bringing many of her projects to a halt. In hindsight, Galán believes she had been feeling incongruent in her career because she was in a field where much of the focus was on achieving success, and where individuals were not valued for being their authentic selves. By that point in […]

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Symbolism of the Black Madonna: A Jungian Perspective—Interview with Judy Zappacosta

Sandplay therapist, Judy Zappacosta, MFT, first became interested in the Black Madonna at a suggestion from Dora Kalff, founder of Sandplay therapy, to visit one of the mysterious iconic figures in Einsiedeln, Switzerland. Zappacosta was immediately drawn into the “silence and dark interiority of the Black Madonna, and has made an extensive exploration of the history and symbolism associated with her. In this interview for Depth Insights™, Zappacosta reveals the powerful and evocative significance of Black Madonna figure from a Jungian and depth psychological perspective, and shares how she can impact us both individually and collectively. Zappacosta is co-leading a […]

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Cosmology, Ritual, and Ecology: A Message from the Kogi Indians about Earth

  Perhaps you’ve heard of a mysterious tribe of Native Indians who live high in the mountains of Colombia, speaking only their own original language, and having little contact with the outside world. These people, the Kogi Indians, have long referred to themselves as the “Elder Brothers,” as they carry the responsibility of being caretakers of the world, helping to maintain a balance of harmony and creativity in the world. In recent years, the Kogi have begun speaking out. They are deeply concerned that non-indigenous consumer cultures living in the modern world, whom they call the “Younger Brothers,” are harming […]

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Ecopsychology: On Educating Ourselves as Ecopsychological Beings in a Psychological World—An Interview with Dr. Lori Pye

Ecopsychology: On Educating Ourselves as Ecopsychological Beings in a Psychological World—An Interview with Dr. Lori Pye As an activist working with NGOs to stop shark finning in Central America years ago, Dr. Lori Pye was once a target of a malicious act intended to intimidate her. The experience plunged her into a sort of psychological crisis. Finding herself face to face with a stark and undeniable image of ecological devastation, she had an epiphany: our own psychological destruction is being expressed in destruction of the ecological world. The experience profoundly renewed Dr. Pye’s focus on ecopsychology. At the same time, […]

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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 Value of Multi-Cultural Perspectives in Depth Psychotherapy: Interview with Dr. Matthew Bennett

Counseling is an applied healing art that helps us address suffering, enrich personal lives, activate our potential, to live more fully, and to develop more adaptive capacities to life in the view of Dr. Matthew Bennett, a psychotherapist and lecturer who teaches Counseling program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. More, psychotherapists and counselors that have a depth psychological orientation are prepared for a “broad spectrum slice of the human experience,” which for Bennett, includes the ability to be emotionally present in difficult emotional circumstances or even to simply better hold and tolerate emotionally powerful situations. Depth psychology is grounded in the […]

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Limitless Growth, the Destructive Myth of our Times: Part One of a Report on a Talk Given by Dr. Vandana Shiva

The idea of limitless growth is the most destructive myth of our times, began Dr. Vandana Shiva, in her inspiring plenary talk at “Climates of Change and a Therapy of Ideas,” Pacifica’s recent 40thanniversary conference held on the Ladera campus in Santa Barbara, CA. Vandana Shiva, who trained as a physicist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, is Founder and Director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Ecology and for Navdanya, the movement for seed saving and ecological agriculture. She is also the author of numerous books including Staying Alive, Ecofeminism, Seed Sovereignty and Food Security: Women in the Vanguard (Ed.), Soil […]

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Confronting Signs of a Society in Decline: An Interview with Journalist Chris Hedges

As a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Chris Hedges carries with him nearly two decades of experience reporting from war-torn countries like Yugoslavia, El Salvador, and also Gaza and South Sudan. In this capacity, he has witnessed the decline and disintegration of multiple societies, a perspective which has surely influenced his capacity regard the decline and potential destruction of our own modern culture that seems severely out of order. He has been described, more than once, as being “dark,” which, from a depth psychological perspective, I’m quick to assure him, is actually a compliment. Depth psychology insists we look under the […]

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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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The Return of the Goddesses-in Mysteries!

Notes on a Depth Discussion between Susan Rowland and Bonnie Bright If you are an avid reader, the mystery genre is likely a familiar presence in the pleasures of your pastime. Those who love detective fiction really love it, as author and scholar Susan Rowland insists to me in a recent interview, and there is a strong ritual element in the reading and writing of mysteries. There are certain consistencies in every story that one may begin to expect; and yet they continue to enthrall us even as they unfold. Mystery novels hold a place for ritual in our culture, […]

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Outside vs. Inside: A Depth Psychological Perspective on the Planetary Crisis and the Psyche/Nature Split

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 […]

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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 […]

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