{"id":292,"date":"2012-12-26T23:04:13","date_gmt":"2012-12-27T07:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/?p=292"},"modified":"2012-12-28T10:47:24","modified_gmt":"2012-12-28T18:47:24","slug":"the-shadow-of-society-and-its-role-in-mass-shootings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/the-shadow-of-society-and-its-role-in-mass-shootings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Shadow of Society and its Role in Mass Shootings"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the gradual development of our corresponding capacity for logical thinking in humans (that is, to \u201cthink about our ability to think\u201d), we have both increased opportunities for consciousness but also increased challenges in the sense that we categorically seek to analyze, label, and put into buckets the things we don\u2019t understand–sometimes becoming reductive and trapped in limited thinking.<\/div>\n
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In order for us to transcend our current mythology and come to new creative awareness, we need to be able to look beyond established boundaries and facades to see what newand emergent concepts await. One good example of this is the current debate about gun control in America in the wake of the Sandy Hook\u00a0school\u00a0shooting\u00a0and\u00a0so many other recent tragic violence with guns.<\/div>\n
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On one level it\u2019s quite common to look at it as whether or not we need to ban public access to guns (and\u00a0it certainly is worth the debate), but if you use a depth psychological lens, you look beyond that simple black-and-white question to see what the undercurrent is in our society that is enabling or even driving certain individuals to use guns to commit such horrible atrocities. Part of the study of depth\u00a0psychology\u00a0includes regarding that invisible aspect of ourselves that is a blind spot for us (even though those close to us can usually see it clearly).<\/div>\n
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The negative, repressed parts of us that we are unable to deal with have often become split off from our awareness but continue existing (and\u00a0acting out)–albeit under the radar so to speak. For example, one individual may be highly critical or even become derogatory toward parents who allow their children to run wild in public, but in the end it may be stemming from individual\u2019s own deeply ingrained memory of her own experience with parents who punished her for doing the same, insisting she was \u201cbad\u201d for doing so.<\/div>\n
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Gradually the details of the reason for negative feelings disperse, but the negative feeling remains–simply no longer connected to any rational reason that one could point to that triggers it. Like individuals, society also had its . Going back to the issue of the growing number of mass\u00a0shootings, I recently read a very good article that offers a symbolic\u00a0and\u00a0depth psychological take on the matter. In \u201cMythology of Bullets\u201d (Spring 81: The\u00a0Psychology\u00a0of Violence), Jungian analyst\u00a0and\u00a0professor Glen Slater reflects on one of the most fundamental beliefs of the American culture at large. He suggests our inherent belief in the American dream, that anyone can achieve success if he works hard enough may be partially at fault.<\/div>\n
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In conjunction with the Second Amendment, our forefathers bestowed the right for every individual to bear arms,\u00a0and\u00a0the rather black-and-white mandate that stipulates failure in America is not an option\u00a0and\u00a0we must do whatever it takes to succeed, those who are moving at a pace that is not sustainable\u00a0andstill find themselves failing, marginalized,\u00a0and\u00a0teetering on the brink of defeat simply fall prey to a power complex in which they grasp onto the one enduring symbol that lives in the very biology of our cells. Passed down from the pioneers who subdued (and\u00a0colonized) the Wild West in order to establish the United States of America, the access to\u00a0and\u00a0utilization of guns\u00a0and\u00a0bullets to finally\u00a0and\u00a0forcefully remove all objects in the way seems an inherent right.<\/div>\n
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More, by placing a finger on the trigger of such a device that can kill at a distance, it makes us remote–removing ourselves from the human connection. Slater refers to connection between bullets as projectiles\u00a0and\u00a0the psychological projections we easily make in blaming others for our failures. The we can\u2019t possibly see rises up, projecting fault\u00a0and\u00a0simultaneously seeking to obliterate anything that might be perceived to be linked to our failure, lack of ability to connect,\u00a0and\u00a0our corresponding exile to edges of acceptability in a society so focused on success.<\/div>\n
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Additionally, Slater points out, the tendency of our narrative \u2013our cultural myth, if you will–is that the hero always wins, is shiny bright\u00a0and\u00a0successful,\u00a0and\u00a0has no side. There is no room for failure,\u00a0andat the same time, we tend to move so fast\u00a0and\u00a0expect so much that we fail to allow for a slowing down, a reflection on the reality of life\u2019s ups\u00a0and\u00a0downs,\u00a0anda container for just being in the grips of difficulty, sadness, anger,\u00a0and\u00a0depression. Jungian James Hillman, founder of archetypal\u00a0psychology\u00a0and\u00a0one of the greatest depth psychologists in contemporary times (he just died last year in 2011), points out how absolutely critical it is that we engage in the journey to the \u201cunderworld.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Traditional rites of initiation–now essentially absent in our culture–require the initiate to travel on what is essentially an underworld journey to go into the depths, encounter obstacles, overcome trials,\u00a0and\u00a0return bearing gifts for the society. If we are not willing to experience the depths, the despair,\u00a0and\u00a0the trials, we can\u2019t possibly experience positive growth–what Jung called \u201cindividuation\u201d–in the same way.<\/div>\n
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Equally, it\u2019s critical that we participate in what depth psychologists Mary Watkins\u00a0and\u00a0Helene Schulman refer to as \u201cengaged witnessing\u201d to honor\u00a0and\u00a0validate the suffering\u00a0and\u00a0sacrifice of those who have lost loved ones to these terrible eruptions of in the cultural landscape. If we fail to \u201cfeel\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0honor the feelings of grief, despair, anger,\u00a0and\u00a0loss that naturally arise in situations such as this, we remain only \u201cpassive bystanders\u201d who are far more likely to participate only as onlookers that experience only the shock value or entertainment-related aspects of such dramatic\u00a0and\u00a0traumatic events.<\/div>\n
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The study\u00a0and\u00a0practice of depth\u00a0psychology\u00a0allows us to regard what’s going on below the surface, to challenge the obvious\u00a0and\u00a0wonder about the meaning of things yet unanalyzed. Everyone who has studied Jungian or depth\u00a0psychology\u00a0on some level has some insight into how we are all interconnected\u00a0and how important it is to look beneath the obvious surface of things.<\/div>\n
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Join me, Bonnie Bright M.A. with Jungian analyst Michael Conforti Ph.D. for a\u00a0second free teleseminar,\u00a0Beyond Horror\u00a0and\u00a0Hope (PART 2): The Archetypal Intersection of Innocence\u00a0and\u00a0Evil<\/strong><\/a>, a depth psychological\u00a0and\u00a0archetypal perspective on the recent mass\u00a0shootings. Register to participate or listen later.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/form>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the gradual development of our corresponding capacity for logical thinking in humans (that is, to \u201cthink about our ability to think\u201d), we have both increased opportunities for consciousness but also increased challenges in the sense that we categorically seek to analyze, label, and put into buckets the things we don\u2019t understand–sometimes becoming reductive and trapped in limited thinking. In order for us to transcend our current mythology and come to new creative awareness, we need to be able to look beyond established boundaries and facades to see what newand emergent concepts await. One good example of this is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":314,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,24,40,6,1,39,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archetypes-2","category-carljung","category-clinical-psychology","category-culture","category-depthpsychology","category-psychotherapy","category-trauma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":296,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292\/revisions\/296"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.depthinsights.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}