#Jungian Developmental Psychology

[soulsanitarium]

Mexico 🇲🇽 Three different films: Perdita Durango, Alucarda & La Tia Alejandra

1. The film La Tía Alejandra (1979). 🎥Aunt Alejandra arrives to a familiar household consisting of two parents and three children. Immediately the woman’s presence begins to interfere with the couple’s happiness and also sexuality. Everything seems to be surrounded by an aura of mystery.

Auntie teaches children witchcraft but when one of the children mocks her, she caused his death…She comes to a bathroom and makes the water so hot it burns the teenage girl’s body. Children hate the Auntie and she revenges. Husband starts to drink and is driven away from home. Finally Lucía, the wife, tries to save what is left and takes the active role.🔥👵You can compaire this movie to mother-child relationship in Carrie, or Psycho, depicted as abnormal and perverse. Lucía too desires independence and yearns to lead her own life, yet she is unable to break away from her “auntie’s” dominating influence. As a fantasy it is an important developmental step so that the separation - individuation process is completed and we can get distance to the mother. More interesting than average ⭐️⭐️⭐️

2. 🎥Alucarda (1977): Constant screaming and overacting. Movie borrows a lot from Carmilla - Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel and films and the rest from Mother Joan of the Angels, TheDevils... Perhaps it is more interesting to look for the psychological side of the film.

👯‍♀️ Alucarda (a Dracula, Mircalla - Marcilla - Carmilla) deals with twinship -themes. Is she just a fantasy figure? Justine’s sadistic inner world?

✝️Name ”Justine” is perhaps borrowed from DeSade’s novel. Is Alucarda just a channel for the aggression and shame, is it about Justine’s own sexuality? The film becomes more interesting if you look at it from different sides of one person.

Enlarge the image to see the borrowed dialogue

💞We all have the need to feel a degree of alikeness with other people. Processes of internalization are motivated by and emerge as the self’s protection of its existence through increasingly advanced ways to ensure the object’s availability in the individual’s world of experience. Identification is an essential form of internalization processes. (Tähkä 1996 & Tähkä R.) What it means to be treated as human by others? ”What I really want is just a sister” can be a wish of a clone-like relationship. Heinz Kohut (1978) calls this phenomena a twinship-transference / - self-object. This longing can also be sexualized.

☸️ In the Jungian psychology, in order to reach a relationship and integration of the Self for the individuation process, typically a person must face, reconcile, and assimilate two central components of the personal unconscious: 1) the Shadow, 2) Anima. Perhaps like in this scene (below) from Perdita Durango.

3. 🌪This is for the friends of Santeria, black humor and 🩸 violence Perdita Durango, released as Dance with the Devil in the United States, is a 1997 Spanish/Mexican action-crime-horror film directed by Álex de la Iglesia, based on Barry Gifford's 1992 novel 59° and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango. It stars Rosie Perez as the title character and Javier Bardem.

🎬The film is reminiscent of many great other films. Such as: Wild at heart, Badlands, True Romance, Natural Born Killers, Bonny and Clyde, Il Capitano…both Perdita Durango and Wild at Heart go back to original novellas by Gifford. Isabella Rossellini played PERDITA DURANGO in David Lynch’s WILD AT HEART.

🔪Of course, real-life killer couples also come to mind, like: Homolkas, Sarah Jane and John Makin, Ian Brady & Myra Hindley, Mona Watson & Michael Howell, Suzan & James Carson…

🎭In the movie Romeo (Bardem) is a self-styled Santeria guru who spends most of his time flitting from one crime to another. When Perdita and Romeo hook up, all Hell breaks loose. Actually Romeo steals the show from Perdita…he is just amazing Santeria priest…captivating like a Rockstar ⭐️ Gandolfini, Perez …casting is Great

😨😨😨😨Human sacrifices, sadism, kidnapping, rape, murder, featus trafficking …

😂😂😂 Funny but then suddenly again not…

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Furious magic

🔪🔪🔪🔪Violence - Hay drogas y mucha violencia

😆 Screamin’ Jay Hawkins has a role in the film

🐆 One of the rear male witch performances in the film that actually is really worth seeing !

Best quote:

Romeo Dolorosa : I'm going to dance with the devil under the pale moonlight!

Perdita Durango : Go fuck yourself, Romeo.

Romeo Dolorosa : What's wrong? It's from Batman.

Perdita Durango : Fuck Batman!

✂️✂️✂️! The original Spanish version runs 10 minutes longer and features more sex and violence and ends with some characters digitally morphing into the scene finale from Vera Cruz. 🇩🇪 edition was original 126Mins.

©ST

Recommended Source:

Reenkola, E. (2002). The Veiled Female Core. New York. Other Press.

[minmos]

Book recommendations? 💘

oooh hehehehe >:) sorry fpor answering late!! i havent read much in the past year or so + sorry these are all nonfiction<3 but i remember liking these a lot:

the body keeps the score by bessel van der kolk - required reading on the physical effects of trauma, alternative therapies, and also makes a great case for c-ptsd as a separate diagnosis from ptsd. great book

the man who mistook his wife for a hat by oliver sacks - fascinating little thing on neuroscience. a series of case studies on various neurological disorders. i'm not a big Understander of more neuroscience-y type stuff, but this explained a lot of concepts in a way i understood.

i hate you don't leave me by jerold j. kreisman - book on borderline personality disorder. felt a bit iffy about a few parts, but overall really helps explains a lot of What Goes On with bpd.

my list of Books I Really Really Want To Read And Have Heard Great Things about is much longer than this ^ unfortunately i dont have a lot of book spending money and i really hate reading pdfs. maybe i will go to the library after work tomorrow ...

books im currently reading/really want to read: the haunted self (i have a pdf of this one but im struggling to read it orz. its REALLY GOOD so far) , the gift of fear by gavin de becker (i am REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY INTERESTED IN THIS and have been for a long time. it's conceptually so fascinating to me), conflict is not abuse by sarah schulman, close to the knives by david wojnarowicz, secret world of drawings by gregg m. furth (dont really know much about jungian psychology and dont know how i feel about it, but the idea of this one is interesting to me), the family that couldn't sleep by d.t max (prion diseases? Scary...), too scared to cry by lenore terr, alex & me by irene pepperberg (i have always been soo fascinated by alex the parrot idc if it's a clever hans situation i'm just so interested in it. ive read as much as i can online about it the book is the next step ..)

if anyone knows any Cool Reads similar to the above ^ send it my way... im very interested in psychology (specifically abnormal psych, trauma, & developmental psychology) and animals (specifically animal behavior/psychology/etc)

[gautam-101]

Exploring the Cosmic Tapestry: A Comparative Analysis of Vedic Astrology and Western Astrology

Introduction

In the vast universe of astrology, there exist two prominent systems that have captured the imagination of seekers and scholars alike: Vedic Astrology and Western Astrology. Both systems offer unique perspectives on the cosmic dance of planets and stars and how they influence human lives. In this comprehensive exploration, we delve into the intricacies of these two ancient traditions, seeking to understand their methodologies, philosophical underpinnings, and practical applications.

Vedic Astrology, also known as Jyotish, has its roots deeply entrenched in the ancient texts of India, particularly the Vedas. It's a holistic system that encompasses various branches such as natal astrology, predictive astrology, and remedial measures. On the other hand, Western Astrology, with its origins in ancient Greece and Rome, has evolved over centuries, incorporating elements of astronomy, mythology, and psychology.

In this comparison, we aim to shed light on the fundamental differences and similarities between Vedic and Western Astrology, exploring their approaches to chart interpretation, planetary influences, and predictive techniques. By understanding the nuances of these systems, we can gain deeper insights into ourselves and the cosmic forces that shape our destinies.

Also read - Exploring the Intriguing Connection: Numerology and Astrology

Historical Origins and Philosophical Foundations:

Vedic Astrology: Tracing its lineage to the ancient Indian scriptures, Vedic Astrology is deeply rooted in the concept of karma and reincarnation. It views the cosmos as an interconnected web of energies, with each individual soul journeying through lifetimes governed by planetary influences.

Western Astrology: Originating in the civilizations of Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome, Western Astrology emphasizes the symbolism of the zodiac signs and planets within the context of Greek mythology. It focuses on the individual's psyche and personality traits as reflected in their birth chart.

Zodiac Systems and Planetary Alignments:

Vedic Astrology: Utilizes the sidereal zodiac, which aligns with the fixed stars and takes into account the precession of the equinoxes. The placement of planets in specific constellations (nakshatras) is considered crucial for chart interpretation.

Western Astrology: Primarily uses the tropical zodiac, which is based on the position of the Sun relative to the Earth's orbit. It places significant emphasis on the Sun sign as a key indicator of personality traits and life themes.

Chat here: Chat with astrologer online

Chart Interpretation and Predictive Techniques:

Vedic Astrology: Employs a complex system of dashas (planetary periods), transits, and yogas (combinations) to analyze past, present, and future events in a person's life. The emphasis is on precise timing and the unfolding of karmic patterns.

Western Astrology: Focuses on aspects (angular relationships between planets), progressions, and solar returns to glean insights into psychological patterns and developmental cycles. It often integrates psychological frameworks such as Jungian psychology and archetypal symbolism.

Remedial Measures and Spiritual Practices:

Vedic Astrology: Offers a plethora of remedies including gemstone therapy, mantra recitation, yantra worship, and charitable acts to mitigate negative planetary influences and enhance positive karma.

Western Astrology: While not traditionally associated with specific remedial measures, some practitioners may incorporate counseling, psychotherapy, or mindfulness practices to support individuals in navigating life challenges revealed in their charts.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the comparison between Vedic Astrology and Western Astrology reveals a rich tapestry of cosmic wisdom, each offering unique insights into the human condition and the mysteries of the universe. While Vedic Astrology delves deep into the karmic fabric of existence, Western Astrology explores the realms of psychology and personal growth. Ultimately, whether one resonates more with the precision of Vedic calculations or the psychological depth of Western interpretations, both systems serve as invaluable tools for self-awareness, empowerment, and spiritual evolution in an ever-changing cosmos. As we navigate the celestial symphony of our lives, may we find guidance and inspiration in the timeless wisdom of the stars.

Have any questions? Speak with an astrologer: Download the App Now

[my-friends-fan]

very good at psychoanalyzing, that's what happens when you've been in therapy since kindergarten and did a special school cariculum in highschool of developmental psychology and children's education while obsessing over jungian psychology and the psychology of stories since middleschool 😎

kinlist reveal. psychoanalyse me

[drthomasmaples]

Archetypal Themes of Middle Life Development: Siddhartha and The Middle Path

Archetypal Themes of Middle Life Development: Siddhartha and The Middle Path Dr. Tom explores middle life development from the perspective of developmental and analytical psychology. #psychology #depthpsychology #carljung #analyticalpsychology #developmentalpsychology

An psychoanalysis of Siddhartha’s middle-life development and the plight to achieve personal aspirations

As I began the process of recollecting the reveries of middle-life and my associations to it, I realized that I had undergone a shift within my thought process. While I have primarily focused on my past in the reverie sections up to this point, I now find myself assuming a position in which…

[drthomasmaples-blog]

Siddhartha Gautama, the prince that would find enlightenment at the Bodhi Tree and transcend ordinary consciousness to become the Buddha was a man driven to understand the essence of suffering. His mission was singular, and as such, he developed acute skills of FOCUS (Follow One Course Until Successful) through meditative practices. These practices brought him deep levels of self-introspection, knowledge, and ultimately lead him to realize his true nature. Like the process of meditation, the Buddha’s lessons are simple to employ, filled with beautiful symbolism, but can take a lifetime to master the meanings inherent within their context.

However, to realize self, as the Buddha’s life is an example of, is no easy task. As a goal, it encompasses a process that Jung himself thought extremely difficult to attain. Yet our propensity to seek answers for those big, yet somehow unanswerable questions stands as a litmus for the journey we all undertake to develop deep, rich, and expansive Self-meaning. While the Buddha attained this level of consciousness, he also informed us that it is up to us as individuals to reach down, sometimes deep down inside, so we can develop individual meaning within the context of our daily lives, make sense of our personal life journey, and find a path conducive to our individuated Self development.

The Buddha is a a religious figurehead. As such, his life, and the stories associated with it are highly symbolic. As the head of a major world religion, any attempt to understand his journey to become Self-Realized must take into account the rich symbolism present in his life, so that those symbols can be deciphered in ways that interact with, correlate to, and assists us to develop meaning within our own personal storyline. Like the life of major religious figureheads, we as individuals are born to this earth, plan, chart, and explore the context of creation we have been given, and partake in a lifelong developmental journey that is inclusive of birth, death, and the wonderful stories we create in between. Therefore, the symbolism inherent in the religious storylines we find solace within can act as pathways, or even precursory stories to our own developmental journey.

Our human nature is rich with symbolic meaning, that oftentimes correlates to the very storylines religious figureheads have undertaken. In many ways, they act as a beacon of hope for us to emulate, so that we also may find our true nature, and transcend the split nature of a consciousness that has fallen. However, in order to understand the effects of our developmental journey and the journey it takes to mend the divisive nature of consciousness, we must employ introspective and reflective, rational and empirical, scientific, philosophical, and symbolic methodologies as a means to make sense of the ways common symbols affect our daily life.

What follows is the research methodology I employed to understand the symbols presented in Hermann Hesse’s novel, Siddhartha. While methodological in scope, by understanding the steps I took to decipher the symbolism present, others may begin to develop their own way to decipher symbols for their own journey, so they to can begin to make sense of their inner workings and advance confidently in the direction of their dreams.

Research Methodologies. Three research methods are employed in this book to analyze the symbolism present in Siddhartha. Case study methodology is primarily employed as a research method to understand the developmental themes present in Siddhartha’s life and archetypes that affected his developmental journey. I then analyzed and amplified these themes using a philosophical hermeneutic method to produce a developmental outline for Jungian psychology and to correlate its themes to existing developmental literature. I then amplified these themes through the alchemical hermeneutic approach of biographical reflection, calling upon my subjective presence to help amplify the themes present in an archetypal development theory from examples of my personal developmental sequence. By correlating an archetypal outline of development to existing developmental literature, I amplified the themes present within the content of Siddhartha to biological theories of attachment, psychosexual, object relation, and psychosocial models of development using a comparative theoretical approach housed within the tenets of the hermeneutic circle.

 Siddhartha sought to understand his personal ontology. Therefore, I viewed the storyline from the perspective of a case study in order to discern what archetypes were present within in his life. By viewing the storyline from an analytical perspective, I was able to to perceive and therefore decipher some of the driving dynamics present that drove the unfolding of Siddhartha’s individuation process. By doing this, I sought to provide answers about the very questions of development that Jung (1931/1969) believed would lead to more than one answer and would ultimately meet with further conjecture as to the validity of the answers ascertained by such an endeavor. Carl Jung’s psychology is dialectic; each archetypal pole presents the psyche with a dilemma, which promotes psychological growth through a process of working the tensions common to the dialectic nature of consciousness. Therefore, I utilized philosophical and alchemical hermeneutic methods to analyze and interpret the dialectic data gathered by reading Hesse’s (2002) story.

As a researcher, I must define the personal history that led to this research inquiry. This will allow me to identify the presuppositions I have towards the subject matter, a necessary component of any qualitative research endeavor. Researchers simply cannot remove their consciousness from the research endeavors they undertake. Because the ability to be conscious and perceive underlies the ability to make meaning about a subject studied, no researcher can truly remain completely objective. One simply cannot remove subjectivity from a consciousness that perceives and assigns value to an object. Therefore, I identified my history with this subject matter to let further researchers know that I am aware of the predispositions I have towards this study so that I may remain objective about the subject material studied. Furthermore, use of the autobiographical material I brought to this research process also helped me to identify the subjective experiences that occurred within the context of personal reveries, a procedure used within the alchemical hermeneutic research methodology, and a process that is imperative for any qualitative researcher to employ to understand the ways there perceptions create the reality they perceive. 

Case study, philosophical hermeneutic, and alchemical hermeneutic methods comprise the methodology I utilized to study the archetypal and developmental themes found in the novel Siddhartha. The data gathered by using each method, provided a wealth of information that guided the development of a theoretical outline of archetypal development that promotes individuation. While I use existing developmental theory to amplify the themes present in Siddhartha, this data was gathered using the procedures common to case study, philosophical, and alchemical hermeneutic methods.

The case study method.  Case study method has a long history in the social sciences (Creswell, 1998). This is primarily due to this method’s ability to access both quantitative and qualitative factors of analysis (Yin, 2003). Case studies allow a researcher to draw on empirically collected material to develop working hypotheses about human nature; by correlating theoretical material to the real life events, a case study allows the often complex theoretical constructs proposed by the human sciences a means to be seen within a personal context.

In this research, I studied Siddhartha as he underwent individuation. I sought to understand how the archetypes affected our maturation journey and the individuation process as a holistic construct of consciousness. Therefore, I utilized the embedded analysis method to understand the specific archetypal themes that arose in Siddhartha’s life. Embedded analysis is an empirical method of inquiry that allows a researcher the ability to study multiple units of analysis simultaneously to discern the features and context of a described phenomenon (Scholz & Tietje, 2002; Yin, 2003). I then provided a holistic analysis of the archetypal themes that affected Siddhartha’s individuation.

A researcher that utilizes case study method must pay particular attention to the era and the culture of the specific case (Creswell, 1998). Research would appear biased if it attempts to understand specific cultures from a knowledge base that is not common to that culture or if it attempts to understand a phenomenon from the past through the general knowledge base that currently exists. The setting for Siddhartha takes place in India nearly 2500 years prior; however, the psychological theories of Carl Jung developed during the 20th century had great influence on many of the themes present in Hesse’s (2002) story.

Hermann Hesse and Siddhartha inhabited two different worlds and eras. Siddhartha inhabited the Indian subcontinent at a time when religion represented the key means by which individuals made sense of their lives. As was shown prior, Hesse lived during a time in Europe when the vocation of making meaning within one’s life became the subject matter studied by the sciences, philosophy, and religion. These three major schools of inquiry represent the foundation from which Carl Jung based his dualistic psychology. Therefore, I must take into account both periods and present the material with respect to the general historical timelines and cultural systems that underlies the plot and setting of the story. If a researcher does not pay attention to the traditions common to the era studied, a research project can alienate a past knowledge base as being trivial in the light of new knowledge (Romanyshyn, 2001). The acquisition of knowledge is progressive; when new knowledge supersedes past knowledge without crediting its source, the new knowledge base assumes a biased position (Romanyshyn, 2001). Therefore, this study takes into consideration that Hesse’s novel is set in ancient India, but utilizes the theories developed by Carl Jung to inform the way the author portrays the overall process of individuation.

The Buddha was an extraordinary individual who achieved an enlightened state of consciousness. Even if a researcher takes out of the equation the attainment of Nirvana, Buddhist doctrine shows a path in which all individuals can achieve a heightened state of consciousness through learning the discipline associated with the middle way. This researcher believes that other world religions also provide paths that allow for enlightened modes of consciousness to arise within individuals that practice faith within a particular belief system. In this study, I sought to develop the broad outlines of a developmental theory based on the Jungian theoretical tenets of archetypes that underlie the individuation process.

The philosophical and alchemical hermeneutic methods. Hermeneutics seeks to understand the entire meaning of a text through the specific themes that lead to a conclusion (Barrell, Aanstoos, Richards, & Arons, 1987). Hermeneutics offers a means to make sense of the often-opposing themes that are present within a dialectic process. While this study did not seek to provide ultimate truths regarding the nature of human development, it does provide a space for acknowledging the profound effects that dialectic tensions have on the developing psyche. Labouvie-Vief (1994) wrote:

confrontation between the two forces of light and dark

Truth is never final and determined; it is not a product but an ever-evolving process. It is a dance of interactive subjectivities, performed under objective rules of mutual tolerance and respect… individuals surrender to the dialect of interacting subjectivities and permit themselves to be changed in the process. (p. 181)

This correlates to Jung’s (1931/1969) notion that developmental stages often lead to more questions than answers, and answers that inevitably lead to doubt and therefore more questions. In this study, I did not intend to propose ultimate truths; instead, I utilized an approach that honors both the objective and subjective factors of analysis.  

Glen Slater (1996) believed that the hermeneutic method brings a researcher into interaction with a text, which in turn provides a greater understanding about the hidden meanings that underlie the text. A researcher attains these meanings through analyzing the symbols (words) present within a text. Within the context of this research, I choose to review a literary story because literature helps crystallize unconscious themes by impregnating the psyche to be open to the symbols found within the plot, setting, and characters of the storyline.

Bildungsroman literature, of which the story Siddhartha (Hesse, 2002) is part, speaks to the psychological and moral development of the protagonist as it occurs throughout the lifespan. Siddhartha underwent a lifelong quest to understand Atman, as it exists within Brahman. In essence, Siddhartha sought to understand his true nature.

The means by which people develop Self understanding relies on the symbols present in the unconscious. Furthermore, the symbolic, archetypal content common to the unconscious is also a theme found in novels, myths, stories, and fairytales. While archetypal themes are primarily unconscious, the plot of a story often speaks to these themes the same way that life unfolds with biological certainty. While a person may relate to the themes present in a story differently than others who read the same story, archetypal themes speak to the consciousness of the reader by allowing them a vision from which to view the story unfolding upon itself. In other words, the symbols within a story speak to the individual psyche of the reader as well as promote collective themes that allow for the passing of generational values through the stories created by each generation concerning its nature of its essence.

Hermeneutic method has a long history that dates to early attempts to formulate meaning about the morals common to biblical texts. Notable philosophers, such as Friedrich Schleiermacher (1959), Wilhelm Dilthey (1924, 1960), Paul Ricoeur (1967, 1970, 1974a, 1974b, 1976) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (2004) adapted biblical hermeneutics to the study of human phenomenon. Gadamer believed that the task of philosophical hermeneutics is ontological and inter-subjective, not methodological.

The philosophical hermeneutic procedure consists of engaging the dialectic tensions common to a studied text. A text consists of individual parts as well as a whole construct that emerges from each part. Martin Heidegger (1927/1962) believed that each concept needed to be understood in reference to the other. The philosophical hermeneutic tradition allows a researcher to work the inherent dialectic that exists between the whole and the parts of a text; by understanding the parts by the whole and the whole by each part allows complex themes to emerge from the text. This forms the concept of the hermeneutic circle.

Romanyshyn (2007) amplified the concept of the hermeneutic circle by allowing the unconscious a place within the hermeneutic research tradition. The alchemical hermeneutic tradition allows a researcher to use the personal workings of the unconscious to further elucidate information from a written text. The procedures that underlie this method consist of using Carl Jung’s concept of active imagination and meditation as methods of induction that drive the research process forward. While the practitioner of philosophical hermeneutic method has the ability to approach the studied subject matter from an objective or subjective level of reasoning, the alchemical hermeneutic method offers the subjective nature of the unconscious a valid place within the research tradition.

In this research, I first conducted a case study of the character Siddhartha. I also utilized procedures from the philosophical hermeneutic and the alchemical hermeneutic research traditions to understand what archetypes drive individuation, paying particular attention to the dialectic phenomena that occurred within each archetype as it arose during the developmental sequence explored in the story. By examining the developmental sequence from a philosophical hermeneutic perspective, I utilized existing literature to amplify the symbols present from a developmental and analytical perspective. By using the alchemical hermeneutic method, I allowed the symbols studied to spontaneously work the unconscious space of my psyche, so that I could gain insight into how archetypal themes foster development forward from an experiential perspective.

Research procedures. Stories of religion are both rich in archetypal symbolism and many explore concepts that relate to the individuation process. One need only turn to the Bible, Koran, or the analects of Buddhist philosophy to see stories about extraordinary individuals that achieved a transcendent level of consciousness. The Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed are extraordinary individuals that represent what an individuated form of consciousness entails. Their respective religions have provided guidelines for others to follow to ascertain the level of consciousness that is associated with their teachings. The story that I analyzed was Siddhartha. Although not a work of religion, Hesse’s (2002) story presents as a literary masterpiece that is rich in archetypal symbolism. Furthermore, Carl Jung, the researcher whose works form the foundation of this research project, influenced the themes present in Hesse’s story. Hesse was an analysand of the Jungian analyst J. B. Lang and had an analytical relationship with Carl Jung himself after undergoing a period of severe writer’s block that nearly derailed his work on Siddhartha (Morris, 2002). Siddhartha’s life story provided the archetypal motifs that I analyzed to understand the themes common to archetypal development. 

Literature provides the source material from which I developed an understanding of the archetypal phenomena that drove Siddhartha’s individuation process. I used case study method to discern the archetypes that were present within the context of the story. This method also allowed me to examine how the specific archetypal themes drove Siddhartha’s individuation. Furthermore, philosophical and alchemical hermeneutic methods provided me with a sense of continuity to the process of delving into the dialectic tensions common to each archetypal symbol. Sadak (1999) stated:

Hermeneutics is a dialectical attempt to articulate a better understanding of particular perspectives, comparing, contrasting, and clarifying them in metaphors of engagement that hold the tension between objective and subjective factors, enabling them to embrace each other without a fantasy of an ultimate and decisive conclusion as they attempt the ever-evolving search for truth. (p. 14)

Philosophical hermeneutics also provides a means by which a researcher can amplify the meaning of a text by utilizing materials both within and independent of a studied text. While philosophical hermeneutics honors the positions of objectivity and subjectivity common to the psyche, Romanyshyn (2007) developed a method that honored the subjective presence the unconscious brings to the research process.

Interpretation at the level of soul is not just about deciphering a hidden meaning, it is also about a hunger for the originary presence that still lingers as an absent presence. For a psychological hermeneutics, it is this lingering absence that fuels the hunger for interpretation, that unfinished business of soul that waits as a weight in the work… Hermeneutics, then, is about a longing to return to the originary presence of the Divine which haunts the human world, a longing for a restored connection to the sacred, to the gods, who, Heidegger says, have fled and whose radiance, therefore, no longer shines in human history, and to the gods, who, Jung says, have become our diseases. (p. 225)

While a researcher that practices objective hermeneutics perceives the text from a removed perspective and interprets the phenomenon studied within the text objectively as written, alchemical hermeneutics allows a researcher the ability to use active imagination to tap into unconscious themes that drive a work.  

In this study, I honored objective and subjective modes of inquiry. Qualitative research can utilize both subjective and objective modes of inquiry to examine the same phenomenon. While statistics validate quantitative models of investigation, qualitative research does not share this same strength. Because qualitative researchers often conduct research outside of the experimental laboratory through natural observation, it is easy to question the validity of research findings based solely on the perceptions of the researcher. However, recent philosophers such as Robert Romanyshyn (2007) and John Polkinghorne (1994) have drawn into question the ability any research has to remain truly objective. Camic, Rhodes, and Yardley (2003) furthered this point, stating:

Elevating the laboratory and the experimental method—and all that that image entails—onto a “pure” and objective plane where the values and biases of the researcher are supposedly left at the door and where statistical control ensures validity and objectivity is highly problematic… “Objectivity,” as taught in many psychology textbooks and classrooms, is a myth. No experiment, no research question, and certainly no interpretation of data can possibly be truly objective. The types of problems we are interested in, the questions we ask, the kind of data we collect, and the analyses we undertake all emanate from some context, be it socioeconomic, political, cultural, or personal. (p. 6)

The ability to study any phenomenon relies on the ability consciousness has to discern and judge about the nature of events. While I provided subjective factors of analysis within the context of this study, I presented these findings solely to lend periphery evidence to the empirically based themes I gathered by objective research methods.

I utilized Siddhartha (Hesse, 2002) and resource materials from analytical, psychoanalytic, and developmental psychology to develop further understanding of the archetypes that drove the protagonist’s individuation process. My research followed these specific procedures:

I read Siddhartha (Hesse, 2002) noting the archetypal themes present in order to present the data as a case study. I focused specifically on the developmental tasks the protagonist underwent to understand his personal ontology. Because Siddhartha is a story written in the bildungsroman style, I presented each developmental sequence as it occurred within the context of the text, focusing on specific developmental sequences that arose.

I utilized personal unconscious material in order to develop experiential understanding of what individuation entails. This procedure is common to the transference dialogues of the alchemical hermeneutic method proposed by Robert Romanyshyn (2007). I undertook the transference dialogues by entering a reflective space of meditative inquiry, which allowed spontaneous subjective materials to arise from my unconscious that helped amplify the themes collected from the case study method; by conducting an alchemical hermeneutic analysis, I wrote from an autobiographical perspective that was inclusive of active imagination. This allowed me to both reflect on the past that underlies this research undertaking and to dream this process forward; which, in turn allowed me to understand the ways I currently work with my personal aging process as it unfolds. I present the data collected from this procedure to lend peripheral evidence for the objective material gathered by the case study.

I interpreted the archetypal themes present in the story using the process of dialectic reasoning common to the hermeneutic circle proposed by Martin Heidegger (1927/1962). Using the hermeneutic circle, I engaged the subject matter by exploring the archetypes present in the story to the current knowledge that exists in Jungian and post-Jungian developmental theories. I then utilized this procedure to formulate meaning about the archetypal themes present in the text in order to understand the common developmental themes that drive individuation.

I reviewed the literature from other developmental models to see if an emergent model of Jungian development was similar, or in opposition to established psychoanalytic developmental models.

In Appendix B, I provide tables that correlates the archetypal theory developed and extant developmental literature to the themes present within the context of Hesse’s (2002) story. I then show how the developmental sequence from both theories unfolds within the context of the Buddha’s life.

By conducting these procedures of research, I examined whether an archetypal development pattern occurred within the sequence of the themes present in Hermann Hesse’s (2002) text. By examining the archetypal themes present in the story from the developmental perspective, I sought to understand whether an outline for a general theory of archetypal development was feasible within the context of a Jungian framework.

Autobiographical reflections and motivations to conduct this research. During my early post-graduate studies, I found myself overtaken by a poem that I had written during a moment of empathic response about grief. The grief was not personal, but secondarily felt through the eyes of a widow. Although this poem did not have personal significance at the time I wrote it, with recollection I now understand that I also wrote about the grief I felt about exiting childhood and entering young adult-life.

Time ticks to sorrows grief.

An acorn fell to earth, but lost its way, falling towards an endless sea.

Yet, the rabbit runs blissfully towards the setting sun (Maples, 2003, p. 1).

While I wrote this poem to help a widow in her grief process, with hindsight, I now see how the emergence of the research passion associated with this study came from the loss of my childhood, which this poem touches upon in its exploration of the life sequence unfolded from a symbolic perspective.  

My graduate studies in psychology coincide with the emergence of my adult-life. In particular, the founders of the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement and the theories of Carl Gustav Jung helped shape the interests of my early adult-life. While attending postgraduate studies in psychology, I learned a number of theories concerning human development. However, one class in particular stands out as I look back upon my post-graduate educational experiences. During a class on aging and dying, I met with a Jungian analyst that greatly affected my life. The research I began during this class formed the foundation of this research study.

From my initial research into the fields of Jungian analysis, Buddhist philosophy, and human development, I became aware that minimal research exists within the field of analytical psychology, which provides a detailed account of the developmental sequence that drives individuation. A wealth of literatures exists about the topics of individuation (Blazina, & Watkins, 2000; Elise, 2001; Garbarino, Gaa, McPherson, & Gratch, 1995), the development of personality in conjunction with individuation (Fordham, 1969; Gordon, 1986; Redfearn, 1977), archetypes and masculine development (Dreifuss, 2001; Knox, 2004; Moore & Gillette, 1990), and developmental stages of life (Erikson, 1956, 1959, 1963, 1982; Freud 1905/1989a).  However, the lack of a Jungian theory of development constitutes one of four core controversies in Jungian literature (Withers, 2003). While the lack of a developmental theory represents a current controversy in analytical psychology, as I read Siddhartha, I realized that a developmental sequence driven by archetypal themes was apparent in the structure of Hesse’s (2002) story.

As I have continued my postgraduate studies in Jungian, psychoanalytic, and theories of transcendental and depth psychology, I have found that, many synchronistic events occurred that allowed my psyche to grow. One such synchronistic event occurred when I traveled to Sipapu, New Mexico, at a time that I found myself questioning the essence of my being as a young adult of 25 years of age.

While attending a three-day conference entitled Love Letters to the Flowering Earth, I entered a period of disorganization that I believed at the time to be a psychotic break. This culminated during my twenty-fifth year of life, when for the first time my adolescent views of immortality began to fail me. This realization compounded after I faced my mother’s mortality after she developed breast cancer for a second time in her life. While she luckily recovered, facing the concept of mortality proved to be an enlightening experience that prompted my personal maturation. 

silhouette of native american shaman with pikestaff on background of sunset beutiful in mountains

During this conference, I began to take inventory of the unconscious processes that affected my life. The poet and author Robert Bly (1990, 1991, 1996), the shaman, author, and artist Martín Prechtel (1998, 1999), and the storyteller and author Gioia Timpanelli (1998) hosted the three-day conference. During this conference, I recollected dreams and aspirations from my adolescence, felt the power of the Wild-Man, and became lost in a world that seemed very different from the one I had known just days before. From a Jungian perspective, I had come face-to-face with the dreams and ashes that formed the foundation of my shadow.

The nearer we approach to the middle of life, and the better we have succeeded in entrenching ourselves in our personal attitudes and social positions, the more it appears as if we had discovered the right course and the right ideals and principles of behaviour [sic]. For this reason we suppose them to be eternally valid, and make a virtue of unchangeably clinging to them. We overlook the essential fact that the social goal is attained only at the cost of a diminution of personality. Many – far too many – aspects of life which should also have been experienced lie in the lumber-room among dusty memories; but sometimes, too, they are glowing coals under grey ashes. (Jung, 1931/1969, p. 395)

During this conference, I feared I was going psychotic; however, with hindsight, I now believe I entered a period of spiritual emergence that fostered growth within my psyche. I became open to the arcane mysteries of the unconscious that my ego had yet to be willing to explore in a personal sense. Glimpses of the shadow that I had formed during my early childhood years began to emerge within the growing ashes my adult psyche  was producing; however, I had yet to find the glowing ambers left behind in the growing pile of ashes from my past.  

I underwent brief periods of lucidity intermixed with periods of insanity. I found myself grasping for any aspect of reality that would lead me home to the world I had once known. While I can now look back on this event with clarity, I found myself overtaken by unconscious contents that battled to overtake my conscious sensibility during the time these events took place. “Am I insane,” I thought as I grasped for those periods of lucidity. What I did not realize was that I had slowly slipped into the depths of the unconscious, undergoing a hero’s quest (Campbell, 1949) and a night sea’s journey (Jung, 1967/1911-1912). Although I did not have an understanding of what God had in store for me by providing me this experience, through faith and a little help from an acquaintance I met at the conference, I proceeded with the closing ritual of the three-day shamanic conference.

With hindsight, I realize that the trickster had played a volatile game with my psyche during this three-day period. I became overly fatigued after climbing one of the mountain peaks close to the resort. I had almost missed the final ceremony, as I rested on my bed, waiting for the final hours of the day to end so that I could go home and be with my family. However, the kind words of a stranger convinced me to attend this ceremony. I attended the final ceremony primarily to obtain a book signing from Mr. Martin Prechtel, the Mayan shaman who was one of the three teachers of the conference. He wrote, “For Tom: This fist isn’t a fist, but flowers with eloquent words with a fire whose wage is love” (personal communication, 2001). While I did not understand the meaning of these words when they were written, I now realize that this message represented a metaphor of the journey I was about to undertake to understand my personal ontology. I had always considered myself a warrior—the carrier of a heavy fist. However, I had lost my way, and now I was not open to a path of love. Since this time, the passion that love inspired has helped me to understand that personal growth occurs in relationship with other individuals. The shaman had seen my inner daemon well before I was even open to the idea, and provided me an alternative path.

During this conference, I had entered a psychological state in which I projected archetypal themes onto other individuals. However, being conscious of this forced me to confront the daemons of my unconscious narcissistic attitudes of adolescent and early adult-life. I needed to reconcile the attitudes of my adolescent and emergent adult-life. Although I was well aware of the collective unconscious at this stage of my post-graduate studies, I was not open to the experiential effects it could have on the individual. Life is relational; both conscious and unconscious events occur intra and interpersonally. This lesson proved to be a humbling experience to a highly ego-driven young man.

During those three days, I underwent a psychological transformation that would stand to have long-lasting repercussions in my life. Because I was a practicing psychotherapist, I immediately labeled the symptoms that I had suffered a psychotic break. I realized that I was hallucinating, splitting at the psychological level between absolute constructs of holy and evil, projecting upon others traits that were inherently mine, and assuming traits in a delusional pattern that led to fear of whether I had entered a psychotic break. Furthermore, this was not induced by any foreign substance. As I look back on this powerful initiatory experience into adult-life, I now realize that an individual who enters and exits stages of development incurs a substantial amount of psychological distress. I cannot conjecture whether I would have found lucidity if I did not attend the final ritual. However, only through having experienced the true effect of this psychological journey, I now know that it is the ritual that gave me a sense of closure towards an alternatively scary time within my life. Through the ritual, I was more open to tend to the unconscious workings of my soul.  

When a developmental stage ends, a therapeutic closure occurs within the confines of the psyche. This allows for a state of equilibrium to exist within the individual. Just as the cellular wall helps to protect the DNA within its boundaries, the psyche offers a level of containment to a person that enters a new stage of psychological development. During this three-day conference, I saw the daemons inherent in my shadow, the effects that narcissism has on the developing psyche, worked with some of the tenets of my unconscious psyche, and found that an inherent duality exists within the archetype itself, which ultimately found its way into my personal views about consciousness. Furthermore, this belief system continues to perpetuate my therapeutic understanding about how psychopathology differs from normal developmental patterns; and has helped me to help others integrate the bothersome polarities of consciousness that drives their personal journey to become a whole person.

Joseph Campbell (1949) believed that people enter a circular process known as the hero’s journey. Although I had written on this topic during my graduate school studies, I had never experienced it firsthand. Psychological and physiological maturation occurs through a process deintegration and reintegration (Fordham, 1969, 1976, 1993; Fordham, Hubback, & Wilke, 1971). This process is similar to the paranoid schizoid and the depressive positions proposed by the object relation school of psychoanalysis (Segal, 1990). The processes of deintegration and reintegration are similar to the death and rebirth motifs proposed by analytical psychology, occur throughout the lifecycle, and propel psychological and physiological development. Childhood must die for adolescence to take fruition, just as adolescence must die to the emerging pressures of adult-life. This position towards the death and rebirth motif is similar to the position taken in fairy tales; in fairy tales, a hero never truly dies, only their inferior sense of self gives way to a new and improved sense of Self. However, this process cannot occur unless the individual works the dual nature of the archetype in order to mend it by the neutral third entity that Jung (1951/1969g) stated unites the two opposing themes. Virgil (1916/1999) stated:

faciles descensus Averno:

Noctes atque dies patet atri ianua Ditis;

Sed revocare gadum superasque evadere ad auras,

Hoc opus, hic labor est. (pp. 540-541)

The descent into Hell:

For nights and days, long the door of gloomy wealth stands open.

However, this leads to the upper air.

This is work, Here it is.

We descend through the black door of the unconscious psyche. We yearn to escape the depths of the ever pressing soul, to soar freely in the air, determined to chart, follow, and realize the dreams we encompass. As Virgil alludes to in this quote, the work of deintegration and reintegration so common to the individuation process is a work of descent and ascent. It is a work, hell, a work of flight, a work of love, and a work of being.

In order to complete this research, I must toil with the presuppositions I bring to the study in order to pass on to the “upper air” that will be ascertained by completing the task that has called upon me. This quote from Virgil is a poetic example of the circular process known as the hero’s quest (Campbell, 1949). Being such, it was imperative that I identify the predispositions I have towards this research so that I can remain objective towards the subject material. What I am conscious of when I conduct this study allows me to learn and grow at the experiential level. However, as with any undertaking of consciousness, unconscious motifs can also affect the opinions I draw from conducting this research.

In Jungian psychology, it is imperative to bring the unconscious into conscious awareness in order to work the polarities present. This prompts the maturation of the psyche. Researchers formulate opinions based on evidence. However, an opinion, even when based on evidence remains just that, an opinion based on subjective factors of analysis. Research has both conscious and unconscious components. Because unconscious motifs underlie the reasons why a researcher chooses to study a phenomenon, the theory of objectivity seems obsolete. Furthermore, a research study is also dependent on past knowledge. Therefore, it is imperative that researchers honor and cite past authors that have studied similar lines of thought. By identifying one’s predispositions, the researcher can engage the studied phenomenon in an objective and qualitative manner. By identifying the unconscious processes that underlie a research study, a researcher can also actively engage the subject matter in a manner that honors the unconscious growth attainable through employing self introspective methods common to the alchemical hermeneutic method (2007).  

My personal predispositions to this study center on the respect I have for the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement. Robert Bly’s (1990) work, Iron John: A Book about Men, provided me with a glimpse into what it means to feel as a man. This book also provided me with an understanding of the complex nature of my psyche. Through this book, I was able to understand that the anger and narcissism associated with adolescence is a natural response to the lack of socially sanctioned adult initiations that is common to the American culture. The male psyche has a mythological core; Iron John: A Book about Men spoke to my mythological core by offering an account of the inclusion that I sought as a young man from a mythological perspective. By conducting this study, I hope to provide other men a means to understand the mythological symbols that drive our development during the lifespan.  

The methods of induction utilized in this study honor factors of objectivity and subjectivity. I wrote the above autobiographical account to show the personal history I have with this subject matter. I cannot remove myself from my conscious that perceives this research process forward. Nor can I remove the events of my past that unconsciously drive this research passion forward. I can only strive to become conscious of the unconscious events that drive this process, so that I can remain aware of, identify, and bring to light these themes not only from a position that may or may not taint the research process itself, but to also be open to possible other underlying archetypal themes that can drive our individuated development forward. The research that underlies this study will forever remain a part of the work that will be associated with who I become. From the perspective of a legacy that one leaves behind, no person can truly remain objective about the passions that drive their undertakings. This research endeavor remains part of the storyline I create about my life’s journey, and is part of my subjective experience.

I wrote this section from an autobiographical perspective to help prepare the reader for the following sections that utilize transference dialogues, a subjective research method that allows a place for self-analysis to decipher and objectify common human themes. These dialogues will take the form of personal reveries from the past, present, and the future dreams of this researcher as I delve into the subject matter present in Siddhartha (Hesse, 2002). My goal in this undertaking is to understand whether there is a developmental sequence from which individuated development unfolds.

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  Chapter 3 of a Jungian perspective of developmental psychology

Siddhartha Gautama, the prince that would find enlightenment at the Bodhi Tree and transcend ordinary consciousness to become the Buddha was a man driven to understand the essence of suffering.

Chapter 3 of a Jungian perspective of developmental psychology Siddhartha Gautama, the prince that would find enlightenment at the Bodhi Tree and transcend ordinary consciousness to become the Buddha was a man driven to understand the essence of suffering.

[imeverywoman420]

Ive noticed emotionally unintelligent people with absolutely horrendous unsexy vibes are often very against things like astrology, mbti, jungian psych, enneagrams, or even ideas someones art could represent their unconscious mind/dreams can indicate your beliefs about yourself/etc. we’re not even talking Deep Woo we’re talking these people dont believe in community college level developmental psychology. like theyre very much against anything that is not literal and mathematical. Almost no creative intelligence. I think that has to be a sad way to live.

Theyre always fighting for this idea that nothing means anything. Like everything is a big coincidence. We’re on some shitty spinny blue rock with chemicals in our brains who cares??? Then they go on the i fucking love science facebook page and jerk off to rick and morty rule 34

[purgatoryandme]

Happy Belated New Year! I saw a reply that you had recently about moving. Did any one of your friendships or relationships suffer because of that? Also i've been following you blog for a longgggg time and kinda noticed your a psychology nerd. What do you think of the concept of Shadow Work?

Happy belated new year to you too, anon! Moving out of my home province didn’t really do any damage to my long-standing friendships - most of the people I’m close with have either moved away at some point or have been friends with me through other moves. We’ve been together a very long time! There are definitely some relationships that could’ve become more if I had’ve stuck around, but I think it was worth it to leave for the career opportunities alone. There were even some I was glad to have some distance from emotionally since things were headed in strange and variable directions. My family also calls me once a week and I usually hear from my brother just about every other day, so I never feel disconnected from them.  It haunts me so badly that everyone is referencing how long I’ve been on here. I hadn’t even thought about it before. TBH my first year of university doesn’t feel that long ago? And yet it’s been seven whole years. Gross!  Jungian psychology is super fun from a philosophical perspective, but from a more literal biopsych angle it often makes me want to check to see if I’m secretly reading a DND character creator handbook. Regarding the shadow as a concept, I really think that “negative emotions” is a poor classification of the human experience and really gives grief, anger, and plain old sadness a bad name as things to be avoided instead of the catalysts and processing tools they really are. Still, the concept of a disowned self, aspects that you throw away due to societal pressures, is a rich one. Again, though, I find treating that concept as developmental in children for them to get things that they want is a little ???? Conditioned behaviours, such as rerouting anger or avoiding tantrums, aren’t really the same as repression and it makes me >:( to treat them like they are. I think the shadow as a concept really lacks the subtlety and nuance that I lean towards when considering identity, replacing it with a straightforward approach that is very categorical and probably more helpful towards people who need that kind of mental organization. Anyway! Shadow work itself I think is a nice self-help thing and is great for people who really feel a spiritual connection with themselves and the concepts of good and evil. I’d just prefer reconditioning exercises, such as mindfulness or CBT, to it any day since they don’t fiddle around with concepts of the authentic self that I consider utilitarian. People exist in context! Relationships, identity, fluidity! There is no one authentic self! I get stuck on concepts like this. 

[viesolivagant]

Jung’s Anima/Animus

Levels of anima development

Jung believed anima development has four distinct levels, which in "The psychology of the transference" he named Eve, Helen, Mary and Sophia. In broad terms, the entire process of anima development in a man is about the male subject opening up to emotionality, and in that way a broader spirituality, by creating a new conscious paradigm that includes intuitive processes, creativity and imagination, and psychic sensitivity towards himself and others where it might not have existed previously.

Eve

The first is Eve, named after the Genesis account of Adam and Eve. It deals with the emergence of a man's object of desire.

Helen

The second is Helen, an allusion to Helen of Troy in Greek mythology. In this phase, women are viewed as capable of worldly success and of being self-reliant, intelligent and insightful, even if not altogether virtuous. This second phase is meant to show a strong schism in external talents (cultivated business and conventional skills) with lacking internal qualities (inability for virtue, lacking faith or imagination).

Mary

The third phase is Mary, named after the Christian theological understanding of the Virgin Mary (Jesus' mother). At this level, women can now seem to possess virtue by the perceiving man (even if in an esoteric and dogmatic way), in as much as certain activities deemed consciously unvirtuous cannot be applied to her.

Sophia

The fourth and final phase of anima development is Sophia, named after the Greek word for wisdom. Complete integration has now occurred, which allows women to be seen and related to as particular individuals who possess both positive and negative qualities. The most important aspect of this final level is that, as the personification "Wisdom" suggests, the anima is now developed enough that no single object can fully and permanently contain the images to which it is related.

Levels of animus development

Jung focused more on the man's anima and wrote less about the woman's animus. Jung believed that every woman has an analogous animus within her psyche, this being a set of unconscious masculine attributes and potentials. He viewed the animus as being more complex than the anima, postulating that women have a host of animus images whereas the male anima consists only of one dominant image.

Jung stated that there are four parallel levels of animus development in a woman.[4]

Man of mere physical power

The animus "first appears as a personification of mere physical power - for instance as an athletic champion or muscle man, such as 'the fictional jungle hero Tarzan'".

Man of action or romance

In the next phase, the animus "possesses initiative and the capacity for planned action...the romantic man - the 19th century British poet Byron; or the man of action - America's Ernest Hemingway, war hero, hunter, etc."[6]

Man as a professor, clergyman, orator

In the third phase "the animus becomes the word, often appearing as a professor or clergyman...the bearer of the word - Lloyd George, the great political orator".[6]

Man as a spiritual guide

"Finally, in his fourth manifestation, the animus is the incarnation of meaning. On this highest level he becomes (like the anima) a mediator of...spiritual profundity".[7] Jung noted that "in mythology, this aspect of the animus appears as Hermes, messenger of the gods; in dreams he is a helpful guide." Like Sophia, this is the highest level of mediation between the unconscious and conscious mind.[citation needed] In the book The Invisible Partners, John A. Sanford said that the key to controlling one's anima/animus is to recognize it when it manifests and exercise our ability to discern the anima/animus from reality.[8]

Anima and animus compared

The four roles are not identical with genders reversed. Jung believed that while the anima tended to appear as a relatively singular female personality, the animus may consist of a conjunction of multiple male personalities: "in this way the unconscious symbolizes the fact that the animus represents a collective rather than a personal element".[9]

The process of animus development deals with cultivating an independent and non-socially subjugated idea of self by embodying a deeper word (as per a specific existential outlook) and manifesting this word. To clarify, this does not mean that a female subject becomes more set in her ways (as this word is steeped in emotionality, subjectivity, and a dynamism just as a well-developed anima is) but that she is more internally aware of what she believes and feels, and is more capable of expressing these beliefs and feelings. Thus the "animus in his most developed form sometimes...make[s] her even more receptive than a man to new creative ideas".[10]

Both final stages of animus and anima development have dynamic qualities (related to the motion and flux of this continual developmental process), open-ended qualities (there is no static perfected ideal or manifestation of the quality in question), and pluralistic qualities (which transcend the need for a singular image, as any subject or object can contain multiple archetypes or even seemingly antithetical roles). They also form bridges to the next archetypal figures to emerge, as "the unconscious again changes its dominant character and appears in a new symbolic form, representing the Self".[11] - the archetypes of the Wise Old Woman/Man

Jungian cautions

Jungians warned that "every personification of the unconscious - the shadow, the anima, the animus, and the Self - has both a light and a dark aspect....the anima and animus have dual aspects: They can bring life-giving development and creativeness to the personality, or they can cause petrification and physical death".[12]

One danger was of what Jung termed "invasion" of the conscious by the unconscious archetype - "Possession caused by the anima...bad taste: the anima surrounds herself with inferior people".[13] Jung insisted that "a state of anima possession...must be prevented. The anima is thereby forced into the inner world, where she functions as the medium between the ego and the unconscious, as does the persona between the ego and the environment".[14]

Alternatively, over-awareness of the anima or animus could provide a premature conclusion to the individuation process - "a kind of psychological short-circuit, to identify the animus at least provisionally with wholeness".[15] Instead of being "content with an intermediate position", the animus seeks to usurp "the self, with which the patient's animus identifies. This identification is a regular occurrence when the shadow, the dark side, has not been sufficiently realized".[15

Retrieved from Wikipedia

[sonerajhaveri]

Psychotherapy and Counselling

Psychotherapy and Counselling

I am often asked about the difference between psychotherapy and counselling. While these words are used interchangeably, there is a difference between them and it is vital to be cognizant of the distinction. Counselling generally implies a short term,  very specific and targeted facilitation. There are many types of counsellors and varied topic-centred types of counselling, such as marital counselling, drug and alcohol counselling, career counselling, health counselling etc. The list can go on . .  what is important to know is that counselling designates facilitation around very narrow criteria’s restricted to the theme the counselling is pivoted around.

So a marital counsellor will focus primarily on marital issues and will have restricted therapeutic skills in other areas of mental health, such as trauma work, attachment issues or chronic pain. Tangential issues that could come up in the context of marriage, that go beyond the nominal marital issues, are out of the scope of the counsellor and counselling. For instance, if there are sexual problems in a relationship, due to one of the partners being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,  it would be hard for a counsellor alone to tackle such a case since childhood sexual abuse elicits deep trauma work. Counsellors are restricted to mostly working on the communication styles of the partners and regulating the behaviours of each member of the couple in the context of the marriage.

Psychotherapy or rather integral psychotherapy is a more expansive and holistic method of therapeutic work which integrates a vast panoply of areas from developmental, social, spatial, temporal,   existential, behavioural and transpersonal vectors as they inform the subjectivity of the client. Here childhood misattunements with primary givers are given importance, as well as a range of other factors, some of which could be medical conditions, cultural conditionings,  learning disabilities, traumas, stress reactions, dreams, fantasies, anxieties, memories, relational patterns, addictions, depression,  tics, phobias etc. that impact the individual. A psychotherapist is trained in one or more modalities that are oriented towards harmonising psyche and soma like integral somatic psychology,  psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, dialectical behaviour therapy, somatic experiencing, Hakomi to name a few.

Like there are many different kinds of counselling, there are many divergent types of psychotherapies. It is good to inform oneself about the many kinds of psychotherapies available and then to choose what is most appropriate for oneself. If you are someone who is very into the imagination and has vivid dreams a Jungian analyst might be the right match, if you are oriented towards uncovering unconscious psychological roots of childhood experiences you might want a Freudian or a Kleinian, if you want group work a Bionian, for psychospiritual work a transpersonal psychotherapist, for somatic work a somatic therapist and so on . . .

It is best to know well your own sui generis therapeutic needs and then to find a psychotherapist or counsellor that will be able to work within your ambit and with your very specific, tailor-made therapeutic goals.

[usedbooksworld]

Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self

Eastern Body, Western Mind: Psychology and the Chakra System As a Path to the Self 

Paperback – Illustrated, August 1, 2004

by Anodea Judith (Author)

Revised edition of the groundbreaking New Age book that seamlessly merges Western psychology and science with spirituality, creating a compelling interpretation of the Eastern chakra system and its relevance for Westerners today. In Eastern Body, Western Mind, chakra authority Anodea Judith brought a fresh approach to the yoga-based Eastern chakra system, adapting it to the Western framework of Jungian psychology, somatic therapy, childhood developmental theory, and metaphysics and applying the chakra system to important modern social realities and issues such as addiction, codependence, family dynamics, sexuality, and personal empowerment. Arranged schematically, the book uses the inherent structure of the chakra system as a map upon which to chart our Western understanding of individual development. Each chapter focuses on a single chakra, starting with a description of its characteristics and then exploring its particular childhood developmental patterns, traumas and abuses, and how to heal and maintain balance.

Publisher : Celestial Arts; Revised ed. edition (August 1, 2004)

Language: : English

Paperback : 504 pages

ISBN-10 : 9781587612251

ISBN-13 : 9781587612251

Item Weight : 1.33 pounds

Dimensions : 5.94 x 1.29 x 8.98 inches

[trentexpression]

Eastern Body, Western Mind

Eastern Body, Western Mind

In “EASTERN BODY, WESTERN MIND”, chakra authority Anodea Judith brought a fresh approach to the yoga-based Eastern chakra system, adapting it to the Western framework of Jungian psychology, somatic therapy, childhood developmental theory, and metaphysics. This groundbreaking work in transpersonal psychology has been revised and redesigned for a more accessible presentation. Arranged…

[katgulb-wordpress]

28. Jungian Archetypes of the Human Psyche

So the drawing… Pretty cool, right? I say that because I drew it for my World Literature capstone project. 😅

We were learning about different archetypes that are depicted in dreams, literature, art or religion. Clearly there was the emphasis on the literature aspect for this class. But it also tied into what I was learning in Developmental Psychology that same semester. (Two birds with one…

[fenmere]

We should ammend this post with an important note:

When we read Jung's work, it was 20 years ago, in the depths of our university library in the midst of a special interest in psychology.

We read the books thoroughly, but undirected by any sort of course or knowledge of his career.

Our judgment appears to be on his earlier works, which are what we found at the time.

Like most human beings, he grew and developed and had different thoughts later in his life.

This article is worth reading in regards to that:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4217604/

We regret holding onto such a narrowly conceived frustration with him.

On the other hand, the words he used in that early work, and the purpose of that work (to inform his peers of the critical nature of flying dreams as an alert to risks their clients were supposedly about to make) are reflective if the culture he was working in, and which biases his work. To say nothing of the misogyny of his time.

He was still a capitalist tool. If nothing else, than simply by being part of a profession that has always pathologized the behaviors of people that are not useful to the economy.

We don’t know if Carl actually said the above quote, but he was a capitalist stooge anyway.

Carl Jung wrote that dreaming of flying meant that a man was overestimating his worth.

And we always strongly objected to that.

Carl supported his use of the phrase by referring to every patient of his who had flying dreams who then went on to die doing something risky like tightrope walking or sky diving. And he surmised that a flying dream was an unconscious expression of the belief that the universe would not kill someone for doing foolishly risky things.

But we knew that we had flying dreams because we needed to know what it felt like. We literally wanted to be able to fly. And to fly to get away from the agony of our life. To escape. To feel the endorphins of it and not have to care about the bullies, the physical dysphoria, the sensory overload, and the demands of the fucking cultural hell that we were born into called the United States of the 1980s. We didn’t care about our worth, we just wanted relief. At all costs. Death would have been a reward.

We daydreamed about flying long before we dreamt it at night. For hours and hours, while we dissociated from the world. Daydreaming turns out to be a great way to train your night dreams as well.

We wanted to shake Carl by the lapels and scream at him, “Flying dreams are a desperate cry for help you god damn asshole!” But he had the fucking audacity of being dead by the time we read his work.

And yet the thing we hated the most about his phrasing was that it rests heavily on the idea that men have an inherent worth. That you can put a value on people. It’s a gross capitalist idea that every individual has a value that can be measured and weighed. Bought. Exploited. Discarded. Dismissed.

But then we eventually realized we weren’t men. Or a man, as many mistook us for.

And so fuck off, Carl.

Your naming of archetypes and conception of the collective unconscious were pretty cool insights, but they were memes whose time had come and you were a tool, dude.

[klovesyou]

"no body ever does real transformation for fun...you do it only when your back is so far against the wall that you have no choice anymore." - elizabeth gilbert • • even my fortune cookie knows i'm running out of other options 😂...change is the only course.. • • 🍄hoping the mushies can guide me🍄 • • ...along with all the signs + synchronicities. for example, yesterday after an exchange with a neuroscientist who wanted a date with me (whip-smart + attractive, but i'm gathering that our frequencies + needs don't currently align), i end up unexpectedly listening to a neuroscience lecture from a friend who's in the process of writing a dissertation on learning theory + applied neuroscience. coincidence? maybe in your world, but in mine...i just took away that i need to actively trigger diffuse mode in my brain more often. exercise + meditation. the universe has been giving me these messages for months now...the messages are in the sychronicities! • • and upon listening, it sent off all kinds of ideas around learning being developmental (piaget) + ideas around critical consciousness theory (freire) + processes of individuation (jungian psychology) + how can we apply this all meaningfully to teacher learning??? and then watching the agroecology documentary sent off more ideas about rhizomatic + healing paradigms for holistic well-being + how that might apply to helping adults understand interconnectedness + ready their minds for creating new neural pathways + re-wiring our subconscious for substantive + sustainable transformations in our psyches...which should lead to intentional, conscious living + changed actions...of course which i'm currently backing myself against a wall with cause change is so. freaking. hard + scary.😳 • • ...and what roles do mycelium + rhizomatic structures play in connecting ideas between humans??? 🤓 🍄🌱🌲🐛🦋👁️🔮🙏🏼 • • ❤️💛💚🖤 #signsandsynchronicities #synchronicities #mycelium #rhizomes #learningtheory #transformation #microdosing #knowledgeisarhizome #criticalconsciousness #spiritualactivism #spiritartist #dissertationlife #picassojasper #neuroscience #diffusemode #stayopen #therearenocoincidences #beingabrataboutchange #imanerd https://www.instagram.com/p/B4QEcKhHOWP/?igshid=dgsrx1ikz78u

[drthomasmaples]

The History between Hermann Hesse and Carl Jung

The psychological theories of Carl Gustav Jung share a common history with the writing of Siddhartha. Hesse (2002) began work on this story in 1919 and completed the first portion of the story by 1920. He then underwent a period of severe writer’s block from which he sought analytical treatment from Dr. Jung; after a brief stint of analytical treatment lasting only a few weeks, Hesse was able to complete the Indian legend in 1922. This period in the author’s life coincided with a 17 year self-experimental journey Dr. Jung undertook to shed light on the nature of his unconscious, which became the subject matter of Liber Novus: The Red Book (Jung, 2009); it was during the time of Hesse’s writers block that Jung worked on an experimental psychological treatment modality called active imagination, exploring ways to make unconscious themes conscious through artistic expressions of imagination.

In the case of Siddhartha, literary expressions of archetypal themes are present throughout the work. Hermann Hesse often makes emotional appeals that “are strange and mysterious to the logical mind” (Maier, 1999, p. 1). This is why Maier (1999) believed that Hesse’s work needs clarification by referencing the theories of Carl Jung’s psychology. The story Siddhartha speaks to the collective journey we undergo to make sense of our personal ontology and storyline. By utilizing a writing method similar to those used to create fairy-tales, Hesse’s writing appeals to the archetypal foundation of the collective unconscious, which allows his works to assume a collective perspective that works rationale and logic, emotions and thought. Maier (1999) stated that his works “affect the reader whether he is conscious of them or not” (p. 1). The heroic themes present in Hesse’s plots had an immense effect on multiple generations from various cultures around the world (Morris, 2002), including myself during a time when I was searching to make sense of my own emergent life story.

Hesse wrote Siddhartha at a time when scientific objectivity became the predominant means by which European people viewed the external world. Hesse wrote the following words in 1920:

We are seeing a religious wave rising in almost all of Europe, a wave of religious need and despair, a searching and a profound malaise, and many are speaking of… a new religion to come… Europe is beginning to sense… that the overblown one-sidedness of its intellectual culture (most clearly expressed in scientific specialization) is in need of a correction, a revitalization coming from the opposite pole. This widespread yearning is not for a new ethics or a new way of thinking, but for a culture of spiritual function that our intellectual approach to life has not been able to provide. This is a general yearning not so much for a Buddha or a Laotze but for a yogic capability. We have learned that humanity can cultivate its intellect to an astonishing level of accomplishment without becoming master of its soul. (Hesse, 2002, p. vii)

A growing sentiment to repress all instincts plagued the European attitude of the 19th century. This attitude is apparent in Hesse’s citation. Descartes created a philosophical premise that allowed the mind to exist separately from the body; science utilized this philosophical premise to create a method by which one could study an entity without taking part in its subjective presence. Scientific objectivity became a method utilized to understand the environment from a removed perspective; this led to a denial of subjective presence within research and mitigated the validity of scientific claims to the way consciousness can remain objectively separate from that which it studies (Romanyshyn, 2001). This reminds me of the famous citation by Friedrich Nietzsche (1882/1974):

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? (para. 125)

  Our quest to formulate meaning about the environment from a removed perspective of objectivity allowed us to cultivate a superior knowledge base at the expense of removing ourselves from the life-giving essence of soul that nourishes our existence.  As I compare the citation Hesse wrote in 1920 to the citation Nietzsche wrote nearly fifty years earlier, it becomes clear that Europe felt the full effects of what objectifying the world and denying the presence of social responsibility, ethics, and the presence of God entails. Hesse’s words appear to answer the ethical dilemma proposed by Nietzsche nearly half a century before.

The countercultural spiritual movement that Hesse foretold occurred decades later in America with the birth of the baby-boomer generation and the hippie movement. In the introduction to Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, Paul W. Morris (2002) wrote:

When New Directions decided to publish the first English translation of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in 1951, it could not have foreseen the enormous impact it would have on American culture. The novel’s ostensibly simple narrative – the story of a young, accomplished brahmin. Siddhartha, who defies his father’s tradition in favor of wandering India in search of enlightenment – appealed to the restless drifter, the alienated youth, and the political anarchist alike. Its many motifs include the outcast from society, rejection of authority, communion with nature, recalcitrance toward schooling, and the idea of an imminent God. Published in the United States during the Cold War, Siddhartha addressed a perennial unrest and provided a new set of values for a generation of people disenchanted with their parent’s conservatism. (pp. xiii-xiv)

During the 1960s, America was ready to promote the spiritual awakening that Hesse had foretold during the 1920s. The philosophical ideology behind personal spiritual enlightenment also stands as a theoretical undercurrent of analytical, humanistic, and transpersonal models of psychology (Taylor, 1999). While Hesse was never a part of these movements, nor was he involved in the field of psychology, he seems to have foretold the paradigmatic shift that was responsible for their creation and was well aware of the psychology of Dr. Carl Jung through his own analysis with the Jungian trained analyst Dr. Josef B. Lang and Dr. Carl Jung himself.

Many of Hesse’s characters are traceable to the analytical sessions he had with Dr. Josef B. Lang, a psychiatrist and disciple of Carl Jung, who treated Hesse during the time period between 1916 and 1919 when Hesse was writing the novel Demian (Hesse, 1919); Hesse and Lang remained lifelong friends after his treatment, and his involvement with Lang would eventually lead to a stint of analysis with Dr. Jung himself. In 1921, after suffering a period of writer’s block, Hesse sought a brief analysis from Carl Jung, which would last only a couple of weeks. Hesse ended this treatment abruptly after the writer’s block lifted (Freedman, 1999), freeing him to complete the second half of his story.

Hesse wrote Siddhartha in a fashion that honored collective themes; the presence of these collective themes become clear when one reads the story from a psychological perspective. Beyond its use of Jung’s idea about ascertaining an individuated sense of consciousness, Siddhartha presents as an eclectic blend of Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist concepts integrated with a burgeoning knowledge of Western models of psychoanalytically based psychologies. Hesse’s novel is also a biographical account of the author’s personal quest to individuate and rebel against the social structures, mores, and the ethics common to the European continent during the early 20th century.

Until then, Hesse’s entire life had been a series of rebellions, from his dropping out of school at the age of thirteen, to his break with the tradition of his Protestant parents and their hope that he follow their missionary ambitions, to his fierce opposition to the global conflict of World War I. (Morris, 2002, p. xvii)

As a protagonist, Siddhartha, reconciles his rebellious nature much as Hesse sought to “reconcile his family’s missionary tradition with his own rebellious spirit” (Morris, 2002, p. xvii). For Hesse, this rebellious spirit, combined with later nervous breakdowns and subsequent psychoanalyses by Dr. Josef B. Lang and Dr. Carl Jung, expressed itself in two of the stories he wrote.

Siddhartha has enjoyed a warm and extensive reception since its original publication in 1922. This is partially due to the way the story touches upon collective themes that drive human nature and our search to make meaning of the life we are afforded. While Hesse wrote the story Siddhartha about a real character, Gautama the Buddha, he wrote the story in such a way that the main character can represent any person that reads its rich, symbolic content. The history behind the production of this book also suggests that Hesse could not finish the plot the protagonist undertook (individuation) without first understanding about how this journey unfolded in his own personal development. Therefore, Hesse’s work represents a fictitious biography of the Buddha, an autobiographical account of the journey the author undertook, and an archetypal story that shows a symbolic path an exemplar took to become enlightened and understand the true nature of Self.

A Developmental Perspective of Archetypal Individuation.

People seek to make meaning within their lives by formulating conscious understanding of their internal and external worlds. At a young age, the conscious splits environmental events into increasingly complex systems of understanding that rely on the ability to perceive events as being either positive or negative to the quest the Self has to realize its true nature. The Self perpetuates its own life cycle; this life cycle unfolds upon itself in a natural order of events as life eventually gives way to death. Our ability to form conscious representations of environmental events allows us to develop greater understanding of the Self as it interacts with increasingly larger environments. Carl Jung (1954/1969b) spent his life creating a theory that viewed developmental experiences as being a “natural course of life – a life in which the individual becomes what he always was” (p. 40). The natural course of life unfolds from a-priori archetypal constructs that govern the sequence by which development occurs.

Archetypes form the foundation of the collective unconscious, from which consciousness emerges. Archetypal themes also foster development at specific periods during the life sequence. Upon initial review, the archetypal themes that appear to perpetuate the developmental sequence are the divine child, the Self, the shadow, the personae, the anima and animus syzygy, a concept of divinity (God), the wise man, and the underlying sequences that assure consciousness arises and is able to mend itself.

Carl Jung (1968) viewed that uniting the polarities of the psyche constituted the fundamental process that drives human development. The maturation of consciousness assures that the psyche develops a polarized perspective that judges entities as similar or different, good or bad. While many paths can occur during the life cycle, each individual path branches like the limbs of a tree towards the heavens and the sun, which allows life to exist on this planet in the first place. Life strives towards its end regardless if a person chooses to act in a positive or negative manner. For each opposite apparent in the psyche, a binding agent helps mend the tension within the psyche to perpetuate individuated development. Jung (1946/1993) wrote:

Hunted for centuries and never found, the prima materia or lapis philosophorum is, as a few alchemists rightly suspected, to be discovered in man himself. But it seems that this content can never be found and integrated directly, but only by the circuitous route of projection… The difficulties of our psychotherapeutic work teach us to take truth, goodness, and beauty where we find them. They are not always found where we look for them: often they are hidden in the dirt or are in the keeping of the dragon. “In stercore invenitur” (it is found in filth) runs an alchemical dictum – nor is it any the less valuable on that account. But, it does not transfigure the dirt and does not diminish the evil, any more than these lessen God’s gifts. The contrast is painful and the paradox is bewildering. Statements like Heaven above, Heaven below… all that is above, all is below, Grasp this, And rejoice are too optimistic and superficial; they forget the moral torment occasioned by the opposites, and the importance of ethical values. (pp. 518-520)

Ambiguity occurs as the psyche attempts to make sense of the positive and negative poles common to consciousness. Only individuals who transcend the moral torment that accompanies the polarities common to consciousness can partake in the alchemical goal of the “prima materia” or “lapis philosophorum.”  This is why Jung (1946/1993) stated, “It seems that this content can never be found and integrated directly, but only by the circuitous route of projection” (p. 518). From a Jungian perspective, one can only transcend the inherent split of consciousness by uniting the positive and negative poles of each archetype with the Self.

A key construct of Jungian theory lies in its use of symbolism to explain the human condition. In Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology of the Self, Jung (1969) provided a comprehensive review of the archetypes that directly affect the individuating Self. Jungian theory proposes that each archetype acts as a governing body that helps the psyche to emerge. Each archetype consists of polarities, and through individuation, a person learns to integrate the poles common to each archetype with the emergent Self concept. By mending the polarities common to an archetype, a person can transcend consciousness and realize the Self in its individuated form.

The Jungian analyst Michael Fordham (1969) developed a theoretical model about how the psyche individuates. He believed the psyche deintegrates and reintegrates to perpetuate its development. Other Jungian theorists, such as Stien (1983, 1998, & 2006) and Whitmont (1969) have touched upon developmental themes from a Jungian perspective, but have not provided a detailed description from which the psyche individuates during the lifespan. While the development of consciousness is explored within the context of all three author’s works, neither author explores a developmental sequence by which individuation of consciousness occurs.

The development of consciousness is a theme common to the Judaeo Christian foundation underlying European philosophy. It forms the basic theme explored in the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve became conscious of their naked bodies after partaking of the forbidden fruit of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” (Gen. 2-3), thus falling into a paradoxical awareness, knowing good and evil only as God does, and thus are expelled into the world, knowing shame. Author and Jungian Analyst Robert Johnson (1993) used the term simple consciousness to explain the initial state of naked bliss that all individuals partake in during their childhood development. However, simple consciousness must give way to ego development and increasingly complex systems by which the individual learns to relate with others in their environment, if a normed developmental sequence is to occur. Carl Jung (1971) believed that with personal maturity came the development of “ad hoc adopted attitude[s]” (p. 465); a person develops these attitudes in conjunction with outside social pressures.  Freud called the social attitudes that one develops to deal with the environment the ego; Jung adopted the Latin word persona to explain this process.  Jung (1921/1993) wrote:

He is an individual, of course, like every being; but an unconscious one. Though his more or less complete identification with the attitude of the moment, he at least deceives others, and also often himself, as to his real character. He puts on a mask, which he knows corresponds with his conscious intentions, while it also meets with the requirements and opinions of his environment, so that first one motive then the other is in the ascendant… A man who is identified with this mask I would call ‘personal’ (as opposed to ‘individual’). Both the attitudes of the case considered above are collective personalities, which may be simply summed up under the name ‘persona’ or ‘personae.’ I have already suggested above that the real individuality is different from both. (p. 340)

The personae are reactions to ego formation and not Self-development. Jung believed that the masks a person presents to the world are different from the Self. In this work, I will explore the concept of the persona in more depth in my dealings with the adolescent developmental sequence.

Masquerade – Phantom of the Opera Mask on Ivy Wall

closeup portrait of sexy woman in violet party mask for desire concept

Jung’s concept of the persona mirrors Erikson’s (1956; 1959; 1963; 1982; 1987) psychosocial concept of identity development. During adolescence and young adult life, a person experiments with an array of personality types. By experimenting with personality structures, a young adult develops a set ego from which he or she can function within the world, which allows them to develop the ability to relate with others “objects” in the outside world. This is the underlying concept of object relations’ theory (Bion, 1959, 1977; Klein 1920, 1948, 1959, 1964, 1975, 1975a – c, & 1994; Ogden, 1986 & 1989; Segal 1957, 1973, & 1989), and commonly occurs during the first half of life as the emerging ego develops the ability to form object attachments (Ainsworth, 1973 &1985; Ainsworth & Blehar, 1978; Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980, & 1988). However, during the second half of life a person needs to learn how to relate to the Self, as it exists separate from the personae developed as a means to deal with the environment. Because the persona is the conscious projection of the ego, it also represents one component of the shadow, which represents the “dark aspects of the personality” (Jung, 1969a, p. 8) development that may or may not be readily available to consciousness.

Carl Jung (1969) labeled the dark aspects of personality the shadow.  The shadow archetype is the most easily accessible archetype to the ego because its content is personal.  For Jung (1969), the shadow represented a “moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without a considerable moral effort” (p. 8).  While the shadow represents all that is dark within the personality, it also has positive qualities that drive individuation.  Jung (1934/1968) wrote:

The meeting with oneself is, at first, the meeting with one’s own shadow. The shadow is a tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well. But one must learn to know oneself in order to know who one is. For what comes after the door is, surprisingly enough, a boundless expanse full of unprecedented uncertainty, with apparently no inside and no outside, no above and no below, no here and no there, no mine and no thine, no good and no bad. It is the world of water, where all life floats in suspension: where the realm of the sympathetic system, the soul of everything living, begins; where I am indivisibly this and that; where I experience the other in myself and the other-than-myself experiences me. (pp. 21-22)

A child is born to the world through a narrow opening from which the Self emerges. The shadow constricts the Self through events that include, but are not limited to parental and social expectations, physiological, environmental, and psychological traumas, one’s genetic and psychological strengths and weaknesses, and the attitudes one adopts towards the life sequence. Individuation occurs when a person transcends the polarized nature of consciousness these and other paradoxes entail. While Jung believed the first half of life consisted of developing an acceptable personality in which to deal with the social environment, he viewed that the second half of life consisted of integrating the shadow into one’s overall personality, allowing more access to the Self to occur. The citation above shows that an individual has to make sense of the shadow during the second half of life to become explicitly aware of the internal and external processes that promote individuated development. While the way a person perceives internal and external events is reliant on consciousness, internal and external events coalesce with these internal views and perpetuate Self-development.

From a Jungian perspective, the period associated with the second half of life also consists of integrating the anima archetype for men and the animus archetype for women to develop a more rounded sense of personality that perpetuates Self-development.  The anima is the feminine compensatory element that lies at the foundation of a man’s psyche (Jung, 1969, p. 14). The animus is the masculine compensatory element that lies at the foundation of a woman’s psyche. The anima archetype is complimentary to the masculine model of Self development, and provides man with a sense of femininity to help balance their emergent personality by counteracting the ego related personae a man creates to deal with environmental influences (Jung, 1921/1971). The animus is complimentary to the feminine model of Self development, and provides a woman with masculine traits that help balance the emergent female personality traits.

Jung split all psychological phenomena into polarities that battle for recognition within the individual psyche. He (1928/1966) believed that the anima represents the feminine nature of man and the animus represented the masculine nature of the woman. The image of one’s opposite gendered parent is the first representation of the anima and animus archetype until the maturation of the psyche allows the individual to separate that archetype from the parental image that originally held its presence. The anima holds the nurturing and devouring polarities common to the mother archetype (Jung, 1954/1969). The animus holds the moral commandment and prohibitive polarities common to the father archetype. From the positive archetypal pole, the anima provides a man with the ability to nurture, have affective response, and develop other positive feminine traits. The anima acts as a pathway into the nature of a man’s soul. The same hold true for the animus. The animus helps serve a woman by allowing her access to what Jung viewed as traditional masculine models of psychological being.  By learning how to balance the nurturing and devouring poles common to the archetypal mother through the development of moral prohibitions through the development of value based ethics, a female can learn more about the nature of her soul. From a negative perspective, the anima archetype can possess a man through the development of labile emotional responses towards environmental stimuli, can cause an over-reliance on feeling rather than logic based states of awareness, and can cause men to become stuck within a psychological complex that does not allow masculinity to flourish. Likewise, the negative animus pole can cause a woman to become overly judgmental and seek to embody power through physicality rather than the act of nurturing. While these are but a few of a series of possible complexes that can arise in the process of severing the anima and animus syzygy from the initial parental archetypes, the process of separating these archetypes from their original image base allows men and women to develop further object relationships separate from the experiences they had with their parents (Jung, 1931/1969).

By relating to the feminine aspect of the soul, a man develops a holistic sense of self that is not reliant on the personae he creates. Likewise, when a woman relates to the masculine undertones of her psyche, she can develop a more holistic sense of self. When the polarities of the anima or animus become bound to the personality, a psychological rebirth can occur. In Jungian psychology, the archetypal symbols Mercury, Dionysus, and the hermaphrodite represents psychological development that can occur when the masculine and feminine traits combine within the anima and animus syzygy. Psychological rebirth also re-assures the emergence of the divine child archetype.

The death and rebirth process represents two polarities common to the divine child archetype. The divine child also represents the natural wholeness that occurs when someone enters a new developmental phase. Jung (1951/1969) wrote:

Myth, however, emphasizes… that the “child” is endowed with superior powers and, despite all dangers, will unexpectedly pull through. The “child” is born out of the womb of the unconscious, begotten out of the depths of human nature, or rather out of living Nature herself. It is a personification of vital forces quite outside the limited range of our conscious mind; of ways and possibilities of which our one-sided conscious mind knows nothing; a wholeness which embraces the very depths of Nature. It represents the strongest, the most ineluctable urge in every being, namely the urge to realize itself…The urge and compulsion to self-realization is a law of nature and thus of invincible power, even though its effect, at the start, is insignificant and improbable. Its power is revealed in the miraculous deeds of the child hero. (pp. 170-171)

The innocence associated with childhood is apparent within world mythologies, fairy tales, and stories of religion. Childhood represents a new beginning, a time when all possibilities are an option for the developing psyche to explore. Robert Bly (1990) that the loss of childhood innocence to develop adult forms of consciousness was a process of losing the “golden ball.” Bly showed how the divinity of childhood is a realized state of being. The Jungian analyst Robert Johnson (1993) believed that the time that a child takes part in the world without judgment was a form of simple consciousness. By developing adult consciousness, a child loses the original sense of integration common to a conscious that does not yet perceive the difference between paradoxes so common to consciousness. They have yet to learn of safe and non-safe events, the good and bad parts of life. The process of returning to the original state of innocent consciousness associated with the divine child archetypes leads to the realization of the Self through a means of developing a transcendent form of consciousness that is similar to childhood consciousness, but has the luxury of already knowing the polarized nature common to adult consciousness we all undertake. While individuation does not represent a return to childhood, it does represent a return to the perception so common to a child’s innocent state of inquisitiveness. Individuation allows the Self to realize its emergent nature.

Individuation means becoming an “in-dividual,: and, in so far as “individuality” embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as “coming to selfhood” or “self-realization.” (Jung, 1928/1966, p. 173)

In this author’s opinion, one of the greatest contributions that Carl Jung made to the field of psychology was to draw attention to the importance symbolism has on the development of pathological, non-pathological, and individuated forms of consciousness. While our existence is personal, natural laws also govern our life and death. In the essay entitled The Philosophical Tree, Carl Jung (1954/1967) showed how a symbol could represent the entire journey human beings undertake to individuate. Jung (1954/1967) wrote:

The psychoid form underlying any archetypal image retains its character at all stages of development, though empirically it is capable of endless variations. The outward form of the tree may change in the course of time, but the richness and vitality of a symbol are expressed more in its change of meaning… Taken on average, the commonest associations to its meaning are growth, life, unfolding of form in a physical and spiritual sense, development, growth from below upwards and from above downwards, the maternal aspect (protection, shade, shelter, nourishing fruits, source of life, solidity, permanence, firm-rootedness, but also being “rooted to the spot”), old age, personality, and finally death and rebirth. (p. 272)

“Growth from below upwards and from above downwards” (Jung, 1954/1967, p. 272) is similar to the Taoist concept of the Yin and Yang, which compliments each other from the same cardinal directions. Like the Yin and Yang, the tree symbol is a numinous symbol, capable of housing all polarities common to the Self-archetype. It is no surprise that Jung paid particular attention to the tree symbol as being representative of our human endeavor to individuate due to its long-standing history as a symbol of great importance to world religions and mythologies.

The archetypal tree is important to the development of the individuated Self because it transcends masculine and feminine constructs of the psyche and offers a representation of the numinous nature of the transcendent function. The tree is associated with the birth and transcendence of major figures within mythology and religion. This is not surprising since the oxygen produced by trees sustain life on this planet. Regarding the nurturing aspects of tree symbolism found throughout world religions, Jung (1954/1967) wrote:

As the seat of transformation and renewal, the tree has a feminine and maternal significance… In Pandora, the trunk of the tree is a crowned, naked woman holding a torch in each hand, with an eagle sitting in the branches on her head… Leto and Mary both gave birth under a palm, and Maya at the birth of the Buddha was shaded by the holy tree. Adam, “so the Hebrews say,” was created out of the “earth of the tree of life,” the “red Damascene earth…” According to this legend, Adam stood in the same relation to the tree of life as the Buddha to the Bodhi tree. (pp. 317-318)

The nurturing and birth giving characteristics of the mother are clear in this passage. The tree is rooted to “Mother Earth;” however, the tree also aspires upwards from the earth towards the realm of spirit, which links the tree symbol to the masculine characteristic of spiritual morality. Concerning the masculine aspects of tree symbolism, Jung (1954/1967) wrote:

Like the vision of Zarathustra, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and the report of Bardesanes (A.D. 154 – 222) on the god of the Indians, the old Rabbinic idea that the tree of paradise was a man exemplifies man’s relationship to the philosophical tree. According to the ancient tradition, men came from trees or plants. The tree is as it were an intermediate form of man, since on the one hand it springs from the Primordial Man and on the other hand it grows into a man. Naturally, the patristic conception of Christ as a tree or vine exerted a very great influence… In so far as the tree symbolizes the opus and the transformation process… it also signifies the life process in general… Since the opus is a life, death, and rebirth mystery, the tree as well acquires this significance and in addition, the quality of wisdom, as we have seen from the view of the Barbeliots reported in Irenaeus: “From man [=Anthropos] and gnosis is born the tree, which they also call gnosis.”(p. 337-339)

From this author’s personal interpretation, the tree roots to the Earth (feminine soul motif) and its bark houses the archetypal Self. This is not unlike the skin that houses our soul, as it seeks to make sense of the archetypal Self that perpetuates individuated development. As the tree ascends towards the sun and heavens (masculine spirit motif), it realizes that its nature is afloat and grounded at the same time; like human nature, the tree is steeped in the feminine aspect of soul and aspires towards the realm of masculine spirit associated to the heavens. People, like trees inhabit the Earth while they aspire towards their life giving force found in the heavens. The tree symbol is similar to Jung’s theory of the coniunctio, an archetypal image that mends the opposite symbols common to the psyche into a transcendent Self-representation.

The tree is representative of the transcendent function. DNA carries within its structure the information needed to assure that the genetic sequence unfolds upon itself in a manner that directs the functions of a living being. From a developmental perspective, the transcendent function shows that the psyche has built within its foundation the ability to mature and realize itself. The simple consciousness of childhood must give way to adult ways of consciousness to assure the continued survival of the organism. However, the ability to attain transcendent consciousness relies on an individual’s patience to sit with and work through the paradoxes common to adult consciousness.

Jung (1954/1967) believed the tree represents growth and life. The psychological growth associated with the tree occurs in its representation of the union that can occur if one unites the anima or animus archetypes with the archetypal Self. Many symbols throughout human history have shown how the union of opposites occurs, which include the Yin and Yang, the God Mercury, the hermaphrodite, and as was shown in this section, the tree of life. All of these symbols are archetypal conduits that promote individuated development.

In this author’s opinion, human development is a circular process in which a person wanders throughout the lifecycle searching to make meaning about his or her life. This is similar to the concentric rings that make up the developmental history of a tree. Just as the tree’s concentric rings are a-symmetrical and dependent on the amount of nourishment it receives during any given year, the human soul finds its nourishment in a non-symmetrical fashion that is dependent on mastering developmental milestones that lead to individuation. As developmental stages must end with the death motif, as winter gives way to the emergence of spring, new stages are born that lead a person ever closer to becoming an individuated being. Although the end-result of life, physical death remains the same for all living beings, the conscious choices that dictate how the journey of life will unfold can have many forms. Like the alchemical tree’s branches, life presents a person with many branches. However, like the branches of a tree that aspire towards its life giving force, the choices we make also affect our ability to reach the final goal of realizing our true potential as an individuated being – thus the age-old adage, “there are many roads to God.”

Jung’s focus on the individuation process produced a psychological theory that is rooted in understanding the transcendent function. However, Jung did not leave a detailed account of the developmental sequences that leads towards the realization of the Self in an individuated form of consciousness. While Jung (1950/1969) stated that “psychic experiences… have very different effects on a person’s development” (p. 351), he also stated, “no attempt will be made to describe the normal psychic occurrences within the various stages” (Jung, 1931/1969, p. 387). Jung’s predecessors have also left a legacy without a specific developmental sequence from which individuated consciousness arises. This is why Withers (2003) identified this as a major controversy in the field of analytical psychology. While Jung never produced a detailed account that differentiated between “normal psychic occurrences” that occur during the various stages, the statements made above show the developmental undertones found within the psychology of Carl Jung.

Why Siddhartha over other Literary Works about Individuation.

Siddhartha (Hesse, 2002), as a literary work, has greatly influenced my life. Not only does Hesse’s work form the foundation from which I delved into creating a theoretical discourse of individuated development based on a Jungian perspective, it also provided the means by which I made sense of my own journey to understand who I was becoming as a young man. I chose the novel Siddhartha (Hesse, 2002) in lieu of other works that focus on the individuation process due to the effects this novel had on my personal development. During my mid-twenties, when I first read the story, I was deeply entrenched in a depression that lasted for nearly a year. Within my own therapy experience, I traced this depression to a root cause of not understanding who I was becoming; as I sought my personal ontology, but had no examples amongst family and friends by which to gage the path I sought to undertake to become successful, I found myself lost, and without cause. Although I had known the theoretical tenets of Carl Jung’s psychology during this time, I did not know the ascetic path that the individuation journey entails. Siddhartha provided me with a means to make sense of the often-opposing themes that I found myself working on during this depression, mirroring the theoretical discourse Jung had written extensively about during his career to understand the dynamics by which psychological symbols prompt the individuation process. I approach the analysis of this story with a profound respect for the author and the protagonist he writes about within the story’s plot.

Siddhartha is a literary tale about a boy that sought to understand his personal nature. While Siddhartha haphazardly approached life from the perspective of an ascetic, he was eventually able to learn how to love, relate with other individuals, and achieve a transcendent level of consciousness. The Buddha achieved an enlightened sense of consciousness, and is an exemplar case of a person that was able to overcome his own difficulties, develop a transcendent form of consciousness, and understand the nature of the Self outside of the polarities common to consciousness.

As was shown above, Hesse’s account of the path that Siddhartha undertook is relative to his personal journey. Hesse, like his protagonist, rebelled against social mores common to early 20th century Europe, sought to understand himself through the lens of Eastern philosophies, and rejected formal education to learn about his own propensity to individuate. This links the perspective in the story to the ability all people have to seek personal understanding within their lives. Like Hesse and the protagonist he wrote about, I have also sought my personal ontology. When I originally read Siddhartha, I found that many of the themes Hesse showed within the context of the story also correlated to the path I undertook during my early adult years. These themes brought me to an increasingly acute interest in developmental and Jungian models of psychology.

Carl Jung’s psychological vision constituted a radical revision to the traditionally reductive psychologies that preceded his works. While Carl Jung’s psychology remains controversial  to this day, due in part to his dualistic methodology and exploration of concepts to transcend rational psychology in lieu of developing a psychology based upon spiritual attainment, he nevertheless approached his work empirically. Jung sought to understand the means by which the psyche realizes itself. This psyche is both subjective and objective in this sense, and Jung’s research into its nature takes into account both perspectives. While Jung’s psychological writings utilize arcane philosophical literature, religious, and early scientific sources that are more metaphysical than traditional psychological doctrine, he approached the development of his theory with the same objective lens scientists’ utilize to understand the nature of what they study.

In this theoretical work, I chose to analyze Siddhartha, written by Hermann Hesse (2002) because of the direct experience Hesse had undergoing psychoanalysis with Carl Jung and Jungian analyst J. B. Lang, as well as it’s literary portrayal of an exemplar’s individuation journey. Furthermore, I chose Hesse’s novel due to the profound respect I have for both the author and his work; Hesse produced a story that made psychological sense of a situation that my emerging adult psyche found difficult to bear.

In this work, I seek to explore the means by which the archetypes prompt individuation. Hesse’s novel presents a literary example of the Buddha’s quest to understand his personal ontology, and utilizes archetypal symbolism as a means to explain the developmental sequence we undertake to find meaning within our lives. This is most evident in the fact that Hesse wrote the novel in such a fashion that it was indicative of his personal quest to make meaning about his life. As I have also sought to understand my personal ontology; with hindsight, I understand that great psychological shifts had to occur as a means to perpetuate my psychological development forward. Therefore, by conducting an analysis of Siddhartha, I hope to show how individuation arises from one’s lifelong quest to mend the polarized nature of consciousness common to adult life, therefore allowing us to make meaning about our life.

Final Statements.

An extensive history existed between Carl Jung and Hermann Hesse.  This qualifies Hesse’s (2002) story Siddhartha as being a viable research topic within the field of depth psychology. As an author, Hermann Hesse’s novels had a great influence on multiple generations who would rebel against their parents conservatism, and seek to make their own meaning about the life cycle unfolded (Morris, 2002). Furthermore, Hesse’s works continue to have merit as literary masterpieces and as tomes to the processes that occur when one psychologically individuates. Although Hesse was not a psychologist, his works are psychological in nature. In Siddhartha, Hesse produced a story that shows how common archetypal themes drive the individuation journey that fosters Self-development. The themes presented in Siddhartha ring strikingly similar to regular life events that any individual may undertake even though the events presented in the story occurred to an extraordinary individual who sought to realize his Self.

Developmental motifs underlie Carl Jung’s psychology, even though Jung never proposed a theory of human development. Analytical psychology has sorely ignored this subject until recently (Withers, 2003), when Merchant (2006) published an article that related archetypal theory to biological development. Although Jung spent his lifetime attempting to understand the symbols that drive the human psyche towards an individuated state, he did not discuss if particular symbols drive human development at particular stages of life. Jung only provided a broad developmental overview of the entirety of the developmental process (Jung, 1931/1969).

It must be well understood that no attempt will be made to describe the normal psychic occurrences within the various stages. We shall restrict ourselves, rather, to certain ‘problems,’ that is, to things that are difficult, questionable, or ambiguous; in a word, to questions which allow of more than one answer—and, moreover, answers that are always open to doubt. (Jung, 1931/1969, p. 387)

While authors of a Jungian persuasion have focused on specific developmental periods or the means by which archetypes affect specific developmental periods (Whitmont, 1969; Stien, 1983, 1998, 2006), no theorists has attempted to produce a comprehensive developmental theory that is based on the archetypes that drive the individuation of the Self. While the literature of Jungian psychology focuses on specific archetypes, specific developmental periods, or the overall process of individuation, I have shown in this literature review that a need exists to understand the framework from which the symbolic development of the psyche occurs. Therefore, in this research study, I will examine whether a pattern of archetypal development exists by way of a literary case study of Siddhartha, analyzing each developmental stage that the character underwent from a philosophical and alchemical hermeneutic perspective.

Archetypes affect the individuation process. However, Jung and subsequent analytical psychologists have sorely ignored producing a developmental theory that links archetypal theory to the overall human maturation process. While many analytical psychologists have focused on the way specific archetypes affect the development of normal and pathological psychological states, no comprehensive developmental theory exists that shows how archetypes manifest during specific developmental stages or how a Jungian sequence of development would correlate or diverge from existent developmental theories. In this work, I chose to write an outline of what a developmental sequence from a Jungian perspective entails by conducting a philosophical and alchemical hermeneutic case study of Siddhartha, a historical fiction of the Buddha’s life.

In this theoretical work on developmental and Jungian psychology, I will focus on three areas of concern:

What archetypes affect the individuation process during Siddhartha’s lifespan?  

While I focus on the life of one individual, Siddhartha is an example of an individual that transcended his own consciousness and achieved an individuated state of being. If Jung was correct, and the collective unconscious exists, then collective themes drive our journey to realize our true nature. If developmental themes are present within the context of Hesse’s story, I will show how these themes are a collective representation of the journey all people undertake understand their true nature. Secondarily:

Can we discern a developmental pattern in the manifestation of archetypes that occurred in Siddhartha’s life?

If human maturation occurs in specific sequences, then a developmental pattern must be present within a story that examines the life of an exemplar that achieved an individuated state of consciousness. Furthermore, if the foundation of consciousness is built upon a collective storehouse of information, this developmental sequence must be accessible to all individuals. In this theoretical work, I will show how we all strive towards our ultimate developmental goals.

Finally, I will turn my attention to whether developmental theories and Jungian theories have common ground. In particular,

Do the developmental themes found in the novel Siddhartha correlate to developmental assumptions found in the Jungian literature and what relationship they have to the extant developmental literature?

Through conducting an analysis of Hermann Hesse’s story from a philosophical and alchemical hermeneutic perspective, I show how a developmental sequence is present within the context of Hesse’s story of the Buddha’s life and how this sequence correlates and diverges from existing developmental literature from a psychoanalytical perspective.

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Chapter Two: A Developmental Theory of Jungian Psychology The History between Hermann Hesse and Carl Jung The psychological theories of Carl Gustav Jung share a common history with the writing of Siddhartha.