Category: Soul & Symbol: Perspectives in Depth Psychology

topographia

Depth psychology is the study of the soul in its wildest, most honest form. Here, we look through the lens of Soul and Symbol to move beyond clinical labels, beholding the dreams, archetypes, and hidden complexes that pulse beneath the surface of conscious awareness. Drawing from the wells of Jung, Freud, and other mythic traditions, these perspectives bridge the gap between our daily routines and the profound mysteries of the inner world.

  • The Value of Reflection

    The Value of Reflection

    Shock reactions, fear, and shame throughout childhood inhibit brain development in areas that process perceptions of reality, the ability to relate to others, and the ability to reason.

  • Problem-Solving as Support

    Problem-Solving as Support

    A child is still in the process of learning the skills required to survive, and is thereby more susceptible to stress.  The child needs to know that the parent will be there for him or her. 

  • Introverted Thinking: Bah, Humbug!

    Introverted Thinking: Bah, Humbug!

    The introverted thinking type tends to vanish behind a cloud of misunderstanding […] He simply does not see when he is being plundered behind his back and wronged in practice.

  • Vampire

    Vampire

    Isn’t the vampire the perfect metaphor for our bloated American culture with its reality TV, true crime series, tabloids and gossip magazines, thinly-disguised social media voyeurism, and Snapchats where meaning must be communicated in 60 seconds or less?

  • Suffering the Opposites

    Suffering the Opposites

    I have come to believe that the fiercer a person’s condemnation of “the other side,” the more likely he is blind to his own shadow—the very traits he condemns in others are lying dormant within himself.

  • Creating a Life

    Creating a Life

    The first half of life is often, Hollis writes, “a great and inevitable mistake, a bloody blundering.”

  • Birthright

    Birthright

    For what blessing are we willing to wrestle with the angel of our becoming? For what blessing have we accepted the wound that will not heal?

  • Witness

    Witness

    If I paid attention, I would notice facts and truths queueing up in twos and threes, small bands of witnesses marching in formation, verifying what my experience had already established as true.

  • True Blood

    True Blood

    Being told you’re somehow misshapen temperamentally can be a terrible injustice and heartache to a child. It’s also hurtful when we give the adults in our lives such messages of unacceptability.

  • Wanderlust

    Wanderlust

    The problem with deep psychological mining is that, once a person divests herself of falsifying layers, she’s left with the stark truth that death is inevitable and that “all is vanity.”