How to Answer the Question “Am I Depressed?”

First of all, let me acknowledge that this is a complicated topic that does not allow for a simple answer. This post is not intended to be a comprehensive view of depression. Rather, I want to suggest a few things to consider if you find yourself grappling with the question, “Am I depressed?” In particular, […]

The authentic life shines as a light within

Carl Jung on Living an Authentic Life

Individuation and Authenticity It could be argued that at the heart of Jungian therapy is the aim of experiencing and living an authentic life.  That is not the language that Carl Jung used, but it does express a central idea of his psychology, which he called ‘individuation.’ Put very simply, individuation is the process by […]

How To Find Yourself: Advice From The Poets

Many of the people I work with describe the primary experience that brings them into therapy as one of feeling lost.   It is probably not surprising that for several decades now it has been common for people who are on a path of self-exploration and self-development to express their quest in terms of “finding themselves.”  […]

Is ‘What Should I Do With My Life?’ The Right Question?

Asking Questions “The mere formulation of a problem,” said Einstein, “is far more often essential than its solution.”  In other words, when a scientist thinks about an issue, it is the kinds of questions that she asks that are most important. This idea is no less true in everyday life than it is in the […]

Imagination in Career Counseling

The Number One Factor in Successful Career Counseling Outcomes

 “The way we imagine our lives is the way we will go on living our lives.” ~ James Hillman With imagination, the sky’s the limit In my experience as a Jungian career counselor, the clients who engage their creative imaginations more effectively during the time I work with them are more successful in the career counseling […]

Meaningful Work

Why Having Meaningful Work is Essential: Insights from Depth Psychology

“Deprived of meaningful work, men and women lose their reason for existence; they go stark, raving mad.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky According to Carl Jung, when we lose what he called the ‘symbolic’ dimension of our work and understand it only in economic terms, we experience suffering. What Jung calls symbolic, Dostoevsky, in the quote above, calls ‘meaningful work’.  […]

What’s All This About Dreams?

Transcript:

When Nat King Cole sings about dreams, it’s a pretty idea, but it’s not something that we can take seriously, is it?

A dream, at least as we’ve come to understand the word through popular songs and daily speech, means something like 'a desire for something that probably couldn't be' or 'something we wish for that's pretty unlikely,' like dreaming about how we're going to spend all that money when we finally win the Mega Millions lottery.

So, what’s all this talk about dreams in relationship to the real issues that arise during psychotherapy or career counseling? Isn’t talk about dreams just some kind of wishful thinking or magical mumbo-jumbo that really doesn't make sense in the context of something so real and practical and necessary?

Well, as it turns out, modern neuroscience is starting to validate some of the insights of the early pioneers of dream research who stated that dreams are expressions of our emotional states They are an attempt by the mind to integrate and resolve emotional conflicts in our lives.

Carl Jung, one of those early pioneers, once said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” That's a pretty powerful statement of how our inner life can interfere with the conscious intentions that we have for our lives.

If Carl Jung were alive today in our age of sound bytes and marketing messages, he probably would have said something like, “#Dreaming ain’t for sissies!” … Okay, he probably wouldn’t have said that, but I would say to do your dream work is not for the faint of heart, because it does bring you into contact with some powerful forces in your life.

A couple of weeks ago I was driving into Boston to teach a class in dream interpretation. I was running late and I was starting to feel stressed out. I was in a hurry, and I was worried about my students standing in the cold. And I felt like I was fighting the traffic and just generally in a rush. As I got to the top of the Tobin Bridge and I saw the lights of the city, I was struck by how crowded and oppressive it felt. How unwelcoming. It just felt like this unfriendly place full of stressed out and isolated individuals.

Well just a couple of days ago, I was taking the same route, over the same bridge, to the same class. But, this time I was consciously trying to let go of the worries of the week. And I was trying to get myself into a place of relaxation and openness, so that I could authentically talk with my students about dreams. 

And as I got to the top of the bridge, I saw the city lit up. And it was beautiful. I had this intimation of all of the lives lived in that city, each one with it’s own richness and adventure, each one with it’s own struggle and beauty. It truly was a beautiful sight.

So, what had changed? What was different? 

The city was the same city.

I was different. I had changed.

Something inside of me had shifted so that what I saw outside of me looked and felt different. Our inner life -- not only does it shift how we experience the world, but it can literally change our perceptions. We are projecting our inner life onto the world at all times. And our dreams can show us what it is that we're projecting. Our dreams reveal to us the colors with which we paint the world.

When you work with your dreams, it brings you into contact with the voices inside you that tell you what you long for, that long to express your deepest creativity and authenticity. It can also bring you into contact with the voices that resist and block your authentic self. By paying attention to your dreams, and working with your dreams, you can begin to dissolve those blocks and lend strength to the creative part of your personality. 

So, maybe those old songs, in their own way, spoke to a real, authentic truth. And maybe we should dream, when we’re feeling blue. Dream, because that’s the thing to do. Things never are as bad as they seem…

Take good care.
Don't Skimp on your inner work

The Importance of Inner Work

Outer Work Most of the attention that we give to our work goes to things that are external to who we are as individuals. Our working imaginations are primarily concerned with such things as wages and benefits, the daily commute, our interactions with co-workers, and the tasks with which we are charged. When we think […]