However, your human conscience is under-developed and one-sided. There is only one of your four psychological functions fully working in your conscience.

You either belong to a rational psychological type, or to a psychological type that works based on feelings. Both are opposite psychological types because thoughts are the opposite of feelings.

You may also belong to a psychological type based on sensations, what means that you care only about having pleasure, or you may belong to a psychological type based on intuition, what means that you pay attention only to what you can guess about your reality.

Besides this fact, you are either introverted or extroverted. You cannot be both because you didn’t completely develop your conscience. The biggest part of your brain belongs to your anti-conscience, which is your wild conscience that didn’t evolve like your human side. The anti-conscience is idiotic and absurd, but it is very powerful. It generates terrible mental illnesses within your conscience.

You are stubborn and narrow-minded because you don’t pay attention to what your favorite psychological type dislikes. If you are introverted, you are too theoretical. If you are extroverted, you are too materialistic.  

So, your human conscience is deficient and it tends to become neurotic with time. Therefore, the image of your father in a dream doesn’t have a positive meaning, since your father represents your deficient human conscience. Your conscience makes many mistakes because it analyzes your reality based on one extreme attitude and based on only one psychological function totally developed, and on another secondary psychological function half-developed.

Your secondary psychological function cannot be the opposite of your main psychological function. Thoughts and feelings are opposite psychological functions. Therefore, they cannot coexist. If your main psychological function is based on thoughts, or if your main psychological function is based on feelings, this means that your half-developed psychological function will be based on sensations or on intuition.

If your main psychological type is based on sensations, your half-developed psychological function will be based on thoughts or feelings. The same happens if your main psychological type is based on intuition. Your half-developed psychological function cannot be based on sensations, which are the opposite of intuition.

Your judgment is one-sided and far from the truth only because your conscience is under-developed. You can only make numerous mistakes in life if you work based on only one psychological function, and you have an extreme attitude. You are either introverted or extroverted.

Whenever you have dreams about your father, this usually means that you are making mistakes because you are being influenced by the absurdity of your one-sided human conscience.       This means that your father’s opinion in a dream is negative. You should not do what your father desires in a dream, but only what the divine unconscious mind shows you in the dream messages.

However, sometimes your father has a positive meaning in dreams, depending on the dream story. Since your human conscience is what helps you become sensitive and attain wisdom, your father has a positive meaning when he condemns your actions in a dream. This means that your human conscience is condemning the influence of your anti-conscience in your behavior.

In order to prevent neurosis (or cure your neurosis in case you already are neurotic) you must eliminate your anti-conscience and develop your human conscience through consciousness. This is done through dream therapy, as you analyze your behavior and you follow the wise guidance of the unconscious mind in your dreams.

The unconscious mind helps you pay attention to all the components of your reality and develop all your psychological functions. You also learn how to be as introverted as extroverted. You become more intelligent, and you are able to use all your capacities.

Christina Sponias continued Carl Jung’s research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation that teaches you how to accurately translate the meaning of your dreams, so that you can find health, wisdom and happiness.

Learn more at:

http://www.scientificdreaminterpretation.com

http://www.booksirecommend.com

Thoughts are extremely dangerous because they have a great influence on others. If they are absurd, they generate contagious mental illnesses.

There are four psychological types based on an extroverted attitude, and four psychological types based on an introverted attitude. This means that the psychological types are in fact eight.

Our psychological functions work based on:

1. Thoughts

2. Feelings

3. Sensations

4. Intuition   

There are extroverted and introverted psychological types based on each one of these psychological functions. Each psychological type is characterized by the predominance of the actuation of only one psychological function. There is also a second, half-developed psychological function helping every psychological type make their decisions in life.

Therefore, the psychological type based on thoughts can be introverted or extroverted.

The introverted psychological types put their own opinion about their reality above anything else. They always relate everything to their personal desires, and to their personal vision of their reality. They also hide who they really are from the world.

The extroverted psychological types always follow the general opinion. They agree with those that prevail and have a stronger presence. They lack personal opinion about their reality. They get adapted to all life situations and conditions with great flexibility.

Introverted psychological types are too subjective, while extroverted psychological types are too objective.

All psychological types are basically absurd because the human conscience is one-sided and under-developed. You must follow dream therapy in order to develop your human conscience by developing all your psychological functions. This is how you will get rid of your absurd anti-conscience. This is also how you will prevent neurosis, or you will be cured in case you already are neurotic.

You are very lucky because I simplified Carl Jung’s method of dream interpretation, discovering a lot more. Now you don’t have to waste your time with the dream language. You can directly understand the wise unconscious messages in your dreams and immediately understand what to do. The unconscious support will be a true salvation for you, especially if you are facing challenging life situations.

The neurotic behavior is basically characterized by the invasion of the anti-conscience into the individual’s human conscience. This happens when he or she has a traumatic experience in life and he feels weak, angry, and depressed. The anti-conscience takes advantage of this situation in order to invade the individual’s conscience with absurd thoughts. Many times the anti-conscience generates tragic life situations, exactly because these situations make the human conscience accept its absurd suggestions.

The anti-conscience is your primitive conscience, which is evil, immoral, cruel, and absurd. It keeps trying to generate tragic life situations because it wants to destroy your conscience through craziness, and then control your behavior.

You are the human being concentrated into your human conscience. Your ego controls your behavior, but if you’ll let your anti-conscience influence your decisions, you will gradually lose your human conscience and become an insensitive monster. Your anti-conscience will control your behavior in the place of your ego. This means that you will be violent and unfair. You may also show a self-destructive or masochist behavior.

This is how a neurosis will start torturing your conscience.

If you belong to an extroverted psychological type based on thoughts, your cruel rationalism won’t let you understand the importance of sensitivity in life. You will believe more in the ideas you follow than in the most significant evidences that you are making mistakes. Your position will never change, for any reason.

The extroverted psychological type based on thoughts rules our world today. This is why the global mindset of our historical time is characterized by materialism and atheism.

If you belong to the introverted psychological type based on thoughts your neurosis is very dangerous. It will surely become psychosis or schizophrenia with time. You must urgently follow dream therapy.

You make barbarous mistakes, without understanding how much you hurt others because you are totally insensitive. You are violent, unfair, and demanding.

If you are neurotic, you have no second psychological function helping you make your decisions. In case you belong to a psychological type based on thoughts, your cruel rationalism is the only psychological function still alive in your psyche.

Your feelings, your sensations, and your intuition are practically dead. They cannot help you see many truths that your rationalism cannot understand.

The psychological functions that are not working at all in your conscience belong to the anti-conscience, your wild conscience. You must follow dream therapy in order to completely develop all our psychological functions, and become as introverted as extroverted.

If you believe that you possibly belong to a rational psychological type, don’t let your conscience generate a neurosis within your conscience. Follow dream therapy before showing abnormal behavior.

If you believe that you already are neurotic, submit your dreams for a professional dream translation. I will translate your dreams for you and give you advice based on the unconscious guidance. Later you will be able to follow dream therapy without my help. I teach you how to become a professional dream translator like me.

Christina Sponias continued Carl Jung’s research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation that teaches you how to accurately translate the meaning of your dreams, so that you can find health, wisdom and happiness.

Learn more at:

http://www.scientificdreaminterpretation.com

http://www.booksirecommend.com

Dream translation provides you with a fast treatment that will easily help you find sound mental health. I will translate the meaning of a young woman’s dream to give you an example.

We must know a few details about her life in order to perfectly translate the meaning of her dream.

Denise lost her job because someone else bought the company where she used to work. Everything dramatically changed in her life. She is looking for a new job now, but she cannot find a good one. She is constantly depressed and angry.

Denise dreamt that she was driving her car and she was running too fast. Then, she was at her sister’s house with her sister and a man she didn’t know. In the beginning she thought that he was alive, but later she saw that he was only a ghost because he became almost invisible. Suddenly, a big snake appeared in the living room where they were. Denise didn’t know what to do.    

First dream image:

‘Denise dreamt that she was driving her car and she was running too fast.’  

The car represents the dreamer’s life in dreams. Therefore, the way that she drives her car is the way she drives her life.

She was running too fast, what indicates that she was in danger; she could suffer from an accident.

At the same time, the dreamer couldn’t pay attention to what she was finding in the road because she was going too fast. She was not really seeing what existed around her.

Second dream image:

‘Then, she was at her sister’s house with her sister and a man she didn’t know. In the beginning she thought that he was alive, but later she saw that he was only a ghost because he became almost invisible.’

Denise’s sister is a part of her personality that has the same characteristics of her sister’s personality. We must know how the dreamer characterizes her sister, or what her sister reminds her of, so that we may understand which part of her personality the dreamer’s sister represents.

Denise says that her sister has a restaurant and she works too hard. She believes that her sister worries too much about making money, while she could have a better life with the money she already has.  

Therefore, Denise’s sister represents an insensitive part of her personality that is like her sister, who doesn’t care about having real satisfaction in life. Her sister cares only about making more money, without having a pleasant life.  

The house in dreams represents the dreamer’s psyche.

Since Denise is at her sister’s house, this means that the unconscious mind is analyzing the dreamer’s behavior when she is controlled by the part of her personality that is like her sister. 

The man she ignored represented her animus, in other words, her perfect match.

A ghost in dreams represents a neurosis.

Denise’s perfect match was a ghost in this dream because her perfect match became a neurosis.

This means that the dreamer didn’t look for her perfect match in life. The fact that she simply accepted living alone was an absurd attitude imposed by her anti-conscience, the wild side of her conscience.

In other words, Denise suffers from a neurosis because she didn’t pay attention to her feelings. She refused to give importance to her emotional life.

Denise had this attitude in life because she was avoiding her perfect match. She was afraid to be rejected, or she was afraid of her rivals. Perhaps she had a serious love deception, or she was rejected by the man she loved. Therefore, she decided to live alone instead of being threatened by the various dangers that threaten a love relationship.

Now, let’s analyze the third dream image:

‘Suddenly, a big snake appeared in the living room where they were. Denise didn’t know what to do.’

The snake represents a bad event that will put an end to a certain mistake that the dreamer is making. This mistake would generate tragic future consequences. Therefore, even though the snake represents a painful situation, it works like medicine. It puts an end to what was bad and would become even worse in the future.

The appearance of the snake in the living room informs to the dreamer that she lost her job due to divine providence. She had to pay attention to her feelings, and stop avoiding her perfect match. She had to transform her personality and become self-confident. Otherwise, her neurosis would become a severe mental illness in the future.

In her next dreams, the unconscious mind will show to the dreamer how she can find balance and stop suffering. Denise will eliminate everything that is negative inside her and develop the positive characteristics of her personality. Therefore, instead of being insane and suffering forever without any hope of salvation, she will find sound mental health, peace, wisdom, and happiness in life. 

Christina Sponias continued Carl Jung’s research into the human psyche, discovering the cure for all mental illnesses, and simplifying the scientific method of dream interpretation that teaches you how to accurately translate the meaning of your dreams, so that you can find health, wisdom and happiness.

Learn more at:

http://www.scientificdreaminterpretation.com

http://www.booksirecommend.com

How about this one? A large, burly man with a big mallet went up to your store. He started asking for your colleague with intent to sexually assault her. Now, this one is really scary?

We call these individuals crazy, cracked, freak, wild, nut or with the medical term neurotic or psychotic. They can be hilarious, irritating and alarmingly frightening as well. But we must remember these people have mental problems.

Cover of Crazy People

Psychosis and Neurosis

Mental illnesses have two types- the neuroses and the psychoses. While psychoses are serious forms of mental ailments, with patient’s having unpredictable behavior, neuroses or psychoneuroses are defined as a disorder of behavior because of emotional tension resulting from frustration, insecurities etc. Generally, psychotic people are more disorganized or messed up since they can be more completely out of touch of reality, on the other hand, neurotic individuals maybe well-adjusted to many situations, except to other circumstances.

Phobias are examples for neurosis; most people having this illness can live normal as long as they do not encounter their fears. As for psychoses, Schizophrenia or ‘splitting of the mind’ is one wretched type. This condition is marked by withdrawal from reality, the indifference regarding everyday problems and the tendency of the patient to isolate him in the world of fantasy.

Some sad cases for the mental patients

When a mental ailment develops, emotionally disturbed individuals are necessary for an institute treatment. Unfortunately, not all families can afford spending most money for a kin to be cured. Some government mental hospitals have not enough finances to support mental disorders. In the Philippines, the mental health situation is summarized by the World Health Organization as follows:

• There are only two national mental hospitals.

• There are 5 hospital beds and 0.47 psychiatrists for every 100,000 population.

• About only 2% of the total health budget is allotted for mental health based on June 2008 Bulletin of the WHO.

• The Philippines has no mental health law.

Families tend to find private psychiatric help.  But then, the therapies not to mention the drugs can be very expensive. Relatives would eventually stop the rehabilitation but would rely on antipsychotic medications for their patients.

Some mental individuals are abandoned too. They are left alone to wander with the comfort of their own fantasy worlds. On the contrary, their illusions do not provide them real food and shelter. Most of the time, they beg for sustenance and they steal clothing. The young women, although cracked may end up pregnant. Innocently they become preys to twisted and crazier people.

What can we do?

Some of us as of now, could be living with the emotionally disturbed people or we may encounter some of them from time to time. They can be sometimes threatening or annoying. But, we can do well with them by through respect and understanding.

Don’t make fun of them

They can do things that can really be hilarious and some people, as nut as they are, participate with these mental patients by provoking them to make much a fool of themselves.

Give a helping hand                   

Abandoned mental patients are usually dirty and they can be repulsive. They normally ask for money. However, if you have food or clothing, these will be much of a help for them.

Report them to the authorities

Authorities may find suitable places for the mentally ill and some them may be individuals separated from their families. Special children or demented old people normally wander away from their homes. The authorities can definitely help in notifying the families of these people.

Do not judge them as bad

Mental illness may have resulted from addiction and yes, we may think, it’s their fault and it’s the verdict they must face. But remember everyone deserves another chance.

Ask help from an expert                   

Some emotionally disturbed people can really have a fit or could go amok. Don’t try to face them when you know they cannot be dealt with. Phone the police instead. For some reason, disturbed people usually listen to authority.

In the case of a kin, seek help from his doctor or to someone he would pay attention to.

Understand more

It annoys you much when a sister of yours is very much afraid of bugs. You may think, what’s the big deal, it’s so small? Then again, think that she probably had gone something tragic about that harmless thing. Just be thankful that you are not having a problem same as hers.

Most of us are not psychiatrist or doctors but as human beings we can do more for them. And looking at them as people like us, is one good start.

© Phoenix Montoya @ January 31, 2011

Earn and publish at Triond

More articles by this author:

Modern Women Dominating Men

Child Labor Seen as a Chore

Modern Quack-doctors

Top Cause # 1 Leading to Broken Relationships: Sex

Need I say more? Ranging from unsatisfied demands that leave one partner high and dry, un-met fantasies, infrequent copulation, improper etiquette like failing to take frequent baths, involvement of other unwelcome parties, to ‘puny’ reasons like the unending debates on size matters and inept foreplay skills like kissing. The complaints are as varied as the positions assumed during the act. I would not attempt to directly blame sex as the cause of broken relationships; rather, I will take the view of the importance it plays in physically, emotionally and psychologically bonding couples.

I once heard of sex being reffed to as the glue that holds relationships and marriages together. In some circles it has been labelled as a superior form of communication. As many out there will testify, that period just after sexual intercourse,  is golden in terms of the ease in which people communicate and freely offer otherwise withheld information. These conversations, so called pillow talk, are so powerful, little wonder that the easiest way that a man can offend a woman is by leaving or engaging in another activity in the aftermath of heavenly passion. Hollywood knows of this fact, as the ‘pillow talk’ scene is a frequent depiction in movies. The same Hollywood as also shown as that it is a vital tool in extracting information in the shadowy world of espionage and spies.

Top Cause #2 Leading to Broken Relationships: Facebook

Facebook, The 2nd Most Visited site on the internet; Image via CrunchBase

Facebook arose out of the need of people to socialize Online. But this Online social media platform is doing just the opposite. Facebook is merging as a leading cause of broken relationships. It is cementing its place ahead of private investigators as primary sources of evidence of neglect, infidelity and other misappropriations that end in broken relationships and accompanying visits to divorce courtrooms.

As one divorce attorney said to  pinoytuturial.com, on this unprecedented and swelling  role of facebook in the divorce process:  “You’re finding information that you just never get in the normal discovery process – ever.” “People are just blabbing things all over Facebook. People don’t yet quite connect what they’re saying in their divorce cases is completely different from what they’re saying on Facebook. It doesn’t even occur to them that they’d be found out.”

Though this might come as a shocker,  the clincher is revealed when you take careful note of normal conversations between the sexes; it will not be hard to pick little subtleties of a flirt here and there. This is because naturally, men and women are inclined to “be nice to members of the opposite sex”. The speech patterns, body posture and other aspects of body language are different when members of different sexes communicate.

Facebook leads to broken relationships as it lays out to the world these signals while in normal instances, they would have not been so obvious leave alone being in the public domain. A comment on a facebook status update may wreck havoc especially if it appears too consistent or too flirtatious for any of the partners involved.

The following clip, though very humorous,  paints an accurate depiction of how facebook can lead to a broken relationship

Top Cause #4 Leading to Broken Relationships: Money

Recently, over a cup of coffee with a friend, Babara, who has been married for seven years (including four years of courtship). I asked her, how her marriage unlike the case with many of our acquaintances, had managed to avoid the all to familiar fate of strain leading to broken hearts, relations and homes.

In her view, the secret to avoiding broken relationships lies in having an understanding on how money will be spent in the union. Talking from the authority of a successful relationship, Babara reckons that most relationships could deal with anything including the betrayal of infidelity, opposing political leanings and different religious views. But hardly any relationship survives divergent money spending habits, especially if either one of the spouse had no clue of the financial frugality or lack of; of the other spouse.

To Babara, it was as simple as the dogma “Money is the root of all evil “. In her words, “Once you start arguing over money, the arguing never stops. Ceasefire becomes a foreign concept…Then things that further break the relationship begin to emerge…addictions, infidelity, mis- communication…You name it, and it will be there.”

In an article recently published on this platform, Going Burst ? Mind your money as more Celebrities file for Bankruptcy in 2010, I took an incisive look at the ulterside of the glamour lives of celebrities; shinning the beam of my pen on the unfortunate mix of vanishing huge incomes, bankruptcy and divorce that often forms the center-stage of the lives of most celebrities. In a reveling piece, the uncanny link  between broken relationships and divorce seemed to lie on the lapels of one thing: Money and its mismanagement.

Top Cause #5 Leading to Broken Relationships: Parenthood

Signature Steve martin: The Cover of Parenthood (Special Edition)

Parenthood, for the most part, is meant to be a joyful event. A milestone both as individual and a testament to the love and bond in a relationship. By no means is parenthood a small task, the challenges are way larger than the unsightly stretch marks and the weight gain of pregnancy that women frequently complain about. Parenthood touches on every aspect of the individual and relationship as one writer aptly put it; Parenthood is Not Just a Meeting of Sperm and Egg; Both the Father and Mother must be Involved.

In this article, Gaby7 brings out interesting aspects of parenthood such as how the father may feel like a “spare- part in an unfamiliar ” ritual especially if they have not been involved in the pregnancy from the start through attendance of antenatal clinics. They might tend to view the baby as a stranger lest an intruder. On the other hand, some mothers due to hormonal imbalances and other factors, may suffer from post natal psychiatric illnesses like pregnancy blues which may strain the relationship as the other partner may view this as neglect of the child.

Spouses too may feel neglected by their partners with the arrival of the bundle of joy, as the baby may hog all the attention of either spouse and this may lead to broken relationships. Worse, is the case if the pregnancy was unplanned or unwanted.

Noise is all around us. A certain amount of noise is “necessary,” lawn mowers, edgers, power tools and the like.

Image via Wikipedia

We are forced to tolerate this kind of noise in the name of progress and produictivity. Houses must be built, lawns must be mowed, hedges must be trimmed.

Then there is the elective noise. It seems people are just getting noisier and noisier with each passing year. The availability of powerful, relatively inexpensive stereos and musical amplifiers is part of the problem. Now every other kid growing up is encouraged by their aging rock and roll parents to play the electric guitar or bang away on the drums.

Kids grow up without enough attention, maybe as a result of two working parents, or maybe as a result of split families. When they get to be adults they seek out attention anyway they can get it. Often this involves bumping their car stereos or playing their music at obscenely high volumes. They want people to notice them, even if the reason they are being noticed is because they are acting like jerks.

I am consistently frustrated by the noise around me. It is everywhere. It muddles the mind and damages the spirit. Without the opportunity to ever sit peacefully and think, those of us who value quiet contemplation can become neurotic, paranoid, and mean-spirited. Conversely, those who constantly generate noise become self-centered and lose empathy for those around them. They consistently generate conflict and animosity, and so they come to accept this as the natural order of things.

I think we need to get away from all of this noise so that we can hear our own thoughts and form a more peaceful relationship with one another and the world around us.

The repression of the conscious ego relaxes its grip and soon lets go altogether and the more “real you” takes over, the fantasist. Hence the child who has watched a horror movie that night (and was frightened by it) will have nightmares due to his conscious defenses sleeping and the fantasy material (that he has turned into symbolic images of fear) breakthrough. Likewise the mother whose child has perished in a tragic accident, whilst not being able to repress her horrific feelings consciously, will have absolutely no success if she ever gets any sleep, because again, her repressing conscious defenses will be down.

Admittedly they are extreme examples (especially the latter) but the psyche is constantly dreaming anyway in a dialogue with consciousness. The fact of the matter is that even if ones life is mundane the deeper part of the mind will be day-dreaming and if a hypnotist were to make the conscious mind sleep or to go to the borderline of waking consciousness and sleep, the individual would experience his dream world reality. This is totally irrespective of the intelligence or excitement of his life, or of any other factors.

Hence Depth Psychology speaks of MYTHICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL REALITY. The “Mythical” is an apt description of all of the fantasy-like material just beyond the surface of narrow ego consciousness. Obviously “Psychological” is self-explanatory whilst “Reality” stands for the fact that whilst the material is mythical it is nevertheless undeniably real. I mean that it is “real” in the sense that, say I ask you to say to yourself (non-audibly) the alphabet. So you say in the secrecy of your own mind, a,b,c,d,e,,,..x,y,z. You know that you have spoken those words. It’s real. It’s psychological reality. This may seem obvious but it’s a different type of reality to that which physical scientists deal with. Physical scientists deal with the literal world of concrete reality. Depth Psychology deals with the mythical world of psychological reality.

People are however prone on one extreme to dismiss such psychic reality as “only psychological” whilst at the same time taking the psychological in their own lives all too literally. The question becomes, why would people take psychological life literally? That is a good question because in taking psychological life too literally one becomes neurotic. Our fantasy, dreamlike psychological reality is not the same as the physical reality that is “out-there”.

Yet (for example) the nervous and frightened child experiences (due to chronically misguided) interpretation, the psychological world as massively real. Everything impacts on her as if it were a threat. It isn’t about the outer world in such a case. Other children are happy with the same outer world experiences. The frightened and nervous child thus, has false perspective. Now, the clever person may argue here that all children have a false perspective, or that, if all of psychological life is mythical, there is no “true perspective”.

Correct, but there are degrees of health and ill health. I do not say that the nervous and frightened child should be dismissed with a shake of the head. Now such a child (if the psychologist Alfred Adler is to be believed) may end up over-compensating for this nervous fearful psychology by becoming a power-tripper in adult life. All the words associated with “power” are relevant here, dogmatic, pedantic, pretentious, one-sided, narrow-minded, close-minded, and so on. It could be said that such a person swaps “out of control” fear for “control-freakery”.

So in a sense he is still in a world of neurotic fear. He’s up-tight and due to exerting such a large amount of control over himself, he is bound to do the same over others. Jung calls that “projection”. So to return to the question, “Why would people take psychological life literally?” I have answered that question in the example case just given. Again, I have given an admittedly extreme example to begin with. But again, the example can be applied to virtually everyone. This is because the archetype that is activated in the example of the adult power-tripper is that of the cultural ego.

Thankfully mythical psychological reality is the psychological nature for all conscious human beings whether living 30,000 years ago or now. Hence we always have a wider context for our psychological dispositions. Un-thankfully the ego often feels repelled at this and blocks the potential psychological health of the wider psyche. Yet the ego is not literally real either. It is just an archetypal disposition. But it is the culturally dominant one. And this ego power spreads like the disease that it is through all things. Its disease infects individuals, the fields of knowledge, societies etc etc. Yet if one can embrace the Depth Psychology that I will outline here, and include within that embrace, the destruction of one’s ego, then it is claimed here that one will be psychologically, better off.

Part 1: Narrative

Reading stories, assuming that they are enjoyable, wakes up vast unconscious aspects of one’s psyche. One cannot wake up vast unconscious aspects of their psyche through an individual choice of their ego. If the individual ego had such a simple light “on and off” switch then we would all know about it and I wouldn’t be writing this and Freud and Jung would have been on the dole queue.

One of course has to enter the story on-trust. Sometimes the story will be boring and we will have wasted our time and energy. But if we never enter a story on-trust then we will waste our whole life. Because, unfortunately, the human psyche is largely unconscious (i.e. unaware) and (as said) it needs the vast majority of it to be awakened and it cannot do this itself.

So in effect it is not we but the narrative that wakes the psyche up. Only then do we participate in a two-way dialogue with the narrative.

Already, I have made the main points that I wished to in this part of the essay. (Awaken the psyche and dialogue). As for being bored rigid by reading stories, there is a great deal of quality literature out there. Classics are the safest bet. You can (over a period of time) heavily weight the positive experience of reading in one’s favor.

The consequences of failing to cede control “from” oneself “to” the narrative at the start of the story are as follows. One will not engage in the reading. One will not enter the story. If one lives like this forever then one will live a purely personal life, be prone to neurosis, over-controlling of oneself and others. One must allow oneself the opportunity to be moved by narrative that has proven popular among many. It must however be made clear that one never awakens all of the unconscious aspects of their psyche thus becoming fully conscious. This is a simple point in depth psychology (i.e. uncontroversial).

An excellent analogy here is with the outer universe. One experiences more of the universe if they visit another planet but there is always an infinite quantity of the universe that remains to be experienced. Nevertheless it may still have been a very good idea to have visited the planet!

In conclusion to this part of the essay, we can only say (at this point) that (through reading story) we experience more of the psyche, that we open up and benefit from it. We cannot say that we grasp the psyche anymore than we can grasp the universe. This neurotic desire for grasping, for greedy power and control, is a disease of western civilization. Depth Psychology links those negatives to excess ego. It’s the self-absorbed ego that blocks some people from making the first step of ceding to the narrative. Thus the ego does not allow more of the psyche to be experienced.

Part 2: De-Literalizing for Health

The cultural ego thrives on deceit. The cultural ego seems to want to believe in literalism beyond the physical. This absurdity (and that is what it is, an absurdity) is completely and totally opposed to the Depth Psychology I am discussing here. The Depth Psychology being discussed here pleads with the reader to “See Through”. “Seeing Through” is a prerequisite for health. Here I quote the Post-Jungian writer James Hillman:

“If the progression from sanity toward mental illness is distinguished by degrees of literalism, then the therapeutic road from psychosis back to sanity is one of going back through the same hermeneutic passage – deliteralising.” (Hillman, 1983, p111)

Hillman continues (note that I regard this as the key passage in this essay)

,“To be sane we must recognize our beliefs as fictions, and see through our hypotheses as fantasies. For the difference between madness and sanity depends not on society or politics, upbringing or chemistry, but wholly on our sense of fiction. Even more: to take literally any of the hypotheses such as upbringing or chemistry, society or politics, as the real truth and reason for mental illness is simply mental illness itself, now in the form of an explanatory fiction taken literally rather than heuristically.” (ibid)

The psyche’s prima materia (what psychology has got to work with) is a whole load of fantasy material. As said, hypnotize a person to the borderline of conscious-unconscious and it is all images with feelings. But the waking ego puts on a persona (mask) and pretends that it is all literal. And that is to the detriment of her wider psyche.

So the ego tries to make reality out of fiction. Its only defense is unawareness, ignorance, unconsciousness. Of course if one consciously does myth then one is closer to reality, hence closer to a psychologically healthier way of living.

Something that I have obviously implied, but not directly said in this essay is that there cannot possibly be a single identity. I say that I have “obviously” implied this due to my de-literalizing of the ego. If the ego is just another archetype, if the ego is merely “cultural” then it isn’t real as most people like to describe real. A “single identity” is a myth. Because all that is psychological is mythical reality.

Below I quote Hillman again because he puts what I have been saying in a different style. Furthermore, he progresses this essay on towards psychological dissociation (note that Hillman below terms it, dismemberment), although again it should be clear that dissociation (or dismemberment) has already been discussed in this essay albeit the term has not been used.

“If the structure of Dionysus logic is drama, the particular embodiment of Dionysus logic is the actor, Dionysian logos is the enactment of fiction, oneself an as-if-being whose reality comes wholly from imagination and the belief it imposes. The actor is and is not, a person and a persona, divided and undivided – as Dionysus was called. The self divided is precisely where the self is authentically located, Authenticity is the perpetual dismemberment of being and not-being a self, a being that is always in many parts like a dream with a full cast. We all have identity crises because a single identity is a delusion of the monotheistic mind that would defeat Dionysus at all costs. We all have dispersed consciousness through all our body parts, wandering wombs, we are all hysterics. Authenticity is the illusion, playing it, seeing through it, from within as we play it”.(Hillman, 1983, p39)

Part 3: A Note on Physical Medical Health Science

Straight away I must say that my field of knowledge is Depth Psychology, I am not getting carried away, this part of the essay is just about making it clear where “literalism” is valid. What I say concerning the physical in this part of the essay requires only the “experience”of it, not the ’study’ of it.

The arguments being expounded in this essay are all to do with psychological, mythical reality, i.e. not just the fantasies of the ego, but the fantasies beyond it as well. Of course there is no physical demarcation although the ego erects an artificial one. It blocks, or to use Freudian language, it represses.

Physical and Mythical Psychological reality are the two key areas in a human’s life because they determine his or her life. Physical Health Science is “literal” and far more understood than the psyche is. When I say that Physical Health Science is “literal” I mean things like “toothache” is literally real. It isn’t a “real fantasy”, there really is something literally wrong with the tooth! A “broken leg” is also literally real. Psychological pain attaches itself to the physical pain but can be vanquished by anesthetic such as gas, thus sending the individual into her dream world reality. The physical injury however, remains “literally real”.

So the physical is literal. The psychological reality is a mythical reality. So true is this that those who go to war and come close to the end of their physical existence, often come back home wondering why they used to stress over trivial things. Such people would be the biggest supporters of the Depth Psychology being outlined here, which says that everything is mythical except the physical.

The ego is threatened by the “T” word, “Truth”. Yet the wider psyche of which the ego is part of is enriched by truth. As said its problem is unconsciousness. The ego fails to realize that the wider psyche needs awakening.

Part 4: Credit to Jung

In this part of the essay I will use James Hillman (and to a far lesser extent) Sherry Salman, who both effectively give credit to Carl Jung, the pioneer behind the potential for the likes of me to gain health. In an essay like this it is only right and proper that some credit is given as there is a debt of gratitude.

“Know Thyself in Jung’s manner means to become familiar with, to open oneself to and listen to, that is to know and discern, daimons. Entering one’s interior story takes a courage similar to starting a novel. We have to engage with person’s whose autonomy may radically alter, even dominate our thoughts and feelings, Fictional and factual, they and we, are drawn together like threads into a mythos, a plot until death do us part.”(Hillman, 1983, p55)

Hillman continues,

,“Just to remind ourselves what a radical shattering move – theological, epistemological, ontological – Jung’s personifying was, let me merely pronounce the usual judgment on daimons that is part of our western religious psychology. Whether Eastern Church or Roman, whether Old Testament or New, whether Protestant or Catholic – daimons are no good things. They are part of the world of Satan, of Chaos, of Temptation. They have been written against by major Christian Theologians down through the centuries, associated with the cult of serpent worship in the midst of Christian Europe, and they are, according to the authority of Matthew’s Gospel, the source of possession, sickness and magic.” (ibid)

Hillman continues by saying that the likes of Plato and Plontinus referred to these images as figures from “the middle realm” (ibid). Hillman says that “even Eros was a daimon.” (ibid),

“But the dogmatic crystallization of our religious culture demonized the daimons. As a fundamental component of polytheistic paganism, they had to be negated and denied by Christian theology which projected its repression upon the daimons, Thus Jung’s move which turned directly to the images and figures of the middle realm was a heretical demonic move. His move into the imagination, had already been prejudiced in our religious language as demonic and in our clinical language as multiple personality or as schizophrenia. Yet this radical activation of imagination was Jung’s method of Know Thyself.” (Hillman, 1983, p56)

Sherry Salman (writing in ‘The Cambridge Companion to Jung’) says,

,“Most importantly, Jung “depathologized” the archetypal and transpersonal layer of the psyche by verifying its function as the creative matrix for the entire personality. Repression or denial of it leads to the ill’s which modern society indeed suffers from, a sense of failure and depression in the face of unavoidable suffering of life, and a consequent fascination with those who are identified with the archetypal psyche such as religious fanatics and glamorous or power-hungry personalities. Jung’s contribution was to point a way toward a more creative relationship with the unconscious, and his personal devotion to this process provided a beautifully rendered illustration of what may be discovered when the psyche meets itself.” Salman in Eisendrath and Dawson, 1997, p68)

Footnote:

When writing about Depth Psychology themes I am always wondering how much basic background to write about. It is certainly vitally important to go beyond Jung’s signature concepts. This is because even Jung desires you too. Jung’s work should be used as a spring-board. Moreover his work should be used not for purposes of an intellectual exercise, but for health. Jung and Depth Psychology are deep (depth) due to the focus on the unconscious.

Conscious and unconscious are not literally separate. Remember that they aren’t literal physical things. But the cultural conscious ego prevents a feeling of togetherness, hence an artificial split results. The split is felt to be so real that one has to play along with the game of separation. You see, imagine that you are in a social environment, say a party, lots of people are talking.

You are only consciously listening to the one person who is talking to you. Consciously everything else is little more than noise. You think that your mind cannot pick up on any other conversation because you are not listening to it. But then someone near by (in passing) mentions your name. Suddenly you register even though you were not listening. You cannot mention anything else about their conversation. You simply heard your name being mentioned. Similarly you may sit in a café. You are oblivious that the café is playing music very quietly for background atmosphere. But then your favorite group gets played. Suddenly you become consciously aware of the fact.

The point is then that your whole psyche takes in a lot more than just the conscious psyche which as Freud discovered, is hell-bent on REPRESSION. Under hypnosis a lot of material that is not in consciousness at all can be unearthed from the unconscious as it is material that is not lost to the whole psyche, just to the conscious psyche. It is this artificial split that is the reason that Jung refers to conscious and unconscious. It isn’t that there is a real split (demarcation), its more a case of being in the mixing bowl together or conscious drift into unconscious as in waking to sleeping, or a case of cultural ego stamping its artificial authority on the psyche.

Jung writes that the “psychic double” “seldom reaches a degree of intensity that would entitle one to speak of a double personality.’ (Jung in Bishop, 1999, p255)

Part 5: The Mythical Unconscious1

The psyche cannot be bottled therefore it must be said that no chapter, nor even the biggest book in the world can say enough here. (See Part 1). We can only ever give a flavor. Recognize archetypes, enter dialogue with the narrative. E.g. when reading a fictional classic, have some psychological understanding but the story has its say too, entirely so when you first begin the book. It’s not just about the story and it’s not just about you. This is so in the same way that a conversation between two people is not just about one of the people involved, but rather requires two way dialogue.

However, whilst the story is about both the “story” and “you” and whilst it may awaken unconscious aspects of your psyche very effectively, you are still a psychological human being prone to dissociation. You can finish the book, encounter a new situation and hence you “dissociate”. New archetypal realities are now experienced. It is when one tries to hold onto a false permanent ego-self that one is in trouble.

Certainly beyond one’s ego consciousness there are images that are always there, but ego consciousness blocks/represses them. However, ego consciousness tires, rests (i.e. sleeps) hence the defenses are down and the “real you psyche” is experienced.

When Jungians refer to “archetypes” we should think of them as perspectives that can be seen from thousands of years ago up to the present day (typical characters/typical characteristics/typical situations) that are seemingly timeless and cross cultural. The benefit of this is that one gains perspective and context.

For example being a present day A-list female celebrity has an historical archetypal context. For tens of thousands of years goddesses have been worshiped. The modern female A-list celebrity attracts the same sort of psychological projection as the ancient goddess. Whilst the female A-list celebrity is only a human being, she would attract a massive amount of news attention if she were (for example) to die in a car crash. A non-celebrity female would merely attract the attention of loved ones and a passing mention on the local news. The celebrity, practically thought of as immortal, would attract world-wide shock and the news wouldn’t let the story drop for several days.

This raises several issues both for the big fan of the celebrity and for the celebrity herself. For example, with reference to the latter, can she shrug her shoulders at the goddess style projection being directed at her? Or does she succumb to it? If she succumbs to it then she will be divided within herself to a massive extent.

This is because she will not be able to live up to it. She will still have the petty rows and worries that she had before she became a goddess. She needs to understand the mythical character but unfortunately there is so much hype around celebrity that one is advised not to become one in the first place. Many celebrities are screwed up (to use layman language!).

As well as an archetypal historical perspective, Depth Psychology is also of use in a cross-over kind of way to the forementioned, as a way of activating “associations” in the individual. This makes dialogue with narrative more effective as opposed to treading treacle! For example a Jungian (or Hillman archetypalist) will have conscious associations regarding (e.g.) “water”, “forest”, “snake”, “tree”, “the Great Mother”.

Part 6: Conclusion

This essay has articulated my Depth Psychology belief in mythical psychological reality. There is no such thing as a single identity. The ego’s attempts to maintain one is neurotic.

“We no longer need to be menaced by the notion of multiple personality.”(Hillman, 1975, p24)

Depth Psychology can be applied in many areas as touched upon at the end of part 5 when referring to “archetypal history”. The Social World is another important area. But in this essay I have discussed the main theme of my Depth Psychology, Mythical Psychological Reality. Here I wish to remind the reader of the main passage in this essay which was Hillman’s (quoted in part 2),

“To be sane we must recognize our beliefs as fictions, and see through our hypotheses as fantasies. For the difference between madness and sanity depends not on society or politics, upbringing or chemistry, but wholly on our sense of fiction. Even more: to take literally any of the hypotheses such as upbringing or chemistry, society or politics, as the real truth and reason for mental illness is simply mental illness itself, now in the form of an explanatory fiction taken literally rather than heuristically.” (Hillman, 1983, p111)

One’s psyche needs to experience, i.e. it wants its emotive potential activated. And one’s psyche needs to be able to dissociate without going neurotic. And then one can have other emotions triggered. And then one’s psyche needs to be able to dissociate again and this cyclical process needs to go on forever. Let’s be clear. This is the way it is. One either enjoys the ride or doesn’t.

In the early part of this essay we saw an example of one who doesn’t enjoy the ride in the form of the frightened child and ego-obsessed adult. The frequency and normalcy of dissociation proves the non-literal nature of the single-identity ego. Therefore when one experiences dissociation the key is to accept it with “indifference” even if that is a big come-down from the “high-point” you were at just a moment ago. Moreover it isn’t just about where you were at and where you are now. In the future new archetypal feelings will be experienced, and they too will dissociate, You get the picture.

Our cultural ego is just one archetype, linked to the persona (mask). One cannot remind a 21st century westerner of that fact enough. See through the ego. The ego isn’t a physical reality.

All of this experiencing and dissociating goes on within the context of human archetypal psychology. Credit goes to James Hillman, for building on the work of Jung, and with the advantage of being second generation, he progressed Depth Psychology, making it all the more relevant to our lives.