Another book on dreams
While I thought I would be teaching a course on dreams this fall, I read several books to see if there were some new ideas I could use. Well, I have decided I want to teach another 6 weeks on In Treatment rather than dreams and I didn't really find anything amazing in what I read.
At the suggestion of several people I recently read Richard Kradin's The Herald Dream: An Approach to the Initial Dream in Psychotherapy. I think this is a fine book for someone new to working with dreams brought by patients. The notion that the first dream in psychotherapy is important and reveals a lot about what the presenting problems ar...
Source: Jung At Heart - June 19, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Another take on dreams
I am going to be teaching a course on dreams in the fall at our Senior College. So I decided to read a book someone mentioned to me a while ago -- Yorem Kaufman's The Way of the Image. It is a lovely little book of essays about dreams, images and therapy. The first 2 essays, "The Way of the Image Part 1" and part 2 are about his way of looking at dreams and about how he works with dreams in therapy, an actual technique essay, that rarest of Jungian works! Then in the 3rd essays he writes about the analyst as he or she appears in dreams. These three essays are rich and deeply rewarding for anyone seriously interested in dre...
Source: Jung At Heart - June 11, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
What we believe
A terrific supervisor once said to me that we practice what we believe. And I come back to it again and again as I see ever more clearly how much that is what our field is about.
a few years ago I participated in an online seminar sponsored by IARPP (the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy) on the use of the telephone in analysis and therapy. Nearly all of the participants utilized the telephone for sessions at least once in a while and several had also experienced analysis as a patient utilizing the telephone. What interested me most was that it came down to whether the analyst...
Source: Jung At Heart - June 2, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Where it happens
This morning I read a lovely piece, an interview that was on CBS Sunday Morning -- The evolution of the psychoanalyst's office. Mark Gerald, a photographer and psychoanalyst has for some time been photographing psychoanalysts and their offices. You can see some of his photos here. A wonderful variety of consulting rooms, some visually busy, others with a zen-like spareness.
In the interview Gerald says, sounding almost Jungian,
a very central thing, I think, in my project and in the interest of psychoanalytic offices, in that all of the objects in the analyst's office, whether they're i...
Source: Jung At Heart - May 20, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Suffering
In a community where I participate I posted this quote from Jung the other day:
“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering” ― C.G. Jung
And a friend responded, "Yes, I've always thought that was a stunning statement, Cheryl. Could you unpack it a bit? (Especially the "legitimate" thing?) "
Here is a post I wrote about this a year or so ago:
I have been thinking about the following from Jung for a number of years.
"... the principal aim of psychotherapy is not to transport the patient to an impossible state of happiness, but to help him acquire steadfastness and philoso...
Source: Jung At Heart - May 15, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
On the radio...
We are fortunate to live within reach of an excellent community radio station, WERU, which first broadcast from studios in Noel Paul Stookey's converted chicken house building. Once a month my friend Ellie O'Leary hosts Writer's Forum.
This past week I guested on her show. And because I know you are dying to hear me, listen to me read from the intro to my work-in-progress here. (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - May 12, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Seeking "normal"
These days I am reading and reflecting on several books, among them Barbara Stevens Sullivan's The Mystery of Analytical Work: Weavings from Jung and Bion and Natalie Boero's Killer Fat: Media, Medicine, and Morals in the American "Obesity Epidemic". This week these thoughts from them came together for me:
most of the people to whom I spoke talked about a desire to lose weight to be normal, to be able to wear a smaller size, to blend in, and to avoid the stigma and discrimination faced by fat people. This pattern held not only for people like Tina, who had undergone surgery in order to lose wei...
Source: Jung At Heart - May 5, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Ambivalence
Sort of cross-posted from The Fat Chronicles:
I think sometimes that ambivalence might be my middle name. I started The Fat Chronicles two and a half years ago but I have been sporadic in posting to it. There are a lot of blogs in the fat acceptance and fat activism communities, or so it seems to me anyway, and this one falls fully into neither one. I started it because I wanted to put some of my thoughts on this issue out there and because at the time I was ambivalent -- there is that word again -- about including these thoughts in with my main blog, Jung At Heart. Right there was my growing edge, my fears about what...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 21, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
The war within
I saw this on someecards.com earlier this week and it just stuck in my mind.
I know that feeling, no doubt most of us do. But stop and think about it. This is really a story about being at war with one's body and never feeling just okay or at home within the body that is, whether fat or thin. It is a terrible thing we do to ourselves and the kind of looking back that this image so perfectly captures is just one of many ways we torment ourselves and persist in feeling shame and loathing for the body we live in.
I think of Lot's wife, turned to a pillar of salt ...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 12, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Guest Post: Leaping Into the Void
Leaping Into the Void
By Jean Benedict Raffa, Ed.D.
“Crisis and pain often catalyze a genuine, heart-felt attempt to reach toward the mysteries. In the grip of pain, we more readily reach through the veils of forgetfulness and wiles of the shadow attitudes that block the heart path.” ~Jungian Analyst Monika Wikman
In my mid-thirties, despite having a loving family, comfortable home, and inspiring religious community, I was deeply unhappy with myself and tormented with questions. What’s wrong with me? Why am I not satisfied with my life? Who am I, really? There’s got to be more to life than trying t...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 8, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
We have a guest coming...
A few weeks ago I was asked if I would be interested in having a guest blogger make a post here. Now I have not done this in the past, but there is a book involved and when I read the book, I decided she would be a good fit, for those who are interested in Jung and spirituality. So Monday, watch for a post from Jean Benedict Raffa. And then let me know how you feel about my hosting occasional guests. BTW, I am enjoying the book, which I will include in my booklist later next week.
(Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - April 5, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
I'm back
That was an unplanned little break. Things have been very busy here -- I wrote and submitted a chapter for an anthology on Fat Politics, my piece being about the fat body and therapy. And a long awaited financial settlement came my way. My husband and I bought a new car. There was a snow storm. New patients beginning, old patients ending. And a new course to prepare for our local Senior College. So somehow writing here fell to the bottom of the list for a bit. But the busiest time is over for now and I am happily back.
While we waited for the snow to melt -- and it has here on the coast -- I have had spring here on my...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 4, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
I did it so you don't have to...
I confess to a slight weakness for the Real Housewives franchise on Bravo tv. I doubt those shows have any redeeming social value but I watch them and am fascinated by how different those women are from anyone I know. So now you know that I have that vice.
I saw an ad for a new Bravo show, LA Shrinks. And I took it as a sacred duty to take a look to see if there was anything about it to recommend. So on my day off I found it On Demand and started to watch the first episode. I managed to get through almost 30 minutes before I had to stop. OMG, this is the worst show featuring or about therapists ever, bar none! Therapi...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 16, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Grief
In this study (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - February 26, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
If this is Sunday, it must be snowing
For the third Sunday in a row we are getting snow. I have been enjoying taking photographs out my window using my iPad and the app, Top Camera. The view this morning-- (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - February 24, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
