Really?
You do know it ’s Sunday, right? (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - April 13, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
For today, a poem
Walking at NightbyLouise GluckNow that she is old,the young men don't approach herso the nights are free,the streets at dusk that were so dangeroushave become as safe as the meadow.By midnight, the town's quiet.Moonlight reflects off the stone walls;on the pavement, you can hear the nervous soundsof the men rushing home to their wives and mothers; this late,the doors are locked, the windows darkened.When they pass, they don't notice her.She's like a dry blade of grass in a field of grasses.So her eyes that used never to leave the groundare free now to go where they like.When she's tired of the streets, in good weather she ...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 12, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
This is Spring?
Welcome to spring in Maine where it has snowed the last 3 days. (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - April 10, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
The Struggle
In August I became very ill and spent 5 days in the hospital. In the process I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, which was the underlying culprit in my whole medical misadventure. So for the last 6 months I have been struggling to come to terms with and learn to cope with now being a diabetic. Not my idea of a fun time.Days of what sometimes felt like endless finger sticks to check my blood sugar leaving my poor fingers looking a bit like they had been through a war — which I suppose they had. Trying to figure out what I can eat and what drives my glucose levels too high. Feelings about myself rising and falling based ...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 9, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
A treat for the eye
I am a fat woman. I was a fat teen and fat child. I have even written a book about what being fat is like and what it is about. It took me a long time and a lot of hard inner work to even begin to feel at home in my body, to claim my body, to love my body.It is only in recent times, and even then pretty rarely do I get to see bodies like mine in ads, on television or in the movies. This week as part of their ad campaign for their women ’s shaver, Gillette image of plus-size model in bikini sparks outrage — the image of a fat woman in a bikini looking happy drew a slew of hate-filled comments about her and accusing G...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 8, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
May I ask a personal question?
Personal disclosure is an issue that comes up now and again for therapists and patients — patients wonder if it is intrusive to ask the therapist personal questions, therapists wonder how much to disclose. I have never found this to be an especially difficult issue. Taking a page from an early supervisor, I tell patients early in our work that they should feel free to ask any questio ns that they like of me. I tell them I will answer any that I feel comfortable with *and* that I think it also important that we consider what the question is about for them. Very rarely has anyone asked anything that felt intrusive or that ...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 8, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Being the Shape We Are
I love amaryllises. Every year I order a new one. I watch as those from previous years bloom and rebloom. This year when my new one arrived, I got distracted and didn ’t plant it right away. When I finally remembered and rescued it from the paper bag it had been in, it had started to grow but clearly had suffered from my neglect.The stem and bud were almost white. And as you can see the stem was bent almost over on itself. It had done everything it could to realize itself within the confines of the small paper bag. I felt terrible about what had happened and decided to see if it could recover. So I potted it in some ni...
Source: Jung At Heart - April 7, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Late
Like spring here in Maine, I am late starting a 30 day blog challenge from Effy Wild. And like spring, the amaryllises on my window shelf are ready to blossom, their nice fat buds getting ready. They will open in a few days. And I will be writing posts, maybe not 30 but posts there will be. Meanwhile big juicy snowflakes are drifting down to let me know that the calendar may say spring is here, but in Maine we tend to live life more slowly. (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - April 3, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Ice Cream in the Afterlife
My former mother-in-law died almost 7 years ago.. She was 90 and died just 6 weeks after her husband. Hers was a long life lived quite well She and I were not fond of one another. We thought the one thing we shared was love for her son and our children. But there is something else we shared -- a long history of being at odds with our bodies.She was tiny -- barely 5 feet tall and her weight hovered around 100 pounds. But she was always anxious about food and eating and her body. I used to joke that she would have a psychotic episode if her weight went above 105 pounds but in hindsight I can see and feel how much that was ...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 24, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Exchanging words...
"Exchanging words is the essence of psychotherapy." Nor HallWhen I meet with a new patient, I always have a slight anxiety before this new person arrives -- anxiety and also anticipation Will we "click"? What new doors will open through this person and our work -- because this process changes both of us, though not to the same degree. So there is that tingle of the new and unknown as I answer the door or respond to the call on Skype. And then, once in my office, we sit down and I ask, as i always do, "What brings you here today?" and we begin.It is a curious process, therapy is. I have no visible tools. No questionnaires. ...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 24, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Why depth psychotherapy?
Someone asked me recently if I really thought that longer term depth psychotherapy was really necessary. Necessary? I don't know that I can determine that for anyone other than myself, but I can say it is valuable for the person who wants to learn more about her dreams and how she came to where she is in her life, what forces are operative in her, understanding which may allow her a wider array of choices moving forward. Jung said,"Generally speaking, all the life which the parents could have lived, but of which they thwarted themselves for artificial motives, is passed on to the children in substitute form. That is to s...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 18, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
How Long?
People often ask me how long therapy should last. Usually I say it should last as long as it is working. And I often go on to say a lot more about that because no one can determine how long therapy goes on except a given patient and therapist working together to decide. Certainly managed care companies can't really know, though they can set arbitrary limits. I hate when site I liked disappears — today it is a site by Jean Hantman, someone I used to enjoy reading when there was an active listserv for psychoanalytic studies. She is on the psychoanalysis side of depth psychology, which means we have somewhat different not...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 17, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
One of these women is not like the others
The photo is from the Lane Bryant site today. They are having a sale on underwear so I went to look. As I scrolled through, something jumped out at me - while most of the models shown were like the one on the left, the heavier looking models were all shown without heads. Now showing fat women without heads is not a new phenomenon. You have seen her, or others like her, many times, the "headless fatty", a term coined by Charlotte Cooper in 2007. When journalists run stories on television and in print about the evils of obesity, there she is, a fat, usually a very fat woman on the street or the beach or in some other pu...
Source: Jung At Heart - March 9, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
New group!
New combination writing/personal growth group for writers of all abilities opening soon. Learn about and register for Writing From Inside Outhere. (Source: Jung At Heart)
Source: Jung At Heart - March 4, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
Writing our story
Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies-for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text-as into the world and into history —by her own movement. – Helene CixouxStories are how our ancestors wove the fabric of meaning and existence as they made their way in their lives. Telling your story helps you to explore yourself, your roots, and your journey through life. Think about taking out your notebook to begin. "One day, this is what happened..." can be a begin...
Source: Jung At Heart - February 28, 2019 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: blogs
