Category Archives: Soul

Looking into the future

The Value of Limits

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Image courtesy of graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net I read a lovely passage on the value of limitations, written by Parker Palmer. As someone who tends to be a bit of a puer (the eternal youth), I can easily dream of infinite possibilities, but struggle with the down-to-earth finite practicalities, which are born of limitation. […]

Happiness, Success, and the Soul

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Positive Psychology is an approach to psychology that seeks to understand what factors are at work in healthy states. It seeks to make a scientific understanding of things like happiness, taking the position that happiness is not the absence of unhappiness, but a positive state that can be cultivated and increased. Recently I was directed […]

“We Are The Great Danger”

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This quote showed up several times in my Twitter feed recently: “The only thing we have to fear on this planet is man.” ~ C.G. Jung This was a frequent theme for Jung later in his life, particularly after having witnessed the horrors of the first and second world wars. Here is a clip of […]

Metaphors Light Up The Brain

Imagination and the Brain

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There is a report of an interesting study on Psych Central about how metaphors are processed in the brain. The main point is that when someone hears a metaphor with a textural quality,  the parietal operculum,  the region of the brain that senses texture through touch, is activated . This is an interesting study for depth psychology for, as […]

Don’t Hide Inside Anger

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A video of James Hillman reading this poem from Rumi:

The light you give off did not come from a pelvis.
You're features did not begin in semen.
Don't try to hide inside anger,
radiance that cannot be hidden.

Hillman's take away quote from this clip for me is "It's easier to be angry than to think."

Here is the video:

The Invisible Within The Visible

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Here is a video of James Hollis speaking at Andover Newton Theological School and giving an overview of his understanding of Depth Psychology.  According to Hollis, Depth Psychology is a means of addressing the question, "What is it that moves the soul?" It is a dialogue with the invisible world that "courses through the visible" and an effort to open ourselves to, and come to terms with, the "other," both within  and without--an other that is ultimately mysterious.

Here is the video:

Woman in Grief

Caring For The Soul In Grief

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I read a recent post on the PsychCentral website titled, 8 Tips to Help Console a Grieving Friend. I believe this is a very important topic because our contemporary culture tends to repress and deny the fact of suffering and death, such that when they (inevitably) occur, we have no idea how to handle it. Consequently, we […]

More on Depth Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

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I'm following up my post about Jonathan Shedler's work on psychodynamic psychotherapy with a promotional video that he made for Pacifica Graduate Institute. In it he discusses his research and the value of this therapeutic approach.

One of the points Shedler makes in the video is that therapeutic success is, in large part, due to the quality of the therapeutic relationship. He suggests that this relational factor is central to a psychodynamic approach. And while there are certainly high quality relationships that form in other treatment modalities, it is psychodynamic therapy which makes the understanding of transference and countertransference dynamics a primary focus of treatment. 

Shedler makes other interesting points about learning to think psychologically and about the distinction between two kinds of practitioners--the clinicians and the technicians. He says:

"I think in the future there will be two kinds of therapists. There will be technicians who follow instruction manuals and there will be real clinicians who are able to understand their patients deeply and help them live more authentically."

Here is the video: