Many of my female analysands painfully confess that they no longer have an idea of what it is to be feminine. Over twenty-five years ago, the Jungian analyst June Singer, in an article titled “The Sadness of the Successful Woman,” said that she believed that such women are suffering from a particular form of depression: They are mourning for their lost femininity.
We want to invite you (men and women) into the adventure of restoring and revitalizing the eternal feminine into our lives and culture. To help you along we will be publishing a new blog series based on an expanded and updated version of the Study Guide for Into the Heart of the Feminine. This study guide series can be done in a discussion group setting, or individually through journaling.
I define Sacred Selfishness as valuing ourselves enough to develop into “authentic” human beings who give back vitality and hope to the people around us. It is acquiring what Emerson refers to as “character—a reserved force which acts directly by …
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Why do so many of us want to own weapons designed to kill human beings, weapons designed for mass murder? What is it that makes us terrified of losing those weapons? The following article is from my book Students Under …
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I am pleased to announce my newest book, Becoming Whole: A Jungian Guide to Individuation. This book comprises the text of two lectures and the seminars that accompanied them. I have presented these workshops and seminars in Asheville, North Carolina …
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… Do you really know what you want?… I encounter many different people daily who are fascinating and remarkable, and I often find myself standing in awe of how unique we all are as individuals. Yet as I get …
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Erich Fromm believed that character determined behavior. In his studies of how society affects our development, he concluded that every society shares a common character structure, meaning a common set of traits that motivate us to behave in ways that fulfill the goals and ideals of our culture. For example we are taught and conditioned to believe our self-worth depends upon our achievements, our financial value, the things we own, how productive we are, and how other people evaluate us. Fromm called this collection of traits our social character. Society from its largest institutional units down to its smallest, the family, endeavors to teach us these traits.
In understanding Jung’s individuation process and how it works for us, it helps to know a few basic things about the levels of consciousness we can obtain. To begin with, our levels of consciousness or psychological maturity become increasingly based on self-awareness rather than age after we have reached adulthood.
To understand what Jung meant by a religious attitude and our emotional problems, we need to become familiar with what he calls the individuation process. While each of us grows and ages physically, whether we like it or not, the same fact isn’t true about our psychological growth. The individuation process recognizes that after we have grown to a certain point psychologically, we have to make an effort; we have to pursue self-knowledge, to mature as people and live in a satisfying manner in our relationships and culture.
One of the most rewarding aspects of being authors of books like INTO THE HEART OF THE FEMININE are the responses we get from readers. These responses encourage us, energize our work and fill us with awe and humility. The …
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