C.G. Jung Helpdesk: Recent Episodes
Marcus
Companion podcast to the C.G.Jung Helpdesk MeetUp group https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/meetup-group-alcqqpru/
Going deep into depth psychology! This group is about helping to encounter and discuss the key concepts of Jungian psychology. Please note this is an purely intellectual and artistic endeavor, feel free to join.
“Completeness belongs to the nature of your best effort; it must contain the irrational as well as the rational, the unconscious as well as the conscious attempt. Therefore magic means are often exceedingly grotesque. Think of the magic medicine of the Middle Ages, for instance, or the secrets of the alchemical kitchen, or the contents of magic amulets-like the ground-up bones of a bat-it all seems the sheerest nonsense, but that simply proves the sincerity of the effort. And the means are legitimate inasmuch as they represent acknowledgment of assistance from the other side.” - C.G. Jung
The world is more than we see and understand, to allow in things that might not fit or seem confusing is the other side of the coin. Jung made this experience at his midpoint in life and what started by him building castles of sand, just as he did as a child, led to him changing the field of psychology.
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“An anima relationship is never a normal relationship, but always something fantastical. A man sees his female face in the anima, and that is dangerous; the anima transforms everything it touches. Wherever it is active, it visualizes one’s own image, a man’s own image, and this is his female being, an invisible minority that he carries inside himself.” C.G. Jung
A man’s drive comes from a deep place and can wreak havoc on him and his surroundings when he can not keep it in check. The 1983 movie Scarface tells the story of such a man and his downfall.
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„Man’s effort to achieve wholeness correspond, as the divine myth shows, to a voluntary sacrifice of the self to the bondage of earthly existence.“ C.G. Jung
Given his surname, Jung (young) saw it as ironic that he was engrossed by transformation and rebirth in his investigations, same as the Freud (joy) was so focused on sexuality. But to be reborn, something needs to die first.
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“Eros without the Logos inside never understands, there is nothing but blind relatedness. Such people can be related to God knows what - like certain woman who are dissolved completely in little happy families - cousins, relations - and there is nothing in the whole damned thing, it is all perfectly empty.” C.G. Jung
Who could have thought that breakfast eggs could be of such psychological significance? This romantic comedy allows a peak into the inner workings of what Jung called the relationship function: Eros
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“Nobody will ever become conscious if he does not hit his head on something.” - C.G. Jung
Consciousness act as the center point for Jung’s model of the psyche, as something so important that everything else that exists needs to be put into reference to it: The unconscious, the things that are not in consciousness. What it is, how it works and what’s its purpose is will all be part of this event.
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“This is the stuff that drives people crazy, because they can’t catch themselves anymore; they can no longer control themselves when they have that animal psychology. It means they are driven by instinct. They see a thing and leap for it. That is the condition of schizophrenia, for all those things appear also in cases of insanity; they are dynamite that can easily explode in the human mind.” - C.G. Jung
The 2000 movie is an interesting case study of a slow descent into madness, but what would Jung say about it?
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“Ladies and gentleman, considering that your seat, this room, this lightening, our entire culture are nothing other than products of human fantasy, then you cannot overlook this. There is nothing man-made known to you that is not fantasy. Fantasy is the alpha and the omega of psychic life. Fantasy is the greatest danger of all. Do you believe that a landslide or an earthquake is as dangerous as human fantasy? Well, you haven’t the faintest idea! Fantasy is catastrophe.” - C.G. Jung
Jung saw Fantasy as a fundamental phenomenon of the psyche. As something that can guide us, but also distract us. How we engage or ignore fantasies determines our development and our journey.
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Welcome to the C.G. Jung Helpdesk Meetup Group Podcast!
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„Real is, what has an effect“ - C.G. Jung
Jung‘s approach to therapy followed a basic principle: To meet the patient where they are. Reality is something incredibly subjective that can shape and transform just as we do.
Join us to find out more.
See you there.
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„Although we human beings have our own personal life, we are yet in large measure the representatives, the victims and promoters of a collective spirit whose years are counted in centuries. We can well think all our lives long that we are following our own noses, and may never discover that we are, for the most part, supernumeraries on the stage of the world theater.“ - C.G. Jung
There is something deep in the psyche of humans, something that shapes and forms cultures and ages. Jung investigated the unconscious his whole life to hit something that is the foundation of centuries and millennia of human progress. And it was all visible in the sky long before anyone could see the connection.
Join us to find out more.
See you there.
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„This means not only bringing the conflict to consciousness; it also involves an experience of a special kind, namely, the recognition of an alien ‚other‘ in oneself, of the objective presence of another will.“ - C.G. Jung
Shadow, Anima, Animus, Mercurius. Jung talks often about the figures of the unconscious that one encounters in one‘s life. We are not alone in our home and even though they all look and are different, are the all and the same in the end?
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“Even on the primitive level man feels an irresistible need actually to invent secrets: their possession safeguards him from dissolving in the featureless flow of unconscious community life and thus from deadly peril to his soul.” - C.G. Jung
As we dive deeper into the hidden corners of Jung’s ideas about the psyche, we encounter one concept that seem innocuous but hugely influential under the right circumstances: The secret. Join to shed some light on it.
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“Pretty much everything that currently moves the subject's soul is expressed in the associations.” - C.G. Jung
Within associations Jung saw the elemental structure of consciousness and the reason for dreams and fantasies. With every call, something in the psyche answered, but was it the patient themselves or something else? Jung investigated that and created his academic career that brought him to the attention of one of the leading figures of psychology of the time: Sigmund Freud. Join to learn about this fundamental part of analytical psychology.
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“The child lives in a pre-rational and above all in a pre-scientific world, the world of the men who existed before us.” C.G. Jung
In the broad public little is known about Jung and his contributions to developmental psychology, the emerging psychology of children. Jung studied families and their ties and saw a unique opportunity in children to gaze into the depth of our psychology and in the past of human beings. Join us to learn more.
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“You get the feeling that your life make sense the moment it touches nature again. Therefore whenever you have a chance to return to nature, you feel better; at least to a small extent you return to the “mother.” Instinctively your life becomes corrected; it gets the right balance.” - C.G. Jung
We are of nature but at the same time removed from it. Jung had pretty clear ideas what the relationship between humans and nature is and is supposed to be. Join this event to learn more about the phenomena that nature is not only around us but also within us.
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„I told nobody that I intended to work out the unconscious phenomena of the psychoses, but that was my determination. I wanted to catch the intruders in the mind - the intruders that make people laugh when they should not laugh, and cry when they should not cry.“ - C.G.Jung
Forgetting, a slip of tongue, accidents. All the kinds of phenomena can origin, according to the psychoanalytic school of thought, from a complex in the unconscious. Join this event to find out more about these „intruders of the mind“, how they behave, how they can be measured through the association experiment and how they can become pathological.
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“I had accustomed myself to living always on two planes simultaneously, one consciousness, which attempted to understand and could not, and one unconscious, which wanted to express something and could not formulate it any better than by a dream” - C.G. Jung
This event will be about the basic premises and threads that pop up when Jung is drawn towards a phenomenon or reaches a conclusion. Commonalities between his ideas that creates a strong footing to say that an idea is Jungian, even when that idea might not necessarily be from Jung himself. Join to find out and discuss.
“If the conscious attitude is too infantile, too immature, an old woman appears as a compensating figure. And the old wise man always appears when one is too foolish. Then the moment one becomes mature and reasonable in one's attitude, infantile figures turn up in the dreams, the puer aeternus motif, for instance. You see, when one is old in one's consciousness, perhaps too reasonable, too adapted, too considerate, then one's soul is young, it is a child even, because one needs childlikeness in order not to dry up and suffocate in one's own wonderful adaptation.”The Puer Aeternus, or also the eternal child, is a psychological phenomenon that pop up in dreams of individuals or even shape the psychology of whole cultures. As everything in Jung’s psychology it can have a positive and a negative side. To find out more, join the event and meet this unique character of the psyche.
“So the worst trap is the body. We have all been taught that our minds and other virtues are wings we put on, so we get to flying about above ourselves, and we live as if the body did not exist. This happens often with intuitives, with everybody in fact. The body appears to us as a most serious obstacle.” - C.G.JungThe discovery of the body and the bodily is for Jung one of the main tasks of the modern mind. While the mind can fantasies about all the possibilities in the world, the body binds it to the here and now, which can create friction and serious trouble for the individual. Join the even to find out more about how the psyche is not necessarily limited to what is inside the head.
“You see to what a huge extent the East honors consciousness as the light benevolently supporting man in the terrible darkness surrounding epitome of evil. All evil comes from ignorance. All evil, the entire sum of life, comes from not knowing. You will find this doctrine in the original words of the Buddha. For whoever is in the the state of consciousness behaves like an automaton. He has no ethic.” C.G. JungWhen we talk about the shadow, very often the topic of evil comes up. This lead to a very lively discussion during the even “Shadow & Projection”. I want to follow up, what evil is for Jung. Where it comes from and what purpose it does serve.
“Through our senses we experience the known, but our intuitions point to things that are unknown and hidden, that by their very nature are secret.” C.G. JungFor Jung, there exist many pathways how experiences can reach our consciousness. The most mysterious being intuition, which is, as he says, “perception through the unconscious,” seeing the possibilities of things, even more so then the thing itself. Join to find out more about this special function and what life is to someone, for whom intuition is their superior function.
“As a rule, people who have a certain maturity, who are philosophically inclined, more or less successful in the world and not too neurotic share my views.” - C.G. JungIn my journey to read and understand everything from Jung, there are still some concepts that I have a hard time to wrap my head around. I am feeling that has to do with inconsistencies in some concepts and I will try to explore those in this event. Join me in this investigation.
“The idea in the dream is that something has happened, a new worm has suddenly appeared, the worm which seemed to be a terrific danger; yet we saw that it also has a very positive meaning, the beginning of higher consciousness. That is why so many people are afraid of higher consciousness. For it bears a greater responsibility and danger.” - C.G. Jung“Man against nature” is one of the archetypal stories that humanity has. While the Steven Spielberg movie “Jaws” from 1975 seems to be just like that, there is an additional, psychological layer there that could have contributed to the massive success that resulted in the birth of the term “Blockbuster”. Join the event to find out more.
PLEASE NOTE: This event is a purely intellectual investigation into Jung’s thoughts and opinions about psychological therapy and therapists. The event is not an instruction for neither diagnosis nor treatment. If you have the feeling to be personally affected in your psychological health, please consider contacting a certified professional. No piece of content of the event should be taken as medical advice.“As we know, a complex can be really overcome really only if it is lived out to the full. In other words, if we are to develop further we have to draw to us and drink down to the very dregs what, because of our complexes, we have held at a distance.” - C.G. JungEven during all his tumultuous life and shifts in scientific interests, Jung stayed a therapists and treated patients. With his contributions to psychoanalysis and the founding of the school of analytical psychology he established certain ideas and corner stones of therapy and therapists. This event will deal with there topics.
“It is not possible to live too long amid infantile surroundings, or in the bosom of the family, without endangering one’s psychic health. Life calls forth to independence, and anyone who does not head this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis.” C.G. JungWhat do you get when you combine romance and spectacle? One of the most successful movies of all time and a great display of the individuation process of a trapped woman. Viewed through a Jungian lens, one can observe the positive encounter with her animus, finding life and fighting for it.Caution: There will be tons of spoilers. I recommend watching the movie before the event.See you there!
“The smaller the personality, the dimmer and more unconscious it becomes, until finally it merges indistinguishable with the surrounding society, thus surrendering its own wholeness and dissolving into the wholeness of the group. In the place of the inner voice there is the voice of the group with its conventions, and vocation is replaced by collective necessities” C.G. JungJung deals a lot with the internal world, our psychology, but he also wrote extensively about the social world and our role in it. Join to find out what happens when individuals come together to melt into something we call “the group”.
“Everything unknown and empty is filled with psychological projection: it is as if the investigator’s own psychic background were mirrored in the darkness. What he sees in matter, or thinks he can see, is chiefly the data of his own unconscious which he is projecting into it.” C.G. JungJung and his ideas were already hard to understand in his time and while the concepts of psycho analysis found a strong footing in modern discourse and culture, getting an unobstructed view on Jung and his work is still difficult. One of my motivations for starting the C.G. Jung Helpdesk was to provide the clearest view possible, which sadly also includes challenging the notions and interpretations that people already have. So this is what this event will be about, drawing a line between what Jung said and those after him thought to understand.
“Once the unconscious gets into active opposition to consciousness, it simply refused to be suppressed.” C.G. JungWhile failing at the box-office when it was released, David Fincher’s “Fight Club”, based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, became a hit and cultural phenomenon on home video. Viewed through a Jungian lens, there is a lot to explore and there is still something to add to the countless interpretations about its meaning.Caution: There will be tons of spoilers. I recommend watching the movie before the event.
“There, in the East, is the metaphysical philosophy, and that is what we call psychology” C.G. JungWhile the march of modernity made cultures seem more and more homogenised, was Jung in his time still able to see and perceive cultures in their more unique expression. Deeply concerned with the decay of European civilisation during both world wars, he spent much time investigating the roots of western civilisation and with his investigations into eastern philosophy trying to found out more about human nature.
“Freud’s only interest is where things come from, never where they are going.” C.G. Jung“Freud's original idea of the unconscious was that it was a sort of receptacle or storehouse for repressed material, infantile wishes, and the like. But the unconscious is far more than that: it is the basis and precondition of all consciousness.” C.G. JungNothing stings harsher than deceit and deceived Freud felt after the friendship with Jung ended. Jung sacrificed his academic career and his reputation to pursue what he felt was his true calling; and made him to the person that we know today.
“Statements by men on the subject of female psychology suffer principally form the fact that the projection of unconscious femininity is always strongest where critical judgment is most needed, that is, where a man is involved emotionally” C.G. JungHere I want to try something new and move away from only using material directly from Jung to talk about one of the most surprising (and successful) movies of the year: Barbie. Looking through a Jungian lens there are many different facets to explore and to utilise to explain concepts and ideas of analytical psychology. Caution: There will be tons of spoilers. I recommend watching the movie before the podcast.
“At first, the Self is always something simple, something little, or cheap. It turns out, however, that it’s the king or even the savior. It is the crown, the phoenix, the saint, the savior, even the deity. It is the center toward which everything is oriented” C.G. Jung
Life moves in circles, but what is in the center? Jung saw a fixed point in the psyche that one revolves around closing in more and more with time. Is there something like an invisible hand guiding one’s actions and thoughts? Join to find out more!
“The shadow is on the one side regrettable and reprehensible weakness, on the other side healthy instinctivity and the prerequisite for higher consciousness.” C.G. Jung
There is a hidden side to everything, but sometimes what is hidden from our sight is the most obvious to other people. While the shadow is always right next to us we tend to find it the fastest at other people. Join to find out more about one of the most famous concepts of Jung and why evil always seems to be on the other side of the Rhine.
“When somebody has an archetypal experience, he gets one hell of an inflation and is inebriated by power. That's also the reason why Nietzsche was a megalomanic.” C.G. JungWhile we think to be always the master of our thoughts and actions, there are other forces lingering in the background, gripping people and pushing them along. Being driven does not need to mean to be in the driver’s seat.
“It is the goal of individuation to reach the sense of the continuation of one’s life through the ages. It gives one a feeling of eternity on this earth.” C.G. JungJoin to find out what’s happening in the psyche as it grows, even though the body decay. How much free will is possible when the world within, the world without, the personal and collective all come together in the individual in the eternal struggle of becoming one’s Self.
“Considered form the standpoint of realism, the symbol is of course not an external truth, but it is psychologically true, for it was and is the bridge to all that is best in humanity.” C.G. JungBridging the opposites, connecting them through a common ground, this is the beginning of a symbol. They can be for one’s moment, one’s life or even for all humankind. Join to learn more about the thing between consciousness and the unconscious: The Third
“When someone is able to perform the art of touch on the archetypal, he can play on the souls of People like on the strings of a piano.” C.G. JungEverything that is created and endures through time is for Jung a manifestation of our collective unconscious. The layer of our psyche that connects all human beings, through space and time. The people who can access this layer and bring forth its fruits we call artists and if they can foresee the ebbs and flows of mass psychology, we call them prophets. Join for a unique view on what creates culture and what culture creates in us.
“Two people see the same object, but they never see it in such a way that the images they receive are absolutely identical” - C.G. JungFor Jung, everything we experience is filtered through our psyche. What we experience is all but objective and it can tell us so much about ourselves. This event will deal with this topic and what it means to be subjective as an subject.
“night after night our dreams practice philosophy on their own account” C.G.JungThere are few things in life as subjective as one’s dreams. Influenced by Freud’s use of dreams as an analytical tool in psychotherapy, Jung spent his life listening to and analyzing the dreams of his patients. While Freud saw in dreams as simple falsification of wishes, saw Jung the modest immediate feedback of the unconscious and the direct path to our past, fairy tales, mythology and religion.
“These zodiacal signs are symbols that have been projected onto the sky form times immemorial, and probably reflect the structures of the unconscious” C.G. JungJung was always interested in all products of human culture, the older, the better. And some of the oldest is astrology, the “oldest form of psychology”, as he says. But there is more to it, a factor of time for which the unconscious has a very keen orientation. An orientation that is better understood in the East than in the West. Join to find out more.
“One most not imagine for a moment that the alchemists always understood one another. They themselves complain about the obscurity of the texts, and occasionally betray their inability to understand even their own symbols and symbolic figures” C.G. JungObsession. There is no other way to describe Jung’s interest in the alchemical art. But what drove it? And what has willful fantasy to do with it? Join to find out more.
“It is not possible to live too long amid infantile surroundings, or in the bosom of the family, without endangering one’s psychic health. Life calls forth to independence, and anyone who does not head this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis” C.G. JungJung as a therapist often experienced the influences that family has on the formation of a child, but those influence are not as obvious as one might think. Join to learn more about Jung’s view on all aspects of family and who influences who and how the collective is closer than one thinks.
“Of the essence of things, of absolute being, we know nothing. But we experience various effects: from ‘outside’ by way of the senses, from ‘inside’ by way of fantasy” C.G.JungHow does the the fragile consciousness persist and orient in the endless chaos of the world? According to Jung, it does this utilizing the four functions of sensation, thinking, feeling and intuition to experience the world outside (extraversion) and the world within (introversion). And everybody has their most favorite way, giving them a “type”. Join this event to learn more about Jung’s way to explain personality how consciousness grows.
“Consciousness, no matter how extensive it may be, must always remain the smaller circle within the greater circle of the unconscious, an island surrounded by the sea; and, like the sea itself, the unconscious yields an endless and self-replenishing abundance of living creatures, a wealth beyond our fathoming” C.G. JungThe dynamics of our psyche shape our lives. We forget and repress things into the unconscious, but they re-emerge as fantasies or dreams. There is a lot of movement in the hidden parts of us and contents and images can move freely in either direction. Jung’s model of the psyche is extensive and intricate and this event’s purpose is give a better insight into it.
“It is only our ego-consciousness that has forever a new beginning and an early end. The unconscious psyche is not only immensely old, it is also capable of growing into an equally remote future. It’s mounds the human species and is just as much a part of it as the human body, which, though ephemeral in the individual, is collectively of immense age.” C.G. Jung Consciousness has changed during the time of humanity. While it was fleeting in earlier times, it has become more stable through direct cultivation. This event will give an insight into the changes that have taken place on the top layer of our psyche, but with the primitive roots still firmly in place.
Jap, this will be it, an event just about the many many books available by Jung. C.G. Jung wrote and published an impressive body of work through out his life. I can say that I read almost all of the works that are commercially available. During this event I want to provide you with a quick rundown on all the books with a short description. A very good event to find out where to start on specific topics of interests.
“With the neurotic, the material produced is mainly of a personal origin. His thoughts and feelings resolve round his family and his social act, but in case of insanity the personal sphere is often completely swamped by collective representations” C.G. Jung Carl Gustav Jung was a trained psychologist and practiced his whole life. His studies and experiments provided some of the foundations what modern psychology. For his entire professional he was concerned with the mental health of his patients. This event will be about his views what happens in the psyche when ordinary processes turn pathological.
PLEASE NOTE: This event is a purely intellectual investigation into Jung’s thoughts and opinions about these mental conditions. The event is not an instruction for neither diagnosis nor treatment. If you have the feeling to be personally affected in your psychological health, please consider contacting a certified professional. No piece of content of the event should be taken as medical advice.
“The primordial image, or archetype, is a figure - be it a daemon, a human being, or a process - that constantly recurs in the course of history and appears wherever creative fantasy is freely expressed.” - C.G. Jung There are patterns deep inside the human psyche that are older than humans. They were experienced and codified by past cultures as mythology, stories and religion. These patterns of behavior are described by Jung as archetypes. Join this event to learn more about the foundation of the collective unconscious. See you then!
„All life is a loss of balance and a struggling back into balance“ - C.G.Jung For Jung, a person‘s life, as well as the development of their consciousness, is best described with the movement of the sun during the day. Emerging barely in the beginning, moving upward to expand more and more until it reaches the middle point and it prepares its descent to disappear again. Join to learn more about Jung’s view on these two halves of life and what happens when the psyche crosses the midpoint.