Embracing Your Shadow Self

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, popularized the concept of the "shadow self." He believed that everyone has a shadow self that conflicts with an ideal version of how they want to see themselves. 

In this article I'm focusing on identifying the shadow self and the benefits of understanding and integrating those parts instead of trying to suppress them (see my article: What You Resist Persists: The More You Resist What You Don't Like About Yourself the More It Persists).

What is the Shadow Self?

The shadow self consists of the parts of yourself, including thoughts, feelings and behavior, that you find difficult to accept because these parts don't fit with how you think you "should" be.

Embracing Your Shadow Self

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an example of how someone, who doesn't embrace his shadow self, experiences a strong internal conflict. 

Dr. Jekyll attempts to split off the parts of himself that he feels are evil. These parts turn into Mr. Hyde. The more he tries to suppress his shadow self, the more powerful it becomes until it becomes all encompassing.

Here is a modern day example:  A woman believes she should always be a loving daughter towards her mean and critical mother. Whenever resentment towards her mother comes into her awareness, she tries to suppress it because it doesn't fit in with how she believes an ideal daughter should feel towards her mother. 

The more she tries to suppress her resentment, the more unhappy and anxious she becomes because it takes increasing effort to suppress these feelings. And, since she can't completely suppress her resentment towards her mother, her anger comes out unexpectedly in ways that make her feel ashamed and guilty afterwards.

Sometimes when her anger towards her mother is strong, she displaces it onto her husband and children. Other times she snaps at coworkers. And, when her mother is especially critical of her, she is shocked by how she eventually loses her temper with her mother.  Then, she feels remorse, shame and guilt, and she redoubles her efforts to suppress her anger, and the cycle continues.

How to Embrace Your Shadow Self

Since everyone has a shadow self and suppressing it only makes you feel worse, learning to embrace your shadow self is important for your mental health and sense of well-being.

Shadow work involves gently bringing these split off and disowned parts of yourself into your awareness (see my article: Making the Unconscious Conscious and Discovering and Giving Voice to Disowned Parts of Yourself).

Embracing Your Shadow Self: Making the Unconscious Conscious

The following suggestions can be helpful to embrace your shadow self:

• Get Curious: Instead of having a negative and judgmental attitude towards disowned parts of yourself, get curious about them. An open curious attitude can help these parts to emerge into your consciousness.

• Meditate: Mindfulness Meditation is a good way to observe your thoughts and feelings in a nonjudgmental way.

• Write in a Journal: Journaling allows you to transfer your thoughts and feelings from your mind onto paper. It helps to concretize the many different parts of yourself so that you can reflect on them. As part of journaling, you can ask yourself:

• What were you taught as a child about the parts of yourself you find difficult to accept now?

• As a child, were you allowed to express these aspects of yourself or were you punished for it?

• If you weren't allowed to express these thoughts and feelings, what did you do with them? 

• Are your current negative thoughts and feelings about yourself and/or a significant relationship in your life?

• What type of people or situations trigger negative feelings in you? Are these feelings related to aspects of yourself that you consider to be unacceptable?

• Get Help From a Therapist Who Does Parts Work: Parts work, like Ego States Therapy, is designed to help you to identify and integrate all the parts of yourself including the ones you find challenging to accept. Ego States Therapy allows you to develop an accepting attitude towards all parts of yourself so that these parts can coexist together. In Ego States Therapy, you learn that the parts of you that you want to disown often have a protective intention but, because they remain split off and unintegrated, they can come up in unhealthy ways. You also learn that by having an internal dialog with those parts, they can serve you in healthy ways (see my article: How Parts Work Helps to Empower You).

Get Help in Therapy

If you're struggling with parts of yourself you find difficult to accept, seek help from a licensed mental health professional.

Parts Work, like Ego States Therapy, can help you to identify and, eventually, accept the parts of yourself with compassion.  

By maintaining an internal dialog with these parts, you learn to develop these parts into healthy aspects of yourself.

Rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a psychotherapist who does Parts Work so you can live a more fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Somatic Experiencing, Ego States and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

What You Resist Persists: The More You Resist What You Don't Like About Yourself, the More It Persists

Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst (1875-1961), wisely stated that what you resist not only persists--it gets stronger.

What You Resist Persists

What Happens When You Resist a Part of Yourself?

In earlier articles I've discussed that we are all made of many different parts.  As an example, on the most basic level, you often hear people say things like, "A part of me wants to go to the movies, but another part of me wants to stay home." 

This implies a basic understanding that, as humans, we're made up of a multiplicity of selves and that, at any given time, different parts (or aspects of self) emerge under different circumstances.

When you resist acknowledging a part of yourself, you're unwilling or unable to deal with that part or the negative circumstances involved.

The More You Resist, the More It Persists

Instead of working through the negative circumstances related to the part of yourself that you're resisting, you try to suppress it, which only works for a short time before that part comes to the surface again--usually stronger than before.

By suppressing this part over and over again, without realizing it, you're remaining attached to the negative circumstances related to this part instead of finding a resolution.

In other words, you use a lot of energy to keep pushing down this aspect of yourself, but it only goes outside your conscious awareness temporarily.  And you can't get rid of it because it's a part of you, so you end up in an ongoing cycle of frustration and resistance instead of resolving what you don't like.

This ongoing resistance to keep your unwanted parts out of your conscious awareness causes a vicious cycle, and it takes more and more energy to keep suppressing it. This can lead to anxiety and depression as well as health issues as stress increases.

Clinical Vignette

The following clinical vignette, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information removed, illustrates the concept that resistance strengthens unwanted aspects of yourself. It also shows how Parts Work can help:

Bill

When he was a child, Bill's parents were both highly critical of him.  He grew up feeling inadequate and ashamed of himself.

As a child, he unconsciously internalized this highly critical aspect of her parents, as children do under these circumstances, and throughout his childhood and adulthood, he often berated himself for minor mistakes.

As an adult, Bill found it very difficult to tolerate his Inner Critic.  Whenever he made a mistake, this part of him surfaced and made him feel so uncomfortable that he did whatever he could do suppress it.  

Inwardly, Bill became highly critical of his Inner Critic, cursed it and wished he could kill it off rather than deal with it.

But whenever he thought he had succeeded in permanently suppressing this part of himself, the Inner Critic came back even stronger than before.  Then it would take much more effort for Bill to suppress it again. And, over time, this became a vicious cycle, which made Bill increasingly anxious and unhappy.

By the time Bill was in his mid-30s, he knew he needed to get help because his hatred for this part became much stronger over time and he didn't know what to do.  So, he sought help from a licensed mental health professional.

Bill's therapist did Ego States Therapy, which is a particular type of Parts Work.  She helped Bill to see that his resistance to his Inner Critic was only making matters worse. She explained that resistance wouldn't lead to a resolution.

She helped Bill to tap into the Inner Critic to befriend it and find out what that part needed.  At first, Bill was hesitant to do this because, up until that point, he had done everything he could to get away from that part.  So, the idea of doing the opposite--befriending that part--felt scary to him.  But he learned to trust his therapist and he opened himself up to do Parts Work.

Gradually, Bill realized this Inner Critic was an internalization of his parents' critical stance towards him that he took in at a young age. As he imagined talking to that part of himself, he realized that below the surface there was a sad, helpless child, his younger self.

He also learned that although the Inner Critic appeared to be hostile towards him, this part had a protective function--it wanted to protect Bill from the criticism of others.  This amazed Bill because he had never thought of the Inner Critic as being anything other than a hated part of himself.

The more he engaged in an inner dialogue with the Inner Critic, the more that part softened and Bill learned that this part didn't want to ruin his life, as Bill had always thought. This part, which was blended with a younger part who felt alone and lonely, had positive aspects to it.

Over time, Bill developed a relationship with these younger parts so they no longer felt alone and lonely because he had befriended them and during Ego States Therapy Bill imagined he could soothe these alienated parts.

Once his Inner Critic softened, Bill's psychotherapist did EMDR therapy with Bill to work on his childhood trauma.  

It took time to work on these issues, but his work in therapy helped Bill to free himself of the vicious cycle he had been caught up in and helped him to resolve his childhood trauma.

How to Stop Resisting and Make Friends With the Part of Yourself You Don't Like

• Stop Fighting With the Part: Fighting with a part is the equivalent of resistance. The more you resist, the more it persists and gets stronger.  It might sound counterintuitive, but you need to stop resisting the part.

Befriend the Parts of Yourself You Don't Like

• Establish a Dialog With the Part: The part you're resisting is a part of yourself.  Once you stop fighting with that part, recognize there's a lot more going on under the surface than you realize and the way to find out about it is to develop a caring relationship with the part.  Show compassion for that part. You can do this in Parts Work therapy or you can do it on your own by having your own dialog with the part either in your mind or, even better, in writing. If you do it in writing, it can take the form of a script where you, as your adult self, have a dialog with the Inner Critic to ask what s/he needs. Usually, once a person pays attention to an unwanted part, that part softens.  Talk to this part kindly and listen to what it says it needs.  Then, use your imagination to imagine you can give it what it needs. If it says it needs a hug, imagine that part sitting next to you so you can give it a hug (see my article: Having a Dialogue in Writing With the Different Parts of Yourself and Giving Voice to Prevously Disowned Parts of Yourself).

• Make an Effort to Be Aware of the Part on a Regular Basis: Whether you imagine a dialog once a week or once a day, make an effort to be aware of and present for that part.  Over time, your relationship with that part is likely to improve.

Getting Help in Therapy

Parts Work goes by many different names, including Ego States Therapy and Internal Family Systems (see my article: Parts Work Therapy Helps to Empower You).

If you try befriending an alienated part of yourself and you don't make progress on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who does Parts Work.

Working with a skilled Parts Work therapist can help you to overcome your resistance so you can reach a resolution to your problems.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, Emotionally Focused Therapist for Couples, Ego States Therapist, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Jungian Workshop with Marita Digney, DMin.

During the last few weeks, I have been familiarizing myself with Jungian concepts as part of my preparation for an upcoming dreamwork intensive with contemporary Jungian analyst, Robert Bosnak. When I trained as a psychoanalyst at the Postgraduate Center for Mental Health (1996-2000), we studied everything from Freudian to contemporary/modern psychoanalysis, but we didn't study Jung.

Jungian Workshop With Marita Digney, DMin.

Learning about Carl Jung, his life, and how he developed Analytic Psychoanalysis has been a very enjoyable process for me. I've noticed that, lately, there has been a lot more dialogue among Jungian analysts, Freudians, neo-Freudians, and contemporary psychoanalysts which, in my opinion, is long overdue. As I acquaint myself with Jung, I see that many Object Relations and other contemporary non-Jungian psychoanalysts have been influenced by Jung.

I consider myself to be eclectic and an integrationist of many different ways of working. I often combine psychodynamic ways of working with EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, clinical hypnosis, and ego states work. No one way of working will be good for all clients, so I enjoy having many different ways and combinations that I can use to suit the particular client's needs.

During the last several years, I've become dissatisfied with the mainstream psychoanalytic concepts for dream analysis/dreamwork that I learned while I was in psychoanalytic training. As I mentioned in my January 30th blog post, when I saw Jungian analyst, Robert Bosnak, demonstrate his work at the annual NIP psychoanalytic dream conference in January of this year, I became excited about his method of dreamwork called Embodied Imagination (see my January 30, 2011 blog post: Dreams and Embodied Imagination).

Embodied Imagination dreamwork fits in very well with my mind-body-oriented way of working in psychotherapy, especially when combined with clinical hypnosis and/or Somatic Experiencing.

As part of my preparation for Robert Bosnak's dream intensive workshop, aside from reading books about Jungian theory, I attended a recent workshop at the Jung Foundation in NYC called "Original Harmony: Poetic Resonance in the I Ching and the Bible" presented by Marita Digney, DMin.  Dr. Digney is a licensed psychologist, a Jungian analyst trained at the C. G. Jung Institute Zurich. She is presently an intern chaplain at the University of Virginia CPE program. She has a private psychotherapy practice in the Blue Ridge Mountains in VA.

Dr. Digney's presentation focused on the symbolic parallels in the I Ching and the Bible as it relates to Jung's concept of individuation and the archetype of initiation. The first part of her presentation was a review of the various stages of initiation: separation ("the call"), ordeals, encounter with the divine, and return. She talked about male and female initiatory rites in various tribes as well as contemporary initiations in our own society.

As I've mentioned in a prior blog post, we often don't think of initiations as a concept in modernity. However, even though we might not think of them as initiations, as a modern society, we do engage in certain rites of passage in our everyday life that can be viewed as initiations: spiritual rites (baptism, communion, confirmation, Bar and Bas Mitzvah), Sweet 16, the high school prom, high school and college graduation ceremonies, fraternity and sorority initiations, and even gang initiations. All of these are examples of rites of passage in our culture.

In the afternoon, Dr. Digney had the audience randomly break up into various groups for the experiential part of the workshop. There were three practice groups: "the anthropologists," "the analysts," and "the poets." I was grouped in with "the anthropologists."

Then, she provided a question that was posed in one of her groups from another workshop that could have been posed to the I Ching. "The anthropologists" had to come to a consensus as to which phase of initiation (separation "the call", ordeals, encounter with the divine, or return) this question represented. After "the anthropologists" decided on the phase of initiation, "the analysts" analyzed the stage of individuation. Following that, "the poets" selected which complementary passages from the Bible and the I Ching best represented that stage of individuation.

The question that Dr. Digney provided to us to analyze was: "What about my pursuing my psychoanalytic training this year?" The query was made from a former group participant who was contemplating starting analytic training that year and was consulting with the I Ching for information on the advisability of starting this long process.

As you might expect, this question had elements of all four initiatory stages, and it was up to my group to come to a consensus on which stage we would choose.

A case could be made for it being part of the the separation ("the call") stage of initiation since contemplating this type of change (and similar changes) could represent "a calling" to do this type of work with people. In addition, while contemplating such a change and also while undergoing psychoanalytic training, there are separations to contend with regarding time away from loved ones to devote to study, conducting psychoanalytic sessions with clients, one's own psychoanalysis at least three times a week; and a "separation" from a good deal of money for the expense of the training and multiple sessions per week of personal analysis.

This question could also be looked at in terms of the ordeals that would be involved. Although psychoanalytic training is usually very stimulating and enjoyable on many levels, like any big change, it involves ordeals: financial, time, challenges to one's established views, the "fish bowl" effect of being viewed by psychoanalytic instructors and personal analysts in a consuming and intensive training where one is immersed on many levels.

For many people contemplating becoming a psychoanalyst, there is some form of soul searching about undertaking such a big commitment. This soul searching might involve an "encounter with the divine" (or not) as one questions whether or not to pursue this rigorous training.

Jungian Workshop with Marita Digney, DMin

The initiatory stage of returning (usually returning to the community to contribute in a worthwhile way) can also be viewed as a returning to oneself (to one's inner world), once again, as a soul searching for what's important to oneself.

With regard to the question that Dr. Digney presented to us to discuss, our group was divided between two stages: separation ("the call") and ordeals. After some discussion, we chose the initiatory stage of ordeals as being the best choice, but we also recognized the important aspect of feeling a "calling" (as part of the separation phase) to do this type of work.

"The analysts" group discussed our choice and decided that the ordeals relating to the original question about whether to pursue analytic training or not in the current year represents the archetype of the Self in terms of individuation.

"The poets" group found many relevant complementary passages in both the Bible and the I Ching. Never having compared the Bible and the I Ching, I was surprised at how many parallels could be found in both books. Many of them had beautiful poetic resonance.

Doing this group exercise was a form of experiential learning that was so much more meaningful than if the presentation had remained on a didactic, cerebral level.

About Me
I am a licensed psychotherapist in New York City.

 I work with individuals and couples.

I provide contemporary psychotherapy, clinical hypnosis, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR therapy in my private practice in NYC.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part II

In my prior blog post, Exploring Synchronicities - Part 1, I discussed the nature of synchronicities and gave a brief summary of Carl Gustav Jung's theory.  I also discussed how Jung's ideas on synchronicities and the occult was a contributing factor to the rift between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud.

Carl Jung

Demystifying Synchronicities 
As I mentioned in the prior blog post, Jung's theory dominates the professional literature about synchronicities. However, there are other theories, which are psychodyamic explanations about the nature of synchronicities. One such theory is by Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D. My intention today is to explore his concepts, which are detailed in his new book, Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities) (2010).

I recently attended a professional talk with Dr. Williams in his West Village office, where he has been for the last 43 years. The talk was based on his research, which he writes about in his book. According to Dr. Williams, he has been exploring synchronicities for many years, including his own and his patients' synchronicities. Dr. Gibbs has recorded a fascinating collection of meaningful coincidences (or synchronicities) in his book.

Dr. Williams theory about synchronicities is in sharp contrast to Jung's concepts. As you may recall, Jung believed that when people have synchronicities, they are connecting to transcendent, spiritual experiences. Jung's theory is that synchronicities are connected to the collective unconscious and to spiritual archetypes. He also believed that these experiences could not be researched because they were acausal and unpredictable as to when they would occur. (For more on Carl Gustav Jung and his theories, go to the C.G. Jung Foundation in NYC website: (http://www.cgjungny.org).

Synchronicities as Naturalistic, Psychodynamic Experiences
Gibbs A. Williams' psychodynamic theory is that synchronistic experiences are not connected to any mystical or spiritual experiences, and they are not part of the collective unconscious. Dr. Williams' theory, as I understand it, is that synchronicities are naturalistic, psychodynamic, experiences. Rather than being part of the collective unconscious, synchronicities are part of the individuals' personal unconscious. As Dr. Williams explains it, these meaningful coincidences are a combination of 1) internal, creative processes and 2) an attunement with the environment. According to Dr. Willilams, the environment provides us with so much stimuli to choose from that, when we are having synchronistic experiences, we selectively attune to those that relate to our own internal creative process that we are undergoing at that point in time.

Synchronistic Experiences at "Stuck Points"
According to Dr. Williams, these synchronistic experiences tend to occur when people are either at emotional "stuck points" or impasses in their lives (the proverbial "fork in the road"), or if when these individuals are searchers or seekers of their own internal truth. He gave many interesting examples of his own and his patients' experiences with synchronicities. All of them are uncanny experiences. These and other experiences with meaningful coincidences are outlined in his book.

There are also other psychodynamic theories about synchronicities, including the theories of M.D. Faber in his seminal work, Synchronicity: C. G. Jung, Psychoanalysis and Religion. According to Faber, synchronicities are naturalistic, psychodynamic, regressive experiences. According to Dr. Wiliams, who takes Faber's concepts one step further, synchronicities are not only regressive experiences--they are also progressive experiences, providing opportunities for psychological synthesis and an internal cohesiveness for the individuals who have them.

Dr. Williams continues to do his research on synchronicities, and if you're interested in learning more about his theories or contributing your ideas and experiences, you can go to his website: http://www.gibbsonline.com.

Synchronistic Experiences and Intuitive Dreams
I've been interested in synchronicities for many years. My own experiences usually occur through intuitive dreams where I have a dream that something will occur and within a short time, it actually occurs. My experience has been that I tend to have synchronicities when I write down and focus on my dreams. Over the years, I've had many intuitive dreams, mostly about people in my life, but also about impersonal experiences. Some of them have been uncanny experiences.

The intuitive dream that stands out in my mind was when I had a dream that I was visiting a friend, L. We were standing in her living room, and she told me about a car accident that our mutual friend, R, was just in. When I woke up, I wrote down the dream, but I didn't think much of it since I had just seen both of my friends and they were both fine. However, about a week later, I was visiting L and we were standing in her living room in the same spot where we stood in the dream, and she told me that she had just heard that R was in a car accident. She described the accident in the same way that she described it in my dream. Fortunately, R was not seriously injured.

Needless to say, I was shocked. In the past, I had other synchronistic experiences, but nothing like this. For me, this was truly an uncanny, awe-inspiring, meaningful coincidence. L and I talked about my dream and how it related to what had just occurred. We both agreed that this was surprising. Neither of us had an explanation for it at the time.

As I explained to Dr. Williams when I met him, it seems that, as far as I can tell, my own experiences with synchronicities don't fall neatly into Jungian concepts or into Williams' or Faber's explanation of synchronicities. I didn't experience them as part of a collective unconscious or related to archetypes. They were neither regressive experiences nor did they occur during emotional impasses. You could say that they are intuitive experiences, but this doesn't seem to be the whole explanation. So, it seems that more research is needed.

On the day that I attended Dr. Williams' talk, one other psychoanalyst attended. Since there were only two of us, we had a chance to have a conversation with Dr. Williams about his experiences as well as our own synchronicities rather than it being a formal presentation.

There was also an interesting coincidence that day: The other psychoanalyst had an office in the same small West Village building where I have my own office; she has been there for about the same length of time as I have been there; we're both there on the same days and travel up to our offices on the only elevator in the building--and yet we've never seen each other before until we met at this talk about synchronicities.

If you're interested in exploring your own synchronicities, I recommend that you keep a journal with your dreams and synchronicities. Dr. Williams also recommends that you include the context of what is going on in your life at the time and compare your synchronicities to your life experiences to see how they might relate.

To find out more about synchronicities, you can explore the following resources:

Websites:
Gibbs A. Willilams, Ph.D. website: http://www.gibbsonline.com.

Carl G. Jung Foundation in NYC: (http://www.cgjungny.org

Books:
Memories, Dreams, and Reflections: Carl G. Jung

Man and His Symbols - Carl G. Jung

Demystifying Meaningful Coincidences (Synchronicities) Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D.

Synchronicity: C.G. Jung, Psychoanalysis and Religion M.D. Faber

I am a NYC psychotherapist and psychoanalyst, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist. I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part I

What Are Synchronicities?
Have you ever had the uncanny experience of thinking or dreaming about a person, place or an event and then having your thoughts or dreams actually manifest in your life?

Exploring Synchronicities

For most people, when this occurs, especially if these experiences occur with any regularity, it can be an awe-inspiring event that seems mysterious and even perplexing. Some people attribute these uncanny experiences to a connection with the divine. Others believe they are intuitive experiences, and others aren't sure what to make of them. But, for the majority of people who experience these uncanny events, they feel meaningful, and in many cases, they can be life changing experiences. But how are we to understand these events?

Psychoanalytic Theories About Synchronicities:
There are many views about synchronicities and their origins. Most theorists agree that synchronicities are meaningful coincidences. They seem to occur out of the blue and from nowhere. Often, synchronicities are pleasurable experiences that leave people feeling more integrated and that they are part of something much larger than themselves, as if their internal experiences are, somehow, connecting to something external that is much larger than themselves.

Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung:
Most of the literature on synchronicities is dominated by the writings of Carl Jung, who wrote about his experiences with synchronicities after he and Sigmund Freud had an irreparable falling out about the occult in the early 1900s.

Carl Jung

Sigmund Freud

Prior to their falling out, Freud, who was the father of psychoanalysis, viewed Jung as the "heir apparent" for psychoanalysis, the person who would carry on and continue to expound and develop Freud's views on psychoanalysis. Based on the literature and their letters to each other, it seems that Jung also saw himself in that role before their falling out. He used Freud's psychoanalytic theories with his own patients, but it seems that he felt that there was something missing in Freud's theories that he wanted to explore on his own.

Early on, Jung revered Freud. Jung was young enough to be Freud's son. Based on their correspondence to each other, Jung seemed to see Freud as his spiritual father. Jung's own father was, supposedly, very distant with Jung and his relationship with his mother was severed at a very early age due to her mental illness, so Jung grew up being a lonely child. So, his relationship with Freud was very meaningful to him, like the father that he never had. In their early correspondence to one another, there is a tone of father-son affection between them.

But for Jung, although he had great admiration, respect and reverence for Freud and he used Freud's psychoanalytic theory with patients with some success, he came to feel that there was something missing. He continued to explore psychoanalytic concepts on his own, and he came to the conclusion that Freud's psychoanalytic theory placed too much emphasis on sexuality and resolving the Oedipus Complex. Jung came to feel that Freud's psychoanalytic concepts were devoid of a much-needed sense of spirituality and were missing the importance of the pre-Oedipal period of infancy.

As you may know, Freud was essentially an atheist and a rationalist. Jung, on the other hand, had a strong sense of curiosity about all types of spirituality from different cultures and also about the occult. Freud was also curious about the occult, but only to a point. He was wary of what he came to see as Jung's obsession with the occult and this is what eventually lead to the break between them.

One fateful day, Jung and Freud were talking about psychoanalysis and the occult in Freud's study. Apparently, Freud warned Jung against getting too involved and obsessed with the occult. If we can imagine this scene: Here were two geniuses who, until then, liked and had a mutual affection for one another, who were beginning to clash over ideas that each of them held very dear. According to the story, Jung began to feel very angry, as if he was burning up inside. Then, suddenly, as if from nowhere, they were both startled by a loud noise from Freud's bookcase. It seemed to come from nowhere.

As the story goes, Jung told Freud that this noise was evidence of occult phenomenon. Freud was curious about what just happened, but he wasn't buying that this had anything to do with the occult, so he dismissed Jung's assertions, which angered Jung even more. So, Jung told Freud that he would prove to Freud that the noise was an occult manifestation and predicted that it would happen again. And, sure enough, the loud noise occurred again and Freud was startled and amazed by this.

After this Freud and Jung each explored what this sudden noise might have been. Jung continued to attribute it to a mysterious occult manifestation. Initially, Freud was curious about this and he didn't completely dismiss it as out of hand, especially after Jung seemed able to predict that it would occur a second time. However, over time, Freud concluded that the noise occurred due to a change in temperature in the room and the bookcase, which was made of wood, creaking (although he seemed to have no explanation as to why it occurred a second time, as Jung predicted). After that, he dismissed Jung's ideas about the incident completely, which continued to infuriate Jung.

As previously mentioned, early on, Freud saw Jung as the "heir apparent" who would carry on his psychoanalytic theory and his legacy. But as Jung continued to explore the occult, Freud became concerned that Jung's ideas would be harmful for psychoanalysis. As the story goes, Freud feared that people would view Jung's ideas about psychoanalysis and the occult as outrageous and this would lead to the demise of the development of psychoanalysis. Freud had dedicated his life to developing his psychoanalytic theory, and he very much wanted to have a proponent of his ideas, his "heir apparent," to be taken seriously so that psychoanalysis would continue to grow and develop throughout the world.

After the incident in Freud's study, their relationship became more distant, which must have been painful for both of them, but it was especially painful for Jung. After the break in their friendship and professional relationship, Jung had what Jungians have come to describe as "a creative illness, " essentially a nervous breakdown. However, being the creative genius that he was, he was able to continue to see patients through this period and he also began writing about his own internal experiences in the Red Book, including his experiences with meaningful coincidences, also known as synchronicities.

Jung saw synchronicities as being inspired by the divine. In his view, which is the view that dominates in professional literature, when someone experiences a synchronicity (or a meaningful coincidence), he or she is getting in touch with the collective unconscious and archetypetal figures in the spiritual or occult realm. Jung felt that, because these uncanny experiences occurred suddenly and out of the blue, they could not be researched or explained in any other way.

Exploring Synchronicities - Part II:
Also, see my article: Exploring Synchronicities - Part II where I continue to explore the fascinating phenomenon of synchronicities and present an alternative, psychodynamic theory, based on the work of the NYC psychoanalyst, Gibbs A. Williams, Ph.D., that differs from Jung's archetypal/collective unconscious theory.

In the meantime, keeping a journal of your synchronicities can be a fascinating experience, especially if you include the context of what's going on in your life at the time.

About Me

I am licensed New York City psychotherapist, contemporary psychoanalyst, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist.

I work with individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

NIP Annual Conference: "New Worlds of Psychoanalytic Dream Work"

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

I attended an intriguing annual conference at NIP (National Institute of Psychotherapies) called "New Worlds of Psychoanalytic Dream Work" here in NYC. 

Their first speaker was the world-renown Dutch Jungian psychoanalyst, Robert Bosnak. Mr. Bosnak has developed a very exciting and innovative way of working with dreams that he calls Embodied Imagination.

During the conference, Mr. Bosnak explained Embodied Imagination and then gave an amazing live presentation of his work. The woman who volunteered to present her dream was someone who Mr. Bosnak had worked with mostly through Skype, since she lives in NYC and he currently lives in California, for a short time, as preparation for the conference. He was not her primary therapist.

Borrowing from the early Greek healing arts involving healing incubation, where people who wanted healing went to the Temple of Aesklepius, prior to the conference, Mr. Bosnak asked this volunteer to focus every day on certain health symptoms that she was experiencing in order to "incubate" a healing dream.

As you may know, the early Greeks went to the Temple of Asklepius hoping that they would meet the healing god in their dreams so that they could be cured of their medical problems. In those days, people didn't think of their dreams as being symbolic--they believed that if they had a dream where they saw the healing god, Aesklepius, it was as real an experience as any waking experience.

During the conference, Mr. Bosnak demonstrated his phenomenological technique of Embodied Imagination while he induced a hypnogogic state in the dream volunteer. (The hypnogogic state is the state between waking and sleeping.) His work is a very big departure from traditional or even contemporary psychoanalytic traditions of doing dream work.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

As he went over the dream with the dreamer, he asked her not only to embody her dream self in her imagination, but also to embody other people and inanimate objects in her dream. 

Rather than experience these people and objects as if they were parts of herself, as she might in parts work or in Gestalt therapy, Mr. Bosnak asked the dreamer to use her imagination to become each of these people and objects in the dream and related their experiences, including inanimate objects like a car.

Notwithstanding the fact that there were at least 300 psychoanalysts and psychotherapists in the room, Mr. Bosnak and the dream volunteer did amazing work, which appeared to be healing for the particular type of medical problem that she was having. 

It is noteworthy that Mr. Bosnak didn't know anything about the dream beforehand. He was hearing it for the first time with the rest of us.

We could see how they both got to material in the dream that they probably would not have accessed if they approached the dream in the conventional manner. It was very exciting, to say the least, to observe this. For most of us in the room, it was a challenge and an invitation to consider how we work with dreams.

Mr. Bosnak has moved away from the conventional idea that dreams have a defensive structure. He also does not work with what is often described as manifest (what is obvious) and latent (what cannot be readily seen) content in his work with Embodied Imagination.

If you have been reading my blog, you are probably aware that I'm very interested in the mind-body connection in my work, so I'm always interested in hearing new techniques for working in this way. Some of Mr. Bosnak's methodology reminded me of Somatic Experiencing, which is a modality I already use in my psychotherapy private practice

Most people who are familiar with Jung's work know that he worked with what he called Active Imagination. He also used Active Imagination in his Red Book. However, Mr. Bosnak seems to have gone beyond Active Imagination.

Robert Bosnak has traveled all over the world, and he has witnessed many different ways of working with dreams phenomenologically, including working with dreams shamanically. He reminds us that how we perceive dreams is very much tied to our cultural understanding.

Just before going to sleep last night, I began to read Robert Bosnak's book, Embodiment - Creative Imagination in Medicine, Art and Travel. I got up to Page 5 when I dropped off to sleep and I had the following dream:

I'm talking to Mr. Bosnak about his method of working with dreams. We're sitting face-to-face at close range. I'm mostly listening to him very intensely and thinking about how I can use this method of doing dream work with my clients. As I take in this new way of working with dreams, I feel very excited and slightly frustrated. Then, I realize and think to myself, "Time is the key. He slows everything down and gives the work lots of time."

When I woke up, I wrote down this dream as well as several other dreams that I had last night.

After I wrote down my dreams, I picked up Mr. Bosnak's book, Embodiment, and began reading again. I was surprised and delighted to find that when I resumed reading and got to the next page, Page 6, he talks about time and the slowness of time when transitioning from the dreaming to the waking state. I felt as if Mr. Bosnak and I had an actual conversation about Embodied Imagination and the nature of time in this work, and here it was confirmed when I resumed reading his book.

It's a fallacy when some people say that they either don't dream or they rarely dream. Everyone dreams at least five dreams a night, but not everyone remembers their dreams.

Whether or not you remember your dreams has a lot to do with how you wake up. If you're someone who takes a while to transition from the sleep state to the waking state, transitioning slowly so that you still retain the feeling state that you were in while you were sleeping, you're more likely to remember your dreams. However, if you tend to wake up suddenly without making that slow transition, you're less likely to remember your dreams.

If you're interested in learning more about your dreams, which are often a rich source of information, I recommend that you keep a pad and pen by your bed. Having a strong intention and telling yourself that you want to remember your dreams before you go to sleep helps to give your unconscious the message that dreams are important to you.

When you wake up, rather than jumping out of bed, take a few moments to stay immersed in the dream state. Especially, do not change your position. So, for example, if you're lying on your left side, don't turn around right away. Remain like that for a few moments and allow the details of the dream to emerge.

Then, write down your dreams in the present tense as if you're still in the dream. Even if it's a fragment of a dream, write down whatever you remember. Usually, you'll find that, as you begin to remember your dreams from the night before, you'll remember them in reverse order, with the last dream first (the dream closest to waking up) and then the next to the last dream, and so on.

Dreams and Embodied Imagination

Very often, if you write down your dreams, over time, you begin to see interesting synchronicities between your dreaming and waking states. I believe that this isn't as unusual as most people think and that, over time, most people can tap into this inner resource. I believe it's a natural ability that most of us have if we're willing to develop it.

Several years ago, when I was working on my dreams every day, I saw very interesting synchronicities. I also had precognitive dreams where I dreamt about certain things happening before they actually happened. I didn't have any earth-shattering premonitions about world events--they were mostly personal incidents in my life. My point is that I saw a connection between paying attention to my dreams and the ability to tap into an inner precognitive resource.

If you want to find out more about Robert Bosnak's method of Embodied Imagination and his way of working with dreams, you can visit the website for the Embodied Imagination Institute: www.cyberdreamwork.com. You can also read his book, Embodiment, which is written in an accessible way.

Mr. Bosnak also heads up the Santa Barbara Healing Sanctuary, and you can visit their website at: www.sbhsanctuary.com.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and coupls.

I have been fascinated by dreams since I was a teenager and I enjoy doing dream work with my clients. Dream work often helps clients to gain a perspective of themselves and others that they wouldn't ordinarily otherwise have access to in other ways. 

I also enjoy using clinical hypnosis to re-enter the dream state, and I have found this to be very useful to clients.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.