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[SUBSCRIBER BONUS] How Do the Negative Mother and Negative Animus Collude? · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome once again to Jung Love. We're with you in mind.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: We take some time to answer questions, take a look
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: at dreams, or some of the other content that you'd
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: like us to consider. As ever, your support is much appreciated.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: This week here is a question, and the question is,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: what are the dynamics in a woman's psyche of the
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: collusion between the negative mother and the negative animus. And
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: for context, she says, I've had two similar dreams recently.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: In the first, I'm at work and my mother's in
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: the office and is irritated and upset. A man across
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the hall is trying to distract me from my work
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that I haven't been able to do for a long time.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: In the second dream, my mother has her back turned
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to me, never acknowledging me and holding up dinner, while
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: my brother is late off doing his own thing. I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: think I read in one of Marian Woodman's books about
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: how the negative mother and negative animus can collude in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a woman's psyche.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the ideas that comes up
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: naturally for me is how in fairy tales particularly, there
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: can be a problematic female figure, an evil queen, a
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: cursing stepmother. And sometimes in the fairy tales that there
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: are male figures, huntsmen, soldiers, viziers, for instance, that are
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: in service to the queen and in a sense facilitating
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: this problematic conflict in the psyche. That's one environment where
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I think that dynamic is captured as a motif.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: So that sparks in me the thought of, like in
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Snow White, the wicked queen hires the huntsman who is
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: supposed to kill Snow White and bring back her heart.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: In Hansel and Gretel, the father, he's not the agent
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: of sending the children out into the woods, but he's absent.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: He does not... He doesn't interfere. Cinderella's father is just,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: he's just not on the scene. He's somewhere in the
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: background running a kingdom or doing something. So he doesn't
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: do anything negative, but his absence is harmful.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Right. So sometimes, if we use that formulation, sometimes the
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: animus is inactive, too silent, or a kind of sin
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: of omission. It is not supporting the ego in standing
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: against the kind of destructive complex.
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: So one of the things that comes up for me
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: is that dreams give us sort of a snapshot of
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: relations in the inner world. So these dreams are kind
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: of telling this dreamer something about what's going on in
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: the inner world. And to pick up on that important
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: phrase that you just used, Joseph, a kind of destructive complex,
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: it definitely happens that there can be destructive complexes in
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: the psyche that can kind of attack the ego or
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: impinge upon the ego. And dreams can show us that
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: that is happening. It's sort of like, you know, look here.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: And these dreams may indeed be just that. But I
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: wonder about something else, which is she's called the male
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: figures in both of these dreams a negative animus. And
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that I'm convinced that they're negative. A
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: lot of times something that seems negative in a dream
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: is something that the ego hasn't been ready to countenance.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: And so the ego feels challenged by it, but it
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: may not indeed be negative. So for example, in the
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: first dream, there's this male figure who's trying to distract her.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: It sounds like she is indeed distracted. She says she
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: hasn't been able to work on this for a long time.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: But I just want to start by kind of questioning
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: the assumption that that is necessarily a bad thing. It
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: might be a just so, like this is what's happening
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: in your psyche, as I said a minute ago. But
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: it might be that there's real telos in it. Like
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: maybe this is not what you're meant to be doing
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: right now. And maybe your ego is pressing forward saying,
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: I need to do that work. But some other part
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: of you is like, no, you actually don't. So I'd
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: be curious about any other information about that man in
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: the dream or.
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: About your brother.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: You know, in what ways might these male figures be
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: bringing something that perhaps is needed? And the reason that
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: this matters is because when you see a kind of
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: working together in a dream, sometimes you see the shadow
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: and the animus kind of working together. And again, it
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: can feel like a negative animus because a lot of
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: times in those types of dreams, It feels like they
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: have this pact and they're over here and somehow the
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: ego is outside. But a lot of times it's communication
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: to the ego about the qualities that need to be
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: worked on. It's often some configuration like if you can
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: be more like the shadow, then you'll have better access
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: to the animus, for example, in some of the dreams
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: that I've seen. So, I mean, the negative mother can
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: obviously be a tremendous burden in the psyche. But I'm
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: wondering what the medicine in these dreams are. And that's
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: what's causing me to think, wait a minute, is this bad? Again,
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: I think the two possibilities are it's a snapshot of
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: a really negative complex that's at work that you're going
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: to have to figure out how to face, as it were.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: Or it's medicinal. It's telling you, hey.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: Actually, for example, maybe you don't need to be doing
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: that work. Maybe you need to be more like this
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: over here. Or, and I didn't quite understand the second term,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: there's not a lot of information in it, but maybe
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: if you can get closer to some of the qualities
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: in your brother, then you might be able to get
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: dinner from your mom. So just maybe something to play
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: with in there.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I think I want to sort of take a shortcut
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: through all of the conceptual terminology and complexity of how
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: much is it the negative mother and how much is
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: it the negative animus? It's just sort of like, whoa.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And kind of pick up on what I think you're
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: pointing to, Lisa, which is just to consider these dream
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: images just on their own. That in the first dream,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: there's a man who's trying to distract our dream ego
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: from what the dream ego thinks of as her work.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: So what are we talking about here? What work? Who
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: is that? Say more. And in the second dream, that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: we have the brother who is late. And mom is
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: holding up dinner until presumably the brother can get in.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: and be there. So, hmm, what is that? An image
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of some kind of privilege? And where is that in
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the dreamer? Just go ahead and feel free to work
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: with the dream images themselves. The terminology and conceptual stuff
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: here can be a real thicket that may or may
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: not actually be helpful in understanding what's going on in you.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in a particular dream.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to, in addition, just lift up a
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: little bit of the Marion Woodman piece because Marion has
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: a very particular perspective on this. So in Marion's work,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: that she is particularly interested in the relationship of the animus,
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: the negative mother, and addiction. And so one of the
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: things that Marion brings forward is that sometimes the inner
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: masculine can turn into a very harsh judge, a distractor,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: or can be rather grandiose, kind of a grandiose thinking
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: function that's cut off from feeling. And the Marian says
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: something like, the animus fosters addiction and in that addictive
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: spirit consumes the feminine. because it feeds on a woman's
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: psychic energy without giving her genuine support. And that can
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: be aligned with the negative mother when the internal negative
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: mother is functioning in a kind of devouring, withholding, or
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: chronically dissatisfied state, which is always constellating guilt and inadequacy
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: and a hunger for approval. So the animus that comes
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: forward with addiction as a response to the pain of
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: the negative mother, creates a kind of collusion that Marion
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: kind of lifts up. And while that's not explicitly demonstrated
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: in the dream, I think that's where Marian is coming in,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: in terms of her own theory. So I think there
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: may be more in the question than we're able to
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: bring up without the questioner here in the room with us, perhaps.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, it goes into some really deep places, so.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you.