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SEPARATIO: The Alchemical Secret That Ends Confusion · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod. As
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: part of our ongoing series on alchemy, today we are
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: going to discuss the process of separatio, which as you've
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: already intuited is about separation. And this is a very
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: human psychological process of differentiating, discriminating, naming things, putting things
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: in their proper place, of separating things into their distinctive,
• 1:14
  Speaker 4: separate elements and having a way to order them as
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: part of our ego functioning. It is an intermediate process
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  Speaker 4: in some of the alchemical operations. It certainly is inherent
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: in psychotherapy and certainly psychoanalysis. And so with that as
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: a prelude, Let's start separating into our inherent parts, which
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: is the three of us. And we will, to use
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: another term, circumambulate separation.
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  Speaker 3: So let's just start with just the chemical realities. So
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  Speaker 3: the alchemists are these precursors to our modern chemists. They
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: have a natural, instinctive feeling that the objects around them,
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: the stuff in the world, is more than it seems
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: to be. And if one could figure it out, one
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  Speaker 3: might discover either secret properties or this ability to extract
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: or transform things. So it's not uncommon for the alchemist
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  Speaker 3: to take one thing, let's say like a pulverized ore
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: of some kind or a mineral, and then to be
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: able to add mercury and heat and this and that,
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  Speaker 3: and then discover that there are more than one element.
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  Speaker 3: For instance, if you mix mercury into pulverized ore, it
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: will temporarily liquefy gold and put it into a suspension.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: The heavier or other elements, rather, will drop to the bottom,
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  Speaker 3: and then as it's heated and the mercury is vaporized off,
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  Speaker 3: gold will coat the inside of the vessel and then
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  Speaker 3: the other elements that were not dissolved wind up collecting
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: on the bottom. So that's an observable phenomena where a
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  Speaker 3: thing that was all mixed up in one powdery substance,
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  Speaker 3: now something valuable has been separated out from the original substance.
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  Speaker 3: This then becomes a metaphor that Jung found really fascinating.
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  Speaker 3: One thing to make this practical dub I was thinking
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: about is you've often said on the podcast, you know,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: people come and they complain about something, but the thing
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: that they're complaining about is never actually the thing. So
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: we come with this, with a problem, and then we
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: discover by separating stuff out what is not actually relevant
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to my suffering and differentiating out the special bits. of
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: the issue that actually are contributing to my suffering. And
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  Speaker 3: that's the process of separatio, which we kind of do
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  Speaker 3: naturally when we're analyzing an issue.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, in fact, the word analysis, the etymology of it,
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  Speaker 2: comes from two Greek parts of words that mean to loosen,
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  Speaker 2: to deconstruct, to separate. So that is the process of analysis.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: is we are, I think, Joseph, as you said, kind
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  Speaker 2: of taking apart our attitudes, feelings, and beliefs so that
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  Speaker 2: we can see what can be separated from something else
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  Speaker 2: so that it can be decontaminated. You know, for example,
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  Speaker 2: if you are very angry at your husband because he's
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: done something that feels very annoying.
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: Again.
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  Speaker 4: Again.
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  Speaker 2: But if you expose that feeling to a process of analysis,
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  Speaker 2: you might find out that there is some irritation at
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  Speaker 2: him for, I don't know, not taking out the garbage,
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  Speaker 2: let's say, but that some of the heat of your
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  Speaker 2: anger might be contaminated with your own anger at yourself
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  Speaker 2: because of a mistake you made at work that day.
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  Speaker 2: And that's the sort of simplified version. But the idea
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  Speaker 2: to go back to your chemical analysis, Joseph, is that
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  Speaker 2: our feelings and thoughts are often contaminated, if you will,
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  Speaker 2: and the purpose of analyzing them is to separate out
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  Speaker 2: the constituent parts.
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  Speaker 4: Yes. And I'll go back to your good example of
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  Speaker 4: the pulverized dust that is in a dish, and the
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: process of extracting the gold from the dross. And psychoanalytically,
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about separating out the complexes. What are my
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  Speaker 4: complexes doing here? Why am I so mad at my husband? Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: you know, once again, he forgot to take out the
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  Speaker 4: garbage to pull out this old chestnut. But How can
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  Speaker 4: I examine my own reaction and my feelings about that?
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  Speaker 4: Because this is how we find our own inner gold.
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  Speaker 4: And that's the point, is we're looking for the inner gold. Otherwise,
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  Speaker 4: it would just be sort of a tedious kind of
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  Speaker 4: work that went on and on. But that's what we want.
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  Speaker 4: is to find the indivisible, imperishable, eternal that has long
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: been represented as gold.
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  Speaker 3: So there are many different separatios that we might experiment with.
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  Speaker 3: If we're working with amplification, we might take a particular
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: situation and separate out an archetypal energy or a mythic
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  Speaker 3: theme that actually is embedded in the situation and separate
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  Speaker 3: that out. from the lived experience. As you were saying,
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  Speaker 3: I may have upsetting memories that are being triggered by
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: this lived situation in the current time, and I need
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  Speaker 3: to discover that and then separate out my childhood narrative
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  Speaker 3: and then return back to an analysis of, let's say,
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  Speaker 3: work dynamics, stuff that's going on in the office, and
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  Speaker 3: to be able to talk myself through that. I'm not
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  Speaker 3: a kid. That's not my parent. My boss just asked
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  Speaker 3: me to hurry up on a project because there's a
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: deadline and my boss is under the wire as well.
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  Speaker 3: That's really all that's going on. That the intrusive childhood stuff,
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  Speaker 3: the complex, as you were saying, Deb, doesn't really need
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: to be there or is actually confusing our relationship to
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: the task in the moment.
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  Speaker 2: There's a really great expression from AA. AA has these
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  Speaker 2: great little pearls of wisdom. And one says, if it's hysterical,
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  Speaker 2: it's historical. And what they mean by that is if
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  Speaker 2: you have a too big reaction to something, if it's
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  Speaker 2: a very outsized reaction, there's a good chance that there's
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: a historical precedent for it. That as you were just saying, Joseph,
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  Speaker 2: that that something is getting kicked up from your past,
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  Speaker 2: that it's not actually about the current situation. And so
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  Speaker 2: it's inviting this process of separatio. Can you differentiate between
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: what's actually going on in the present from the big
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: feelings that might be left over from, say, childhood wounds? Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And those are worth exploring. Those can and should and
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: will be discussed and explored, but look what has just happened.
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  Speaker 4: A separatio has already occurred. The first stage is, oh,
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  Speaker 4: gee whiz, that's just my boss and a sudden deadline
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  Speaker 4: that I didn't know was coming up. Part two is,
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  Speaker 4: now I have a handle, a new handle, handle in
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  Speaker 4: the present, something from the past, something in my childhood
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  Speaker 4: that has to do with maybe authority or feeling rushed or,
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: you know, any number of things. But now I put
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: that in a separate bucket and can explore that on
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  Speaker 4: its own rather than contaminating it as the alchemist would say,
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  Speaker 4: with my boss.
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  Speaker 3: So another way that we can put our hands into
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  Speaker 3: this issue is that the separatio distinguishes the literal from
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  Speaker 3: the symbolic. And that is remarkably freeing. And when those
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: things collapse into each other, it can become very confusing.
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  Speaker 3: One of the places that I think this is so
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  Speaker 3: rewarding is when we're looking at religious texts. Religious texts
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  Speaker 3: have so many levels of meaning, and often some of
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: the deeper and transformational effects of a religious text are
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: found in their symbolic interpretations. So we might take a
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  Speaker 3: religious text and then we hold it as very, very literal,
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  Speaker 3: in which case all the possible meanings are just packed
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  Speaker 3: together and everything is overly concretized. And if we can
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: separate that out, we might find that with a symbolic attitude,
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  Speaker 3: hidden in the religious text are many different nuanced meanings,
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  Speaker 3: things that are inferred, and metaphors that might apply to
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  Speaker 3: many different aspects of our own personality, which actually enriches
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  Speaker 3: the process. And again, there's gold hidden in the sacred
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  Speaker 3: text that's only revealed when the symbolic dimension is teased out.
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  Speaker 2: I want to just make a shift for a second
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  Speaker 2: to talk about separatio as part of the developmental process.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: And of course, we can look at this both personally
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  Speaker 2: and also archetypally. Personally, you know, the early psychoanalysts had
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  Speaker 2: this theory. I'm thinking of Margaret Mahler, for example, who
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  Speaker 2: put forward this theory that when the infant is born,
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  Speaker 2: the infant exists in total symbiosis with the mother, that
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  Speaker 2: there's psychologically no distinction from them. And the infant experiences,
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  Speaker 2: you know, this was also Melanie Klein, the mother is
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  Speaker 2: kind of an extension of the infant. So Melanie Klein
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  Speaker 2: said the baby gets hungry and the breast appears and
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  Speaker 2: the baby has this experience of omnipotence, you know, because
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  Speaker 2: the mother just feels like an extension of the baby.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I think that kind of infant research has said, well, no,
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  Speaker 2: that's not true. There's some sense of separateness of which
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  Speaker 2: the baby is aware at the beginning. But on a
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  Speaker 2: kind of intuitive level, it feels right that we emerge
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  Speaker 2: out of an oceanic sense of oneness, that the psychological
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  Speaker 2: state of a young child has that sense, has that
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  Speaker 2: undifferentiated sense. And then what begins to happen is there
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  Speaker 2: is this separation. There's a separation between, you know, I
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  Speaker 2: am me. and that's my mom. And that, you know,
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  Speaker 2: that starts when the baby, you know, really clarifies when
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  Speaker 2: the two-year-old starts saying no. And of course we get
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  Speaker 2: more and more differentiated as we get older, um, to,
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  Speaker 2: to a certain extent. And, and then that, that is
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  Speaker 2: really mirrored in the creation myths and, uh, other archetypal
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  Speaker 2: products that, um, Creation begins in a state of unity,
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  Speaker 2: and one of the first things that happens is the separation.
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  Speaker 3: So one mythic example that I found out only a
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  Speaker 3: few years ago, I was not familiar with the Maori
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  Speaker 3: creation myths, and that just came into my sphere of knowing.
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  Speaker 3: And in that creation myth, the divine father and the
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  Speaker 3: divine mother are constantly in union, and their progeny, therefore,
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  Speaker 3: cannot grow and cannot act because there is no space.
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  Speaker 3: So the eldest son, Tanemohuta, takes the parents and pushes
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  Speaker 3: them apart, pushes one into the sky, one into the earth,
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  Speaker 3: and he forever stands between them. And that's depicted by
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  Speaker 3: the Tanemohuta tree, that there's always a grand, magnificent tree
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  Speaker 3: somewhere in New Zealand. that is still thought to be
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  Speaker 3: holding the heaven and the earth together and must continue
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  Speaker 3: to do that in order for all the life on
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  Speaker 3: the planet to actually exist. So that's a great example
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  Speaker 3: of what you were talking about, that things have to
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  Speaker 3: open up in order for other things to occur.
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  Speaker 2: And of course, in the Judeo-Christian tradition and the book
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  Speaker 2: of Genesis, you know, the first thing God does is
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: he creates the heavens and the earth. And That myth is,
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  Speaker 2: that mythologem is repeated in the Egyptian myths and again
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: and again and again, this idea of an initial separatio.
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: And that Maori example is just perfect, Joseph.
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  Speaker 4: And the other great trend in creation myths is the
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  Speaker 4: cosmic egg and that the separatio occurs as it separates
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: into two parts. And not only two parts, but often
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  Speaker 4: also four parts are really very important. And we get
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  Speaker 4: fourness as well as two-ness. And I think that resonates
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: with us instinctively. There's fire, air, water, and earth. There
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  Speaker 4: are four suits in all kinds of decks of cards.
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  Speaker 4: There are four directions. There are four corners to a building,
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: four legs on a chair. So we have that as well.
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  Speaker 4: And I also think the reference to Genesis, it's really lovely, beautiful,
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  Speaker 4: and entirely charming that we get how beautiful and special, worthwhile,
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: and appealing the process of separatio can be. It has
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  Speaker 4: its flip side as well. It can be discrimination and distinction,
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  Speaker 4: the joy of naming things, which means it's in consciousness.
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  Speaker 4: That thing I call giraffe, this other thing I call seal,
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  Speaker 4: I have a name for it. It's such an empowerment
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  Speaker 4: of consciousness and such a mastery. But of course, the
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  Speaker 4: flip side of separating things, often imaged by a sword,
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  Speaker 4: maybe the sword of the warrior, maybe the sword of justice,
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  Speaker 4: is the cutting. Separatio can be a cutting and destructive process,
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  Speaker 4: as well as one of discrimination.
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  Speaker 2: And I think there's always a loss in a separatio, right?
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  Speaker 2: That loss of that initial sense of oceanic oneness and union.
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  Speaker 2: There's something gained, as the Maori myth shows us, that
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  Speaker 2: there's a kind of fecundity that's allowed with separatio. Things
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: can grow and happen in that space. But something has been,
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: you know, split asunder. And there's a grief in that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I do just want to throw this in there,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: maybe backing up a little bit. Deb, you were talking
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: about how we sort of instinctively feel this separatio. Of course,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: there's another profound image of separation when the fertilized ova divides.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: And what is that called? Is that called meiosis? I'm
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: really forgetting my.
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: Mitosis.
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  Speaker 2: Okay. So the... The cell, the initial germ cell of
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: the organism, and I'm thinking human, you know, it divides.
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  Speaker 2: And then it divides again. And there's the four. And
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: then we're off to the races. And, you know, I
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: remember going in for a very, very early ultrasound. And
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: it was like, oh, I have a little cell mass.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just, look at that. Isn't that cute?
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  Speaker 5: You know?
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So that's how it all gets started.
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  Speaker 4: So there's a relationship between separatio and multiplicatio. Of those
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: cells keep dividing and dividing and dividing until you get
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: this thing that we call a baby.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, my God.
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  Speaker 4: Look at that. So it is all very complicated.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I'd love to come back to the separatio into the four.
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  Speaker 3: Because one of the things that Jung did and was
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: his own brilliant contribution is the development of a typology. Fire, water, earth,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: and air. Intuition, sensation, thinking, and feeling. And this has
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: been a kind of wildly effective and popular way of
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: understanding how the human personality can be differentiated into these
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: four dynamics. Some people might criticize and say, well, it's
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: rather simplistic or something like that. Maybe that's true. But
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: for most of us, we're walking along just experiencing our
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: personality as kind of one big gelatinous bowl of 1950s
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: jello salad with grapes and chunks of ham a little
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: bit of bologna some pieces of frankfurter all stirred into
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: lime jello and then turned upside down into a fish
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: mold and it's like here it's dessert um and you're
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: like what the hell is in that you know you're
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: all peering into it is that an olive in the
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: middle of the jello um But we start with this
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: kind of gelatinous personality and everything jiggling around. And there
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: is something very practically helpful to be able to define, oh,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: that's what the thinking function is. That's what the feeling
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: function is. That's how you language intuition and sensation. And
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: now when I look at myself, I'm beginning to get
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: this kind of map. Ah, that's when I'm like this.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: That's when I'm like that. And then when you add
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: introversion and extroversion. That's another nuance about how these four
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: factors are at play and combine and recombine in different ways.
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  Speaker 3: There is something so useful about it. If it wasn't,
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I think typology never would have taken off.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: But millions upon millions of people know their typology if
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: you ask them. So it has some staying power which
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: suggests There is a real utility in it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: I want to link the idea of the fourness and
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: our four ego functions. And that's important, that these are
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: functions of consciousness, of when we have sensation or when
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: we have an idea that is intuition-based. to take it
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: back down to the two very basics that we're always
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: working with that has to do with separatio, which is
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: consciousness from unconsciousness. And this relates to something that was
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: very major for Jung. The problem of the opposites. We
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: need consciousness. We need those four functions of consciousness and much,
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: much more. And then how do we relate to the unconscious?
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  Speaker 4: And developmentally, as Lisa was starting us out in a
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: little bit ago, we have to separate ego and consciousness
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: from the unconscious. We must do that. the toddler starts
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: by saying no. Otherwise, if we don't start there, you
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: won't have an ego that will continue, one hopes, to
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: develop in a robust, well-adapted, flexible, and sturdy kind of way.
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  Speaker 4: But then what happens is things separate often too much,
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: and they're too far apart, and consciousness arrogates to itself
• 23:12
  Speaker 4: a kind of kingly or queenly position as if it
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: is the sole ruler of the personality. So separatio gets
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: us separated from important aspects of ourselves that we then
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: must work to reunite. And that is the goal of separatio.
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: It's a cleansing operation, if you will, To reach something
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: that is whole in a new way that is not
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: just this conflation of all kinds of things into one
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: sort of indistinguishable whole, but a whole new kind of
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: unity within which there can be separate, distinguishable elements. And
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: there is the work of psychoanalysis, is solving the problem
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: of the opposites that exist between consciousness and unconscious. That'll
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: take a lifetime, at least one.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Another important role of separatio is about protecting us from inflation.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: That as we come to know more about these powerful
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: archetypal dynamics inside of all of us, sometimes when an
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: archetype activates, it can absorb the ego into itself. And
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: then the ego and the archetype don't have a clear
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: differentiated line. And then we have a tendency to believe
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: exaggerated things about ourselves. We start speaking in hyperbolic language.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Other parts of our personality, which normally would help us,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: are subdued or repressed. And we are co-opted by these
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: powerful but very limited instructions that the archetype has. Often
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: we can't tell that this is happening to us. And
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: often people feel very vigorous when they're under the geist,
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: kind of a curse of the archetypal. So learning about archetypes,
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: for instance, and classifying them can give us a sense of, oh,
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: naming the archetype and then separating out our humble, fragile,
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: and vulnerable humanity so that we can appreciate the numinous
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: but we understand that we are smaller, more limited, and
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: have far more creative options than the archetype would tell us.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. That kind of goes to your Maori myth, doesn't it?
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: It's like we kind of need to stand aside from it.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, and I think what you were
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: just talking about, Joseph, and also what you both mentioned
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: before about sort of, you know, that naming things is
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: part of the operation of separatio really calls to mind
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: the fact that separatio is really a function of consciousness, right?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: But I want to say also, it really involves the
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: thinking function. I'm thinking of the word discernment, discrimination. This
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: is objectivity. This is a function of thinking more than
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: anything else. And a lot of the examples we've been given,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we were talking about coming into the consulting
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: room and you're upset about something and then you go
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: through this analysis. And that is often a cognitive process
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: of what belongs here, what belongs there. There's an image
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: in fairy tales that's very common. Often it's the heroine
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: who has to undertake a task of discernment where there's a,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: as you would say, Joseph, a masa confusa of maybe
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: the peas and the wheat kernels are mixed together. And
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: the heroine has to sort them one by one by one.
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: And I always think about that as an image of
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: a slow, painstaking, but usually a conscious process of what
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: belongs to me, what belongs to this other person, what
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: is part of my complex, what is part of the
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: actual situation I'm looking at. Where have I been sort
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: of contaminated by the archetype, as you were saying, Joseph,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: and what's really for the ego to deal with? So
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: it does, I think, often involve thinking.
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: I like that a lot. And I'm thinking about, you know,
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: what are the different kinds of grains, so to speak,
• 28:14
  Speaker 4: that any issue might have or just our human condition
• 28:18
  Speaker 4: will have and will present us with? And that psychologically,
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: the task is separating internal from external, subject from object,
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: the concrete from the symbolic. And once we have done that,
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: using our thinking function, and maybe with the help of
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: an ongoing process, because all this stuff is laden with
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: all kinds of memories and and complexes and all the
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: other variables, then our task is to take all these
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: opposites and contain them in ourselves. And that is a tough,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: tough task that we have all kinds of, you know,
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: we rub up against other people. We have all kinds
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: of things to contend with. every day, and how can
• 29:22
  Speaker 4: we contain and endure all of these separated kind of
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: things that may be in opposition to one another, and
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: let that turn us into feeling and perhaps into some
• 29:42
  Speaker 4: kind of inner resolution.
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: Like more of a kind of conscious integration.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: And that is very hard to do when you know
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: that the reason you're so upset or so mad is
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: because of so-and-so who did this or didn't do that. Or,
• 30:01
  Speaker 4: you know, my ambivalence about should I do A or B,
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: of bringing it inside so that there is both separatio
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: and a kind of unificatio. Now it's contained. So it's
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: going to be recombined in that alchemical vase to be
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: heated again and then separated out and further distinguished. internally.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: So, you know, Deb, one of the things that I'm
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: appreciating about what you just said is, you know, we've
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: been doing this series on alchemy. We've been talking about
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the different alchemical operations, but we've really only touched on
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: how rich the imagery is in alchemy. And you just
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: brought up it's contained in the vase. And that is
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: a real image, the alchemical vase, which There's the idea
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: of the valsum clusum, the closed vase that is sealed.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: You know, the sealed retort in which things happen in
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: the lab and the alchemist workshop. And that is such
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: an image for the containing nature of the analytic relationship,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: for example. But we can also provide that same kind
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: of containment for ourselves. or we can find it within
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: a different kind of relationship. So alchemy, beyond even these
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: operations we're discussing, provides all kinds of metaphors for psychological work.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: Which is why, for Jung, alchemy was so important that
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: he realized that the work of the alchemists was so
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: deeply psychological and mapped the processes of the unconscious, which
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: the alchemists didn't have that kind of language or understanding. Nevertheless,
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: they were doing it and infusing their work with retorts
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: and fire and bellows and all the rest of it
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: with spirituality, that it took a spiritual orientation as well
• 32:20
  Speaker 4: as dedication to the physical aspects of the process.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And, you know, again, we've been focusing on these operations,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: but I think, Deb, this is where you've been going.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: It's not like any one of these is really the
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: end result, right? They're all dynamic. They flow into each other.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: They recur. You go through cycles with them. I mean,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: I think both in terms of alchemy, but also certainly psychologically.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It's not like, oh, I achieved separatio and now I'm good.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: You know, like you were just saying, Deb, you might
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: do this discernment thing about, okay, well, I'm having this
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: conflict and what's mine and what's this? And then you
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: have to figure out how to hold them together. And
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: then the next day something else happens. And, you know,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: you're back to having to supporadio again. So these are
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: dynamic processes.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: And it's subtle. And alchemy is an art. And individuation
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: is an art. But I want to share a story
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: of a separatio experience that I had when I was
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: quite young that was so transformative. So I had just
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: graduated from my undergraduate degree. And I was just kind
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: of living in D.C., just kind.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: Of really lost.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: And I was waiting tables, trying to figure out what
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: the next step was. And I fell into a profound depression,
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: the most profound depression that I'd ever experienced. Didn't have
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: much psychological language. I just knew that I could barely
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: get out of bed. I could barely get my foot
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: on the ground. It went on for weeks and weeks.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: And I was visiting a friend of mine who was
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: older and wiser. And he had given me a little
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: book to read and I can't even remember what it was,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: but it introduced me to this idea that for some people,
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: depression is repressed anger.
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: And when I just heard that sentence, it was like
• 34:37
  Speaker 5: this door was flung open and all of a sudden
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: one thing.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Was over here and another thing was over there. And
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: all of this energy within like 24 hours, was returned
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: to me. And I was able to ponder some things
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: that would never have occurred to me, that on my own,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: I couldn't sort out those differences. But just being offered
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: the right frame of meaning, because it did match what
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: was going on inside of me, I was able to
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: free up my ego and be able to find energy
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: to kind of move forward. And that goes to what
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: we were saying about the power of naming things accurately
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: and in a way that's relevant to our lived experience.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Anybody hearing this may go, oh, that's interesting. But if
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: you're not trapped in that confusion, it may not be
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: a radical insight. But if you're trapped and lost without
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: a map, that single distinction was able to free up
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: an enormous amount of energy. And that's what we hope
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: And analytic interpretation might also do. Right.
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's a good point that this, you know,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: an interpretation and analysis is a naming of a thing,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: isn't it? Right. So it is part of that analysis,
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: that separation, that loosening up.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah. And the naming was, you know, maybe it's not
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: so much that you're sad, maybe you're mad. And it
• 36:13
  Speaker 4: was just to be able to recognize, oh my gosh,
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: what am I angry about? Or just naming that feeling
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: released it enough so something was put in its proper place.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: And this goes to something we all see, which is
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: called alexithymia, where a client will come in and they
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: won't actually be able to name and identify their feelings,
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: that they don't have language for it. And so it's
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: very common in almost all therapeutic techniques for the therapist
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: to be listening and to say something like, you know,
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: it sounds like you're angry. And then the client says, yeah,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: you're right, I'm angry. Sounds like you're really sad about
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: losing the job. That, yes, it hadn't occurred to me.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: I'm really sad. So being able to take the lived
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: experience and to categorize it this is happy sad bad
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: and then all the subtlety of those things actually changes
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: people's experience it changes their body state to be able
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: to know what their feelings are called and to put
• 37:27
  Speaker 3: them into again little buckets one from the.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: Other Yeah, there's a whole literature, scientific literature around what's
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: called affect labeling. And they've looked at this phenomenon of
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: emotional granularity, which says the more specifically you can name
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: your feelings, so not just sad, but melancholic or something
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: very fine-tuned, yeah, the more effectively you are able to
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: manage your emotions. And by the way, that is exactly
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: what a parent does for a young child. I can
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: remember at one point, My daughter was just a toddler.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: She had to have been, maybe she was, I don't know, 200.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: She was very small. And she was bashing something into
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: a piece of furniture because she was trying to do something.
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: And I said, it looks like you're frustrated. And she said, yes,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: I'm frustrated. But it calmed her down. I could see it,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: you know, because then she had a name for what
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: she was experiencing. And it did. Like you're saying, Joseph,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: it kind of changed her body state.
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: My corollary story about young kids was my kids were,
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: I don't know, I'm going to say five. And our
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: son was, you know, clearly mad, you know, bashing something
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: into something else. And I said, wow, you know, you're
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: really mad. And he said, no, I'm not. It's like, okay.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: Sometimes one's brilliant interpretation.
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: Does not go over. That's great. That's great. You know,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I wanted to bring up, maybe it's kind of an
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: ancillary application of this idea, but Joseph, you talk sometimes
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: about the mixing of the levels. Yes. I really like that,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: and I think about that a lot. You know, I
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: enjoy thinking about psi phenomenon or occult phenomena. And I
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: certainly do. think that those beliefs have a place. And
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: I think they're tremendous fun and probably a whole lot
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: more than that. But I don't make, let's say, decisions
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: about my retirement fund based on my my belief that
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: it's possible that magic exists. You know, and I think
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: that you see people who entertain beliefs and things that
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: can't be empirically validated, like let's say, you know, telepathy,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: for example. We've played around with the podcast and we
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: will again shortly, hopefully, with this idea of dream telepathy.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: I think it's a fascinating thing to play with, to
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: think about, to study even. But again, I'm not going
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: to make a decision about whether or not I stop
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: at the stoplight based on some telepathic communication. So again,
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: it goes back to this idea of discernment. This belongs
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: over here and I can, you know, pull my tarot
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: cards or whatever. There's a realm where that belongs. There's
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: another realm where it doesn't belong. And so the mixing
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: of the levels, I think, is a great way It's
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: important to be able to make that separatio, that I'm
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: going to consult the tarot, perhaps, about a feeling that
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: I have or a question that I have about my
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: psychological state. But I'm not going to decide about what
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: to do with my 401k by consulting the tarot. I'm
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: just not. Some people might, but I would say that
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: might be mixing of the levels.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: I like that a very great deal of, you know,
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: what belongs where? What belongs in an archetypal realm? What
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: belongs in a spiritual realm? What belongs, you know, and
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: what belongs here in the here and now as a
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: practical matter? What belongs where of having things in their
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: proper place?
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: So I think we can also look at a separatio
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: that is insufficient in some way. Maybe it doesn't go
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: deep enough or sort of inaccurate. I want to say
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking of, let's say, perhaps someone who's in the
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: throes of a relationship breakup and the woman is blaming
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: everything on her partner. You know, it was all his fault.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: You know, none of this is my fault. He did this,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: this and this, and I didn't do anything. You know,
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: there's this separatio as she's coming to terms with the
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: end of the relationship, but it isn't as fine-grained as
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: maybe some of the processes that we've been talking about before,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: where you might say in a case like that, well,
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: he did this, but you know what? I did this.
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's more akin to splitting than a real separatio.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Maybe I'm sort of contrasting that. Splitting where you sort
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: of put it all out and kind of relate it
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: to projection.
• 42:40
  Speaker 4: Right. It's related to projection. So the separatio has to go,
• 42:45
  Speaker 4: if we take your example, separation in a relationship, let's
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: say a divorce. It was all the other person's fault.
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: And you have plenty of data for that. He or
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: she didn't do this and did do that. And there's
• 43:03
  Speaker 4: a long list. But that is both concrete and not symbolic,
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: and it's external and it's not internal. There's projection involved,
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: and there are one's own inevitable, ever-present complexes that are
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: also part of it. And so, in a way, it's
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: not that that kind of decision is is mistaken or
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: wrong or it's not about that, but it's about, as
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: they say, you know, where is it coming from? Has
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: the internal work also been done that says, you know,
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: now this is a true separatio rather than an incomplete
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: separatio where concrete and symbolic, external and internal have not
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: been distinguished well enough? leading to projection and a lack
• 44:06
  Speaker 4: of sufficient awarenesses about one's own complexes. So this is
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: quite an operation.
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: And it's something that goes on and on throughout the
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: life because we're always discovering the way things are unique
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: and enjoying that. The more we know about how one
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: thing is different from another, the more masterful we can
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: be in any domain. One of the examples I often
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: use is if you're cooking in the kitchen and can't
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: tell the difference between sugar and salt because they're both
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: white and they're both granular, what the heck?
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: Just put them all in the same basket and just
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: scoop some stuff out. And then all of a sudden,
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: you know, we're confused or we don't quite understand why
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: sometimes it's good and then sometimes it's not. And just
• 44:56
  Speaker 6: being able to tell the difference between sugar and salt
• 44:59
  Speaker 6: opens up a whole world of options, optionality that you
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: wouldn't have had before. So I think there's great benefit.
• 45:08
  Speaker 6: It's so ordinary. The alchemical stages are things that happen naturally.
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: We're just using these images and metaphors in order to
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: group them so that we can understand what's happening on
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: a deeper level. But all of these things, if you
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: look in your life, you'll find multiple examples. And if
• 45:29
  Speaker 6: we can't see it in ourselves, we can certainly see
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: it in our kids. Something as simple as, do I
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: like it or do I not like it? That's a
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: bit of a separatio.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: It's not all in one big mass of it doesn't matter.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter turns everything gray. I like or I
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: don't like turns at least a little bit into hot
• 45:50
  Speaker 3: and cold. And then within that, you have a list
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: of likes. Why do you like them? Oh, I like
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: this one because it's relaxing. This one's exciting. This one
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: is empowering. Oh, great. All these different qualities that we
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: can know. So it's like being a painter. My friends
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: that are interior designers, it's shocking to me. And it
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: takes some discipline on my part to listen. because they
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: want to talk about the difference between eight shades of
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: blue for an hour. That's Prussian blue, and that's cerulean,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: but that's different than cobalt. And cobalt blue has a
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: little more of this in it, and this has a
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: little more of that. And that their brains, their eyes,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: their consciousness is able to differentiate. My friends that are musicians,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: they hear something, or they're playing music in the house,
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: and they're like, wait a minute, can you hear the
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: overtone that's coming off of your ceiling. I'm like, I
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: have no idea what you're talking about. But I know
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: they're telling me the truth. All these differentiations of sound,
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: which then allows them to be really competent when they're
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: teaching music or they're conducting an orchestra or a band.
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, it'd be terrible if you asked me to
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: conduct a symphony because I can't hear. I don't have
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: the separations of distinctions that somebody who's trained in it can.
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: And because of that, you're able to tweak the dials,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: pull something this way, push something the other way, and
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: create beauty where it was not before. The other great
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: separatio has to do with medicine. Somebody comes and says,
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: you know, my stomach hurts. well, that's just one big
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: pile of information. And we go to the doctors and
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: they give us tests and they poke and prod. They're like, well,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: it's over here and there's something different over there. And
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: they have to break that open conceptually and get lots
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: of little bits of information to go, ah, now this
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: is what's going on to diagnose is to know how
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: things are different from each other.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, that is, That is actually
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the etymology of the word diagnosis, is to kind of
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: to know what the difference is. And of course, we
• 48:15
  Speaker 2: engage in differential diagnosis. Someone comes to us and complains
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: of something. Well, it could be this or it could
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: be that. Is it bipolar disorder or is it something else?
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: But the wonderful thing about the example that you just gave, Joseph,
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: is that it really illustrates beautifully Exactly what the process
• 48:38
  Speaker 4: of separatio is for, which is the unificatio, the new whole. Okay,
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: they did blood tests, they did this, they did that,
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: chemical analysis, whatever else. And then the aha moment of
• 48:55
  Speaker 4: a new wholeness. You have an ulcer.
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: Oh. And now we know what we can do.
• 49:04
  Speaker 4: So it separated that out, creating something out of the
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: masa confusa of this was just a pain down here
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: somewhere in my stomach to something specific, localized. and treatable.
• 49:22
  Speaker 4: And there are some pretty obvious psychological parallels of that
• 49:28
  Speaker 4: moment of an aha, of Lisa talking to her toddler
• 49:35
  Speaker 4: daughter and saying, oh, you know, banging things into her.
• 49:39
  Speaker 4: into a piece of furniture and saying, you're frustrated. And
• 49:44
  Speaker 4: now there's a new hole where this little girl who
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: isn't sure what the word means and can't pronounce it,
• 49:51
  Speaker 4: but she gets it of, yes, there's that moment where
• 49:58
  Speaker 4: something new, the third thing, what Jung calls a transcendent function,
• 50:03
  Speaker 4: is created.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: And so maybe we can spend a minute on talking
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: about that transition from separatio to cognotio. We've mentioned it,
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: but I think we can clarify that a bit. So
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: when things are unconscious, when we're just not aware of them,
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: that we just assume they're kind of all in a
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: big swimming pool inside of us and they're all frolicking
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: around and we can't tell one thing from another, there's
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: activity happening. There are differences, but we haven't figured them
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: out yet. One of the differences that we're looking for
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: is we identify a conscious attitude. You know, I just
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: love my job. I love it, love it, love it,
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: love it. And what Jung had suggested to us is
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: in the moment where you discover you love your job,
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: the opposite sentiment, which could be I hate my job
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: or I find it intermittently boring, is born in the unconscious,
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: but we don't know it. So the task is, perhaps
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: through dream work or through observation or maybe even speculation,
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: we find evidence of the opposite attitude that is alive
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: and well in us, and this creates a creative tension.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: I love my job, and sometimes it bores me to
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: death and I can't wait to retire. The ability to
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: know those things at the same time, not necessarily be
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: sure what to do about it, to open up what
• 51:38
  Speaker 3: Deb had just said, the transcendent function, which is how
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: am I going to bring those things together so that
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: I'm not caught in that tension inside of myself? But
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: the tension isn't conscious until we discover the opposite attitude hidden,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: and often that will show up in dreams. So this
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: ability to love and hate my job You're holding it
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: as you're driving to work and you're in your teeth
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: and trying to wait for what's the solution about that,
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: which nobody can really predict.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: Right. It comes from the unconscious. It's not under ego control.
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: It comes from holding the tension of the opposites, one
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: of those great Jungian mantras and ever-repeated phrases of, to
• 52:36
  Speaker 4: use your example, Joseph, of, you know, I love my job,
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: but sometimes it bores me terribly, and I can't wait
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: to retire, of letting those two things cook. and letting
• 52:51
  Speaker 4: them both live in consciousness, how can those two things
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: possibly both be true? Well, there they are, and they're
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: dialoguing with each other. Maybe they're fighting with each other
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: some days of holding them in consciousness and letting them
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: express themselves. Both sides have an equal say in awaiting
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: the coniuntio, the coming together in a new attitude, as
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: Jung says, a new orientation towards your job or whatever
• 53:27
  Speaker 4: change you might make. But holding the tension of the
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: opposites is part of how separatio comes into a new awareness,
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: a new whole, a new conjunction.
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: Well, one of the great separatios that are so ubiquitous
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: we don't pay attention is half of the day we're
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: awake and, well, maybe not half of the day we're asleep,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: although some of us might want to be asleep for
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: 12 hours a day. But we have a waking consciousness
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: and a dreaming consciousness. We have a daytime ego and
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: then a dream ego. And in that inner world, all
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: kinds of remarkable things happen that we call dreams. This
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: is one of the ways that we can bring the
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: unconscious material, put it into our waking hand, and try
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: to fit that in to our day-to-day life. And that's
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: a way of bringing in that missing information. And in
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: Dream School, we will teach you how to do that skillfully, effectively,
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: and accurately. So I hope you go to our website, thisunionlife.com,
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: and tap on Dream School and take a look, see
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: what you think. And today we're going to interpret a dream.
• 54:57
  Speaker 3: A dream of today is a 53-year-old male who is
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: a teacher. And here is his dream. I'd arranged a
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: weekend away with a group of friends, including a close
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: friend who died 15 years ago. The drive was several
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: hours to an historic, flood-prone town on the outskirts of
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: the city. Friday peak-hour traffic would surely mean a stressful drive,
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: yet seemed at the same time distant and vague, since
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: no one had bothered to read the fine print of
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: the accommodation. Meanwhile, Friday arrived and I was asked to
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: make a compulsory, yet unexpected presentation at work. I was
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: part of a large staff assembly in a historic formal courthouse.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: The judge's bench was on my level and fitted with
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: a shielded clear plexiglass, as is now common during the pandemic.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: Our chief executive officer, the CEO, sat comfortably in the
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: spot of the judge. In contrast, each staff member or
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: teacher colleagues needed to approach the bench and sit on clumsy,
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: temporary folding metal chairs from the 1950s arranged in diagonal
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: rows in a kind of school debating team arrangement. My
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: team were prepared and we approached the bench and sat down.
• 56:19
  Speaker 3: Rather than a professional presentation, it was as though we
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: were students and needed to plead our case. The focus
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: was on me since I was the lead spokesperson. The
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: CEO was asking me relatively simple questions and I answered.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: I realized, it seemed obvious to me, the entire event
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: seemed to be a polite, twee performance for the constructed elements.
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: Even the plexiglass was ineffective with the sides exposed to
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: me and everyone else from this particular angle. Confusion and
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: drama swirled among the people in the room. In contrast,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: I had a very clear view of what was happening
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: and could readily interpret the situation through the angled, gaps
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: in the multiple layers of plexiglass the room seemed cluttered
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: confused and contrived i was trapped yet i sat comfortably
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: calm and composed with a clear view i was aware
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: of the passing time and checked some details about our
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: planned trip i was confronted when i realized the accommodation
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: did not accept any late arrivals we would need to
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: find a way to get there earlier I felt relieved
• 57:30
  Speaker 3: since the anticipated rush of traveling out of town on
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: Friday afternoon was a source of stress. I somehow communicated
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: with a group of friends and we were able to
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: reschedule our plans in order to arrive earlier, which was
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: a huge relief. Meanwhile, the CEO kept asking me questions
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: that were quite simple and patronizing, designed for performing to
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: an audience. I answered these questions but felt frustrated and bored.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: aware of the broader context of the audience and purpose
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: of the event. With this, the CEO unexpectedly climbed out
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: and over the bench and proceeded to sit on my lap.
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: He was a large elderly man with authority. However, he
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: nestled into me like a child. I took it all
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: in my stride and cradled him. I was not particularly uncomfortable,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: but still a little taken aback and confused. I felt
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: like the grown-up in the room and immediately took charge
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: to steal the event and the day to a swift
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: conclusion so I could get out of there and begin
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: my trip away. The CEO continued with his performance to
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: the entire staff all the while on my lap like
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: a child. I felt trustworthy, reliable, and in charge but
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: had no desire to continue due to the general dysfunctional
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: setup and dynamics. The clumsy, folding metal chairs, the ineffective
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: plexiglass shield, and almost everything else was either old-fashioned or
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: unsuitably conventional or was poorly conceived, planned, and or implemented.
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: It was not stressful or frustrating, since I was excited
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: in anticipation of my travel plans. The weekend was start
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: earlier than planned. I woke up feeling refreshed and in
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: a good mood. For context, he writes, despite a great
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: start with this employer, I am currently not professionally challenged
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: or satisfied at work and have considered resigning. Just a
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, after some tests, My doctor advised
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: me that I have a serious, life-threatening condition, which was
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: quite a shock. I am undergoing further tests, so a
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: bit unsure of the future. The feelings in the dream
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: were frustration, boredom, composure, calm, realization, relief, excitement. So there's
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of words in the dream, and one of
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: the things that I always find robust is interpreting a
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: dream from somebody that has a different typology. So this
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: is a dream that has a strong thinking component. There's
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 3: a lot of energy in using precise language, trying to
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: describe things meticulously, capturing each little nuance of the story.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: As intuitive feeling types, sometimes I can feel a little
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: flooded with all of the words. So I find myself
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: asking a few organizing questions. One is, what is the
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: medicine in the dream? What changes? What is improved or
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: what is offered as a correction in the dream?
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Well, of course, the really surprising thing, I think, is
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: when the CEO climbs out and sits on his lap.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: You know, I had a certain... hunch about this dream.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: And I really love your idea, Joseph, of, you know,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 4: all the words and the detail, the extraordinary detail being
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: indicative of a certain typology that is certainly different from mine,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 4: but something that all of our listeners and dream interpreters
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 4: can be aware of. Think about it in typological terms, too.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: That's a really good idea. The part that surprised me
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 4: enormously is the dream in contrast to the context. So
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: much dream, so little context, but here's the blockbuster.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 4: After some tests, my doctor advised me that I have
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: a serious life-threatening condition. And I'm trying to put that
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: together with this dream. Now, the psyche can comment on
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: anything and everything. And sometimes what we are interested in
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: consciously isn't what psyche wants to talk about that night.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: But this seems like a dream that took place some
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 4: time ago. He references the plexiglass in the context of
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: the pandemic. So I'm kind of making that link, however
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: accurate or not it may be. This dream is a
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: real vindication of the dream ego. Dream ego is remarkably
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: successful in all his endeavors in this dream. And that
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: prompted me to think about, hmm, you know, very often
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: for Jung, the process of compensation which he says is
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: part of every dream, with very, very few exceptions, that,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: I'm using your demo, Lisa, if we're this far away
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: from being centered and we're like this, the dream will
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: compensate to an equal degree. If we're way far apart
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 4: on something, the compensation will be stronger. And I am
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: therefore wondering, about this process of the dream ego being
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: so very successful in scheduling the trip on Friday and
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: getting it to start earlier. The dream ego then is
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 4: the caretaker and basically the superior of the CEO who
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: he can kind of cuddle on his lap. He feels
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: like the grown-up in the room. And I'm wondering if
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: that these feelings of being in control and being competent
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: are very, very necessary in light of what is a
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: deeply unsettling, destabilizing life event.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that feels really right to me. That helps me
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: a lot with the dream. And even because there was
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: some discordance, right? Because it's just like, it's sort of,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like the association, blah, blah, blah. Oh,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: I have a life-threatening illness. And then even the feelings
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: in the dream, they're pretty positive. I think he says frustration,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: but then he's like calm and he's excited and he's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 2: going on this great trip. And yeah, I think you
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: might be right about that. And I like what you
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: said about how it's a real vindication of the ego
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: because the ego is, yeah, the ego's seeing through things,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: seeing things clearly, in charge. And it may be that
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: this is the psyche's way of preparing him to face
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: whatever's coming next.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: He may need his ego functions and his composure in
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: this kind of moment in life.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if we take that frame that some
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: substantive trial is pending... we'll assume the stream precedes the diagnosis,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: that he is going to a place that is historically flood-prone.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: It suggests that he's headed towards a part of the
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: psyche that flooding and flooding of feelings, flooding of information
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: might happen as he's moving in that direction is rather stressful.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: That makes sense. He has to stop and come into
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: this environment where an authority figure is going to ask
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: a bunch of questions. He and the others are going
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: to plead their case. One of the things that I
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: have to say is having worked in a hospital as
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: a medical social worker, when somebody gets bad news about
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: themselves or a family member, pleading happens in one way
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: or another. Isn't there something we can do that this
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 3: kind of hope that there's a solution can't somebody tell
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: me uh the way out the way through this and
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: then all of this chaos which is was kind of
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: predicted in the beginning in terms of the flooding all
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: this stuff's going on half of it's not effective what
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: the heck is the plexiglass doing there but what i
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: love the ego is doing is that he's functioning in
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: that separatio standpoint he's clear The plexiglass is ridiculous. That
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: obviously doesn't make any difference. What the CEO is saying
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: is pablum. It's ridiculous. That's obviously not important in this situation.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: You know what's really important? Is that we get to
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 3: our destination.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: That's actually what's important here. Not all the going on there,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: regressing back to being students asking for permission. And he
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: rises up and he takes the adult position. The CEO
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: is kind of a mess, a messy child, but he
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: can contain it. He can kind of think his way
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: through the chaos and decide what's important. What's important is
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: that this all calms down and we move forward. So
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: I think that that confidence that he has in his
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: own capacity to evaluate things to engage, to stay contained,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: and to know where he wants to be going is
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: certainly a strong and helpful energy. And the psyche often
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: is going to give us some extra help preparing for
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: something that it already knows. Because those imbalances that are
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: happening in the body, the unconscious is absolutely aware that's happening.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 2: The unconscious is getting him ready to go on a journey.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 3: That's right. And to feel maybe optimistic about it. It's
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: like getting the right attitude to face something that's going
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: to be really tough. And one of his companions is deceased.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: So we know that at some point on that trip,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: they're going to be talking about death and resurrection, by
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: the way, apparently, which are all are all topics that
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: one is going to feel in the face of an
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: existential threat like that.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: And we certainly wish this dreamer all the best.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I have some confidence in him from the dream.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: This is a guy that's effective. Like, he can deal
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: with tough things.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes. Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: an episode topic, or join our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com.
• 1:08:57
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• 1:09:00
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• 1:09:03
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• 1:09:07
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• 1:09:10
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• 1:09:14
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