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Psychodermatology: How Skin Communicates Unconscious Conflicts · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to This Jungian Life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 0:13
  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.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: I'm Joseph Lee, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: Today we're going to explore the intersection of skin and psyche.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: And exploring the skin not just as our largest organ,
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: but as a psychophysical symbol. Skin is a vast communication network,
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: and it betrays our ego that often wants to appear
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: in control. So we often feel uncomfortably seen when we
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: flush with embarrassment, or go white when we're afraid, or
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: we suddenly sweat. when we're on a first date. And
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: it also parades through our common metaphors. Something is skin deep,
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: thick skin, thin skin, getting under my skin, save my skin.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: I got skin in the game, skinning a cat. It's
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: kind of all over the place, like our skin. And
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: it's more than a physical barrier, protecting us from the
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: external environment. It also represents a boundary between our inner
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: selves the outer world and skin can communicate all kinds
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: of psychic tensions from basic defenses to complexes it's an
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: interface between our psychological selves and the outer world and
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: so we're going to talk about skin.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Well maybe I'll I'll start off with this kind of
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: famous psychoanalytic observation That Freud said that the first ego
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: is a body ego, meaning that our physical embodiment provides
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: the first sense of self that we have as we're
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: a baby who's becoming conscious of being a sort of
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: separate human. It's our body and in particular our skin
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: that lets us know, well, this is where I begin.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: you end or vice versa.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: And the skin is so sensitive in that respect that
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: skin contact between mother and baby actually regulates the infant's temperature.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: There's so much to that of what that baby feels.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: And We can't keep our hands off a baby.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: Or should we?
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. We want to hold them. We want to make
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: eye contact. We want to caress them. We celebrate all
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: those little toes. So I think there's much in that
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: that Freud said and that humans have known for millennia.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: Mothers hold their babies. We have baby carriers, slings, et cetera.
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: We want that baby's skin close in contact.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Right, skin to skin, as we say, a symbol of intimacy.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: So there are all the realities of what skin is
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: as an organ. It does all kinds of important things.
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: cools us, keeps us warm. It vents various things. It
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: takes in things. Skin actually creates or helps create vitamin
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: D through the way the oils on the skin interact
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: with the sunlight. It's incredibly complicated and wonderful. But in
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: that analytic tradition, we are taking of the symbolic attitude
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Because the unconscious perceives everything from that symbolic or metaphoric level.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: So we're interested in what it might mean or how
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: to conceptualize skin. And we've already started by talking about
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: the ego skin as a kind of protective barrier, the
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: boundary between the self and the external world and the
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: starting point for developing an ego. that eventually is capable
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: of thinking and representing. And depending on how our skin
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: is engaged, that can affect some of that foundational sense memories.
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: So if the skin is understimulated, if we're not touched
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: or we're neglected, and this is something that had an
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: absolutely catastrophic effect on children that were raised in orphanages,
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: or kids that were in incubators, for that matter. They're
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: getting changed, bathed. No one's tickling them, stroking them, letting
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: them sleep on mom's breast for hours at a time.
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And the lack of those memories of contact often leaves,
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: at the very least, this field of anxiety frustration, and rage.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Well, it's not just that. Those babies that are not
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: touched will suffer from failure to thrive. They will literally
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: stop growing. Yes. And we know that contact with an
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: infant helps the myelinization process of the nerves. That kind
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: of physical contact with the baby is necessary for normal
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: physiological growth and development. It's not even just psychological. It's
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: just really.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: It's so global.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: And what has to come from and what has to
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: be a part of it, and we all know this
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: all the way into adulthood, is touch is love. We
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: could sort of say, well, then every baby in an
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: orphanage needs to be massaged once a day, so we
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: assign somebody to do that. And I doubt that that
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: would accomplish anything really substantive. We are relational creatures. Touch
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: is how we first perceive a relationship. And just as
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: you said, Lisa, where I stop and start and you begin,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: from our infancy where we need to be touched and soothed, stroked, bathed, changed,
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  Speaker 4: to puberty when we discover sex. the erotic components of touch.
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: And so it goes through our whole lives. We need
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: touch and it is one of the main ways we communicate. Care, love,
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: you are desired, you are precious. I want to touch you.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: And we could make the play on words there of
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: the pun between when we're touched emotionally and Of course,
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: it's related to physical touch.
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  Speaker 3: One way to imagine that is when we are touching,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: and particularly the touch is positive because not all touch is,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: depending on how that happens. But when the touch is positive,
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: it's as if there is only one skin. So when
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: the infant is lying on the mother and she's stroking
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: and touching, there is an experience of a unified skin,
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: which gives the baby the sense of being in that
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  Speaker 3: uroboric place, of being one being. Conversely, it's not uncommon
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: for lovers to want to surround each other. And part
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: of that is the feeling of one skin, that we
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: are in a single container of And there's something so relieving.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: Often when lovers meet after a separation, they'll hold each
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: other and then there's often a sigh. That happens. There's
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: something in the nervous system just lets down in this
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: shared container.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So we're talking about skin. Joseph, you're talking about this
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: experience of the kind of collapse of boundaries. But in
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: a sense, skin is such an important boundary. It's a
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: boundary against disease and infection. But it's also a good
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: metaphor for a psychological boundary. You know, this sense of
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: being a distinct individual. And, of course, you know, one
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: of the ways that we can think about some psychopathology
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: is poor boundaries. So skin becomes an important image, I think.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: There is a well-known book. by the psychoanalyst Didier Anzieux
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: called The Skin Ego, in which he talks about this,
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: about the skin's role as a boundary that demarcates our
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: individuality and the importance of that psychologically. It can feel
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: beautiful to merge, as you were just describing, but merger
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: can also be the source of psychopathology. You know, one
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: of the things that comes up for me is Jung,
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I think, made this very important observation about the nature
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: of the ego. In Jung's formulation of the psyche, the
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: ego is that which deals with everything coming from the
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: world outside. So, you know, the ego is kind of
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the conscious I. It's when you say I, you're talking
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: about your ego. So, you know, you have to figure
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: out how to get to work. and avoid the bad traffic.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: You have to figure out, you know, how you're going
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: to prioritize the tasks on your desk that morning. You've
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: got to field a phone call from your sister who's
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: really upset. These are all ego things at different levels.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: You have to remember to call your spouse because maybe
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: she's having a bad day and you want to sort
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: of offer that support. But the ego also has to
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: feel things coming from the inner world. So there might
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: be dreams, there might be moods or feelings or impulses
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: or instincts or intuitions that the ego has to figure
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: out what to do with. So the ego is that
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: organ which relates both to the inside and the outside world.
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: And it seems to me that that's also maybe a
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: pretty good description of skin, right? So I'm liking this
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: idea about the skin ego. And by the way, we'll
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: link to that book in the show notes too.
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  Speaker 3: So the metaphor of when somebody doesn't have a lot
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: of skin, they're kind of bleeding all over the place.
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: Meaning that their feelings, their thoughts, their inner content is
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: being verbalized all the time in the environment. And they
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: need to be able to hold stuff inside of themselves
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: a little longer.
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  Speaker 2: So I'll offer an example that you just made me
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  Speaker 2: think of. So when I had my kids both times,
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: I had C-sections. So my skin was literally cut open. And,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: you know, I brought this beautiful little baby home and
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  Speaker 2: both of my children were exceptionally beautiful babies.
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  Speaker 3: Of course they were.
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  Speaker 4: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: And I felt so raw. I mean, I think a
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: lot of women relate to this, like the postpartum period,
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: you feel unbelievably emotionally raw, you cry very easily. And
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: I remember thinking, you know, sort of like, as a
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  Speaker 2: psychological metaphor, it's like, I feel like they forgot to
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: sew me up. Emotionally, no one had sewn up that
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  Speaker 2: scar and that my skin wasn't there to keep my
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: insides from just trailing out, you know, because it was
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: such a feeling of emotional vulnerability. So the way that
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  Speaker 2: skin Skin helps us keep what should be inside inside.
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  Speaker 4: To be thin-skinned or to feel raw or to feel
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: at times like I've just been skinned and there is
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: no boundary.
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  Speaker 2: Yep.
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  Speaker 4: But I'm liking the idea of the skin as it mediates.
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  Speaker 4: It's not just a boundary the way that a fence
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  Speaker 4: is a boundary. It has its own aliveness. It communicates
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  Speaker 4: all kinds of things that we've just touched on of
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: whether how we feel and our emotions. It helps us
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  Speaker 4: be aware of our emotions. It insists on our being
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: aware of emotions, that we blush or we feel guilty
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  Speaker 4: or we sweat or we have goosebumps. So it's a
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  Speaker 4: very communicative element of mediating ourselves to ourselves as well
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: as ourselves to the external world or the external world
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  Speaker 4: communicating things to us. It's too cold in here. I
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: need to go get a sweater. Or my boss just
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: came in and I was playing a game online and
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: I turned red. So, you know, the boss might pick
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: up on that, but also I can be aware of
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: what I was doing and it doesn't align with my
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: internal values. Something says this isn't quite right. I love
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: the aliveness of skin and that we are these naked animals.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: You know, we go out and We love all the
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: pelts that other animals have. We don't have one because
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: it is alive and vibrating and reacting to the external
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: world and to our internal world. Independently, I might add,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: it's not as if I can just decide that I'm
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: not going to turn red when my boss catches me
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: having a little time out on my laptop. It just
• 15:28
  Speaker 4: tells us what we need to know. It's like the unconscious.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: It has its own direction and energy.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: And, you know, skin is our largest organ, and I'm
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: assuming evolutionarily, although maybe some evolutionary biologists will correct me
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming it's also the oldest,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: like in terms of our sensations, the ability to smell, see, taste, hear.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: evolved after, I'm assuming, the kind of ability to feel
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: touch or to touch something or to have that kind
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: of sensation. And Deb, I really like your point about
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: how it communicates. I'm thinking about the way that octopuses,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: you can sort of see, almost see their thoughts because
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: their skin will change. Like if they suddenly see a crab,
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: they'll just color, we'll just blush all over them because
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: they're like, yum, a crab. And if they get scared that,
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: you know, and it's, I think they have, if I'm
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: not mistaken about this, I think one of some of
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the evidence that octopuses dream, and we think they do
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: comes from the fact that while they're sleeping, um, There
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: are these skin changes. So we're not quite as expressive
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: as octopuses. But I know that when I'm sitting with
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: an analisand, I will notice patches of redness that appear
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: on a person's neck or cheeks or heightened color. And
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: I can see the heightened feeling. I don't say affect.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: that occurs as we shift topics. So you're absolutely right
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: that it's a real communicator and there's a direct connection
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: with the unconscious. I remember someone making the point at
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: some moment in our training that skin diseases in particular
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: tended to be often very psychoidal. That is in this
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: very mysterious realm between the psyche and the body, that
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: the skin would reveal emotional truths that we might not
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: even have a lock on yet.
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: Just to back step just for a second in terms
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: of the profundity of skin, that apparently we receive about
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: 11 million bits of sensory data per second. Although the...
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: conscious mind or the brain can only process about 400
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: of the bits mostly it from the eyes but the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: skin apparently provides a thousand bits of sensory information per
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: second wow excuse me a million bits of sensory information
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: per second it's enormous and because i used to be
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: a body worker and a an alexander technique teacher dealing
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: with movement the proprioceptive part of skin has an enormous
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: effect on how we orient to the environment, which is
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: going to bring us back to ego as well. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: how incredibly difficult it is when people develop neuropathy and
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: part of their skin can no longer communicate. I have
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: a little bit of idiopathic neuropathy in my feet and
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: my hands. And as I'm aging, I'll, I'll drop things
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: and I won't notice it because I'm not getting enough
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: sensory information or how difficult it can be to even
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: just take a step. If your feet, if the skin
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: on your feet is not communicating adequate information about balance
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: and what's happening between the body and the environment, the
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: ego has to be able to add in all kinds
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: of information and as well as certain reflexes that don't
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: kick in when the skin doesn't tell the body what's
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: happening between itself and the outer environment. So that just
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: goes again to our the scientific reality that our skin
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: does an enormous job at orienting us to the world,
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: just as you were saying that the ego orients us
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: to the world and that the ego needs that information
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: from the skin. Absent that, The ego has a much
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: harder time.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: No, but that's fascinating and really helpful, Joseph.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: So the skin as a medium or a canvas that
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: expresses what's happening inside of the psyche and how that
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: we might, I don't know, think about that.
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: I love the idea of when you say the skin
• 20:33
  Speaker 4: is a canvas, it takes me to what do we
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: do with our skin? from skin care products. And I
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: didn't look up or even try to look up how
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: many billions of dollars a year we spend on various products, makeup.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: And when we have tattoos or in some cultures, scarification, piercing,
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: that is very much the skin as a canvas. How
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: I can do, kids do face paintings. at various events,
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: and they can come out looking like cats or something else,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: and they delight in it. And we go out and
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: spend money on makeup. People get tattoos. The skin is
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: our canvas for us to be creative with and to
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: make ourselves beautiful.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: Yes, skin can be used as persona, although it really
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: is much more profound than that.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: And why it can be such a powerful thing for
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: somebody to decide, I'm not going to wear makeup anymore.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: That I'm going to let the environment see the real
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: me rather than change how I appear. The decision as
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: to whether or not we'll get plastic surgery or other
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: conditions has to do with tending persona, which is not
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: a negative thing. But that persona is carried in the skin,
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: as you were saying, Deb, in really significant ways. But
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: what I'd like to have fun with for a minute
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: is talking about the various things that we want to
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: put on the skin. I was thinking about mud masks
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: and is putting mud on the face representative of wanting
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: to return to some primal earthy element to have an
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: engagement with that. Why not, you know?
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: But it's also about perfection, right? So a lot of
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: times the masks promise to minimize your pores. So there's
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: this sense that we should almost be porcelain without these
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: kind of disfiguring pores. And so the masks are for
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: cleanliness and maybe purification.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: And rubbing lotion. How many times, sometimes people feel that, well,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: I've got to put lotion on and there's a, an
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: ego reason for it, but also it's a way of
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: ritualizing touching and caressing my body in a way that
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: can be really as important as whether or not the
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: skin is moist.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be a way of just honoring your
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: own body and tending to your body. I think you're right, Joseph,
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: a kind of ritualized, kind of sacralized. aspect to that.
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: And skin does need care. I mean, a lot of people,
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: you know, with dry skin or aging skin.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: What are you talking about, Deb?
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Well, it's just a concept, of course. Nothing that I
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: have any personal experience with. Dry skin is a factor,
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: oily skin, skin breakouts, and we have, you know, heaven
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: knows how many products that available to correct what we
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: perceive as needs and flaws, some of them very real,
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: one end of the spectrum. And then the other end
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: of the spectrum is beauty, of that I will apply
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: these other products to my skin to be more beautiful,
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: which goes back to what you were talking about, Joseph,
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: of persona. But that's the first thing we see is
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: persona when someone walks in the door, we meet someone,
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: we see someone we know, is we see that presentation
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: and that's usually facial. And how do we enhance that
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: presentation to evoke a positive reaction from the other person
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: and to feel good about ourselves?
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: I want to also lift up that the ingredients in
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: the elixirs have an enormous effect on the psyche. and
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: pull us towards or away from certain things because the
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: skin is very absorptive. You put things on the skin
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: and it gets taken in. So I remember there was
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: a time when having placenta added to shampoo or to creams,
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: it's true, but quite an evocation whether or not it
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: had any actual benefit to the skin. But why were
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: so many people drawn to the idea that the placenta,
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: which is this that connects us to the mother, the
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: great mother, that that's going to be a good thing
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: and that I need that. So I need to apply that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: And that's, it's so symbolic.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: If you have this, you know, something that goes right
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: back to our origins of this mysterious, magical thing the
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: placenta that must have an effect. And a lot of that,
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: as the beauty industry knows very, very well, is symbolic.
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: You know, it doesn't do the same thing to say,
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: guess what? You know, this product has grapefruit skin in it.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: We would kind of go, I don't think so. But
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: some other things, some magical ingredients that will make us,
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: that will transform us.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: So I remember in the early 1900s, people were at
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: that point fascinated with mummies. And they were grinding up
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: mummies and adding powder to all kinds of things. Because
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: then you would somehow have a relationship to the mummy cream.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: And all of that, of course, has symbolic equivalence to it.
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: And then there's a way in which we're projecting something
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: onto the placenta, the mummy cream. Maybe the endless number
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: of things that are added often in minuscule amounts just
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: so that it can be listed as an ingredient so
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: that we can then think, oh, yes, I'm taking that
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: in or that is somehow going to enhance and make
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: things better.
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: And we can take things in through our skin.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah. It's an organ of.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: Incorporation in some sense, different from eating, of course. But
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: it is a way that we can become identified with
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: any of these qualities by putting it on our skin,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: by rubbing it in, by letting it be absorbed. So
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think there's a rich, symbolic
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: field here created in all of this marketing for these,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: you know, unguents.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: The things that go in and having a facial and
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: being tended to, and all the magical products go on
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: your face, and how it come out, and we've been rejuvenated.
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: We've been made beautiful. We've been made more whole. All
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: kinds of things, especially when someone else is doing these
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: processes of beautification, and the list is pretty substantial. Of
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: being tattooed, having a mask applied, having your eyebrows shaped.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Venus's beauty box.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Venus's beauty box and having that touch from someone else
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: who is paying attention and tending to us in a
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: physiological way. Having a massage. Yeah.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about we've talked about the body as canvas
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: and we've talked about, you know, changing your skin to
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: look more beautiful. But I think it's a pretty ancient
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: part of warfare.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: To paint the skin or disguise the skin in some
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: way to look more fierce. I think cultures, I'm not
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: an expert on this by any means, but I think
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: it's very common in different cultures to put different paint
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: on the face, for example, war paint, to signify that
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: you're ferocious and you're something other than human. And even
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: to the point where you know, football players, which has
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: a practical application, but I think it also communicates something
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: of the same thing.
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: Absolutely. Especially when games are played in stadiums, you know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 4: at night, it's just sort of like, no, it is
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: war paint. Right. And the other end of that, of course,
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: is makeup and other beauty things that we change our surface.
• 30:10
  Speaker 4: You know, we haven't talked about exfoliation, which is another
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: really big one. And I have to link this with
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: the shedding of skin the snakes do, which is beautiful.
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: been symbolic around the world for millennia, that the shedding
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: of the skin and shedding all the old dead skin
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: cells that we do have and supposedly have, of what
• 30:38
  Speaker 4: are we exfoliating? What are we shedding?
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: What are we sloughing off?
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: What are we sloughing off to be new, to be newborn,
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: to be, you know, are we shedding old attitudes? Are
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: we shedding a mood? Are we shedding limitations? I feel younger.
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: I feel more vibrant. Are we shedding illusions?
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: So those are things that the ego can become interested
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: in and to act upon the skin in a way
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: that is highly symbolic, just as you're saying. But the
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: ego is often feeling like this is a good thing
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: to do. I've heard about this.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: I'm going to scrub my skin and buy that loofah
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: sponge that I saw advertised as a new product.
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: Hey, I have one of those.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: I remember when that just suddenly started advertising everywhere that
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: I could find. But let's turn a little bit to
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: a more purely symbolic piece and particularly things that happen
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: to the skin that we can't control, which are also
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: transitional diseases of the skin. or things that happen to
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: the skin. And one of the ways I think analysts
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: can think about this is, well, what if I had
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: a dream and I saw a figure who had this
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: manifestation on their skin? How might I symbolize that? So
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: for instance, I'm thinking that I were to meet somebody
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: in a dream and that I noticed they were bleeding
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: from their skin. You know, I might think that where
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: am I psychologically wounded right now? That something external has
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: come against the psyche and I am bleeding and perhaps
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I'm not aware of it. So the dream maker then
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: sends an image of the bleeding one so that I
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: can then ask that question, where is my unacknowledged bleeding?
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: because it doesn't seem to be treated, or it doesn't
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: seem to be stopping on its own.
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: You know, when we think about the symbolic messages that
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: the unconscious sends us, and might it send us such
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: messages through our skin, I do think that skin is
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: one of the places where the psyche can really talk
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: to us, whether it's, as we've been talking about, maybe flushing,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: but even You know, that maybe there's a mysterious rash,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: you know, an unknown, an itching of unknown origin, a
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: swelling or a discoloration or a roughness. And we go
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: to the doctor and the doctor runs a full panel
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: of tests and says, I have no idea. You know,
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: I think we have to be careful in always assuming
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: that every single physical ailment has a kind of, you know,
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: kind of psychological consequence. to it. I don't know that
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I believe that it does. I think sometimes, you know,
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: it just is something physiological and full stop. However, I
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: think that skin is one of the places where mysterious
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: things happen. I don't know if the dermatologists listening would
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: agree with me. And that sometimes it might be useful
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: to ask, what is psyche trying to tell me?
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: Through these hives or through this mysterious blistering or, you know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: whatever other strange phenomenon might be happening on our skin.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: I was looking at some of the writings by a
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: physician and psychoanalyst named Jorge Olnik. And he conducted this
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: really interesting work where he had teamed up with dermatologists.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: And for a time, patient would meet the dermatologist and
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: the psychoanalyst together at the same consult, and depending on
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: what the patient started with. So if the patient started
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: with talking about psychological distress, the first consult would be
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: with the analyst. If they started talking about this as
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: a purely physical phenomena, then they would meet with the
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: dermatologist first, and that the psyche would kind of declare
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: where the tension might be. And as you said, sometimes
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: it's something that can be managed physically. Although I would
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: venture to say that nothing that happens in the body
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: is purely physical because the psyche is always internalizing a
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: representation of everything that's happening. What we might be asking
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: is where's the causal agent? And perhaps the causal agent
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: could be external, but the psyche is still turning it
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: into a psychic event.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Sure, yes.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: Regardless. So I like this idea of taking a psychological
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: attitude even if we're not sure that it has emerged
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: from psychological conflict. That said, the analysts have really created
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: a certain library of thoughts about certain disorders of the skin,
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: and how one might orient to that. So let's talk
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: about psoriasis, which is a really substantive problem for people.
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: So one psychoanalytic attitude is that the responsibility and burden
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: that somebody is carrying can be symbolized by these plaques
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: of skin. And that as the skin is kind of
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: peeling off, that can symbolize a sense of divided loyalties.
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: And where that shows up on the body can suggest
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: where this might be relevant in the psyche, particularly connected
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: to the history of what has happened in those body areas.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: So with psoriasis and eczema, often the dermis, the skin
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: is growing too quickly. And so it's throwing off the
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: superficial layers of the skin, which is revealing unformed skin
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: cells that consequently are not prepared to be exposed to
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: air and touch and other things. So they look kind
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: of red and raw. But they're not raw because anything's
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: been done to them. They're raw because they came out
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: into the world prematurely. So that's an interesting psychological process.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: And we might ask, as well as, of course, treating
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: the symptom compassionately, where do you feel forced to come
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: forward prematurely. And was that part of the childhood? We
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: could imagine that if you were raised by parents that
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: had a lot of idealized fantasies on a child, they
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: might force the child to be precocious, to have to
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: do things before they're ready. Because the parent needs the
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: child to carry some sense of superiority or talent that
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: the child may not be ready to evidence or to
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: bring forward. If that's internalized as a pattern, there's an
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: idea that the skin could reveal that as a tendency
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: in the psyche.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so on a kind of metaphorical level.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: So another area that the psychoanalysts were really interested in
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: was scratching. And they often were curious about whether it
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: is fueled by anxiety or stress and that the physical
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: act of scratching is a manifestation of attempting to relieve
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: an internal or psychological conflict. The other thing which... is
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: interesting about scratching is that the scratching increases the desire
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: often to scratch more yeah which from a psychological standpoint
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: one would think oh the body wants something and then
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: i meet the need and there should be a sense
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: of satisfaction Like I'm thirsty, I drink water, I'm not thirsty.
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: Scratching is very complicated because you're meeting a need, but
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: it leads to a more arousal. So for the Freudians,
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: sometimes scratching was thought of as an erotic experience and
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: it can feel erotic. Oh my goodness. If you're itchy
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: and somebody scratches it and you're like, oh my God,
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: that's so great. I mean, don't tell me that's not erotic.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: It's incredibly sensuous to scratch that itch.
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: And it can be very anxiety relieving for people that
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: have skin picking disorders, hair pulling disorders. There's something about
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: that kind of repeated behavior where the problem is that
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: it's a palliative disorder. It's satisfying for the moment. But
• 40:50
  Speaker 4: as you said, it doesn't satisfy. It leads to the
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: urge to more, which would make us curious about what
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: else is going on under the skin. What's getting under
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: your skin? Yeah.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: Right. And so we might then be curious, are there
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: anxieties that I am not attending to for one reason
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: or another? Another thing that analysts were curious about were
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: skin lesions that would just emerge. And they often thought
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: that the lesion was an unconscious cry for help or
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: attention so that the physical symptom was seeking to make
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: suffering visible and indisputable to the others around them. And
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: they felt that that was often due to feelings of
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: being misunderstood, or neglected.
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That's interesting. I mean, I'm even thinking in those terms, Joseph,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: you have me thinking of the stigmata, which is another
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: sort of like making visible of something. It's a different something. But,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: you know, making visible, you know, that we've been sort
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: of wounded by God, as it were, and it shows
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: up on the skin. But yeah, that's interesting, and I
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: have no doubt that there are times when that's what happens,
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: when the skin reveals a wound that has only been
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: suffered internally.
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: I think where I'm going with this is to be
• 42:30
  Speaker 4: curious about these things that our skin makes obvious to
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: ourselves and sometimes to others. There's a problem here. It's
• 42:44
  Speaker 4: not as if it's, You know, some internal pain is
• 42:49
  Speaker 4: right there on the surface. Pay attention. Do something about it.
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: Help me with it. And there is a relationship, as
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: we've already discussed, between what's inside and what's outside. There's
• 43:05
  Speaker 4: a relationship between stress and all kinds of physiological problems
• 43:11
  Speaker 4: that lower our immune response or body. or jack it
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: up beyond what's needed. So I think really these are
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: ways where we can be curious about what is going
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: on besides, oh, gee whiz, I have a skin problem.
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: I need to see a dermatologist, which I totally support.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: And is that the end of it? Because very few
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: things are only one thing.
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Exactly. So often what we can be curious about is,
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: what is the demand that the symptom is making upon us?
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: How might that demand be a symbolic gesture that the
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: psyche actually needs? So for instance, one of the things
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: that treats psoriasis is to expose the skin to sunlight.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: That's a very interesting symbolic thing. Psoriasis is making a
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: demand to be exposed to the light of day. I mean,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: we could go a lot of places where things demand
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: creams or sometimes the doctor says, take that off. You
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: need to expose the wound to air. It needs to
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: be uncovered in order to heal. There's another strange paradox
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: that some chronic skin conditions have been integrated into the
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: psychic functioning as a way of stabilizing the psyche so
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: that there is a single consistent need that the ego
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: can tend to to create a sense of continuity particularly
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: in a life where there was no continuity and no
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: structural element to help the young psyche stabilize so then
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: i become the one with a stable skin condition so
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: that I always need to take care of something.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: Right. Kind of gives a focus.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: It's a purpose and a focus. So I, I think
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: we've done a good job just pointing the direction.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: That skin is an incredibly interesting canvas.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Jung said that dreams are the guiding
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: words of the soul. Dream School is our 12-month self-paced
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: online program that teaches you how to understand these important
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: messages from the unconscious. We break down the essential skills,
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: teach you how to apply them, and offer opportunities for practice.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: You can become part of a vibrant community, join a
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: dream group, or share your dream with other students. There
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: are monthly live Q & As with Joseph, a chance
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: for one-on-one time with Deb in her office hours, and
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: monthly dream seminars with me, Lisa. Visit our website, thisjungianlife.com,
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: to learn more or sign up. Today's dreamer is a
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: man who's 23 years old. He's a student of robotics
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: and engineering, and the title of the dream is The
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: Red World. I'm walking through a labyrinth in the dark.
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: I'm feeling my way along old cobblestone walls until a
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: woman carrying a torch finds me. The woman is someone
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: I knew once. We were friends until I was callous
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: towards her in an argument and we stopped talking. When
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: she found me, I was filled with guilt and I
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: apologized to her. She replied, all was forgiven. She took
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: my hand and guided me through the labyrinth. We eventually
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: reach a staircase going to the surface. We walk out
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: into the light and we look upon a barren red
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: landscape like the surface of Mars. She moves out and
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: I follow. But when I look up to my right
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: and the sky is overshadowed by a massive planet as
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: though Jupiter sat right above my head. It stretched across
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: the horizon. I tried to avert my eyes and my
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: friend kept calling out to me that we needed to walk,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: but I was stumbling and falling. I was nauseated to
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: the point of vomiting. She kept calling out for me,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: but I fell face first into the dirt, waking from
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: the dream.
• 47:36
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Here's some context. And he notes, I was in the
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: start of my last year of my undergraduate, And I
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: was applying to join a team for my senior project.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: At the time, I was overwhelmed and alone. I barely
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: left home and was doing terribly academically. He says the
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: main feelings in the dream, a persistent searching when I
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: was alone, a mixture of guilt and wonderment when I
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: was with her, shattering awe and nausea when I was
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: under the world. And for associations, he notes, the woman
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: is someone I knew. We were friends once. We stopped
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: talking after she asked for help with homework, and I
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: callously rebuked her for not studying. So, super interesting, dramatic,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: kind of cinemagraphic, movie-like dream.
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: Cinematic.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: I like cinemagraphic, though. I'm sure that in some Victorian world,
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: that's what it was called.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Just adding in some extra syllables there.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: I go for it.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it's a lovely image of Anima,
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: isn't it?
• 48:51
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: A kind of classic, this is exactly what we think about.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: She is the classic psychopomp. She is the guide of souls.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: She's leading him out of the dark labyrinth and up
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: to the world above. And she's urging him on, but
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: he can't quite deal with it. I also note, of course,
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: that he says he was doing terribly academically when he
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: had this dream. And this is the woman that he said, oh,
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: you should have studied. You shouldn't ask me for help.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: So in a way, I would, in Freudian terms, I
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: would say that, you know, I believe that this young
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: man probably has a very harsh super ego, you know,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: so or, you know, we might we might think about
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: that as a kind of a little bit of a
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: kind of persecutory complex and more Jungian terms, it's going to,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: You know, you should be doing better. But meanwhile, here's
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: this soft part of him, this kind of feminine aspect
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: of him that he was harsh to. And now she's saying, no,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: all is forgiven. And even though I needed to ask
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: you for help with the homework, I know the way out.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: So it's access to a different kind of knowledge. So I, yeah.
• 50:05
  Speaker 4: I couldn't help but think about the myth of the
• 50:09
  Speaker 4: Minotaur that I think almost everybody's familiar with. There was
• 50:15
  Speaker 4: a monster down there, and Theseus, the hero, had help
• 50:19
  Speaker 4: from Ariadne because you can get into a labyrinth, but
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: you can't get out. So Ariadne gave him a ball
• 50:29
  Speaker 4: of thread to unroll it, so that he could follow
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: the thread on the way out, and it was dark.
• 50:36
  Speaker 4: It's always dark in the labyrinth, or confusing at any rate.
• 50:41
  Speaker 4: So here's a woman, the Ariadne figure, in this dream
• 50:47
  Speaker 4: has a torch, and is forgiving, is loving, and Ariadne
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: is a classic example of the anima, of generosity, help
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: that is substantive that he is concretized as the ball
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: of thread here it's the torch he needs that what's
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: interesting is that they get to the staircase they go
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: up to the surface so here he is we're out
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: of the labyrinth at last but what is it a
• 51:21
  Speaker 4: barren red landscape like mars with this looming planet like
• 51:29
  Speaker 4: Jupiter right above their heads. And once on the surface,
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: that's where he really can't cope. He falls, he stumbles.
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: She says, come on, let's walk. But the dream ego
• 51:46
  Speaker 4: can't do it. And in the myth, Theseus abandons Ariadne.
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: He has the contact with her. She helps him, and
• 51:59
  Speaker 4: he needs to get the heck out of there after that.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: And he somehow forgets about her and leaves her on
• 52:06
  Speaker 4: the shore. And in this dream, it's the anima who
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: goes on and our would-be Theseus dream ego who cannot walk.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: What I'm looking at.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: It's a little bit different, although I think we're all
• 52:27
  Speaker 3: speaking to the same thing.
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: On one level, it's a dream about premature emergence. That
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: the dream ego is in the womb, in the dark labyrinth,
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: and the ego is sure that he needs to leave
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: the container. And then when he leaves the container, he
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: finds that like a baby, he's not even ready to walk.
• 52:53
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: What's happening in the outside world is enormous and he
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: is so tiny and he finds himself kind of vomiting
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: and crawling on the ground like a baby cheesing, crawling
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: on the ground. So this is an ego that is
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: not orienting successfully to the need to remain in a
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: formative place in the brooding, gestating darkness. In that regard,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: the feminine figure is providing, I think, a corrective lesson
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: in the inner world in the hopes that maybe he
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: can internalize this and make a better decision in the
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: outer world. So the anima, the psyche, is you're so
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: sure that it's time to launch, so sure that you're well-formulated,
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: that you've got everything figured out. Let's just take a
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: walk outside of the womb and see what that's like
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: for you. It's overwhelming. It's too big. There's not enough support.
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: It's barren. Well, because when we're in a very young place,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: we expect the world to be lush and to provide
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: all kinds of things for us. But the world isn't
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: going to provide as much for you as you think
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: it should. And you're going to have to walk on
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: your own two feet. And the ego is suddenly... struck
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: with the fact that I'm not ready to walk on
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: my own two feet yet. So I think that there's
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: a corrective lesson here that it's okay to slow down.
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: You may need more time to orient and to take
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: the next step than perhaps the world thinks or perhaps
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: that your heroic ego thinks. You might need some more
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: time to slow down.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: I'm not sure though, because she, the anima is the
• 54:56
  Speaker 2: one who leads him to the surface. So I don't know.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: I just, I'm not, I'll just sort of let that
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: hang there for a minute. But I do want to say,
• 55:05
  Speaker 2: I'd be curious about this young man's relationship with his father,
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: because we have a vast reference to Jupiter. So it's
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: kind of the world of the father. Jupiter, of course,
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: is the was the Roman god that corresponded with Zeus.
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: So this is the kind of the great father god.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: And it is experienced as incredibly oppressive, almost weighing down
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: on the dreamer.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: Looming.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Looming. And what I make up, the story I make up,
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: is that this young man was very much in the
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: phase where he did have to get out. He was
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: in his last year of undergraduate. He was applying for something.
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: He was not doing well in school at that point.
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: having two kids in college, I know, that the beginning
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: of your senior year, and even I remember this, it's
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: kind of scary. It's like, holy shit, I'm going to
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: be done with this soon, and then what am I
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: going to do? So perhaps he was at that point.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: In other words, it was time to engage the world
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: of the father, and it was completely overwhelming. And I
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: wonder about the fact that the dream seems to take
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: place on Mars, right? who of course is the god
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: of war. So there's a lot of, it seems like
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: we're finding a lot of kind of mythological references of
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: this as an incredibly archetypal dream.
• 56:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Mars is the red planet. It's barren. And I
• 56:36
  Speaker 4: think a lot of what you've said holds true of
• 56:40
  Speaker 4: the emerging and where are you in a barren planet,
• 56:47
  Speaker 4: which is the god of war. Do you have to
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: battle the world? Do you have to battle your way,
• 56:53
  Speaker 4: find a way in an awful landscape here? Do you
• 56:59
  Speaker 4: need to have a warlike attitude? And I appreciate you
• 57:05
  Speaker 4: associating Jupiter with Zeus and the father and the lack
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: of continued connection with the anima figure that might soften this.
• 57:20
  Speaker 4: he falls. And I think graduation from college can feel premature.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: I wasn't ready. Please let me stay in the arms
• 57:33
  Speaker 4: of the alma mater, the all-mother. I liked it there.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: Are there other courses I'd really like to take?
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: Another thing that I'd like to suggest in terms of
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: the anima teaching him a lesson, I don't think the
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: anima is so much being benevolent in the way that
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: she can sometimes be, but more that there's something that
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: the ego needs to learn, that the learning is painful.
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: So in the dream, when I compare the dream to
• 58:08
  Speaker 3: how he treated his friend, so the woman in the
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: dream had asked for help in a class, and he
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: rebuked her for not studying. And now he feels guilty
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: about it. But I think that the crime, so to speak,
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: the infraction that the woman held was not that she
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: hadn't studied. It's that she had the audacity to ask
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: for help.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah, that's right.
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: Because what happens in the dream is that he is
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: failing and he never asks for help. Nowhere in the
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: dream does the ego actually say, help me. The soul
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: comes in, escorts him to the surface, although he didn't
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: ask for it. And then when he's stumbling, it's not
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: permitted for him to cry out and ask for help.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: And I think that's giving us information about what he
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: couldn't tolerate from his friend. Mm-hmm. Is that she asked
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: for help. And I bet coming back to the parental curiosity.
• 59:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: I wonder if it was okay to ask for help.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: Or if something really. Yeah. unpleasant or worse, happened when
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: he did ask for help.
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: Or, you know, you have to be like Mars, you know.
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: Or you get rebuked. You ask for help, and the
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: household rebukes you for doing that, for speaking what you need.
• 59:47
  Speaker 4: You know, this goes to your idea, Joseph, about the
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: premature launching into the world, that sometimes... We're prematurely asked
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: to be independent and self-sufficient and confident and make our
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: way alone. And, you know, you shouldn't need help. You're
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: a big boy now or a big girl. That's what
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: happened when his friend asked for help. It struck that
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: complex of it must be your own fault for not studying.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Exactly, yep.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: And then he can't ask for help. And the anima
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: is not there in a way helping him. She just says,
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: we need to walk. Yeah.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: So dependency needs were maybe something that Dreamer was struggling with.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: Walk before you run.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening. To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic,
• 1:00:52
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• 1:00:57
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