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STUCK IN THE COMFORT ZONE: When Wrong Feels Right, and Right Feels Wrong · This Jungian Life Podcast

• 0:00
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• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Thanks.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Welcome to this Jungian life. Three good friends and Jungian analysts,
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: Lisa Marciano, Deborah Stewart, and Joseph Lee, invite you to
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: join them for an intimate and honest conversation that brings
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: a psychological perspective to important issues of the day.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: I'm Lisa Marciano, and I'm a Jungian analyst in Philadelphia.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm Joseph Lee. And I'm a Jungian analyst in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
• 1:31
  Speaker 4: I'm Deborah Stewart, a Jungian analyst in Cape Cod.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Today, we're going to explore a common problem that analysts
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: try to solve. When your behaviors and attitudes that cause
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: you great suffering feel so right, And the behaviors and
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: attitudes that could give you relief or even happiness just
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: feel wrong. And what can be done about that?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: This episode sort of grew out of something that Joseph
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: said in a previous episode, and it really, really struck me.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: It's like one of these ideas that explains, if not everything,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a lot.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: So I was.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I was thinking it would be interesting to talk more
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: about it. So I think we should probably define some
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: terms because I think we're going to be using the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: terms ego dystonic and ego syntonic. And these are some
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: psychobabble terms that I don't have a good replacement for.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: So if I did, I just use those, but these, these,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: you know, these are kind of wonderful terms in a
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: way because they, they give us language for this very
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: specific important thing. And I, Like I said, I don't
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: have another way of talking about them in great specificity
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: without using these terms. So ego syntonic means anything that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: feels a-okay to us. It feels like it is in
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: harmony with how we think about ourselves. And anything that
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: is ego dystonic feels it's the opposite. It feels like
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: this is not me. This is not right. This is
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: not who I am. This is not something I should
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: be embracing. So if you think about it, pretty much
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: everything in your life, including certain attitudes, are either ego-syntonic
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: or ego-dystonic. So perhaps an oversimplification, but I think that
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: broad concepts like this can be really helpful and really
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: help us penetrate what's actually going on, and in particular,
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: like you said, Joseph, what goes on in analysis?
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: I think all psychotherapy has as its goal to put
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: us in right order towards the things that are life-affirming.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: As Jungians, we take that a little bit deeper step,
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: which is not just life-affirming, but actually are aligned with
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: the deepest and most authentic aspect of oneself. And that
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: the ego often has to change. The things that are
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: most deeply authentic to us can feel alien to the ego.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: So it's a complicated thing that the things that are
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: good for us and authentic can seem alien. And the
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: things that keep us isolated and trapped and in suffering
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: feel like a standard fare. feels like an average day.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: And we even kind of like some of those things.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And this goes into, or one way of thinking about
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: it has to do with the individual's self-perception values and identity.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So thoughts, behaviors, feelings, which are in harmony with my self-perception,
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: my values and identity feel natural and very much acceptable.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I think that's a really common important element because we
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: really find it particularly in the public discourse this is
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: unacceptable this is acceptable and then we hear that binary
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: God knows it's such a big part of the collective
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: and all of this kind of social control that's rising
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: up in our political system but for instance like if
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: a person takes pride in their work ethic and their
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: responsibility they might see their perfectionism as a very positive
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: trait because it lines up with a central sense of
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: themselves and their value system. Now, ego-dystonic stuff, again, thoughts, behaviors,
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: and feelings, but they're in conflict with self-perception, values, and identity,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: make people feel uncomfortable. This seems unacceptable. So, for instance,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder might recognize that their compulsive
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: behaviors are irrational and excessive, but they still feel forced
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: to engage in them, and it feels incredibly upsetting to them.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: So it's ego-dystonic. This is not how I think of myself.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Right, or this is not how I want to be.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: This is at odds with the way I want to
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: be in the world. You know, to frame it up,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: although I imagine I'll want to come back here after
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: we've talked about it more, you were talking about our
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: specific take on this as Jungians, and it is, I think,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: a broadly psychoanalytic idea. But to flesh that out a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: little bit more, I think it has to do with
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: being in right relationship with the self, let's say, or
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: the unconscious. So this idea has... underlying it, the notion
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: of the ego self axis, that our ego can be
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: appropriately aligned with the values and goals that emanate from
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: the center of the personality that Jung called the self,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: or we can be out of whack. And when we're
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: out of whack, one way or the other, either because
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: we're rejecting something we should be embracing, or we're embracing
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: something we should be rejecting, symptoms develop, we may feel stuck,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: we may feel depressed, we may feel anxious, we may
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: feel a kind of inner conflict, we may have dreams
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: that rattle us a little bit. Because in some sense,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: the unconscious, or the self, whichever, you know, in some sense,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: they're roughly equivalent, is saying, excuse me, you've got the
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: wrong attitude. So Jung talked a lot about finding a
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: new attitude. And I think this is a part of that.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's quite the same thing. I think
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the idea of the new attitude is actually a much broader,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: deeper concept. But this might be part of it. Like, oh,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I've always thought it was really wrong to let my
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: anger bubble up. I always just assumed that that was wrong.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: That was something I shouldn't do. Or maybe even more specifically,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: I always thought it was wrong to complain about my mother.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: And then the person comes into analysis and it's like, well,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: this is a space where we can talk about anything.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: So tell me, what would you like to say about
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: your mother? So this thing that was very egoistic, dystonic,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: which was to criticize the mother, becomes allowed, becomes maybe
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: not fully embraced, but it's no longer off limits.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: So we might imagine the ego is identified with being nice.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: And then anything that doesn't seem nice seems out of
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: character for us. And then, as you said, we then
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: rear away or we make all these kind of rules.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't seem nice to be critical about anyone,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: particularly perhaps one's mother, who we might really need to
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: tell ourselves the truth about some pretty egregious behavior that
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: was very confusing to us. And so one of the
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: ways we'll The weird things we'll do is in order
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: to be nice and try to minimize the internal conflict,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: we'll then misconstrue some of the damaging behavior from the
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: mom as acceptable or even laudable so that we trick
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: ourselves into thinking, well, it must have been fine for
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: thus and such to be done. so to get in
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: touch with the more authentic sense which is what you're
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: saying Lisa which is this fire inside of us that's
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: trying to protect our integrity.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: So being able to read those signals coming from the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: deep unconscious and to make adjustments in our ego attitude
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: oh I need to align more with this thing that
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: used to be off limits or, you know, this thing
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: that I used to think was really great. Maybe it's
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: not so great that there's a kind of flexibility in
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: an ego that can do that, that tends to make
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: us more adapted to the outer world, more easily adapted
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: to the outer world, I would say, and to, uh,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: facilitate psycho-spiritual growth.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: I think there's, um, we're naturally sorting into two categories,
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: I think, which is very important, is that sometimes we
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: might just be in therapy and somebody says, listen, I'm overeating.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: You know, I've put on 50 pounds. This is unacceptable.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: I don't like it. I don't like to see myself
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: this way. When I think of myself, I don't even
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: see myself as being overweight. But then I look in
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: the mirror and it's shocking to me. And so... The
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: therapist then examines what's going on in terms of, let's
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: just say it's not a medical problem, but literally the
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: kinds of food one's eating, when one is eating, the
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: volume one is eating, et cetera, et cetera. There's something
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: about the things one eats, volumes in time, that seem acceptable.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Somehow it seems like I'm that kind of person. I've
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: always wanted a midnight snack of a half a gallon
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: of ice cream. I started in college. I've One or
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: two pints of Haagen-Dazs was fantastic before I went to bed.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: That's me. And so it's difficult for the ego on
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: a feeling level to be able to feel that some
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: of the things that are causing this health problem actually
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: should feel bad because the result is really bad for you.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: But something inside of us isn't saying that at all.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And then on a much deeper level, which analysis is
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: more concerned with, is that what the self is encouraging
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: us to take on should feel good. But initially it
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: is so alien to us that it feels scary or unacceptable,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: but it won't let us go. It's that kind of
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: road to Damascus where Paul keeps, you know, is hearing
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: this voice, this pressure and, you know, and He's actually
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: going after Jesus. He's really going to take him down.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden, this intervention of self.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: And Paul's like, oh my gosh, I need 180 degree
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: or feels 180 degree term. It's not so much that
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: the ego decides it, but feels that attitude towards this
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: thing that was negative is suddenly its opposite.
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and sometimes it does happen suddenly for us. And
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: we call those moments epiphanies, and we often recognize them
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: as important moments in our lives. But more often, it's
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a slow process. And Joseph, I know you have some
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: really good material about the kind of the change process.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: But I want to just set something up first before
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: we go there, which is, so I'm thinking about these
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: two different jobs that we have in analysis, right? The
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: first is to invite, I think about it as an invitation,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: we invite people to kind of make friends with parts
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: of themselves that they've decided for whatever reason, don't have
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: any business being there. And of course, this happens a
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: lot in analysis, someone comes in and is not very
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: in touch with their assertiveness, or they don't ever give
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: themselves a chance to take a vacation or or they
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: kind of constantly minimize their own suffering. They devalue maybe
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: some really positive traits in themselves, on and on and on.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: And honestly, this is sort of, this is kind of
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the fun, easy part of being an analyst, at least
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: for me. Because when I spot that someone, for example,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: is devaluing an aspect of themselves, it's a real pleasure
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: to say, well, wait a minute, you keep on talking
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: as if you're not very accomplished and intelligent, but I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: know here's some data. I know that you, that you,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: you know, you have this graduate degree and you've done
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: this and you've accomplished that. And could you lean into
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: that a little bit more and maybe, you know, sort
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: of let yourself know that you're actually really competent and
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: accomplished and the, you know, Usually there's some kind of
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: resistance to it, but you're essentially giving them permission to
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: reconnect with a part of themselves. And it often, you know,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: it's a real sort of good mother place. You're offering encouragement.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: You know, even if it's, hey, get in touch with
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: your anger, you're kind of taking the person's side against
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: themself a little bit. So if you think about the
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: person who was never allowed to criticize her mother, And
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, maybe that's something we actually could talk
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: about here. It's like, really? I'm not a terrible person?
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, we can talk about that. So it
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: tends to be sort of straight up easy, usually. But
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: the opposite thing is equally important. It happens, I think,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: more rarely. But it's also important. And it is harder,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: at least for me. When someone comes in, for example,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to make something up. client comes in,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and is telling me in a very matter of fact way,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: that he doesn't report the income he makes from sort
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: of the side work that he does, he doesn't report
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: any of it. And I find myself, you know, holding
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of tension, because I'm aware of a couple
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: different things. But let's just kind of stick to the
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: practical things around outer world adaptation. that this person is
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: flirting with a disaster of getting audited and potentially, in
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a worst case scenario, going to jail because the person
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is engaging in tax fraud and doesn't seem to have
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: any concern about it, is reporting it as if it's
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a very normal thing. There's no fear about it. This
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: isn't a kind of calculated risk the person has made consciously.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: But the person has kind of split off knowing about
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: something and has made something that should be ego dystonic
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: into something that's fine. It's not a big deal. So
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: then I think it's our job as analysts to make
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: this conscious, which also means making it ego dystonic. And
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: There's a way that when we offer someone an interpretation,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: we're really inviting them to take responsibility for it. So,
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you might say something like, well, you know,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: are you concerned at all about the possible consequences of that?
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Just to give them a chance to become more conscious.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: It's like, what do you mean? It's like, well, a
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: certain number of people who do this are likely to
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: get audited. Have you thought that that might happen? and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: just to explore it. It's not a question of passing judgment.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: It is a question of noticing that there is a
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: misalignment in the attitude. I mean, I think that that's
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: just a just so, and it's part of our job
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: to make something that was egocentronic, egodistonic.
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: I think you said that really beautifully, is that the
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: egocentronic stuff is that it just feels natural and acceptable.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Most of the behavior is that we engage in day
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: to day without even much thought, feel natural and acceptable.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: And ego doesn't have a lot of conflict about it.
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: And sometimes it takes another set of eyes on something
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: to bring to light the potential or literal damage that
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: is or could be done. And what we'll first encounter,
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: of course, are the defenses against that anxiety. And Fred
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: was wonderful and accurate in how he talked about the
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: defenses that people will rationalize it. Well, you know, the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: government misuses all of my money, so it's ridiculous for
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: me to, or they'll minimize it and say, oh my gosh,
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: you know, it's one out of a million persons that
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: ever gets in that situation. Sometimes if it's really, really deep,
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: people will dissociate. They'll talk about a repercussion and they'll
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: just kind of go blank. And it won't quite seem real.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: The room will seem somewhat two-dimensional suddenly. And it just
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: kind of floats away as something that isn't connected to
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: us at all. So the therapist's job is to try
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: to introduce the reality principle is what we're talking about.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, great.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: So that the ego can have a relationship to just
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: these possible consequences or in some cases the actual consequences. diabetes.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: they're eating sugar-laden food and they're sure it's not going
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: to be a problem, but the doctor is saying, my goodness,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: you have these progressing issues. This is really serious. Minimizing, dissociating,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: rationalizing it away. But there are costs. Now, we might
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: face our anxiety, say, okay, I really truly know the costs.
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: I've fully explored them. I might make a conscious choice
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: to take those risks. We may still feel anxious on
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: behalf of another person, but there's also a little sense
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: of relief that, okay, they're not deluding themselves. And you
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: are a sovereign being, so you get to kind of
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: do it the way you want to do it.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Totally. That's a great point, and it brings up this
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: What I want to say is sort of a counter
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: transference around these two states. When you're sitting with someone
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: who's engaging in something that according to the reality principle,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: thank you for bringing in that phrase, you know, really
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: should be ego dystonic like eating donuts when you have
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: diabetes or cheating on your taxes. You know, a lot
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: of times there can be a ton of tension in
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the therapist or the analyst because we're aware unconsciously, you know,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: at a sort of embodied level. that we're holding something
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: that's been split off and kept out of awareness. And
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: it does feel very different to sit with someone who says,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I know I'm running a risk of doing this.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I've thought about it. I've done my research. It's a
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: risk I'm willing to take. And, you know, and maybe
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: there's some other kind of thoughts about it or something.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: But we really feel not that there's been a rationalization. Like, well, no,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: that doesn't happen to anybody anyway, or the government misuses
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: my money anyway. The risk and whatever else might be
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: there too, because there might be ethical issues in the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: case I brought up, you know, is being consciously held.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Then there is a sense of like, there's a very
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: different feeling, at least for me in a case like that.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: It's like, yep, okay. I'm not being implicated in something.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: So if you think about the diabetic who's eating donuts
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and telling you I'm eating donuts.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: And want you to delight in it with them.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Yes. Then it is like I'm being asked to collude
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: in something. Right. Right. I'm being asked to kind of
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: silence my objections, my awareness of the reality part of
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the equation itself. And it's a very distressing feeling. Whereas
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: if the person says, look, I understand this is bad
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: for my health. I've thought about it. I know the consequences.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I've talked to my doctor and this is what I
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: choose to do. It's like, I'm not being asked to
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: hold anything. That person is holding both in awareness. So
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: there's something here about the fact that sometimes when something
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: is egocentronic, when it shouldn't be, there is a real
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: defensive process that's gone on and a kind of you know,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: dismembering and something's really been split off.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Because the unconscious holds the reality principle because your unconscious
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: mind is connected to all points in space, which means
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: your unconscious mind knows when the thing you ate just
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: made you sick.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And it takes it as a just-so reality. It knows
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: when you're doing other things that are causing you harm.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: It knows that.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: So.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: When we are aligned with the facts, we are also
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: aligned with that strata of the unconscious that has a
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: lot of very fundamental instinctive information. And often in fairy tales,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: it's the helpful animals that often just cut to the chase. Like, oh, no,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: you do this, you don't do that. You eat that
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: horse and you run into the woods and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Without a lot of neurotic confusion about it because... The
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: unconscious is pretty clear about what's required to survive, if
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: not thrive. I do want to tell you a story
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: around this diabetic stuff, which is so interesting, because I
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: have type 2 diabetes. So I had a client who
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: had developed adult onset type 1 diabetes, and so they're
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: needing to take insulin. This is not uncommon. This happens.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: And they were having some health concerns, and we were
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: talking about it. And so I inquired about how they
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: were managing their food. And this is something I'm looking
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: at myself.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: And it is a struggle. I get it. You know,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: the norms of what you have been eating or what
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: you thought was yummy suddenly.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: What was egocentronic. Yeah.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: We're being told like that you could lose your toes
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: if you keep eating that, Joe. And it's very hard
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: to take that in partly because I don't want to
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: know that. Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: As an actual outcome because people do have to have
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: toes amputated because of a side effect of diabetes. So
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: it's difficult to want to believe that's real. But in
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: this case, person's coming in, they have become morbidly obese
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and they're on the insulin and we're talking and I said, well,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: what is your favorite food that you like to eat
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: a lot of? And funnily enough, she said, donuts. I
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: love donuts. And I love donuts too, like Krispy Kreme.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Who doesn't love donuts?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I drive past the Krispy Kreme. I inhale deeply
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: and I'm drooling. It's like, I'm done. But I managed
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: to keep driving because at least I've got some momentum
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: to keep going past it. So I'm like, totally get it.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: And when she's talking about the donuts, it's a It's
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: an intensely erotic experience and the yeast and the glaze
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: of the Krispy Kreme and then the jelly donuts at
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: Dunkin' Donuts, but you have to go there in the
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: morning because that's when they're fresh. By the afternoon, they're
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: slightly stale. And so there's a real process for her
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: to have this delicious, intense experience. When I talked to
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: her about it, she said that, you know, I'm at
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: an age, I'm single, divorced. I know that don't look
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: conventionally attractive. And this is one of the few pleasures
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: left to me. Don't have a sexual partner. Don't take
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: pride in my wardrobe. But food is so remarkably wonderful
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: to me. And I can see it when she talks
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: about it. It's really true. And so there's a part
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: of me that, me particularly, there's a part of me
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: that's like, Totally gets it. I'm like, oh, like I'm
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: in the soup with you. This is tough. Yeah. Then also,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: she is really at risk.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: For some pretty bad stuff.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: So we're talking about it on and off. And then
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: about two weeks later, she starts bringing in donuts to
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: share with me.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: No.
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: No.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: She really wants to seduce you.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: It's a Mephistopheles, man. You know, it's like, you know, here.
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: It was so intense in me.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: So what did you do? Because it seems like that's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: right where we are, right? Like, do you kind of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: gratify her wish to share this with you? Or do
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: you sort of interpret the fact that she's asking you
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to go unconscious too?
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: Exactly. I felt like it was a minefield.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: And I really like this person. They're so lovely. Right.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: Really marvelous. And it's so clear she wants me to
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: enjoy this with her. And I've even told her I'm diabetic.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, I'm with you. I get the struggle.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: So she comes in and she has a bag and
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: there's like four donuts in it. And she just comes
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: over and she just puts a napkin down and didn't
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: even ask me, lays it down right next to my
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: left hand. And then she sits down and she puts
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: a little napkin on her lap and she's got like
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: a powdered jelly donut, which I really love also, by
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: the way. And then she's like the look on her face.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: She's so delighted. It was a total war inside of me.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: Like you said, the cornucopia in the room, right? This
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: is about sharing and something delicious and it's good. And
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: it is delicious, my goodness. But then there's all of
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: the other reality that's been pushed out of the room.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: That I like to push out of the room, too.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: She was really asking you to go unconscious.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, and so what I focused on is the positive
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: feeling that she had about sharing this with me.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: And she talked about, God, you know, I saw your,
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: this is true, I saw your face, Joseph, light up
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: when we were talking about donuts.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: Oh, no!
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: So I knew it would be a great experience to,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: And I did. I was like, I can't, whatever I'm
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: feeling is on my face. It's like totally obvious. And
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: I was like, yes, yes, it's totally like mine. But
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: I'm imagining eating those donuts with you. It is so delightful.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: What did it feel like to shop for it? What
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: was it like to give it to me? I can
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: imagine you were thinking this would be a certain thing
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: when you're driving over. And she's like laughing with me
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: because it's got so much like infantile delight.
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: I could feel in my body.
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: And then when I said, I feel so touched, so
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: touched that you would be so generous to me. But
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I fear that this will injure me.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, that was great. That was great.
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: And I hope that doesn't. you. The spirit of the
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: generosity is so clear. So I'm so sorry, but I
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: won't be able to eat this with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: That was great. And her eyes kind of got big.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: She actually welled up a little bit.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: It felt terrible. Oh, she feels so ashamed right now.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: But it is exactly what you said, that my response
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: was perhaps, was a corrective response because she didn't have
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: an image in her mind of somebody saying, I can't
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: do this.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It was in the unconscious. That didn't mean that she
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: suddenly never ate a donut again, but we did talk
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: about it on and off over the next couple of years.
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: She remembered that moment of, I'm so sorry, I can't
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: do this. It's harmful. So, little by little, I think
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: she took and at least began to have a real
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: felt moment of maybe the donuts don't feel quite so
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: good as I.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Thought they did. Right, right. That's such a great story.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Thank you for telling that. I hadn't heard that before.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, it was rough. It was so hard.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about how when we're in this realm where
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: something is egocentronic that shouldn't be, we're often talking about denial.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So, which is a, you know, a psychoanalytic concept, but
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: also one I think that's really, you know, well circulated
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: in conversation. We understand what that is. So, that it's often,
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: there's often denial at work. And that, again, creates this
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: certain counter-transferential feeling of like, and I think that, you know,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: it's hard to do. It's hard to confront patients. and,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: and less experienced, uh, therapists will be likely to avoid
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: doing that and to always be in that encouraging role.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: It's like, you know, I, I don't know the, the,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: the lesser experienced therapist might, might've just said thank you and,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: and eaten the donut or, or maybe just, uh, you know,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: kept her mouth shut about the tax evasion or, or
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: whatever it was. Um, You know, because it's like, oh,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: we think we don't want to hurt someone. We don't
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: want to disappoint them. We don't want to make them
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable. But that's actually why people are coming to us.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking sometimes about when I get a
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: new analysis, and one of the things I'll always ask
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: in the sort of consultation, I said, have you been
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: in therapy before? And most people have. And I'll often say, well,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: what worked or maybe didn't work about the previous therapy? times,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: you know, what are you, what are you looking for?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: What would you like to be the same? What would
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: you like to be different? And it's not uncommon that
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: people will say something like, well, my last therapist never
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: confronted me. So, you know, if they're interested in a
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: real process, they don't want to, they don't want their
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: analyst to be a yes man. Yes, everything's fine. It's
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: You know, I think for many people who come in,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: because most people who come into therapy are neurotic rather
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: than personality disordered. Most of the task is going to be,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: you need to let yourself feel like it's okay to
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: feel your feelings, to be aggressive, to let yourself know
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you're okay. Whatever it is, all of those, the first
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: category that's relatively unproblematic most of the time. But the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: second thing, it comes up and we're not helpful to
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: people if we don't deal with it.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And it's very delicate because we need to have enough
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: therapeutic rapport that we can share, the analyst can share
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: their authentic experience or authentic response to something that's being
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: said or something that's being described. Sometimes that can be
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: a corrective experience. because it didn't occur to them, or
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: if it did, it didn't matter. So because the analyst
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: matters at certain stages of the work, their reaction to
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: what's happening also matters. Sometimes, well, for instance, with borderline clients,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: I've had borderline clients tell me with glee how they've
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: really savaged someone. They've really just, and I And I knew,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: and I took them down, and then I did this,
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: and I felt really, and I was furious, and they
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: didn't give me what I wanted, and so I did
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: this and such. And I've had people tell really brutalizing stories,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: and they laugh. And it's a very delicate thing, but
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: at the very least, what I'll do is go blank
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: so that they're looking over and they're seeing that at
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: the very least, he's not cheering me on here. In
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: an ideal situation, then they might ask what's happening for me,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: and then I can verbalize that I'm uncomfortable and concerned
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: and other things. Some relational psychoanalysts will actually speak in
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: the middle of it. Somebody will tell that story and
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: they'll say, ah, you know, I'm feeling an enormous amount
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: of disgust, as you described and that's more of an
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: object relations kind of analysis and that can be very
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: surprising of course because most of us are too polite
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: to say what we're feeling but if an analyst really
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: knows themselves reasonably well and they feel that their response
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: is reasonable and probably corrective to what the person is
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: saying it can have a very positive impact in the
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: direction that we were just saying is this should Probably
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: not feel good to you.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Right. And, you know, the thinking is that if it
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: is feeling good to you, I mean, there's a problem, right?
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Either maybe the person is really quite personality, you know,
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: kind of access to, like you said, borderline or maybe even,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: you know, sociopathic. But there's something not normal about the
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: lack of empathy. But also, I'm going back to the
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: thinking about denial and the way that that sort of
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: buried psychic conflicts. create symptoms. And kind of early psychoanalytic
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: thinking was, you need to sort of unearth the conflict,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: make it conscious, and then the tension will be resolved
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: and the symptoms will go away. So, you know, I'm
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: thinking about that woman that Jung had some contact with
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: early on who had sort of essentially murdered her child
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: because she wanted to be with the different man. She'd
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: had a she gave the child some water that she
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: knew was infected with, I think it was typhoid fever.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Is that right, Joseph? Am I getting those details right?
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: If I'm remembering it, that the local river was known
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: to be contaminated, and yet people would use it for washing,
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: like gray water for washing and such. And so she
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: had gotten a basin and was bathing her child And
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: then she let the child suck on the sponge, which
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: is something that normally somebody wouldn't allow a child to
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: do even if you were bathing them.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: And then it proved to be unhealthy, as the village
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: had suspected it was.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Right. And then I think the kid died.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And so this kind of showed up in symptoms. And,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: you know, according to Young, it's a little dramatic, but
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: once he was able to... kind of unearth this and
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: confront her with it. And she was able to accept
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: responsibility for it. The symptoms cleared up.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: She had a paralyzing depression. She was so depressed she
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: had to be hospitalized. She could not function. One might think, well,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: the answer is to cheer somebody up or medicate them.
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: But for Jung, his perception was that the depression is
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: caused by the enormous amount of effort it takes to
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: not know something.
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Well, and was kind of a punishment in a way.
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: You know, she was sort of punishing herself, but that
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: this thing that was, well, I wouldn't say it was ego-syntonic,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: but it was something she didn't let herself know.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: In the realm of shadow.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: It needed to be, right. Which is a great place
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: to go, right? Because, you know, as you point out,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: That which is ego dystonic, that's pretty much in some
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: sense the definition of shadow.
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. At least the conscious perception of it. Yes. To say, ooh,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: I am like that.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Yikes. My ego looks at that and says, I can't
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: possibly be like that. One of my colleagues who I'm
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: so fond of, having done a lot of shadow work,
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: will once in a while say, be reflecting on something difficult.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: And then there was one time he just looked down
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: and he shook his head and he said, ah, my
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: beloved degenerates, which are these, these inner figures that want
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: to do all kinds of things that he knows well enough.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: He can't give into, but he is, thinks of them as,
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: as beloved, as beloved, wild, disorganized children inside of him
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: that he used to give a lot of leeway to.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: And now it's like, I can't let the kids have
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: the keys to the car, so to speak.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: Right. And Jung said at one point, the shadow is
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: everything we don't wish to be. Again, that's a pretty
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: good approximation for that, which is ego dystonic. But some
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: things that are ego dystonic should be ego dystonic.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Yes. They're incredibly destructive.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Right. And some things that are ego dystonic should be
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: welcomed and integrated. So we're not saying that everything that's
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: ego dystonic should become ego syntonic. It's a question of discernment.
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Is this something I need to welcome in? Is this
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: something that, no, it's really not good for me to indulge,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: let's say, my My materialistic streak and constantly order new
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: things from Amazon so that I'm not able to pay
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: my credit card bill at the end of the month.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Right. Chronic debting is dangerous.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, we've known people with chronic debting and they
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: might have $ 100, 000 in credit card debt and it's just
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: threatening all kinds of problems for them. And again, the
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: sense of delight in the middle of it.
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: This minimizing, oh, it's fine, I'll just get another, I'll
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: open up a card and I'll just stick that stuff
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: over on this card, in order to continue to overvalue
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the pleasure of discovering something wonderful in a store. And
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: that the experience of finding and acquiring is primary, often
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: not even using it. It's very common, let's say, with
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: chronic debtors to have rooms of unopened boxes. Yep. because
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: it isn't actually the owning that's interesting.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: No, that's right.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: I do want to take a pivot, though, if it's okay.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: This idea of staying with the familiar exists in many
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: different dimensions. We're talking about a kind of psychological familiarity.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: But in my first career, I was an Alexander Technique teacher,
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: and this was kind of a self-observation experience discovery of
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: this guy F.M. Alexander and this is you know in
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: the 1800s for his I'll tell the story in two
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: seconds but he was a professional orator an actor and
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: in Australia and so back in the day in the
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: 1800s you kind of take a tome of Shakespeare you
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: go traveling from town to town put up a poster
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: and you'd give readings in the civic hall of the
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: towns theatrical readings and And you could have a career
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: doing this. As his career was launching as a young man,
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: he began to lose his voice, which of course put
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: everything at risk. He consulted quote unquote experts. They said,
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: just don't talk in between gigs.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: He kept losing his voice. And so what he did
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: is he set up a room of mirrors and he
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: did this meticulous observation of himself as he was preparing
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: to speak, speaking and concluding. And he was able to
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: track a number of what he thought of as idiosyncratic
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: physical patterns. Now the difficulty was, how do we suspend
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: those physical patterns so that we can see how the
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: body functions without them? Which is really very difficult. And
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: so the training process takes three years to be a teacher. Because,
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: for instance, let's say that we're podcasting, and every time
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: the podcast starts, my shoulders kind of come up like this.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I can see it on the camera, but I just
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: can't stop doing it. It's so congruent with myself. I
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: could force them down and create this enormous amount of tension,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: and I'm fighting between pulling them up and pulling them down.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: But that's going to create other problems. natural, normal, acceptable
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: in terms of my physical experience of myself, because we
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: have a kind of unconscious image of how it feels
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: to be in our body. And when we interfere with that,
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: it feels ego dystonic. And then we want to return
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: to the physical state that is familiar to us. People
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: generally come to Alexander Technique teachers because they have often
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: unsolvable physical pain or problems. So what we would do
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: is kind of analyze the movement patterns, begin to determine
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: what was interfering with normal functioning. Physical therapy might give
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: you some exercises, but the Alexander Technique, we use the mind.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: It's really the first mindfulness process of, trying to feel
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: the way the body sets itself up to do something
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: with the first thought of the action. And if we
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: can see how the body prepares to go in to
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: do something at that level, we might be able to
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: suspend it and then through various principles, initiate the movement
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: in a new way. My point being when we, we
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: do the movement in the new way, people find it disturbing.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: It doesn't feel right. Even though they'll say, oh my God,
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the pain totally disappeared.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Right, right.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: And it does not feel right. And so the ego
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: is saying, I really want to do this. And yet
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: the body has its own decisions to make. And so
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: we have to keep exposing ourselves the person to the
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: new way of moving until the body itself finds it syntonic.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: So just as a quick exercise, you could do this
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: with me, Lisa, but if you take your hands, put
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: them together and just lace them together and palm to
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: palm and just look at which thumb is on top,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: right or left. What's it for you, right or left?
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's my left.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Okay. Now I want you to look at your hands
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: and relace them so that the opposite thumb is on top.
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: And just feel it. And the feeling is, that kind
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: of feels wrong.
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Although it's not injuring you in any way. No.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: It's not like a bad thing to lace your fingers differently.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: But that part of the brain that goes, uh-uh, go
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: back to the old way, doesn't have a repercussion with
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: your hand. But if you're a professional violinist and you're
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: doing something weird with your hand.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: And you need to correct it, but your brain keeps
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: saying the correction is wrong.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: It's a great, great metaphor for psychological change because what
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: we're used to doing feels right. It feels comfortable. It
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: feels weird to do something different. So, for example, if
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: we're very nice and we have trouble being a little
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: bit assertive, right?
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Then being, you know, and this happens to lots of people.
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: It's like, well, so I stood up for myself. I
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: did this thing. I said this thing. I told the
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: guy next to me to please put his, you know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: umbrella away because it was making a lot of noise,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: you know, during the orchestra concert. Oh, you know, that
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: felt really terrible. It felt really wrong. Are you sure
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I'm not a terrible person? I mean, what if I
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: really ruin that guy's night? You know, it's like, no, no, no.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: It's just... It feels wrong, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: It's egotistic, but it's not wrong. And I think some
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: of that, and I imagine that this is in the
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Alexander technique stuff, what I'll say to people in an
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: experience like that is you got to get used to it.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: It's like practice. You got to do it until it
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: starts feeling natural.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And there's a neurologic pathway that has
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: to open up. So Alexander had stumbled upon a kind
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: of alchemy, Because the first step is to inhibit the
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: unwanted thing, which is what Jung said was the containment.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: So interestingly enough, can I inhibit my habitual instinct to
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: be nice or to make an excuse to say, oh,
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: it doesn't matter? Can I watch the impulse to do
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: that and not just say, shh, I'm not going to
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: attack it. I'm just going to hold it back. Not
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: even sure what else is going to happen.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: Just like notice it even. Just, oh, look, I had
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: that just unquestioned impulse, that kind of knee-jerk reaction to
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: just be nice and silence myself. Oh, look at that.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: There it is again. Just kind of noticing it and
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: then separating out the impulse from the need to act
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: on it and then opens up the space where you
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: find that you can choose to do something different.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: And to not engage in the action, which doesn't mean
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: the energy isn't still going to be there, which is
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: what we were talking about, I think, the other day,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: of containment versus attacking it or pummeling it or getting
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: really tense around it.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: So because we need to feel the way the pattern
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: is rising up, in order to then analyze it and
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: ask questions of it. If we just pummel it, then
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: it's going to wind up going into the unconscious and
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: it's going to come out in some other weird way.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why both Jung and Carl Rogers, they both
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: said something that's very, very similar. They both said, you
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: can't change anything unless you accept it. The wording is
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: a little different, but they both made that same observation.
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: And I think it's, I think it's, it's exactly what
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: we're talking about. You know, this kind of, so, so
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: we've been doing something for a long time. It's been
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: ego syntonic. It begins to become ego dystonic, but the
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: response to that is, is not if it's, if it's
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: an impulse or an attitude or it isn't to, to, to,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: like you said, to attack it or shut it down. It's, it's, it's,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: it's more to kind of gently create some space for
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: something new to come forward.
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And if we want to be very structural about it,
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: we might decide we're going to conduct very specific new experiments.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: So I will inhibit the impulse to say, oh, that's
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: just fine. I just won't say anything. And then maybe
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: with your therapist or some other way, you'll craft a
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: couple of other responses. And sometimes, and I've done this
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: in therapy, we'll role play, which is to get a
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: sense of what's it like in my body Say, I'm
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: so sorry, please don't do that. Please put your penis
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: under your own chair. I have to sit over here.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Just practice the new behavior, which won't feel right until
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: part of it's neurologic. It just seems kind of at
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: least possible and then maybe kind of ordinary. And that's
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: a great place because then you can say it without
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: even much stress in your voice.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love your example about the, you know, the thumbs.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Because you can see how if you're used to always saying, oh, no, no, no,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: it's no problem for you to say, you know, actually,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: could you please, you know, do this other thing? It
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: just feels wrong. But practicing it maybe in a safe
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: way or even just practicing it in your imagination.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: I think can kind of help build that new pathway.
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: And that's something that's well known in a lot of
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: the sports world. Yep. That if you meticulously imagine the
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: golf swing that would be perfect or the running stride
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: or style that would really be better, the brain can
• 52:12
  Speaker 2: set something in motion that's really uncanny and interesting. So
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: just pivoting a bit again to a pragmatic piece here.
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: That there are two researchers, a guy named Procheska and
• 52:25
  Speaker 2: a guy named DiClemente, and they applied this in terms
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: of addiction. And because addictions are an extreme example of
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: a compelling behavior that has terrible consequences for someone, and
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: yet it never feels right to say no or to
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: choose an alternative process. And then as they were examining
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: the psychology of change, it was recognized that this is
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: something that all of us do to make any kind
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: of a change, that it's just a pattern. So there
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: are six stages of change. I won't go into this
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: in a lot of depth, but anybody who's interested can
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: find this idea of stages of change. You can just
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: Google it. One is what they call a pre-contemplation stage.
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: And so in that way, the therapist is doing a
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: lot of active listening, expressing empathy, accepting the person's resistance
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: to change. I don't want to give up the donuts.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: This is how I feel. My goodness, it's the only
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: good thing in my life. And to actually receive the
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: situation such as it is. Second stage they called contemplation,
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: which is that... client or we don't quite have the
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: confidence to take a step yet to make the change.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: And we can begin to recognize that there's a lot
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: of uncertainty, there's conflicted emotions, and most importantly, which we
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, Lisa, is there's an ambivalence about
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: the change. And that can begin to come up, just
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: as you were saying, by imagining or contemplating not eating
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: the donuts anymore. Well, that makes me feel tearful or
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: it makes me feel angry. Or I remember this experience
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: of someone shaming me and that's very, very upsetting. I
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: don't want to give into that. So we contemplate the change.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: When we move through that stage, then there's a preparation stage,
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: which is often more exciting that we're willing to take
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: a step. There's some statements about the willingness to change.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: And we begin to set small achievable goals. So as
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: you were saying, Lisa, it might be, I'm just not
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: going to say it's okay.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: And then maybe another one would be to say, would
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: you mind moving your briefcase off of the chair there?
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: The fourth stage is a dynamic action-oriented plan with an
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: implementation strategy so that we know what we're going for.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: The actions are aligned in it in a very big way.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: The client becomes more active, the clinician less. The fifth
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: step is maintenance. And the science basically is that we
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: need to adopt a change for at least six months
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: before we neurologically and psychologically feel that this is now normal.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: This is the new platform. And the therapist provides advice, guidance, support,
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: tries to help people feel hopeful about it. And then
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: the sixth stage is relapse. It's not like you're going
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: to suddenly forget.
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: You love donuts.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: And this goes into ego strength. That, you know, everything
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: was going great and then all of a sudden, you know,
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: my dear friend had a heart attack. And then the
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: next thing I knew I was, you know, eating a
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: box of donuts. So knowing that the sixth stage is
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: relapsism is an acceptance of reality.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: That this was an old coping mechanism and maybe one
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: day something bad will happen and you'll choose something other
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: than the donuts to retreat to. But we just get
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: back on the bicycle and we dust off the plan
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: and we do the plan again. But that's also a
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: process where we're going from the ego in because the
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: ego can influence the unconscious. The ego's reaching in and
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: asking the unconscious to be compliant. So that's a very
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: strategic way. Yielding to the self is almost the opposite.
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: Which is this whole other like dream interpretations and trusting
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: that someone inside of us is going to actually set
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: the agenda. I may think the donuts are the most
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: important thing, but my dreams actually seem to suggest they
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: never bring up donuts.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: They keep bringing up some other things. So as analysts,
• 57:39
  Speaker 2: we might use some ego-helping strategies. But often I'm surprised.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I may have spent weeks talking about what the client
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: believes is the problem, and then the dreams are like,
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: that is not even on the horizon.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Right, right. You know, that was a great summary of
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: the change process, and it calls to mind just the
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: techniques of motivational interviewing.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: That's exactly where they show up.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Right. And if you're familiar with that at all, which...
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: you know, it's used often in healthcare, but it is
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: about making this thing that's egocentronic become ego dystonic. And
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: so people engage, the practitioner engaged in motivational interviewing might
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: use open-ended questions, affirmation, reflective listening, and summaries to begin
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: to get the person to realize the consequences of their
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: own actions, right? So you don't say, you know, If
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: you keep on eating those donuts, you're going to lose
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: your toes. You don't say that because it calls up
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: all this resistance, but you kind of create a space
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: for a person to kind of come to that recognition
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: on their own. But we've been in this, like you said, Joseph,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: which I think is a great way to think about
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: it from the ego end. And that's important, right? Like
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: to be able to adapt to the outer world, you
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: have to have a strong ego who can do some
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: things like regulate your tone But, but of course, the
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: sort of heart of Jungian work is, is, is this
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: relationship with the self, which I think takes us back
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: to more of the first category of what have we
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: disallowed that we need to make friends with. And, Just
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: want to say you brought up dreams. I think that
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: dream interpretation, you know, in dreams we find both of
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: these phenomena, but it's much more frequent that we have
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: a dream where there's an element that's frightening, that is disgusting,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: that elicits contempt or some kind of aversion in one
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: form or another. And almost always those dreams are an
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: invitation to embrace whatever that quality is, not 100% of
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: the time. But most of the time, if you have
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: a dream about you're being chased by a frightening monster,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: what the psyche is looking for you is to turn,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: face the monster and say, Joseph, in your phrase, what
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: are you here to teach me? So the psyche is
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: always looking for integration. And there's so many parts of ourselves,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: you know, Jung said 90% of the shadow is pure gold,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: or maybe it was 99. Anyway, that these parts of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: ourselves that have been disallowed, that's where, you know, the
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: philosopher's stone is always found in the dung heap. That's
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: where new life comes from. That's where growth comes from.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: So when we find ourselves, you know, it's like, oh,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I don't like that about myself, or I would never
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: want to be like that, or Oh, that person. Oh,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: I don't like that person. Or this dream where someone's
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: disgusting or frightening. It's like, wow, what's the invitation here?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: So it's almost like one category is an invitation. The
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: other category is usually a warning. And dreams do give
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: us both.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because the unconscious is connected to reality.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: So we're talking in the beginning about, Most all of
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: us are doing shadow work, which means there are natural
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: parts of our personality that have been repressed. It's not
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: a choice. They've been smushed down by the culture, which
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: is reasonable because we kind of need to acclimate so
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: we can fit in and survive and not be in
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: constant conflict. And Jung also is very clear that shadow
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: work is for the second half of life because you
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: need a strong ego. Repression helps us at Children can't
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: sort this stuff out with like an ironclad will. So
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: there's a mechanism in the psyche that puts something to
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: sleep or puts it in the vault because the developing
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: ego is a baby. So somewhere around midlife, particularly if
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: we have a bit of education, we've had a job,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: we've had some relationships, we've muscled around with some stuff,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: then we can take a look at some of what
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: we might consider an antisocial impulse Bring that to the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: table to talk and discover, harnessed to the right goal,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: that's a pretty good energy, like aggression. Random, unfocused aggression
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: is dangerous and problematic, highly destructive. But you might need
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: some aggression to muscle yourself up to put that application
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: in for the new job. Somebody asks you a scary
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: question in the interview and you're like, you know, I
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: do have an answer. And that's kind of healthy aggression.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: I know exactly what to do in that situation. So
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: our shadow elements, harnessed correctly, can be really great. The
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: other set of dreams are often romantic dreams, which is
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: the second stage of analysis where we're dealing with the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: anima animus, which is this process of falling in love
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: with parts of our potential that we have never experienced.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: experienced and know nothing about, but are fascinated by. Those
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: dreams are fun to interpret because it's this really complicated
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: dance of what's getting in the way of our potential
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: shows up in the dreams. What needs to happen? What's
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: it like when a bit of the potential wakes up
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: and we can't even relate to it? It's so unprecedented.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: So those are different kinds of dreams. And then once
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: in a while, if we're lucky, We begin to have
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: dreams of the self, of the wise old woman or
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: the wise old man or some kind of numinous factor
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: presents in the dream and we feel it. We're awestruck.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: And then we're getting put in touch with something transcendental
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: that offers an extraordinary promise. And all of those things
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: at first don't feel normal or acceptable or natural.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: You're uncanny.
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: Putting the wrong thumb, the wrong, the wrong thumb.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, that can't be true. What are we, what's going
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: on here? And so we keep thinking about the dream
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: and talking about it until it's like, oh, all right.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: It's that moment of, I can deal with that. Yeah.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: That's okay.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe this is a good place to switch to
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: a dream.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: That sounds perfect.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered what your dreams mean? Join us
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: in Dream School at ThisJungianLife.com and find out. Jung wrote,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: dreams are a little hidden door in the innermost and
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: most secret recesses of the soul.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 4: Dream School is a unique, self-paced online program you can
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 4: start at any time that unlocks access to your inner world.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: Our 12-month program provides the support, knowledge, and guidance you
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: need to reach within, decipher your personal dream code, and
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: harness it to optimize your life. By enrolling, you'll join
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: an affirming community of fellow travelers, each pursuing a unique quest.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: And it's fun.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 5: Join us on an adventure to wholeness and healing through
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: understanding your dreams. Go to thisjungianlife.com and click on Dream Schools.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: You'll be taken to our secure checkout. Once you join,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: you'll get immediate access to our first three modules. You
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: can get started right away. We look forward to seeing
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 5: you there.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, today's dreamer is a 41-year-old woman who works as
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: a quality assurance analyst. And here's the dream. I'm in
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: my own home with a baby daughter who arrived to
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: me unexpectedly without a pregnancy. I am worried I won't
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: be able to breastfeed her. She came to me from nowhere,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: afraid my body won't be able to provide for her.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: But I think practically bottle feeding will be better as
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: I am doing this on my own and this would
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: allow people to help me more easily. I have nothing
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: ready for her, but I'm excited to plan our life together.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: So I go out and buy her what she needs.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I am not daunted by this new responsibility. It feels
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: so positive and full of love. Suddenly, I'm in an
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: old and dated sluice room of a hospital, and the
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: baby has turned into a boy, and he has the
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: name of my ex-partner. I feel such vitriol and dislike
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: for this little boy. I don't want to breastfeed him
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: or even buy him anything that he needs, so I
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: ask people to donate their old things. I don't want him.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: I don't have the same worry about breastfeeding him I
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: hardly even want to hold him. I am so begrudging
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: of giving him anything. I try and think of stories
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: to tell people about his name, but I know they
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: will see through it and realize he has the same
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: name as my ex-partner, and this makes me feel embarrassed.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I know I can give him back as I did
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: not give birth to him, but I feel like I
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: have to keep him. Okay, here's the context. She says,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I recently separated from my partner. He had a gambling
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: addiction that he did not want to get help for,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and he ended our relationship. I was unaware of this
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: addiction for most of our relationship. And she says the
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: main feelings in the dream were initially love and compassion
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: for this beautiful baby girl. And then I felt contempt
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: and resentment towards the baby boy. And finally, she says,
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: the baby girl feels like my inner child, something that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: needs to be loved and cherished and nurtured. The boy
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: feels like the resentment I feel toward my ex-partner as
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: though I have given enough support and it was not
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: appreciated or felt. Therefore, I begrudge having to give more
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: of myself. My house feels safe and bright and a
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: place where we can be secure. The hospital sluice room
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: feels cold and clinical and bare. It is private.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: And for those who probably haven't worked in a hospital,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: a sluice room is where contaminated objects from the surgical
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: process go to get sterilized. When somebody takes a bedpan
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: and they have to clean it out, they go to
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: the sluice room. So it's where anything that's befouled or
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 2: needs to be cleaned and dissected, excuse me, disinfected. maybe
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: dissected too, but disinfected goes into the sluice room.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: That's really, that's helpful. Thank you.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: I wasn't sure.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: So being in the sluice room is, it's a little
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: bit almost like a toilet dream. Like we are, we
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: are in the, um the shit of the personality right
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: and the parts of the things at the very least
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: that the dreamer would like to have disinfected we'll talk.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: About ego dystonic and ego syntonic.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Absolutely it's a perfect dream.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: And i didn't Pick it that way. But the baby
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: girl is very ego-syntonic. The dream ego is just excited
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: and there's love and it feels safe and wonderful and
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: she doesn't feel any ambivalence about it. And the boy
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: is very just ego-dystonic. This is, I feel contempt. I
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: feel disgust. I don't want him. I don't even want
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: to hold him.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: And what's also really interesting is she doesn't describe much
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: about the children. That we don't know that the boy
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: does anything or what he's like or what the baby
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: girl is like. So the dream maker really wants us
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: to think about the complexes. That the ego relates to
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: one image in a particular way, relates to another image
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: in a very difficult, painful way for her enraged way.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: And yet the little boy and the little girl are
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: both contents in her psyche because they Everything in the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: dream is a part of her.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: So there's some aspect of her that she has sort
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: of devalued and put off in this loose room.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: So it may be, well, let's say that one of
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: the things that makes us interested in our partner is
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: that they are often holding some of our own potential.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: That's what makes us fall in love with them. That
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: has to do with Jung's anima animus theory. is that
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: we meet somebody, they hold a potential, we're fascinated by it,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: and the impulse to be near them is an impulse
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: to be in relationship and perhaps even to develop some
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: of their qualities. And we've all seen this, couples that
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: have been married for 40, 50, 60 years, their personalities
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: begin to become quite similar, that they absorb traits from
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: each other and The two of them seem to be
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: increasingly congruent. Sometimes they even start dressing alike, which you'll
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: see sometimes in retirement homes. Let's all wear the same sweater,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: get the same haircut. It's really interesting that it goes
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: to that integration of the opposite. So here, it's kind
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. When we've
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: had a terrible experience with a breakup, that we can't initially,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: we can't even remember the positive qualities that we had
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: projected onto the other person that we still need to
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: stay in touch with, even though the person was such
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: a bad representative of those qualities.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that feels really right to me, that somehow whatever
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: her ex was holding, or like you said, what she
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: sort of projected on him that was valuable in her,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: somehow she's having trouble kind of being in touch with
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: it she wants to reject that too you know so
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: it's sort of like what are the like one one
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: of the medicines suggested by the dream might be if
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: i were working with this person i might say something
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: like what were the good qualities about the partner what
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: made you fall in love with him and where are
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: those in yourself like they you may be so filled
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: and it sounds like a terrible situation i mean i
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: i feel totally you know feel lots of empathy for
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: this person but But you may be so filled with
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: rage that you've poisoned your connection with these important parts
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: of yourself.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: So let's just say that maybe the fellow was very adventurous.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: That's part of that riverboat gambling persona. He's adventurous or
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: dashing or maybe he's particularly urbane or witty. So if
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: we were to extract which I think is what she's suggesting.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: If we could only extract the gambling addiction and then
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: leave the other parts, which are really fascinating and wonderful,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: that would have made the relationship so much better and
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: probably would have, by the way. So it's those other things.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: So he was adventurous, so are we going to then
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: hate anything that reminds us of being adventurous because we
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: associate it to this fellow? Or are we going to
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: You know, give up on all forms of wittiness if
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 2: we like that quality.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: Because it reminds me of so-and-so. And, of course, in
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: the beginning that, you know, we're still sorting out. It's
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: traumatic to suddenly have a relationship disappear. And she says
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 2: she's recently separated.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: So what we're getting is a snapshot of just the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 2: beginning process of the split that's in the psyche. Very reasonably.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: Totally reasonably.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: But what I would just say to this dreamer and
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: to our listeners is, yes, the baby girl is precious
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: and should be cared for and attended to. But what
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: the dream is actually saying is the baby boy is too.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: And what he represents, what he represents is also important.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: But the ego is having trouble coming into a right
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: relationship with it for right now. Like you say, Joseph,
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: I think that's important. This is just sort of a
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: momentary snapshot.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: And the good news is, The final sentence of every
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: dream is always really wonderful because it lets us know
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: about where the ego has been left after the medicine
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: of the dream has been delivered.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: And the last sentence is, I know I can give
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: him back because I didn't give birth to him, but
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: I feel like I have to keep him.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: So that's the seed of this next stage of the process,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: which is maybe I like being adventurous. Maybe I like
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: being witty. Maybe I need a little risk taking in
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: the right proportion. So maybe, maybe I'll keep that.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe I'll keep that baby. And I think the,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: the presence in the sluice room is interesting too, because it,
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: it implies that the quality the baby represents has to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: be decontaminated. No, it has to be sort of separated
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: out from the toxic stuff.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: The associations and the memories. Yeah.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, I love that. That's perfect.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 2: So the image of the masculine needs to go through
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a scrubbing.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And reclaimed.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: And reclaimed. So she doesn't have to dissociate from half
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: of her potential that reminds her of this guy, which
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: would be, that would be a tragedy, more tragic than
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: the failed relationship, actually.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: Yes, very much. Such an interesting dream. Thanks for listening.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: To submit a dream, suggest an episode topic, or join
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: our mailing list, visit our website, thisunionlife.com. If you enjoyed
• 1:16:12
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