Awhile back, I began writing about integrating Jungian Depth Psychology with traditional Andean medicine[1] through the lens of a Jungian analyst and shaman (Andean medicine people use the term paqo which I will also use in this article). I wanted to find a way to unify these two different but…

In Peru, the “collective of the land” or pacha mama, is the energetic realm that shamans “source,” or derive power from, existing outside of time and space. Similar to “the Force” in star wars, “the land” is the collective subtle body existing between all living things.  In a Jungian analytic…

  TRAINING SEMINAR IN JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER, 2014 The Boulder Association of Jungian Analysts Study Jungian psychology in a warm, collegial atmosphere that encourages deep personal and experiential learning. Meeting on eight Saturdays, the Boulder Jungian Seminar offers training to become a Jungian analyst as well as providing mental…

The psychoanalyst, Philip Bromberg wrote that “to maintain a semblance of continuity, trauma experiences and their associated self-states become sequestered “islands,” separated from and invisible to, the other self-states accessible to conscious attention at any given time.” Similar to the psychoanalytic concept of disassociation and splitting, paqos (Andean shamans) believe that…

  In addition, to developing the capacity to hold or “channel” life force, our psyches can also generate intrapsychically created phenomena. Our experiences create thought and feeling reactions that shape our understanding of the world in the creation of a cognitive map and the formation of complexes. The life force…

One of the stories that is told about Jung is about an incident that occurred during a group discussion. A reference was made about an analysand who dreamt that she was walking on the moon and Jung’s  response was “She was on the moon.” If we can approach our clients…

In Peruvian shamanism, “the heart” – as an expression of connection with pacha mama– is the hub of connectivity in the body and the vehicle through which connection and relatedness with others is experienced. Peruvian shamans say that the heart is where we experience munay energetically, the universal feeling state…

“Integrating The Intrapsychic and The Interpersonal in Psychoanalysis: Laplanche’s Contribution,” by James Hansell, Psychoanalytic Psychology, 2012, Vol. 29, No. 1, 99-108. Reviewed by Deborah Bryon, PhD, NCPsyA Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts       Before encountering Hansell’s article on intrapsychic and interpsychic process, I had surmised that the appropriate approach in…

Carl Jung listed creativity and reflection as a basic human instincts, along with hunger, sexuality, and activity. Growing up in this culture we learn to develop ways of fulfilling our needs related to hunger, sexuality, and activity. Academia teaches analytic thinking and with it mentation – the ability to think about thinking. Yet fostering creativity…

An ongoing topic that comes up frequently in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis is, “What is the meaning of life? Or – even more importantly – how do I find meaning?” Through his experience living in a concentration camp during Nazi Germany, the existential psychologist Victor Frankel discovered that a sense of…