The podcast returns this week after an unplanned and unexpected 6-week hiatus.
This past March was an unusually busy month for me, filled with several classes and presentations for a number of Jungian organizations. And while the work was extremely gratifying and the interactions with participants stimulating and engaging, I found myself getting more and more rundown. That feeling eventually developed into a lingering cough that made it impossible to record the podcast. Though I was tempted to push through despite my illness, I soon had to acknowledge defeat. Life had other plans.
It may not be surprising, then, that I have been reflecting on health and healing over the past month or so. There are few things quite like an illness for bringing us up against the limitations of the will. It can also stimulate times of valuable reflection, including reflection on the meaning of one’s illness.
I am not suggesting that physical illness is necessarily caused by psychological factors. It would be naïve, however, to deny that there is an interplay between body and psyche and that both these aspects of our being are implicated during times of sickness. For Jung, a bodily illness is one form in which the activity of the unconscious can be made manifest. He writes:
“A wrong functioning of the psyche can do much to injure the body, just as conversely a bodily illness can affect the psyche; for psyche and body are not separate entities but one and the same life. Thus there is seldom a bodily ailment that does not show psychic complications, even if it was not psychically caused.”1
If we can allow ourselves to think in this way, then times of illness are not just disruptions of living, but can be approached as opportunities for gaining a broader sense of ourselves and the experience of meaning in our lives. In the quote that I use to open this episode, Jung suggests that psychological disturbance — what he calls “neurosis,” using the language of his time (a helpful term that has unfortunately fallen out of general usage) — reflects an aspect of the self that has been excluded from life and is making itself felt, so to speak, from its unconscious state.
All of this, of course, suggests that the reality of the self extends far beyond what we know and experience of ourselves consciously. This understanding is beautifully expressed by Juan Ramón Jiménez in his poem ‘I Am Not I,’ which I turn to in the episode in order to begin to give the listener a sense of the experience of the unconscious. In connection with this, I note:
“The unknown, unconscious dimension of being … is, at one and the same time, both a mysterious stranger that dwells within and the quintessential truth of who we are.”
I hope you enjoy this latest offering from Digital Jung. You can find this episode wherever you listen to your podcasts or simply by clicking this link: Healing and the Unconscious.
Thanks for listening, and take good care!
Remainders
In the episode I make the point that it is important to differentiate the notion of healing in analysis from the idea of “cure.” The fantasy of cure is that difficulties can be overcome once-and-for-all. But this is not necessarily an ideal for Jungian psychology. Healing, for Jung, is the development of an attitude that is better able to confront the inevitable difficulties of life. Here is a quote from Jung to this effect:
“In the last resort it is highly improbable that there could ever be a therapy that got rid of all difficulties. Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.”2
Upcoming Events
Here are the programs that I’ll be presenting in May. I hope you’ll join me at one of the following events:
The Fires of Transformation: Life as a Work of Art
Jung Association of Western Massachusetts, Friday, May 5th, 2023. For more details visit: www.westernmassjung.org
On Board the Pequod: Moby-Dick as an American Myth
C.G. Jung Institute of New England, Saturday, May 13th, 2023. For more details visit: www.cgjungne.com
On the Psychology of the Unconscious in ‘Collected Works, vol. 7’ by C.G. Jung
The Transcendent Function in ‘Collected Works, vol. 8’ by C.G. Jung