What exactly is Depth Psychology? Depth Psychology deals with unconscious feelings, thoughts and behaviours. It can also be seen as the psychology of the soul. In practice depth psychology seeks to explore the underlying motives behind our behaviours. Although Depth Psychology is usually associated with the founding psychoanalysts Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung, it is found in the post-modern schools of thought of Gestalt, […]
Compassion: For Self and Others
Compassion means being able to recognize suffering and to be supportive of the pain. We can be compassionate for others as well as for self. Thupten Jinpa (the Dalai Lama’s principal English translator and author of the course Compassion Cultivation Training) suggests that compassion is a four-step process: 1. Awareness of suffering. 2. Sympathetic concern […]
Taking Off Our Masks — Being Your True Self
In Latin, persona originally meant a mask worn by actors to indicate the role they played. Carl Jung used the term to represent the ‘I’ that one presents to society. It is also the ‘I’ that society expects us to show. Like the theatrical mask, the persona gives an indication of what the person/character is like. It helps define […]
The Lasting Effects of Trauma & Childhood Adversity
Even though we might believe that we had a ‘normal’ childhood, most children experience some form of ‘adverse childhood experiences’ (aka ACE’s). Whether it was emotionally unavailable or controlling (e.g., everything had to be ‘fine’) parents, a chaotic household (due to addiction, mental illness, depression, anxiety, domestic violence, or divorce), neglect or abuse, children are […]
The Role of Boredom
Boredom is a universal state of mind and emotion. Being bored has a negative connotation and yet, originally it was associated with the monarchy and elite society as they had nothing much or urgent to do, thus, became bored. As with all emotions, the purpose of boredom is to move one into action; it asks […]
Facing Homelessness
Psychologically, the image of a house is a symbol of our self. The condition of the house in a dream (and in our waking reality) indicates the state of our psychic home. We assess: Whose space are we occupying?, What is going on in it?, and What is the condition of it? Are things in […]
