Michael Watson raised several issues regarding counseling people with First Nations indigenous heritage in his recent essay in Dreaming the World. In my own therapy with my counselor, who was a graduate of Columbia University and a licensed Clinical Social Worker, the difference in paradigm was always present in the therapeutic container. Although my therapist [...]
Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category
Native American Story Therapy
Posted in Dreams, Mental Health, Psychology on November 11, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Cracking Open and Finding Help Within.
Posted in Dreams, Marie-Louise von Franz, Psychology, tagged Healing, The Feminine on October 27, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Marie-Louise von Franz presented a Romanian folktale in her book (1999) The Cat: A Tale of Feminine Redemption (1999) The enchanted cat gives the hero a nut, which when cracked contains smaller seeds of maize, wheat, and a weed. Within the last of these magic nesting objects is a treasure of fine linen cloth. In [...]
Therapy: Healing the Psyche
Posted in Carl Jung, Mentoring, Psychology, tagged Balancing the Opposites, Spirituality, Wisdom on September 2, 2011 | 3 Comments »
Edward C. Whitmont gives an excellent account of the nature of the healing process. The guide and the seeker wander through the labyrinth-like twists and turns offered by the Self (God) Who is within both the guide and the seeker. The Self is also outside and independent of the guide/seeker dyad and this aspect of the process Whitmont calls (following Jung’s later writings) the objective psyche. It is by definition “unconscious”, because It is not something we can consciously know, but Its effects can be experienced in the form of dreams, fantasies, synchronicities, and mystical visions. The Self is guiding the process and both the guide and the seeker are transformed by It. This is a paradox. But that is the way it is and we must learn to accept it, if we wish to be transformed by It.
Father John R. Cole: Spirit Guide
Posted in Carl Jung, Mentoring, Psychology, tagged Adult Children of Alcoholics, alcohol abuse, Balancing the Opposites, Shadow, Spirituality, Wisdom on September 2, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Throughout our lives we meet people who seem to have magical, numinous qualities. When I was eighteen years old I met such a person, John R. Cole, a Presbyterian Missionary to Northern India, who was also an ordained Episcopal priest. “India has only one Christian Church”, he told our Youth Group in 1961. Imagine that, [...]
For Your Own Good: Child Abuse and Repressed Feelings
Posted in Child/Parent Relationship, Liberal Catholic Church, Mental Health, Mentoring, Psychology, tagged Alice Miller, Feeling, Healing, Old Catholic Church, Wisdom on July 5, 2011 | 1 Comment »
The unconscious will never pass up an opportunity to tell the truth. Just give it an unfinished sentence to complete and see what happens. I stumbled into such a situation when I asked my young Seminarian to imagine himself in my childhood and tell me what his mom would do. I was shocked. She wasn’t anything like my mom or my dad. She took out her rage on her son, unconsciously and with good intentions, to make him a good Christian and to be different from the man who abused her.
Independence Day
Posted in Burning Man, Carl Jung, Dreams, I Ching: Book of Changes, men's issues, Mental Health, Montessori education, Psychology, tagged Feeling, Indigenous, Men's Movement, Shadow on February 20, 2011 | 1 Comment »
After teaching ethics, logic, and the history of philosophy, being a Montessori teacher and school director, and becoming a spiritual counselor, I find myself in 2011 wondering what has happened to Western Civilization. It is crumbling all around us. The old ways of the American Heartland Religion and Puritan hard work have been abandoned like [...]
Go Ask Alice about Hitler’s childhood
Posted in Psychology, Terroism, tagged Alice Miller, Grandmothers and Aunties, Wisdom on February 17, 2011 | 2 Comments »
Back in 1984 Alice Miller said, in the Preface to the American Edition of her book, For Your Own Good: Hidden cruelty in child-rearing and the roots of violence, two very important things: First “Hitler never had a single other human being in whom he could confide his true feelings; he was not only mistreated [...]
The Evil Twin
Posted in Mentoring, Psychology, sacred ceremonies, tagged Healing, Men's Movement, Native American Church, Shadow on December 2, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I met the Otter on the beach. He didn’t talk much, just joined my group doing the Cherokee Dance of Life. It was spontaneous. Hottest day in Seattle on record for May and there were lots of young people on the beach that day. Most were from the Reservation or had Native Blood and they [...]
Pitfalls in Mentoring
Posted in Initiation, men's issues, Mentoring, Psychology, tagged Growth, The Matrix, Wisdom on September 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Mentoring has natural pitfalls built into the relationship. These are illustrated in the legend of Mentor/Telemachos/Odyssos and elaborated by my years of experience. A thumbnail sketch of 7 things of which to be aware and to avoid when possible.
Why are there jewels in that man’s left ear, Dad?
Posted in men's issues, Psychology, sexual conduct, tagged Androgyne, Men's Movement, The Collective Unconscious on September 16, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Why do California men wear only one earring? Where did the custom originate? About forty years ago I was teaching in Huntington Beach, when young male college students began to pierce their ears. Some of us thought it might be a regression to the Wild Man of Robert Bly’s book Iron John. But why would [...]
