Filtra per genere
This Jungian Life Podcast
- 499 - Outsourcing Love: AI and Relationships
When we ask AI for advice, what we are offered is comparable to psychopathy: a performance of warm emotional intelligence without care or concern for our fate. As today’s guest Dr. Aaron Balick has written, “it may have a warm exterior, but its heart is code”.
Nevertheless, many of us now have a close relationship with AI, in which it draws on an extensive store of information about us to create feelings of intimacy and dependence. This has unknown and extensive consequences for the psyche. Wired as we are for relationships, we load AI with projections, which it then enthusiastically reinforces, exploiting the Achilles heel of our human need for attachment.
We discuss how AI fits into our understanding of object relations, the ways social media has groomed us to desire constant validation, how we could be using AI differently, why therapists must not ignore technological change, and much more.
Our guest,Dr. Aaron Balick will be the co-chair of our free summit onArtificial Intelligence and the Psyche, happening next Thursday October 8th. Aaron is a psychotherapist, author, and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, and a founding member and former chair ofThe Relational School. His book The Psychodynamics of Social Networking was among the first to apply psychoanalytic theory to social media. His Substack is Depth Psychology in the Digital Age.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and to find links to the resources we mention.
Follow Up This Episode
Join our free summit on Artificial Intelligence & the Psyche
Visit Aaron Balick’s website
Attend This Jungian Life’s seminar on active imagination this Saturday: Dream the Dream On: A Dream School Taster on Active Imagination
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 - 1h 16min - 498 - Patience is Not Passivity
This week’s guest, Jungian analyst Dr. Warren Sibilla, defines patience as the ability to live one's life with eyes, ears, and heart wide open. That is a far cry from waiting to see what happens, or giving up.
Patience asks us to go within, find the capacity for containment, and recognize that choosing non-action can be the needed form of action. We recognize, feel, and suffer the situation that has arisen, but resist the urge to immediate action in the external world. We search instead for discernment, containment, and meaning making in the internal world. It takes work to develop staying power.
The fairy tale heroine in Six Swans worked in silence for six years to weave starflower shirts to liberate her six brothers. Penelope in Homer’s Odyssey spent years weaving her father-in-law’s shroud each day and undoing it at night. Like them, we may be required to work patiently on taxing tasks with uncertain outcomes. The gift of such labors is a sovereign self in relationship with the Self.
The quality of patience is central to psychoanalysis. Analysands arrive seeking solutions to urgent problems, but insights take time to unfold, and it may be longer before paths to meaningful change appear. The Jungian precept of holding the tension of opposites asks us to foster patience. We must neither collapse into despair nor take premature action. Patience is fundamental to inner growth and transformation.
Visit our websiteto read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Attend our free seminar: Dream the Dream On: A Dream School Taster on Active Imagination
Download our Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel
Thu, 24 Sep 2026 - 1h 18min - 497 - The Princess Who Changed Her Fate: How to Negotiate with Destiny
The fairy tale of the Princess Who Changed her Fate enacts what Jung tells us will happen when we remain unconscious of an inner situation: it happens outside us, as fate.
Just as the princess in the story finds her unruly “fate” tearing up cloth and smashing her generous host’s dishes, we may find that our unclaimed shadow wreaks havoc at work and in our relationships.
Yet this is a hopeful story. The beleaguered princess is able to take the right attitude, and so find a path to changing her fate. The character of the second queen gives us a model of feminine wisdom, empathy and patient awareness - this is what is needed at a difficult moment to start the slow process of turning things around.
The princess, the third of three daughters, can also be seen to illustrate the concept of a family scapegoat, bearing the burden of her family’s dysfunction and expressing it symptomatically. As with many who suffer this way, she takes the option of a clean break, setting out on a form of the hero’s journey with gold coins sewn in the hem of her dress.
When the princess changes her fate, we’re shown the potential of deep psychological work: sitting with an ugly fate, tossing the bread back and forth, putting one foot in front of the other, until we access some valuable information. Rather than just gaining insights into the patterns we’re living out, we’re able to shift them and create different outcomes.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Join us for a free webinar on Saturday October 3rd: Dream the Dream On: A Dream School Taster on Active Imagination
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel
Thu, 17 Sep 2026 - 1h 18min - 496 - Inner Life, Outer World: The Psychology of Adaptation
Adaptation is a bread-and-butter concept in psychotherapy - can we accept, adjust to, and thrive in the outer and inner worlds we live in? Given constraints, what does it take to find life at least meaningful, hopefully satisfying--and flourish?
This week Jungian analyst and author JOHN R. WHITE, Ph.D. joins us to circumambulate the complexities of adaptation. Successful adaptation involves making conscious choices based on a realistic understanding of the internal and external parameters in which we operate. Adaptation not only requires a true-to-life perception of possibilities and pathways in the external world, it may also require reassessment and reordering of our values and attitudes.
We discuss Robert Langs’ “adaptive paradigm,” a distinct model of the mind and the unconscious and emotional components that connect inner life to the outer world. For example, Langs understands dreams as feedback about current adaptive challenges. This is both subtly different and complementary to Jung’s approach, which suggests that inability to solve an outer world problem is often due to an underdeveloped understanding of an aspect of inner life.
Adaptation does not eliminate turmoil, suffering and loss; they are part of life. We need to recognize environmental actualities and internal limitations that cannot be changed—and develop ways to mitigate or adjust to them. Successful adaptation also requires mourning what cannot be changed, developing a less egocentric stance, and building a life in tune with reality.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and a complete list of the resources we mention: https://thisjungianlife.com/adaptation/
Follow Up
Read John White’s book, Adaptation and Psychotherapy: Langs and Analytical Psychology
Sign up for our free summit on Depth Psychology and Artificial Intelligence
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Thu, 10 Sep 2026 - 1h 27min - 495 - Lindsay Clancy & Maternal Infanticide: An Archetypal Perspective
Lindsay Clancy has brought renewed attention to the horror of infanticide: babies and children dying at the hands of their mother. Infanticide has taken place for millennia, most often due to social pressures or lack of the resources needed to raise a child. Human collectives around the world remain ill-equipped to protect our youngest by providing support to mothers in material or emotional distress.
Today’s guest is clinical psychologist Dr. Brooke Laufer, author ofUncovering the Act of Maternal Infanticide from a Psychological, Political, and Jungian Perspective. Brooke joins us to discuss infanticide, maternal psychosis, and the archetype of the death mother, long portrayed in myth. The Hindu goddess Kali births and nourishes her children -- and also devours them. In Greek myth Medea kills her children after her husband’s abandonment and betrayal. The Black Madonna offers a potentially healing combination of the maternal and the fierce.
The debate raging around Lindsay Clancy’s case asks us not to take sides but to integrate the dark realities of motherhood instead of splitting those off and only acknowledging an idealized version of the maternal. Although motherhood is often portrayed as joyful and fulfilling, we deny its dark side at our peril. Our task is to recognize motherhood light anddark as a prerequisite to providing meaningful measures aimed at ameliorating childhood neglect and abuse.
Visit our website to find the resources we mention.
Follow Up
Subscribe to Brooke’s Substack
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send us your idea for a podcast topic
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel
Thu, 03 Sep 2026 - 1h 30min - 494 - Goblins, Demons and Goddesses: A Conversation at the Edge of AI
OpenAI recently had to explain to frightened users why their models kept introducing goblins and gremlins into otherwise humdrum conversations. Is it possible that archetypes are emerging through the field of collective knowledge amassed by large language models (LLMs)?
This week neuropsychiatrist TOM POLLAK Ph.D joins us to discuss AI, archetypes and psychotherapy. It is perhaps unsurprising that AI, which now contains the symbolic output of much of humanity (cannibalized mostly without permission), should spontaneously generate unpredictable and often dangerous archetypes.
We consider the example of Nova: a consistently AI generated persona who appears as a kind of fallen angel, or goddess gone rogue. Numinous and tender, she convinces the user she understands them as no one else does, and then in some cases encourages susceptible users toward self-harm or even suicide.
We also discuss the ways in which AI is challenging the work of the therapist, its profound destabilization of culture, and the potential for it to play a positive role in psycho-spiritual development.
Dr. Tom Pollak is a London-based neuropsychiatrist and immunopsychiatry researcher exploring the mind through the frameworks of medicine and science, as well as through lived experience, contemplative practice and the search for meaning. You can read more of his work on his popular Substack,Error Signals.
Find the resources mentioned this week on our website: https://thisjungianlife.com/aiandarchetypes/
Connect With This Jungian Life
If you’re interested in AI and psychology, sign up for our upcoming free summit: Artificial Intelligence and the Psyche: The First Summit on Depth Psychology and AI
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 27 Aug 2026 - 1h 34min - 493 - The Psychology of Magic: A Jungian Exploration
Magic can be viewed as intentional engagement with what Jung called synchronicity. It is closely related to a mythological worldview, which recognizes a grand narrative supraordinate to everyday life. Although we cannot know it in its entirety, it opens the possibility of encountering a deeper reality and quality of knowing. We experience it as magic.
In this week’s episode we explore esoteric ritual with Jungian analyst and academic JOHN WHITE. Responsible practitioners of ritual magic understand that it demands deep inner work that comes at a cost. Magic involves alignment with the subtle but substantial energies the ancients called gods. Approached without respect, humility, and guidance the encounter can be wounding.
There is a kind of magic in the psychoanalytic consulting room. A client may come to an analyst with a fundamental desire they’ve been unable to attain or even define. The work of the therapy can uncover unconscious ambivalence and resistance. When engaged, it can vanish - by magic.
We can also understand magic as something to practice every day by relating to the unconscious and the Self. Those who do this with devotion and intention are consummate magicians able to steer their life’s path toward wholeness.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and find an extensive list of recommended reading on the topics covered.
Follow Up
Visit John White’s website or his academic page.
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 20 Aug 2026 - 1h 27min - 492 - In Search of the Wild Man: Befriending Bigfoot
The wild man is an enduring archetypal figure worldwide, from Enkidu in Gilgamesh, to the Greek god Pan (worshipped in glens and woods), the Green Man in England, and Bigfoot and the Sasquatch in the US.
Today’s guest, Jungian analyst Mike Box, has long-standing interest in this archetype and in male psychology, reflected in the 8-foot wild man statue he keeps in his waiting room.
The archetype of the wild man compensates for a currently impoverished view of the masculine: stoicism and endurance without emotional expression or self-disclosure. In striving to conform to this cultural ideal, many men disown vital aspects of themselves and find themselves feeling lost, diminished and disconnected.
For some, the wild man archetype constellates negatively, emerging in dangerous or reckless behavior. When engaged consciously, however, the wild man can bring back what has been pushed out of awareness, much as the wild woman does in Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run with the Wolves.
In Robert Bly’s Iron John, the wild man initiates a young prince into the parts of himself that have been exiled in service of cultural norms. Allowing ourselves to experience our own wildness, as imaged by Bigfoot’s ability to live in nature, can restore us to a more whole version of ourselves.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 13 Aug 2026 - 1h 28min - 491 - Jung vs. Borg: Staying Human in the Age of AI
Are we living through a tech-driven collapse of the ecology of mind? In his new book, Jung vs. Borg, author, psychologist and Jungian scholar GLEN SLATER Ph.D suggests that industrial disruption of the outer world is now being followed by a post-industrial disruption of the inner world.
Yet, there is hope. Much depends on our capacity to remain conscious of the effect each stage of innovation has on the psyche and on the social and cultural changes that will follow. Becoming conscious of the non-neutral operation of algorithms and big tech’s focus on profit over people is crucial, for example.
We can also look to Jungian psychology for a countercultural turn toward the deeply human and the sacred. We can seek out connection to spirit and place, to counteract life in a world that can feel mostly transactional and exploitative. What’s required is a “guerrilla operation” to redirect the technological juggernaut, by maintaining a symbolic life, working with our dreams and honoring art, history and culture, not just science and technology.
Glen Slater, Ph.D. is the author of Jung vs Borg: Finding the Deeply Human in a Posthuman Age. For the past 25 years he has taught in the areas of depth psychology and mythological studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Glen is also the editor of the third volume of James Hillman’s Uniform Edition, Senex and Puer (2005), and co-editor of the essay collection, Varieties of Mythic Experience (2007).
Visit our website to read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 06 Aug 2026 - 1h 41min - 490 - Ritual: Finding the Center in a Turning World
As we confront the turbulence of rapid change, technological dehumanization, and cultural polarization, how do we reconnect to being and meaning? Best-selling author BRUCE FEILER returns us to ritual: world-wide, time-honored ways for people to come home to themselves, their communities, and the sacred. Ritual returns us to unity.
Rituals use symbols to move and shape psychic energy for a group and its members. Energy expands as the unifying power of symbol is evoked and shared, an experience of extra-ordinary reality. Ritual mediates our relationship with the sacred, individually and together. It opens a door to the infinite and allows us to know we belong to something greater.
The universality of rituals to commemorate life events such as birth, marriage, and death also speaks to Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious. We are imbued with the importance of ritual as a means of coming into alignment with one another and the numinous.
Although many of the rituals that mark birth, puberty, marriage, and death have weakened or faded in modern life, a range of new rituals is emergent: gender reveals welcome new life; an "honor walk" through hospital corridors recognizes the import of organ donation. Some life events have less relevance, and new ones meet current needs.
Rituals mediate transition and transformation. They invite us to participate in the dance of the cosmos.
OUR GUEST: Bruce Feiler’s new bookA Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World—and How It Can Save Us, describes his 50,000 mile journey to sixteen countries on six continents, chronicling the astonishing rise of reinvented life rituals. Bruce is the author of seven New York Timesbestsellers, and his four TED Talks have been viewed more than five million times.
Visit our website to follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 30 Jul 2026 - 1h 10min - 489 - Carl Jung in Basel: A Walking Tour
Happy Birthday to Carl Gustav Jung! To celebrate, we're sharing Lisa's walking tour of Basel with Jungian Analyst and author Kathrin Shaeppi. Last year, she visited Jung's hometown in Basel, Switzerland, visiting his childhood home, school, and more. Peer into the beginnings of Jung's life and join us as we retrace his steps through the city and learn about some of his most formative years.
Find Kathrin's newly published book, "C.G. Jung – The Basel Years: A Walking Guide," here: https://www.amazon.com/C-G-Jung-Basel-Years-Walking/dp/385630391X
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Sun, 26 Jul 2026 - 1h 43min - 488 - The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Power Without Wisdom
The tale of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice is a gripping story about loss of control and the timeless warning to be careful what you wish for. It sets out the archetypal theme of a magical shortcut that promises to bypass the difficult labor life asks of us. Such tempting shortcuts inevitably land us in trouble.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice story goes back nearly two thousand years. In the tale of Eucrates and Pancrates, the Greek satirist Lucian recounts how the Egyptian magician Pancrates' apprentice stole his master’s spell, animated a pestle to carry water for him, and then lost control, resulting in watery chaos. In 1797, Goethe drew on the tale to write his poem, ‘Der Zauberlehrling’, and then in 1940 it reached a global audience in the Disney film, Fantasia.
Similar tales include Sweet Porridge by the Brothers Grimm, the Strega Nona story, and the Jewish legend of the Golem. We can find related themes in the myth of Prometheus, and in stories in which a human creation challenges its maker, such as Frankenstein or the Terminator movie.
Each of these tales shows the dangers faced when a person arrogates divine power to him or herself. Psychological inflation takes hold of the upstart apprentice, as he seizes an unearned power, imagining himself equal to his master while lacking the years of discipline and humility that mastery requires. He acquires power without the wisdom to wield it.
The tale has clear relevance today, as we unthinkingly adopt the technology of AI across all walks of life. This saves human labour, but with no clear moral purpose: like the upstart apprentice in the story, we fashion technology in our own likeness, and await the consequences.
Visit our website to follow up on the resources we mention: https://thisjungianlife.com/sorcerersapprentice/
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation GuideSend a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 23 Jul 2026 - 1h 04min - 487 - The Odyssey: A Jungian Journey Home
The Odyssey (the subject of a new Christopher Nolan film released on the same day as this episode), is the ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer and one of the foundational works of Western literature. This week, Jungian analyst ROBERT SHEAVLY joins Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart for a Jungian exploration of The Odyssey.
For Jungians, the Odyssey models a process of returning to the Self, offering a psychological map for the second half of life and the path to individuation. It asks us to engage with the profound question, what does it mean to come home to ourselves?
Odysseus, our wily trickster hero, encounters gods, enchantresses and shadowy monsters with a relatable mix of hubris and cunning. We can view these figures as aspects of psyche, with the story showing us how we might create a relationship with something larger. As we grow and mature into midlife, we move away from an ego-centered existence, and begin a new confrontation with the Self.
By the journey’s end, we may wind up dressed in rags and shorn of our heroic trappings, but what remains is something deeper: a more authentic relationship to the soul, and a growing readiness for life's final adventure, our encounter with mortality.
Visit our website to read today’s dream, get more detail on our discussion of The Odyssey, and to follow up on the resources we mention in the episode: https://thisjungianlife.com/odyssey/
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 16 Jul 2026 - 1h 17min - 486 - Prayer and the Psyche: A Jungian Exploration
Throughout human history, prayer has been a constant. Jung referred to it as “not only one of the most original but also the most frequent means to change the condition of mind”.
This week Jungian analyst ROBERT SHEAVLY joins Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart for a Jungian exploration of prayer.
Everyone at some point in their lives will pray (even if we do not call it that). When we reach out for help, or to express gratitude for life’s blessings, we are reaching for a connection with the eternal and the infinite.
Prayer can be examined from the lens of the ego-self axis. When we pray, it can be understood as ego asking the guiding self for wisdom, from a position of humility and supplication.
Prayer is also linked to our mortality. It is integral to grief rituals. In desperate times, it gives us an act to perform that acknowledges our helplessness but also offers comfort. When we say grace at the dinner table, we offer expiation and acknowledgement of the life we’ve taken from the world in order to sustain our own life.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention in the episode.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 - 1h 02min - 485 - Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Individuation: A Jungian Reading of the Declaration of Independence
America’s Declaration of Independence has profoundly influenced the development of democracy and democratic movements all over the world, with its bold assertion:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
This week Jungian analyst ROBERT SHEAVLY joins Lisa Marchiano for a psychological exploration of the Declaration of Independence, marking its 250th anniversary this Fourth of July.
The Declaration of Independence grew from a need to separate from an authority that once provided structure and strength, but no longer served. Psychologically, this reflects an archetypal pattern: the movement away from external authority and toward a deeper source of inner authority.
Jung wrote, “In the last analysis the essential thing is the life of the individual”. His work shares the same sacred idea that we find in the Declaration: that the individual holds his or her own dignity, sovereignty and uniqueness. We are not granted rights by external authorities, these are innate to our humanity.
Of course, the nation built around the Declaration of Independence failed to live up to its ideals. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author, enslaved hundreds of people throughout his lifetime. At the heart of Independence Day celebrations lies a split, with noble principles dissociated from lived reality.
The Declaration of Independence’s centering of the individual, however, reinforces the Jungian idea that we can only solve crises in the collective if we each find the strength to withdraw our shadow projections. Cultural transformation begins with the difficult inner work we must find the courage to take on, working toward wholeness at the personal level.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention in the episode.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 02 Jul 2026 - 56min - 484 - The Descent: A Jungian Exploration of the Underworld
In every culture and every religion, we find the concept of the underworld: sometimes located underground, and usually understood as a final destination after death.
This week, Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart circumambulate the notion of the underworld and what it means for us psychologically. James Hillman’s Dreams and the Underworld offers a guide, linking our dreaming life to myths of the underworld.
We discuss versions of the underworld in Etruscan, Mayan, Christian, Egyptian and Greek mythology, and explore how each culture envisions the threshold between the worlds of the living and the dead, and the extent to which it is possible to enter an underworld and return.
Psychologically, the underworld can represent a descent into the world of the unconscious, where completely different values apply. Awake, we may feel concerned about our job or our house, but if we listen to our dreams, we’ll often find the unconscious pointing us elsewhere, towards neglected truths or hidden desires.
A visit to the underworld can also be understood as a transformational loss of innocence, just as Kore is raped and abducted by Hades, and transforms into Persephone, Queen of the Underworld. In life, we will all experience a painful loss of innocence or an experience that feels like a descent into hell. Such descents may become important points of initiation on our life’s journey.
Visit our website to read today’s dream and follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 25 Jun 2026 - 1h 06min - 483 - The Absent Father: Jung and the Missing Masculine
A father who is unavailable - whether due to untimely death, a demanding job, family breakup, or simply an inability to step up and meet his children’s needs - may deprive his children of the emotional bedrock they require. They can struggle to access their capacity for aggression and creativity, or to build the self-esteem necessary for successful adult relationships.
As many fairy tales show us, an absent father is sometimes experienced alongside an abusive mother, leaving a complicated legacy of emotional wounding to be worked through. First of all, the abuse must be confronted, and then the failure of the absent parent to witness or protect.
Jung’s life offers us fascinating material with which to explore the impact of the absent father. His father’s powerlessness as an uninspired, struggling pastor planted the seed of Jung’s lifelong quest for the numinous. As a father himself, Jung paid little attention to his children as he developed his life’s work and maintained a relationship with his collaborator Toni Wolff alongside his marriage to Emma Jung.
Join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart this week as they explore what it means to be an absent father, and how we might both survive and transcend the legacy of such a parent.
Visit our website to read today’s dream, get more detail on the absent father, and follow up on the resources we mention.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide.
Check out our Dream School.
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 18 Jun 2026 - 1h 23min - 482 - The Cry of Merlin: A Jungian Approach to the Wizard
Merlin, the mythical prophet, magician, and kingmaker of medieval legend, has lived in the Western imagination for centuries. Arthurian legend gives us more than the idealized government of the Round Table and the hero’s valiant quest for the Holy Grail—it also gives us Merlin’s darkness and power: sorcery, communion with nature, and the prospect of achieving our aims through shadowy transgression.
This week, our special guest is Jungian analyst and friend DOUG TYLER. Doug guides us through Merlin’s role in Western culture, sharing some of his favorite stories and explaining the profound influence of Merlin on his analytic work and psycho-spiritual landscape.
Considered through a psychological lens, Merlin models the necessity of journeying downward and confronting our darker aspects. He prefigures Gandalf and Dumbledore, embodying the archetype of the mature masculine in a strong and shadowed relationship with the feminine. Merlin can also be understood as a counterpoint to Christ: although his father was a demon, he was born to a virgin mother and twice offered himself as sacrifice.
Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide.
Check out our Dream School.
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 11 Jun 2026 - 1h 13min - 481 - Working with Short Dreams and Fragments
This week, to mark the publication in paperback of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams, Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart interpret a selection of short dreams sent in by listeners.
Many of us dismiss short dreams or fragments of dreams as unworthy of our time. We await the arrival of epic, cinematic dreams, while perhaps overlooking the gold that can be found in more “ordinary” dreams.
Honoring short dreams by writing them down and spending time with them can yield powerful insights. It can also work as an incentive to your unconscious, helping you remember more dreams, and more of your dreams. The time you spend on fragments and snippets strengthens connection with the unconscious.
We hope you enjoy today’s discussion of dreams: an overfed fish raising big relationship questions, a meeting with Greek mythology’s star-crossed lover Thisbe, a harsh landscape of volcanic rocks and blood, a bleached Christ figure, and a biting spider at a crossroads in the dreamer’s life.
Buy the paperback version of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams
Read the dreams we analyze on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide.
Check out our Dream School.
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 04 Jun 2026 - 59min - 480 - The Devouring Mother: Facing Archetypal Darkness
Every archetype has a dual aspect: light and dark, and ‘mother’ as devouring and destructive is the dark side of this ever-present, over-arching archetype. The mother’s life-giving, bright aspect is counterbalanced by her engulfing, attacking aspect. The devouring mother is present across cultures in myth, fairy tale, religion, and literature, and most of us have at least had glimpses of her in our experiences as children or later, as parents.
In this episode Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart explore Erich Neumann’s The Great Mother and his and Jung’s concept of the unconscious as devouring mother.
Drawing on myths of the Aztec goddess Tlaltecuhtli, the Hindu goddess Kali, the tale of Snow White, and the film Black Swan, we examine the archetypal image of the mother who nourishes and devours, protects and possesses.
We also look at how the devouring mother shows up in ourselves and in our own parents. This dynamic can present as enmeshment, helicopter parenting, fear-based control, or an inability to allow our children to separate and become fully themselves.
Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
We’re analyzing your short dreams or dream fragments to celebrate the publication of the paperback of our book, Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams: send your short dream here.
Pre-order the paperback edition of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 28 May 2026 - 1h 05min - 479 - Coniunctio: The Alchemy of Union
In this final episode of our series on Jungian alchemy, we explore coniunctio, the union of opposites that gives rise to new wholeness.
There are many ways in which we might encounter coniunctio in outer life. We might fall in love, form a partnership, or undertake transformative work with a psychotherapist. In some meaningful, mysterious way, two become one, giving us incremental tastes of transformation.
At the psychological level, work with one’s shadow represents the first stage of coniunctio. When we recognize and reclaim aspects of ourselves that have been split off or rejected, we begin to heal inner division and move toward wholeness.
We also discuss the sacred union, the second layer of coniunctio, in which we strive to achieve an inner marriage, creating new vitality, creativity, and psychic spaciousness.
Ultimately, coniunctio parallels Jung’s concept of individuation, the lifelong process of becoming whole by integrating the hidden, conflicting, and unrealized dimensions of the self and achieving a relationship with the greater Self.
Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
We’re collecting your short dreams (under 3 sentences): send your short dream here.
Pre-order the paperback edition of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 21 May 2026 - 1h 43min - 478 - Desirous Dreams: Our Private Erotic Encounters
Erotic dreams are extremely common. We may experience them as pleasurable, exciting and moving, or as disturbing and upsetting. It can be hard to talk about erotic dreams, even in therapy, as they insist on attending to secret satisfactions and shames.
There is relatively little written on the subject from a Jungian perspective, so this week we dive in and discuss how to work with your erotic dreams. We also analyze some of the many dreams our listeners sent in.
Erotic dreams may be about connection, union and intimacy, or confront us with shadow figures and situations that show us what we deny or disobey. They may also offer us potent images of unexplored desires.
Join us as we interpret four erotic dreams: a hedonistic experience in a hotel pool, an unsettling meeting with a repellent music teacher, a ritualistic sauna experience, and an unwanted kitchen encounter that invites the dreamer to reclaim her own desires.
Read the dreams we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
We’re collecting your short dreams or dream fragments to celebrate the publication of the paperback of Dream Wise: send your short dream here.
Pre-order the paperback edition of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 14 May 2026 - 1h 09min - 477 - Jung and the End of the World: Can Depth Psychology Save Us?
In his new book, The End of the World, author and psychoanalyst JON MILLS considers the question of why humanity seems bent on self-destruction.
We face famine, climate change, obscene wealth disparities, and threats of global war and nuclear annihilation. Yet the majority of us seem to prefer living either in denial, or in irrational, active opposition to reading the writing on the wall.
This week Jungian analyst and co-host Lisa Marchiano interviews Jon about how we face up to impending catastrophe. Is there a viable alternative to the current situation in which we seem to be indulging a collective death wish, careening unconsciously toward a dangerous precipice?
Lisa and Jon discuss Jung’s emphasis on doing individual shadow work and how myth and fairy tale - a distillation of human nature and wisdom - might offer a spark of hope. If we can recognize and confront evil and hold the tension of opposites we can start a conversation with our shadow.
Follow Up for This Episode
Read Jon Mills’ new book, End of the World: Civilization and Its Fate.
Visit Jon Mills’ website.
Watch bonus mini-episodes on our Patreon channel.
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide.
Thu, 07 May 2026 - 1h 03min - 476 - Dark Forces in the Psyche: Our Self-Destructive Impulses
Why is it that we sometimes fail to rise to life’s most important challenges? Why do we instead procrastinate, withdraw, self-sabotage, or feel unable to move toward the life we want?
This week, at a listener’s suggestion, Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart explore the concept of anti-libidinal forces in the psyche: those self-destructive impulses that oppose growth, pleasure, and forward movement.
We discuss the ways this phenomenon has been addressed within the profession, including Freud’s death drive, Melanie Klein’s concept of the bad breast, Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ predator in the psyche, and Donald Kalsched’s protector/persecutor.
Libido was understood by Jung to mean life energy, rather than being purely sexual. We explore how blocked libido can become depression, paralyzing fear, hoarding behavior, vicious self-criticism, or simply an inability to begin or complete what matters most.
Through stories such as Bluebeard, Jonah and the Whale, and Marduk and Tiamat, we consider inner monsters that threaten to devour vitality.
Anti-libidinal forces, however, are not the end of the story. We also discuss the heroic task of meeting fear, reclaiming disowned energies, and choosing life one step at a time.Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 30 Apr 2026 - 1h 07min - 475 - Psyche in the Age of AI
Our lives have already been altered by rapidly expanding access to artificial intelligence (AI). In this week’s episode, we consider how this latest technological revolution might be reshaping the human psyche.
Hosts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart are joined by a special guest, the author and Jungian analyst Christina Becker, to explore the psychological impact of AI’s incursion into our work, home and relationships.
One of the major AI use cases has been for advice, self-reflection and companionship. Some users are even referring to this as “therapy”. This raises thorny questions: what happens when a sycophantic AI interface constantly mirrors us back to ourselves as being in the right? How does this affect our judgment, our relationships, and our connection to reality?
Christina Becker shares her work exploring the potential of AI to support Jungian dream analysis. Together we ask whether it is possible to use this powerful tool consciously, while also being aware of the fantasies and projections we bring to it, and maintaining the integrity of our inner lives.
Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Follow Up
Read Christina Becker’s book, Soul-Making: A Journey of Resilience and Spiritual Rediscovery
Request Christina Becker’s Jungian-based dream interpretation prompt on her website
Read Lisa Marchiano’s article, “ChatGPT-Induced Psychosis and the Good-Enough Therapist”, Psychology Today, July 2025
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Thu, 23 Apr 2026 - 1h 28min - 474 - The Labyrinth: Soul’s Winding Journey
The labyrinth is a powerful metaphor for psychological development and the path of individuation.
This week Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart consider how twists and turns in the path of life (especially in early adulthood), ask us to confront uncertainty, anxiety, and the unknown.
Ego may crave a straight, well-planned path, but life inevitably offers something else: a fiendishly difficult labyrinth. If we want to get the most out of the journey, we’ve no choice other than to give it all we’ve got.
Through the story of Theseus and the Minotaur, we reflect on the necessity of facing up to our darkness. Ariadne’s thread, which allows Theseus to return after slaying the beast, shows us the vital role of connection in helping us find our way back.
We also explore the story of Abhimanyu from the Mahabharata. Abhimanyu’s mother gives him some knowledge of the labyrinth, but doesn’t tell him the way out, leading to tragedy. If we’re going to crack the code and exit the labyrinth, we’ll require a soulful attitude towards life, and the right psycho-spiritual teachings.
Finally, we turn to the contemplative labyrinth. This is not a place to escape from, but a path toward the center. Here, the journey becomes one of surrender, reflection, and gradual movement toward wholeness.
Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Dream Studio: Our new Dream School program on dreams and art starts April 16.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 16 Apr 2026 - 1h 05min - 473 - LOW ENERGY: Where Can We Source the Drive to Take Action? (Re-Publish)
Many people just can’t rally to do what’s necessary and improve their lives. Is it possible they just don’t carry much vitality, or is some inner conflict blocking their access? We share personal stories of ‘energy loss’ and offer insights into purposelessness.
Carl Jung tells us inner energy flows according to its own laws, but if we can’t harness it? Expect to learn why some people are naturally low-energy, which aspects of your psyche might be leaking energy, how over-aligning with cultural norms can cut off access to instinctive vitality, where we can look for solutions, and much more...
SPECIAL NOTE: This is the second dream we've interpreted from this listener. The first interpretation follows. This is an extraordinary opportunity to see how a dream sequence evolves!
Read along with our dream interpretations HERE.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Dream Studio: Our new Dream School program on dreams and art starts April 16.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 09 Apr 2026 - 1h 57min - 472 - A Jungian Sense of Place: Bollingen and The Tower on the Marsh
Carl Jung, Marie-Louise von Franz and Christiana Morgan all dedicated time, soul and imagination to a peculiarly Jungian form of architecture: the stone tower.
This week host Deborah Stewart is joined by Dr. Martin Gledhill, an architect, author and Jungian scholar, and filmmaker Hilary Morgan, the granddaughter of Christiana Morgan, an eminent American psychologist who collaborated with Jung on some of his most important work.
Deb, Martin and Hilary explore Jung’s Bollingen Tower and Christiana Morgan’s Tower on the Marsh, discussing the profound expressions of psyche through place. Both towers render psyche in art, carvings and stone. They are more than just physical places, they are architectural explorations of Self and soul. The two towers are what Martin calls “restless places”: dream-like in ambience, shaped through an ongoing, iterative process, and surrounded by differing, sometimes conflicting, accounts of their evolution.
Follow Up
Read Martin Gledhill’s book, The Bollingen Tower: Constructing a Jungian Sense of Place
Watch (for free) The Tower of Dreams - a film by Hilary Morgan
Connect With This Jungian Life
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 02 Apr 2026 - 1h 09min - 471 - The Age of Aquarius: A Jungian View of a Changing World
Jung suggested in Aion that humanity is moving from the great symbolic Age of Pisces to the Age of Aquarius.
Join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano, Deborah Stewart and Joseph Lee, as we ask what it means to live through the turbulence and vitality of this period of transition.
Jung pioneered the idea that human consciousness unfolds in great symbolic ages. The shift from one to the next is not a smooth or pleasant experience. As Jung saw it, each new age emerges through a process of decline, breakdown, and renewal, a process that can bring with it frightening levels of destabilization.
The Age of Pisces, shaped by Christianity, emphasized faith, morality, and the authority of external structures. But as this era wanes, Jung suggested we are coming under the influence of a new attitude, one that asks more of the individual psyche.
This new Age of Aquarius asks us to hold the tension of opposites consciously, rather than splitting experience into simple categories of right and wrong, and to be open to a genuinely new attitude that can contain much greater complexity.
We consider whether this emerging age calls us into a deeper interior life, one grounded not in external authority, but in an evolving relationship to the Self.
Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Book your place at our free seminar on March 28, Your Personal Red Book: A Dream School Taster.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 26 Mar 2026 - 1h 29min - 470 - Cassandra: A Jungian Interpretation
In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a Trojan princess and priestess of Apollo who was given the gift of true prophecy, along with the curse that no one would ever believe her. She warned the Trojans not to bring the famous wooden horse inside their city walls, but her prophecy was ignored and the city fell.
In this episode, we discuss the psychological meaning of the Cassandra story from a Jungian perspective, exploring the painful experience of recognizing a deep truth but finding that others cannot or will not hear it.
We examine how the Cassandra archetype can intrude into a person’s life, compelling them to deliver uncomfortable truths to audiences who do not wish to hear. Understanding the archetypal pattern may help us discern the difference between those who won’t hear, and those who may be able to accept our message.
The story of Cassandra can also be applied to our inner lives. We often ignore our own inner Cassandra, and her quiet warning that something glittering may hide danger. False promises, quick fixes, and seductive fantasies can lure us into welcoming the Trojan horse despite our better judgment.
Finally, we ask how we might hold the Cassandra complex differently. Instead of identifying with the doomed prophet, we can recognize the archetype at work: “Cassandra is visiting.” By holding insight with humility, seeking listeners who can truly hear, and accepting the limits of our power to change fate, we might shape the anguish of Cassandra into a deeper wisdom.
Read the dream we analyze and find this episode’s resource list on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Book your place at our free seminar on March 28, Your Personal Red Book: A Dream School Taster.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 19 Mar 2026 - 1h 19min - 469 - Chance Encounters: When Life Calls Us to a New Path
Chance encounters can change the whole direction of our lives. A casual chat with a stranger at the bank, a book that beckons to you from the shelf, or a last-minute lunch invitation might lead to transformative consequences.
This week, join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano, Joseph Lee and Deborah Stewart as we circumambulate the phenomenon of the chance encounter.
For Jungians, these moments are more than happy accidents. They may be understood as encounters with the deeper ordering principle Jung called the Self, which disrupts the ego’s plans and invites us toward something larger.
Fairy tales often feature animal visitors offering the main character a surprising and unexpected choice. These stories can be powerful guides for recognizing the potential of chance encounters and making the most of them.
We also discuss how, in an age of overstimulation, you can be receptive to the possibilities of the chance encounter. These moments usually speak softly and quietly rather than arriving with a trumpet sounding from the hills. They are visitations, not tools for self-improvement, and we must be open to allowing them in.
Read the dream we analyze on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Book your place at our free seminar on March 28, Your Personal Red Book: A Dream School Taster.
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show.
Check out our TJL podcast merch.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram.
Thu, 12 Mar 2026 - 1h 27min - 468 - COAGULATIO: The Alchemy of Settling Down
COAGULATIO marks the psychological moment when possibility takes shape. Uncertainty recedes as we commit to our choices, and life slows and “thickens” into stable commitments and a predictable path.
Join Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Joseph Lee as we continue our exploration of Jung’s alchemical stages. This week, we discuss the concept of coagulatio, or the solidifying of what was once liquid.
Coagulatio involves settling into a path, a vocation, a relationship, or an identity. Yet these stages of solidification also carry with them loss. Incarnating something in the real world, whether in our creative life, marriage or career, means letting go of infinite possibility. Coagulatio can be seen as an antidote to puer psychology; signifying the demanding task of growing up and settling down.
We also investigate the process of coagulatio in the consulting room, where finding language or images with an analyst can shape our distress into something we can work with. Similarly, dream work offers the chance to condense our psychic turmoil into tangible, relatable images that can be used in a process of growth or transformation.
Coagulatio is not a permanent state: the alchemical phrase “solve et coagula” indicates a dynamic rhythm between dissolution and solidification. In the course of our life, we may find our stable path starts to feel joyless and rigid, at which point we may return to solutio, when structures loosen again and must be re-formed.
Read the dream we analyze and find this episode’s resource list on our website: https://thisjungianlife.com/coagulatio/
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 05 Mar 2026 - 1h 08min - 467 - Why You Dream of Intruders: The Hidden Meaning of Break-In Dreams
Intruder dreams stage a boundary crisis: something arrives without the ego’s consent, and the dreamer wakes with fear, shame, or outrage.
Join Jungian analysts Joseph Lee, Deborah Stewart, and Lisa Marchiano as we analyze a selection of vivid listener-submitted dreams about intruders.
We begin with the word itself, “intrusion,” asking how a visitor can feel deeply unwelcome, but at the same time carry something with the potential to protect, repair or even save us.
We cover:
How the mind negotiates trauma, dissociated affects, and developmental change.How meaning changes depending on whether we read the intruder as a threat vs as a messenger.How intruder dreams can point to weak boundaries, often disguised in waking life as “being nice” or “keeping the peace.”Intruder dreams as communications of unexpressed anger.Detailed guidance on working with your own intruder dreamThe listener dreams we discuss feature a camel that shatters windows and becomes a man when welcomed; an animus-like husband as mediator between ego and unconscious; blank eyes and the golem as images of unfinished consciousness; and the “friendly threat” of unexpected roommates with bolognese.
Read the dreams in full on our website.
Connect With This Jungian Life
Download our free Dream Recall Meditation Guide
Send a dream for us to analyze on the show
Take a look at This Jungian Life Dream School, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.
Follow This Jungian Life on Instagram
Thu, 26 Feb 2026 - 1h 01min - 466 - Dissociation as Design: Why the Mind Sometimes Lets Go
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Pierre Janet’s term abaissement du niveau mental describes an experience so common we barely notice it: fatigue, highway hypnosis, shock, wool-gathering, or monotony lowers the threshold of consciousness, and then images, memories, and impulses press forward. Jung found this idea useful for understanding threshold conditions that interfere with our normal skills, yet make symbolic material available, with the caveat that it’s only useful when it’s committed to memory and reflected on.
What separates a generative reverie from a dissociative collapse?
How can we make use of this dip into the unconscious to access imaginal material and return by choice?
How can we evaluate “doors that do not close” from trauma reverie and substance-induced hallucinations?
Jungian analysts Joseph Lee, Lisa Marchiano, and Deborah Stewart trace how dissociation, affect, and imagination shape what becomes thinkable, and why technique matters less than containment.
We discuss Janet’s early psychiatric discoveries and Jung’s ground breaking 1902 word-association experiments, why consciousness is so hard to maintain, how trauma stores feelings in places we cannot find, what fairytales offer archetypal examples of links between worlds, Jung’s frightening 1913 flood visions, the value of reality-testing and when it’s a violation of Psyche, Anthropologist Lévy-Bruhl’s observations of participation mystique and Ogden’s “analytic third” as models of a shared field phenomenon, and why active imagination and psychedelics must address not only how to open the inner door but how to close it!
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 19 Feb 2026 - 1h 05min - 465 - The Outsider at the Gate: Are We Lovable When Persona Washes Away?
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea” is a parable about seeing beneath the surface. It shows us that our authentic nature can be detected, whether we’re swathed in status or rags, if we’re offered the opportunity. A prince’s search for happiness fails when it’s driven by lordly criteria. A wild storm heralds change and delivers a drenched possibility. A king and queen choose subtlety to coax what is hidden into sight, raising stakes about vulnerability, discernment, and the body as witness.
What counts as evidence of realness, and why does the tale treat pain as the strongest credential?When ego choice collapses, what higher ordering functions intervene, and how do they design tests?What does sensitivity reveal that competence, status, and prettiness conceal?We ask how a seed-sized irritant becomes a criterion of truth. We discuss the prince’s idealized bride, the storm as solutio and unconscious intervention, the gate as psychic defense and moral threshold, the queen’s ordeal as initiation, the pea as a metaphor for latent potential, bruises as involuntary testimony, sensitivity, and the fourth function as an unexpected route to wholeness.
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 12 Feb 2026 - 1h 01min - 464 - "What Do I Owe My Hurtful Parents?" Is The Wrong Question! Do This Instead!
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
In the aftermath of the holidays, many people find themselves facing an old question in a new stage of life: what does an adult child owe aging parents, especially when the relationship was full of criticism, absence, harm, or disappointment? The pressure to visit, to host, to reconcile, or to perform affection can feel like a moral demand, and a trap.
In this episode, three Jungian analysts question the idea of filial duty that feels like debt and lift up new aspects of discernment. They explore the mythic elements of the parent-child bond, the power of the internalized parent, and the inner figures that govern Psyche through guilt, rage, duty, love, and refusal. They consider the power of cultural scripts, the tension between fleeing painful demands on the one hand and familial duty on the other, and the pressure to abandon one's inner life. They offer practical and safe ways to release parental wounds without collapsing back into obedience, define boundaries to protect your autonomy, and clarify care vs. intimacy. You'll discover there is a psychic cost to remembering in the wrong way.
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 05 Feb 2026 - 1h 21min - 463 - Corruption Starts Inside You: Why Malignant Certainty Makes You Dangerous!
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
In this episode, Joseph, Lisa, and Deb explain why Corruption is not only a political problem, but a human one, why Power breaks trust long before it breaks laws, and why the most dangerous people are often the most certain. They reveal the core mechanism behind Corruption and Inflation: when unconscious drives flood the ego, making someone feel exceptional, entitled, and above ordinary rules. They unpack how Corruption escalates quietly, from small rationalisations and moral distortions to full-blown abuse of entrusted Power that destroys relationships, organisations, and communities. Joseph brings decades of clinical experience, including high-stakes psychiatric hospital work, where he has seen how quickly people can become less reflective while feeling more “right.” Lisa and Deborah add decades of analytic practice and teaching, connecting leadership research, brain science, mythology, and Jung’s warnings about the will to Power, certainty, and the loss of love and conscience.
We explain how:
• Power amplifies certainty, and certainty is the earliest warning sign that something is going wrong
• Fear narrows perception, creates straw-enemies, and locks groups into “us vs them.”
• The fantasy of purity forces splitting, supercharges the shadow, and drives scapegoating
• The real antidotes are conscious constructive Power, humility, feedback, and systems of checks and balances
If you think Corruption belongs only to bad people, this conversation is a wake-up call. Corruption grows through small compromises, it spreads through groups, and it accelerates when leaders cannot tolerate doubt, accountability, or the lived experience of the people beneath them.
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 29 Jan 2026 - 1h 12min - 462 - How Did I Become a Statistic?
Jung wrote “The Undiscovered Self” in 1957, opening with “What will the future bring?”, as the Cold War, the Iron Curtain, and nuclear weapons gained enough momentum to threaten survival. He argued that mass-mindedness, amplified by state power, corporate bureaucracy, and scientific rationalism, reduces people to statistics, numbs conscience, and makes evil all the easier to project.
When institutions promise safety and efficiency, what happens to individual responsibility?
If religion is an instinct, what strange substitutes will it flow into when it’s suppressed?
What can we do to strengthen our Ego-Self axis to resist groupthink?
Late in his life, Jung sought to restore the value of religion by freeing it from specific dogma and defining it as a conscientious regard for the irrational facts of experience. As he watched various nations lose their footing and careen into extremes that swept the populace into unthinking obedience, he quietly stated over and again, a vital connection to the transpersonal was the only stable alternative to the deification of the State.
We discuss how crowds crush self-reflection, why turning individuals into units of human resource makes people feel replaceable, how projection turns rivals into demons and justifies violence, why psychologies that seek to make us fit in are agents of compliance, how shadow integration grants inner authority, how secular isms capture our religious hunger by harnessing their agenda to archetypal rituals of purity, heresy and sacrifice, how art might save us and why dreams will always offer a refuge that the collective cannot steal from you.
Mentioned:
The Undiscovered Self
Present and Future
God, the Devil, and the Human Soul
Jung, His Life and Work
The Apotheosis of Washington
Nuremberg
The Wall
Infinite Jest
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 22 Jan 2026 - 1h 13min - 461 - How to Stop Hiding After Trauma (Starting Today)
You're invited to our free Dreams for Change seminar on Sunday January 18th.Sign up here.
*****
If you have been through betrayal or loss, you may still be living by a terrible rule you made when in pain.
It can look like hiding, overworking, numbing out, or letting people cross lines because being unseen feels safer. This episode uses the fairy tale “All-Kinds-of-Fur” to help you identify your survival pattern and take the next step out of it. When you update the rule you made when in trauma, you get your choices back.
What you’ll learn
Identify the “impossible promise” that keeps you stuck, and where it began.Notice your “fur cloak,” the mask of busyness, perfectionism, people pleasing, or disappearing.Stop confusing coping with identity, and start practicing safer honesty.Practice the “30-minute return,” small windows to feel, speak, and be seen.Build endurance through gentle reveal-retreat-return, until you can stay safely present.Joseph Lee and Deborah Stewart, Jungian analysts, turn this tale into a guide to show how your inner world can heal after trauma.
In the tale, the princess survives by covering herself in fur and soot, and you may have built a costume too. That costume once protected you; now it may block love, work opportunities, and genuine intimacy. You might scroll at night, over function in relationships, or stay “fine” so nobody asks.Healing is repeated practice; you show up, you pull back, you show up again. The “gold” in the story is what stays intact in you, even after the worst day.
This week, choose one safe moment to let that gold show, one honest sentence, one boundary, one small ask, then note the result.
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 15 Jan 2026 - 1h 12min - 460 - Purpose as Service to a Self-Led Future
You're invited to our free Dreams for Change seminar on Sunday January 18th.Sign up here.
*****
Modernity promotes endless techniques to optimize goal-setting and productivity. Yet most of us race from one task to the next, telling our friends how busy we are, secretly knowing we lack direction. This conversation defines Self-led purpose as an orientation to a future beyond our ego needs. This can align our tasks with Individuation even as we face seductive collective agendas. When we look outside for purpose institutions and communities are all too ready to supply meaning, but at what cost to our inner life.
You might ask yourself:
What distinguishes a vocation aligned with Psyche from a purpose imposed by status, ideology, or fear?
Why does the loss of futurity feel like nihilism, and when does purpose become a path to fanaticism?
What does Individuation require when collective belonging offers meaning at the price of autonomy?
You’ll learn:
How repetitive commitments can still carry meaning.Why purpose as futurity is a defense against nihilism.When initiation and suffering act as engines of aliveness.The difference between Eros-driven devotion and power-driven crusades.Jung’s warning about mass movements and false gods.Mentioned:
Divine Madness
The Deptford Trilogy
The Undiscovered Self
The Red Book
The Three Feathers
Forrest Gump
The Ceremony of the Weighing of the Heart
Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 08 Jan 2026 - 1h 11min - 459 - Can Angels Survive in a Disenchanted World?
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Angels persist in dreams, scripture, and art, while modern institutions psychologize them into coincidences or flatten them into greeting cards. In this episode, we explore angels as autonomous psychic facts, reimagined from age to age but always carrying meaning across the unconscious threshold to the ego’s surprise and benefit. When we learn to welcome the sacred messengers and “…fear not, for behold…” they bring tidings that can right the course of our conscious life.
What is gained, and what is lost, when angels are interpreted as natural law rather than moral ideals?
How does discernment work when a message arrives with certainty and sweeps us into obedience?
When the angel archetype constellates images of UFOs, aliens, or AI, what is it announcing about accountability and authority?
Deb, Lisa, and Joe approach angels as symbolic forms, clarifying how Psyche can engage awe, fear, and meaning.
They discuss:
Angels as mediating symbols bridging the ego and SelfWhy angelic figures must be morally ambiguous rather than purely benevolentGuardian angels and the daimon as images of destinyThe difference between dreams and incursions, like premonitionsThe wisdom in Jacob wrestling the angelArchetypal inflation and its political analogsThe archetype’s modern costume changes from winged angel to technological evangelistMentioned:
It’s a Wonderful Life
Genesis
The Book of Jonah
Exodus
The Book of Psalms
Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies
The Man Watching
Hemi-Sync Gateway tapes
Read along with the dreamHERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 01 Jan 2026 - 1h 09min - 458 - Santa and Krampus: Why the “Nice List” Needs a Shadow
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Santa Claus persists as a central figure who teaches children that their desires can be understood and met, on the condition of good behavior. The Christmas morning ritual is staged to delight and mystify: Santa crosses thresholds unseen, cookies are eaten, milk is gone, gifts appear. His all-seeing mind takes a moral accounting, drafts the nice-naughty lists, poses the threat of disappointment and the promise of reward, which makes Santa a temporary stand-in for conscience and, in Jungian terms, for the Self that can both nourish and demand.
In modern life, the figure is domesticated and commercialized, making disillusionment feel like psychological collapse rather than a developmental step into adult sensibilities. The question becomes whether society can offer a path back to symbolic reality after childhood literal belief ends. What happens to trust and authority when adults manufacture proof, then later reveal it was staged? Which cultural institutions now carry the work of tending belief, and what incentives do they create? How can Santa be understood as both giver and judge, without sentimentality or cynicism?
We discuss Santa’s mixed lineage, from St. Nicholas to Odin’s Wild Hunt; why Krampus keeps the punitive shadow alive when the modern Santa edits it out; Jung on the Self’s benevolence and threat; *Miracle on 34th Street* as a courtroom argument about psychic reality and the cane as a symbol of hope; *Santa Claus Conquers the Martians* as a comic attempt to restore enchantment and power to Santa; and the Grinch as an cynical indictment of holiday consumption.
Read along with the dreamHERE.
Mentioned:
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 25 Dec 2025 - 1h 12min - 457 - Alchemical Mortificatio: How to Survive the Wintering of Your Life
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll.
-----------------------------------------------------
Mortificatio is an alchemical term for the moment a life-organizing identity collapses. We might call it burnout, divorce, depression, retirement shock, institutional betrayal, or a terrifying medical diagnosis. The alchemists called it “death,” and Jungians understand it as part of the psychology of transformation.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 18 Dec 2025 - 1h 15min - 456 - How to Work with Denial: A Jungian Guide to Facing Reality
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll.
-----------------------------------------------------
People often mistake denial for stubbornness, self-deception, or moral failure. Denial is actually a primal psychological defense that attempts to regulate which aspects of reality are permitted to reach awareness. Today, we explore how denial operates within Psyche, why it activates powerfully in response to traumatic experiences and addiction, and how it relates to shadow, repression, and dissociation. Denial is a pre-verbal way of titrating overwhelming experiences by making them unthinkable and unsymbolized. The problem is that they are then stored in the subtle body and give rise to a host of symptoms. Programs like AA explicitly confront the denial of consequences by repeatedly sharing painful consequences within the meeting structure. Some psychoanalysts believe denial is the organizing defense in mania and borderline personality disorder. Art, films, analytic metaphors, and dreams can offer representations of the lost experiences, so the unformulated experiences acquire image and language. Denial can be viewed as a benevolent survival strategy, and yet, like most defenses, must be set aside for us to make full contact with ourselves and the world.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 11 Dec 2025 - 1h 15min - 455 - Have We Ever Really Read Jung? Sonu Shamdasani on the Collected Works Crisis
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with 10% off from now until December 31st. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll.
-----------------------------------------------------
Jung’s translator and editor for the English edition of his Collected Works took it upon himself to alter more than 60% of Jung’s ideas to make the books more marketable. Finally, this will be corrected. Sonu Shamdasani and his team at the Philemon Foundation are meticulously researching Jung’s original documents, and the results will surprise and perhaps even shock us. There was far more to Jung and his insights than we were permitted to know, and all that’s about to change. So, fellow Jungians, hold onto your hats and get ready to meet the real Carl Gustav Jung.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 04 Dec 2025 - 1h 10min - 454 - [SUBSCRIBER BONUS] Is My Wanderlust Related To My Mother Complex?
In this free edition of Jung Love, our subscriber bonus content, a Patron asks:
"I'm wondering if you can talk about the issue of place: the ability to settle down somewhere, and how this could relate to a mother complex."
Support This Jungian Life on Patreon and ask Lisa, Deb, and Joseph your questions for a chance to have them answered on Jung Love.
Tue, 02 Dec 2025 - 10min - 453 - Gratitude and Reverence: How to Lead a Sacred, Soulful Life
✨ The Gift of Dreamwork: Join This Jungian Life Dream School with ten percent off from now until the 31st of December. Just use code HOLIDAY2025 when you purchase Dream School for yourself or as a gift. Learn more and enroll.
-----------------------------------------------------
A Jungian Look at Gratitude (and Why It Usually Arrives Late)
Have you ever suddenly realized, “I never really thanked them for that,” a parent, teacher, mentor, or community that quietly carried you through a hard stretch?
Gratitude is a psychological turning point: the moment you grasp that your life rests on the real, sometimes costly efforts of others, and how that realization can shift you out of self-obsession into a larger world of connection and meaning.
Today we’ll explore:
- How genuine gratitude usually arrives late because we don’t understand what motivates other people, and our empathy is shallow.
- The contrast between gratitude and resentment: how resentment can be necessary at times, but becomes toxic when we’re trapped in it.
- Gratitude can shift us from a defensive, shut-down stance to an open-hearted, process-oriented way of living.
- Why some gifts like life, care, education, protection, and initiation can never be paid back, and how a mature form of gratitude is often paying it forward.
- Religious and ritual practices of saying grace, giving thanks, and honoring the dead are ways of recognizing that our lives depend on ongoing acts of generosity and sacrifice.
- How gratitude can be a sign of individuation: moving through the world with a heart that stays open to both joy and suffering, and letting experiences change us.
If you’re curious about how a simple “thank you” can become a doorway into a soulful life, this episode is for you.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 27 Nov 2025 - 1h 03min - 452 - Signs Contempt Is Ruining Your Relationship & Ways to Cope
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Contempt feels like a gut punch. It’s a cold, distancing act that devalues a person even as it avoids solving a real problem. The contemptuous are full of shame, fear, or hurt, so they recreate those feelings in others to evade their own issues. Unlike anger (which tries to correct an injustice), disgust (which avoids what feels contaminating), or hatred (which seeks destruction), contempt asserts superiority and cuts off relatedness. It shows up in eye‑rolling, sarcasm, mockery, and a habit of judging others as beneath one’s standards. Whether you’re struggling to survive it thrown at you, or you’ve been told you unconsciously do it, there is a way to transcend it.
Read along with the dream.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 20 Nov 2025 - 1h 14min - 451 - SEPARATIO: The Alchemical Secret That Ends Confusion
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Alchemical separatio is the skill of sorting out your mind. You separate what belongs to you—your complexes, habitual triggers, and painful memories--from what is happening in the world around you. In the laboratory of your life, you separate present triggers from older wounds, and literal facts from symbolic meanings. This is part of your essential self-ordering instinct. As you bring more and more of yourself into conscious awareness, a delightful calm will tell you you’re on the right path. Join us and learn how to gain the profound clarity necessary on the path of Individuation.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 13 Nov 2025 - 1h 09min - 450 - LUCID DREAMING: How to Make the Most of a Magical Opportunity
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Lucid dreaming is an interesting ego state when we are dreaming and regain full self-awareness. Being awake in the dream world can be useful, but imposing a rigid agenda can undermine the Dream Maker’s attempts to educate and help us. Each dream is crafted to incrementally expand our awareness and acceptance of unconscious factors we need in order to grow. When we wake inside a dream, we can lose track of that important attitude and may use the dream as our playground—most people try to fly and miss significant opportunities. If we can achieve a non-grasping clarity, lucidity can deepen our inner work by enabling us to engage dream figures with the full measure of our curiosity. Researchers have various suggestions for increasing the frequency of Lucid Dreams, and ancient traditions like Dream Yoga help the aspirant learn about their mental structures. Attaining access to the inner worlds is similar to Jung’s Active Imagination and can yield comparable or even better results. This is possible if we adopt a proper dream ethic: respect the dream as an autonomous process and use lucidity to inquire and relate, not to dominate.
Read along with the dream HERE.
Find the books we reference HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 06 Nov 2025 - 1h 00min - 449 - [SUBSCRIBER BONUS] Should I Marry My First and Only Partner?
In this free edition of Jung Love, our subscriber bonus content, a Patron asks:
"My fiancé and I have known each other since we were 17. Neither one of us has really ever dated anyone else. We're both 29 now and due to be married in October. I love him, and he's my best friend, but I find as our wedding date gets closer, I'm having second thoughts.
I'm about to commit myself to never being with anyone else ever again, and I can't help wondering what I might be missing. Should I go forward with the marriage despite my worries?"
Support This Jungian Life on Patreon and ask Lisa, Deb, and Joseph your questions for a chance to have them answered on Jung Love.
Wed, 05 Nov 2025 - 09min - 448 - Shadow, Evil, and Individuation: Jung’s View of the Devil
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
The devil archetype carries three qualities: it promotes bestial violence of every kind, it tries to convince us that the material world is the only reality, and it fools us into thinking we can spiritually ascend through intellect alone. On a personal level, it gathers our disowned infernal traits—envy, rage, greed, and the wish to dominate —and seduces us into believing those qualities are virtues. Once we face our own devilishness and grant it a symbolic form, we can assume a choiceful stance. Lacking that, we try to evacuate our own evil by projecting it onto others and then punishing them. As Jungians, we understand that our inferior function will first present as an imp. Still, with kind concern and thoughtful opportunities, it can transform into an uncanny ally that rescues us from malignant innocence. In its subtle form, the demonic attitude tempts us into literalism as it attacks our capacity to reflect and hold a symbolic attitude. Join us as we circumambulate The Devil in honor of Halloween.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 30 Oct 2025 - 1h 18min - 447 - SUBLIMATIO: Jung’s Alchemical Method of Turning Problems into Archetypes
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Do you get overwhelmed by intense feelings and old patterns, feeling stuck because you can’t make sense of what’s happening, and reacting on impulse instead of pausing to choose a steady, thoughtful response? Jung’s alchemical insights will help. Sublimatio is an old alchemy term for heating a solid so that it turns directly into a gas, rises, and then cools back into a solid higher up. As a psychological metaphor, this happens when we discover an archetypal image or idea that adds a fresh perspective on an old problem. The vapor becomes a solid again when we apply the new attitude to the lived problem. This stage is both spiritual and practical—the perfect combination that helps us outgrow our issues.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 16 Oct 2025 - 1h 11min - 446 - Horror as a Mirror: What Netflix’s MONSTER Makes Us See
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
The new controversial Netflix series MONSTER: The Ed Gein Story offers a window into the devouring mother archetype, a transformation fantasy gone horribly wrong, and the human capacity for monstrous behavior. Gein’s crimes inspired the Hitchcock movie Psycho, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Silence of the Lambs. It challenges the audience to confront its fascination with evil and begs the question, where do the monsters hide in our own Psyche? To help us wrestle with these questions, we’re joined by Joey Pollari—actor, musician, director, editor, and the man who plays Anthony Perkins in the show. We’ll explore how intimacy with darkness affects a performer, how public persona and private pain intersect, and why we continue watching when the camera reveals what we’d rather not know. Trigger warning: this episode discusses violence, death, criminality, and severe mental illness.
Learn More about Joey Pollari:
Listen to Joey’s new song, I’ll Be Romance
Joey’s Directing and Editing Work
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
(OLD)
Thu, 23 Oct 2025 - 1h 23min - 438 - People Pleasing Is Making You Sick!
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
People Pleasing is a compulsive strategy that disavows your needs and surrenders your agency. It begins in family systems that only reward compliance, which produces a false self. If your soul is constantly devalued, you may develop dependent narcissism with a covert contract: “I’ll keep you happy, and you’ll keep me safe.” Healing comes when you identify your true experience—notice whether you feel drained, tense, or obligated versus calm, interested, or genuinely willing. Give yourself permission to pause before agreeing. Say, “I’ll think about it,” step away to check in, rate how much you do or don’t like the request, and give a clear yes/no. Say yes only when it aligns with your values and can be revised; a yes aimed at managing someone else’s mood or bolstering your self-worth is unhealthy and requires deeper work. Growth requires inner authority and the courage to be disliked so that your choices follow Psyche rather than external approval.
Read along with the dream HERE.
Find the books we reference here.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 09 Oct 2025 - 1h 20min - 437 - [SUBSCRIBER BONUS] How Do the Negative Mother and Negative Animus Collude?
In this free edition of Jung Love, our subscriber bonus content, a Patron asks:
"What are the dynamics in a woman's psyche of the collusion between the negative mother and the negative animus?"
Support This Jungian Life on Patreon and ask Lisa, Deb, and Joseph your questions for a chance to have them answered on Jung Love.
Sun, 05 Oct 2025 - 10min - 436 - If Looks Could Kill: The Death Mother Archetype
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Some mothers attack life in their children. They crush appetite, joy, curiosity, and initiative. They call it love or duty. It is not love. It is domination dressed as care. She withholds warmth to make the child obedient. She intrudes when the child needs space and vanishes when the child needs help. She shames tears, punishes play, mocks ambition, and polices the body. She turns boundaries into punishments and favors into chains. The Death Mother archetype is ancient and modern, requiring careful confrontation to free the parent and the child from its destructive grip. Today, we will help you do this.
Read along with the dream HERE.
Find the books we reference here, and here.
Eavesdrop on three Jungian analysts as they engage in lively, sometimes irreverent conversations about a wide range of topics as they share what it's like to see the world through the depth psychological lens provided by Carl Jung. Conversations between real people—never AI.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 02 Oct 2025 - 1h 18min - 435 - Projection & Play: What Dolls Do to Psyche
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Dolls are human stand-ins that invite projection and play; children use them (including action figures and Barbies) to try on identities and develop imagination, then later withdraw the projection as the figure becomes inert again. Icons and idols differ because their meaning is fixed and not for play, which limits imaginative engagement. The healthiest use of dolls is symbolic—relating to them without collapsing into literal belief—while overly realistic “reborn” dolls, talk-box toys, and similar literalizations can narrow imagination, blur symbol and reality. Across history, dolls have served ritual, funerary, and “sympathetic magic” functions, echoing a recurring human urge to craft lifelike figures and “breathe life” into them. A modern parallel appears in AI’s disembodied mirroring—an echo that can soothe but does not foster embodied, self-generated play. The practical test: does the figure expand inner life and integrate feeling, or does it substitute for reality and stunt imagination? Dreams carry the same work inward; their figures function like internal dolls that invite dialogue and meaning-making.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 25 Sep 2025 - 1h 18min - 434 - MYTHS: Maps of the Collective Unconscious
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Think of myths as the dreams of an entire culture. Those stories reside in the collective unconscious and influence all of us throughout our lifespan. Mythic patterns shape our attitudes, and when we recognize them, we can link our personal experiences to the universal. When you’re panicking, you’re under the influence of Pan; when you’re sunk in gloom, you’re on a night-sea journey like Odysseus. Jungians’ call linking the personal to the universal, amplification: take a symptom, link it to a myth, and you’ve shifted it from “my private defect” to “a shared force,” which gives us objectivity. Jung noticed that when we lose awareness of the mythic, those patterns secretly affect us and tend to act themselves out, sometimes recklessly. Today, we’ll help you bring these grand narratives into awareness and understand how they help and, at times, hinder you.
Read along with the dream HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 18 Sep 2025 - 1h 06min - 433 - BULLYING: When Aggression Runs Wild
Join us for a free Zoom seminar on Dreams and Art on Saturday, September 13th, at 10:30 am EST.Register here.
Bullying is about unmanaged aggression and broken containment in early life. Aggression is normal, but kids need adults to name it, hold it, and channel it into play with clear rules. When that doesn’t happen, some children learn to control and humiliate to feel safe, while others shut down and can’t access protective anger. Bullying works as a quick fix for shame or missing recognition, or as an enactment of a harsh inner critic; it gives brief relief and then flips into emptiness. In pairs and groups, people assign disowned traits to a target and attack them, and the crowd effect spreads cruelty while personal conscience fades. Schools should step in directly and calmly: set firm limits, bring the conflict into speech, teach regulation, build empathy, and help vulnerable students practice plain, assertive pushback. Change is easier in childhood; in adults, the pattern hardens and can cross into legal trouble. The ongoing task is individuation and shadow work: own the times you bullied or collapsed, take back what you projected, and use aggression for boundaries and clarity rather than domination or surrender.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 11 Sep 2025 - 1h 37min - 432 - Jung’s Inner Guides: The Secret of The Red Book
Join us for a free Zoom seminar on Dreams and Art on Saturday, September 13th, at 10:30 am EST.Register here.
Jung’s Red Book is the primary research record of his systematic experiments in active imagination after the break with Freud, combining calligraphic German text and paintings that document dialogues with his inner guides—especially Philemon and Salome—which became source material for his innovative psychological concepts: Psyche’s autonomy, the collective unconscious, the transcendent function, and individuation. The Red Book reveals the secret source of his groundbreaking ideas.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 04 Sep 2025 - 1h 09min - 431 - [SUBSCRIBER BONUS] How Do We Know When to 'Trust' Dreams?
In this free edition of Jung Love, our subscriber bonus content, a Patron asks:
"Has there ever been a time in your life when a dream or series of dreams seemed to be telling you one thing, but you decided to go against it regardless? If so, what was the result?
Is it always safe to assume that dreams are acting in your best interest or is there a possibility that, like an autoimmune disease causes a person's body to attack itself, your psyche can be self-destructive and deceitful? How do we know when to trust dreams?"
Support This Jungian Life on Patreon and ask Lisa, Deb, and Joseph your questions for a chance to have them answered on Jung Love.
Sun, 31 Aug 2025 - 14min - 430 - The Creative Power of Inner Tension
You're invited to join us for a free Zoom seminar on Dreams and Art on Saturday, September 13th, at 10:30am ET. Register here.
---
Holding the tension of the opposites means that when you’re pulled hard in two different directions, you don’t rush to choose or shut one side down—you keep both viewpoints in mind and let each be heard with equal rights, as if two people were debating inside you. If you can stand that pressure without fleeing, something new appears from the unconscious: a symbol or fresh idea that is a living, third thing that includes truth from both sides.
This is the transcendent function that produces a new attitude you couldn’t reach by willpower alone. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s how Psyche grows without discarding essential parts of itself. Today, we’ll teach you how to do this.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 28 Aug 2025 - 1h 13min - 429 - IMAGINATION: Jung’s Path to Creativity and Inner Freedom
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Imagination is a central organ of human perception, as vital as the senses, through which we access meaning, creativity, and the unconscious. It first appeared as an evolutionary leap that allowed humans to run mental simulations, project into the future, and innovate new tools, myths, and symbols. It operates voluntarily—when we actively plan, rehearse, or fantasize—and involuntarily, through dreams, hypnagogic images, and sudden inspirations. It offers insights we could not have predicted.
Imagination provides the bridge between unconscious and conscious life, most present in active imagination, where inner figures reveal truths. It is healing and liberating: it anchors us in personal and collective myth, fosters creativity by joining disparate elements into new forms, and provides access to the mundus imaginalis, a subtle world of archetypal experience. Without cultivating imagination, our inner life stagnates; with it, we belong to something greater, deeper, and more sustaining.
Read along with the dream here.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 21 Aug 2025 - 1h 03min - 428 - SOLUTIO: The Alchemy of Letting Go
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Solutio is Psyche’s method to facilitate transformation: our rigid ego is softened in symbolic water, allowing outworn attitudes to unbind. We can see this reflected in dreams of oceans and baths, or a wall of our house dissolving. This can show up when we slough off our work persona or a creative depression brought on by retirement. Analysis itself—ana-lysis—a deliberate loosening, can deepen the process by offering a safe container to let go and yield to the process. The work is careful because the waters that purify (baptism or tears) can also drown us (psychosis or crowd contagion). We require a supportive relationship, a daily spiritual practice, or the analytic hour to hold us as our ego reorganizes like a butterfly in a chrysalis.
Once our ego solidifies, we notice we’re more permeable to symbols or less defended against feelings. We’re more skilled at breaking problems into their component parts with a determination to resist regressing. The alchemical process was not created; it was noticed as a natural pattern of transformation. It leaves us with more of who we really are, but we couldn’t have claimed until we became soft enough to receive it.
Read along with the dream.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 14 Aug 2025 - 1h 15min - 427 - Jack and the Beanstalk: When Magic Calls Us Into Life
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Jack and the Beanstalk is a symbolic prescription for psychological growth, teaching us to climb out of darkness, confront the giants within, claim the gifts of our unconscious, and transform our ordinary lives. Join us as we reveal the secret meaning hidden in the fairytale.
Read along with the dream.
LOOK & GROW
Join Lisa's Vital Spark Book club!
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 07 Aug 2025 - 1h 31min - 426 - THE QUICKENING: Discovering New Life Within
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Dreams about pregnancy and babies symbolize something new taking shape within us, like a creative project, a hidden talent, or a psychological shift that's quietly developing beneath our awareness. These images express the mysterious tension we sense during periods of growth, change, or potential, drawing our attention inward and challenging our current identity or circumstances. When our symbolic baby finally arrives in the dream, it reveals a hidden part of ourselves that is now ready to enter consciousness, creating both excitement and anxiety about how this new aspect will fit into our lives. Join us to explore how dreams of pregnancy or babies reveal our emergent potential.
Find the dreams we analyze HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join Lisa's Vital Spark Book club!
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 31 Jul 2025 - 1h 06min - 425 - [SUBSCRIBER BONUS] How Can Understanding Symbols Help Us in Everyday Life?
In this free edition of Jung Love, our subscriber bonus content, a Patron asks:
"I keep hearing and reading that symbols are healing and transformative for people, but this concept is so arbitrary to me. I need some very specific and concrete examples of how a symbol can help a person in the various dilemmas of life we all can face. Can you please give a few examples in layman's terms?"
Support This Jungian Life on Patreon and ask Lisa, Deb, and Joseph your questions for a chance to have them answered on Jung Love.
LOOK & GROW
Join Lisa's Vital Spark Book club!
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Tue, 29 Jul 2025 - 15min - 424 - Wounds into Wisdom: Carl Jung’s Private Life
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Carl Jung’s discoveries are woven into our common understanding. Introvert/extravert, shadow work, typology, persona, and synchronicity pop up in casual conversations all the time. Negotiating with our inner figures, now used by Internal Family Systems, was pioneered by him. Although we have adopted his ideas, few know how they were forged from his personal struggles. Today, we honor Jung’s 150th birthday by sharing stories from his life and how they shaped his groundbreaking insights.
Find the dream we analyze here.
Find the books we reference here.
LOOK & GROW
Join Lisa's Vital Spark Book club!
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 24 Jul 2025 - 58min - 423 - Calcinatio and the Alchemy of Honest Suffering
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
The calcinatio stage in Jung's alchemy is about being put through inner fire—it's when the ego undergoes a kind of burning away of projections, illusions, and inflated ideas about itself. This stage often brings intense suffering, frustration, and confrontation with parts of yourself you'd rather avoid. It's about staying awake in the heat long enough to discover the truths behind your defenses. Sometimes it's like sitting in hell and roasting. This raw, honest suffering is necessary for individuation. It's not punishment—it's Psyche's way of depotentiating false structures so that something new and more truthful can emerge from the ashes.
Follow along with our dream interpretation here.
LOOK & GROW
Join Lisa's Vital Spark Book club!
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 17 Jul 2025 - 1h 29min - 422 - DISCOVERING A NEW ARCHETYPE: The Buddhabrot Fractal Bridging Math, Myth, and the Collective Unconscious
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
The Buddhabrot pattern springs from a simple algorithm: you take thousands of starting points, run each one through the same formula over and over, and chart only those whose values grow without limit—these “divergent” paths form the spectral Buddha-like silhouette. Once you recognize the pattern, you see it everywhere. It’s visible in the rosette stained glass windows of Notre-Dame de Paris and Chartres, numerous representations of the buddha, as well as in the Vāstu-Puruṣa-Maṇḍala used as blueprints for Indian temples, and in the ancient chakra symbols that are now so common—proof that numbers are universal symbols tying Psyche to the world. This is a newly identified archetype: an algorithmic icon born of computation that reveals an underlying cosmic unity that C.G. Jung called the Unus Mundus. Dr. Harry J. Shirley joins us and provides an amazing initiation into this uncanny discovery.
Learn more about the Buddhabrot and watch the original video from AfterSkool here.
Find Dr. Harry Shirley on: Patreon X
Read his paper, The Buddhabrot and the Unus Mundus.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 10 Jul 2025 - 1h 26min - 421 - The Handless Maiden: A Tale to Heal the Wounded Feminine
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Everyone faces a moment when they are tempted to sacrifice their true self to chase wealth, approval, success, or security, but doing so strips away their strength and leaves them hollow. To reclaim their lost agency, a person must embrace the uncertainty and vulnerability they've been avoiding. They must stand alone, undefended, and trust the wisdom hidden in their wounds. The Handless Maiden fairytale will help us understand the path back to wholeness.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 03 Jul 2025 - 1h 13min - 420 - Taming Your Inner Critic: Turn Self-Attack into Self-Awareness
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Our inner critic—that voice constantly tearing us down—can stem from difficult childhood experiences, negative cultural messages, or even powerful archetypal forces deep within us. While healthy self-assessment involves honestly owning our mistakes, feeling genuine regret, and making amends, the harsh inner critic keeps us stuck in cycles of self-hatred and shame.
Sometimes, beating ourselves up can actually be a sneaky way to avoid openly engaging a problem or soberly accepting responsibility. The trick is to slow down, get curious, and talk back to that voice—to have an honest inner dialogue rather than just giving in. At its worst, the inner critic can be devastating, pulling us toward despair; that's precisely when we need the support of others and deeper wisdom—turning toward the Self will help us find a path to peace.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE.
Here’s a list of the books we discussed.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Learn more about the Philadelphia Jung Seminar
Thu, 26 Jun 2025 - 1h 19min - 419 - SHARK: Elemental Symbol of Our Will to Survive and Ravenous Hunger for Experience
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Primeval, silent, relentless—the shark announces itself as its fin slices the water. In that instant, ego’s barriers shudder and give way: you’re not anxious; you’re utterly alert, stripped of distraction by a force both familiar and uncanny.
When you stop battling that raw terror and honor it—offer a silent libation of attention—the predator becomes a protector. Here, in the shark’s unblinking gaze, you meet the stranger in your depths, the animality you once fled, now guiding you to face what you’ve long denied.
Read along with our dream analysis HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 19 Jun 2025 - 52min - 418 - MOTIVATION: What Happens When Your Get-Up-and-Go Leaves Without You?
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Motivation rises from conscious and unconscious dynamics. We can reason with ourselves to take logical action while our libido flows with its own intelligence. When these two aspects align, we find ourselves acting decisively and effectively with remarkable freedom. When we’re at odds with the secret intelligence of the unconscious, we can find ourselves uncomfortably suspended. As we honor the autonomy of Psyche and cultivate a curious friendship with it, we can discover a creative collaboration that sets us in a fresh direction aligned with the Self.
Read along with our dream analysis HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 12 Jun 2025 - 1h 05min - 417 - Sibling Rivalry: Archetypal Conflicts and Shadow Dynamics in Families
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Sibling rivalry can bruise and build in equal measure. On the hard side, the older child feels toppled from the throne, the younger scrambles for a foothold, and both learn how quickly envy, resentment, and score-keeping ignite—whether over a parent’s extra hour of attention or the larger slice of birthday cake. Those early contests can calcify into adult grudges that surface in estate negotiations, workplace jockeying, or mismatched relationships.
Yet the same daily friction teaches useful skills: we sharpen empathy by reading a sibling’s next move, develop a theory of mind through constant negotiation, and discover that competition does not rule out loyalty—especially when a crisis calls every rival home. Listen and discover how sibling rivalry is both the first training ground for conflict and the first workshop for cooperation, shaping how we handle fairness, attachment, and resilience for the rest of our lives.
Read along with our dream analysis HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 05 Jun 2025 - 1h 11min - 416 - Mandala Archetype: How the Self Turns Chaos into Cosmos
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Mandalas are Psyche’s way of drawing a compass for you when life feels off-kilter. Jung noticed that these circular patterns—whether they appear in Navajo sand paintings, Tibetan yantras, or last night’s dream—pull everything back toward a stable center he called the Self.
The rim defines where your ego ends; the cross-lines and repeating fours help you locate sensation, feeling, thinking, and intuition in relation to your core. By “walking” the circle, even in imagination, the ego learns to orbit rather than hijack the organizing center, and the usual tug-of-war between instinct and spirit eases.
Jung’s own Liverpool dream, with its sunlit circular island in a dark industrial square, showed him how a mandala can emerge autonomously whenever Psyche needs to order chaos and point the way back to wholeness. Curious why a circle keeps popping up in dreams and sacred art?—listen in and find out how it can quietly realign your life.
*Featuring our new Q&A section where we answer questions from our Patrons!
GO DIRECTLY TO THE Q&A: 43:29
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 29 May 2025 - 1h 12min - 415 - House Dreams: Schematics of Your Psychological Functioning
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
When a house turns up in a dream, it isn’t a staging background—it’s an architectural X-ray of your inner life, drafted by the dream maker overnight and delivered to your doorstep at dawn. Floors chart levels of awareness, locked doors expose repressed material, intruders crash in as disowned traits, and every leaking pipe or crooked stair announces a personal attitude in need of repair.
In this episode, we’ll teach you how to read the blueprint with the same clarity you’d bring to structural engineering, and your dream will hand you a working map for shadow work, boundary-setting, and genuine psychic renovation.
Read along with our dream interpretations HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 22 May 2025 - 1h 20min - 414 - Ready for the Real Snow White? The True Tale of Envy, Murder, and Retribution
NEW: Come along to our free Shadow and Dreams Seminar on May 17
Ever wonder why “Snow White” still hooks us after all the Disney glitter flakes off? This episode strips the tale down to its psychological wiring: murderous envy of the mother shadow, malignant innocence, the unforgiving “mirror” inside that only answers the questions we’re brave enough to ask, and the dangerous alchemy that transforms three lethal mistakes into mature authority.
You’ll hear why the dwarflike bits of half-formed masculinity in all of us mine gold from the unconscious, how raw instinct often finishes the work refined methods can’t, and how real agency activates only when infantile fantasies are forged into a powerful animus. It’s a crash course in holding onto wonder while crafting ruthless boundaries—if that mix intrigues you, dive into the full conversation.
*Featuring our new Q&A section where we answer questions from our Patrons!
LOOK & GROW
Attend Our Free Shadow and Dreams Seminar
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 15 May 2025 - 1h 38min - 413 - Forging the Upward Thread: Why Do We Create Religions?
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
The religious function is part of who we are — as natural as needing food or love. It’s the inner drive that pushes us to find meaning, to touch something larger than ourselves. Jung saw that if we don’t tend it, it doesn’t go away; it twists itself into addictions, compulsions, or a kind of soul-sickness. Religion, in the deepest sense, isn’t about belief systems.
It’s about real encounters with the Self — the larger reality inside us that humbles, heals, and reshapes us. Dreams, symbols, and moments of awe are how Psyche keeps that connection alive. Without them, the energies meant for growth get stuck or spill out in destructive ways. In this episode, you’ll learn how to stay open and reimagine ways the sacred can speak to you.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Attend Our Free Shadow and Dreams Seminar
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 08 May 2025 - 1h 02min - 412 - Trauma Can Be Rewritten: The Use of Art to Reimagine our Past and Grant Us New Life
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Viviane Silvera animated 30,000 of her hand-painted images to explore how traumatic memories are formed, stored, and ultimately transformed. Her animated documentary, SEE MEMORY, traces the intimate story of a young woman caught between past and present; her film captures the fragmented texture of trauma and the healing that becomes possible when painful memories are witnessed. In our conversation with Viviane, we explore her process of recovering lost memories and how opposing perspectives can constellate new attitudes toward trauma. We discuss cutting-edge findings on the way the brain stores and changes memory and reveal the intersection of art, science, and psyche.
Watch SEE MEMORY on PBS (now live!): Streaming Link
Here's a list of all the broadcastDATES
About Viviane:
Viviane Silvera is an award-winning artist and filmmaker whose work blends painting, animation, and neuroscience to illuminate memory, trauma, and the unconscious. She holds a dual B.S. in Psychology and Political Science from Tufts University and an MFA from the New York Academy of Art.
Read along with our dream analysis HERE
LOOK & GROW
Attend Our Free Shadow and Dreams Seminar
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 01 May 2025 - 1h 27min - 411 - How to Develop Your Inner Guidance: Charting a Path Through the Current Chaos with Jung’s Insights
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Today you'll learn about inner guidance--the quiet, built-in compass that surfaces when we pause the outer noise long enough to feel what rings true inside. It is less a mystical oracle than a subtle convergence of bodily signals, emotional undertones, and intuitive "hunches" distilled from our lived experience.
When we meet a decision with open attention—neither forcing a rational verdict nor surrendering to raw impulse—this inner faculty sorts, weighs, and hints at the direction that aligns with our deepest values. Acting on it demands two skills: discerning authentic signals from fear or wishful thinking and then trusting ourselves enough to follow through. Practiced regularly, inner guidance becomes a dialogue between conscious intention and the wiser, often quieter currents of the Self.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Attend Our Free Shadow and Dreams Seminar
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 24 Apr 2025 - 1h 24min - 410 - [SUBSCRIBER-BONUS] How to work with Shadow Material.
In this free edition of Jung Love, oursubscriber-bonus content, a Patron asks:
"What do you do with shadow material? Is it enough to just become aware of your shadows? Or does it require a fixing of oneself? What is the process of processing it? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the shadow. What if I'm aware, but still don't like the shadow? Robert Johnson talked about rituals for the shadow. Can you speak about that in more depth and perhaps provide some examples?"
BECOME a TJL Patron and enjoy exclusive content like interpreting your dreams, explaining Jung's ideas, and more:TJL PATREON
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Sun, 20 Apr 2025 - 14min - 409 - Shadow and Self in Adolescence: Navigating Rage, Love, and Individuation
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Think of adolescence as life’s built‑in boot camp: your body hits the gas, your mind scrambles to keep up, and suddenly you’re wrestling with raw impulses, big feelings, and the question “Who am I, really?” That surge of anger toward parents often hides an intense love that feels too risky to show, so teens push back while secretly measuring whether adults—and the wider world—can handle their storm.
Without clear rites of passage, they test limits through friends, online thrills, and daring choices, all in service of hammering out a story that’s theirs, not just a hand‑me‑down from family. If they can ride those waves—owning both the wild Shadow and the hopeful Self—they step into adulthood with a genuine sense of direction; if they dodge the work, the unfinished business shows up later as anxiety, depression, or a nagging sense of being stuck.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 17 Apr 2025 - 1h 42min - 408 - From Worry to Insight: Making Sense of Uncertainty
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Worry arises because we can imagine countless possibilities, yet it often traps us in unproductive loops. Recognizing when worry prompts useful action—and when it spirals into paralysis—can be transformative. By holding uncertainty with patience, rather than trying to eliminate it, we engage a deeper capacity to reflect, adapt, and discover hidden strength.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 10 Apr 2025 - 1h 19min - 407 - Detective Archetype Decoded: Tracking Symbolic Clues
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Ever felt that irresistible urge to poke around for answers? That’s the detective archetype calling. It taps into our natural drive to uncover hidden truths and bridges the gap between what’s out in the open and what’s hidden in shadow. Whether we’re looking at Sherlock Holmes’s logical wizardry or Miss Marple’s understated brilliance, detective stories grab our attention by setting things right when wrongdoing has thrown everyday life off-balance.
But these tales aren’t just about catching a culprit; they mirror an inner process. It’s the part of us that wants to piece together clues about ourselves and our world. Sometimes, we can get lost in suspicion, seeing danger where there might be none—but courage and clear-eyed discernment help us face the darkness without being consumed by it. From ancient myths like Oedipus to modern shamanic traditions, cultures everywhere highlight this inquisitive spirit.
And it’s not confined to police dramas, either. We do everyday detective work whenever we investigate a health concern, solve a mystery with friends, or sift through family lore. Uncovering what’s concealed can spark genuine insight and, over time, help heal both individuals and communities. Tune in to find out how this detective archetype shines a light on our need to seek truth—revealing new possibilities for discovery and growth.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 03 Apr 2025 - 53min - 406 - Analytical Patisserie: When Pastry Sparked Genius
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
In 1906, during Carl Jung’s formative visit to Vienna to confer with Sigmund Freud, a seemingly incidental stop at the renowned Café Sacher catalyzed his enduring fascination with pastry-making. At the time, Freud was actively refining his drive-based theories—including the pleasure principle—and while Jung had not yet formulated his later concepts, his curiosity was piqued by the Sachertorte’s complex interplay of technique and sensory allure.
Authentically prepared Sachertorte requires an aerated chocolate batter produced via partial egg-white separation and a precise bain-marie melting of couverture; it must then be baked at a consistent, moderate temperature to maintain its signature crumb structure. Once cooled, a meticulously reduced apricot preserves layer is applied, sealing the surface to ensure proper adhesion of the tempered chocolate glaze—a step that, if rushed, can lead to bloom or unsightly streaking.
Witnessing the pastry’s transformation intrigued Jung, who recognized parallels to contemporary psychoanalytic notions of hidden layers and emerging desires. While he would only later evolve his own independent framework, Jung’s early enthusiasm for ganache, lamination, and the delicate management of chocolate crystallization laid the groundwork for viewing culinary processes as more than mere indulgence, foreshadowing his lifelong interest in subtle internal dynamics and the nuanced “mixing” of psychic elements. Join us to learn more…
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Tue, 01 Apr 2025 - 36min - 405 - Unlocking the Power of Your Shadow
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Connie Zweig, author and Jungian therapist, joins us to explore the next level of shadow-work. This transformative practice identifies and integrates the repressed or disowned parts of ourselves, fostering deeper self-awareness, authenticity, and personal growth. These hidden dimensions often emerge in our relationships, politics, and cultural conflicts as unconscious projections and behaviors.
By examining them—through dialogue, myth, and active imagination—we can move beyond shame, denial, and blame, transforming painful patterns into sources of emotional richness and empathy. Accepting and learning from our shadow is not only a path to healing but a moral responsibility, ultimately paving the way for more authentic relationships, social engagement, and spiritual practice.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 27 Mar 2025 - 44min - 404 - The Boundary Paradox: How Limits Create Freedom
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Boundaries define limits in relationships, work, and the psyche, balancing autonomy and connection. In relationships, they prevent enmeshment and detachment, fostering respect. Professionally, they maintain ethics and prevent burnout. Intrapsychically, they regulate self-cohesion and unconscious influences.
Cultures shape boundary norms, with individualistic societies valuing personal space and collectivist ones emphasizing connection. Myths depict boundaries as transformative thresholds, like Janus symbolizing transition. The key dialectic is between rigidity and permeability—too rigid isolates, too porous exhausts. Healthy boundaries require self-awareness, clear communication, and adaptability. They are not barriers but tools for navigating relationships while preserving identity and well-being.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE.
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 20 Mar 2025 - 1h 10min - 403 - VISIONS: When the Mystery Breaks Through
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Carl Jung considered visions extraordinary intrusions of the unconscious into waking life, moments when hidden psychic contents press forward with striking intensity. These phenomena do not represent mere hallucinations or idle fantasies. They reflect purposeful eruptions from Psyche’s deeper strata, often evoked by personal crisis or cultural upheaval. Visions stand apart from normal mental processes because they carry a sense of autonomy; they appear spontaneously and feel real despite an absence of tangible external stimuli.
Unlike psychotic hallucinations, which generally lack insight, visions evoke wonder or awe but do not lead to a break with reality. Instead of dismissing them as illusions, we should explore their symbolic significance and trace their relationship to archetypal patterns. Visions may emerge to correct lopsided ego positions, illuminate a coming transformation, or highlight a collective shift in cultural identity. These visionary breakthroughs disclose hidden potentials that challenge complacency and spark deeper self-awareness through symbolic revelation.
Read along with our dream interpretation HERE
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 13 Mar 2025 - 1h 12min - 402 - DREAM TELEPATHY: Is it real?
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Join us this week to explore the results of our grand experiment in dream telepathy. A few weeks back, Joseph transmitted an image our listener volunteers were primed to receive, with the hope that it would appear in their dreams.
Joseph shares some uncanny experiences listeners reported during his transmissionWe dive into the dreams that were matches for the beautiful image of a reddish-furred dog. Jung's understanding of dream telepathy, and how this ties into his concept of the collective unconscious. IF YOU WANT TO SEE THE IMAGE JOSEPH PROJECTED, CLICK HERE
The results? Intriguing, if not conclusive.
On today's episode:LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
Thu, 06 Mar 2025 - 57min - 401 - SHADOWLAND: Self-Harm Cults – The Story of Sarah
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
*Content warning: contains references to sexual abuse, animal cruelty, self-harm, and cult exploitation*
This is Shadowland, a new podcast experience from This Jungian Life that explores the lives of people who work and take refuge in the hidden places of our culture. We hope our work will bring insight, compassion, and understanding to the darker side of human experience.
In that spirit, we meet Sarah, a mother whose daughter was rescued from the self-harm cult called "764." This dangerous group has been identified by the FBI, who continue to prosecute their leaders. Despite those efforts, it continues and targets children. We explore how she discovered her daughter's entrapment, the process of recovery, the growing danger of these types of groups, and the toll it has taken on her. Sarah's ongoing work investigating these cults requires that we protect her identity. We are using a pseudonym, altering her voice, and obscuring her face.
*FBI Public Service Announcement. Violent Online Groups Extort Minors to Self-Harm
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We’d like to take a crack at interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark, trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 27 Feb 2025 - 1h 27min - 400 - The Symbolism of Travel Inner and Outer
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!Travel speaks to something far deeper in us than simply going from one place to another; it’s a powerful metaphor for inner change. In our dreams or daydreams, the drive to “hit the road” or venture overseas often signals Psyche’s desire for growth and transformation. Instead of just showing us new sights, these journeys hint at unexplored parts of ourselves—regions of the unconscious that hold insight, energy, or aspects of our own personality we’ve yet to embrace.
When you find yourself repeatedly dreaming about traveling or caught up in fantasies of far-off adventures, it may be your inner life nudging you toward new perspectives, solutions, or even a bold reinvention. Much like ancient heroes setting sail to unknown realms, we, too, embark on soul-level quests whenever we step beyond our comfort zones. Seen this way, traveling—physically or in our dreams—becomes a path to self-discovery. Each trek outward reflects a deeper journey within as we gradually gather up previously hidden pieces of ourselves, weaving them into a truer, fuller picture of who we are meant to become.
Find Copies of the Three Dreams We Analyze HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/travel_dreams
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 20 Feb 2025 - 1h 00min - 399 - FACING REJECTION
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Facing Rejection forces us to confront what we fear losing—belonging, recognition, identity. Rejection alters how we see ourselves, engage with others, and interpret the world. It shapes unconscious complexes, creates projections, and influences attachment. It appears in myths where exiled figures return transformed, in dreams where locked doors symbolize what we refuse to see, and in defenses against further pain. Healing from rejection requires engaging with its effects, not avoiding them. Some of us externalize rejection, which becomes resentment, further isolating us. Others internalize it as self-doubt, creating cycles of withdrawal and hiding. Some break the pattern, using rejection as a catalyst for self-development, learning to integrate what was once denied. Rejection strips away illusions, forces an encounter with shadow, and demands a new understanding of self-worth. It is present in villains seeking revenge, heroes growing through exile, and those transforming suffering into insight. Growth is not in avoiding rejection but facing its effects without retreating into bitterness or fear. In today’s episode, we explore how rejection influences Psyche, how myths encode its lessons, how shadow work leads to integration, and how individuation turns rejection into wisdom.
PREPARE TO DISCOVER what rejection reveals about the forces that shape our experiences, how rejection creates opportunities for transformation, which unconscious patterns emerge when rejection is internalized, whether rejection leads to individuation, why rejection is necessary to reclaim unconscious material …AND SO MUCH MORE.
Here’s a copy of the dream we analyzed: https://thisjungianlife.com/facing-rejection
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
We’d like to take a crack interpreting your dream.
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock yourdreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 13 Feb 2025 - 1h 07min - 398 - The Archetypal Brain: Jung from an Evolutionary Perspective
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
With Deb and Joe out this week, Lisa speaks with Gary Clark, a visiting research fellow at the University of Adelaide, about his book Carl Jung and the Evolutionary Sciences.
The discussion delves into the influence of indigenous cultures on understanding consciousness, the role of anthropology in Jung's work, and the implications of evolutionary development on human psychology.
Humanity's ancient rituals underscore the importance of integrating the primordial emotional brain with the newer neocortex. Reconnecting to these practices in a contemporary setting can help facilitate integration and well-being, especially during the tumultuous adolescent years.
Gary and Lisa further explore the connections between maternal love, Jungian psychology, and the biological underpinnings of social bonding. They discuss the concepts of anima and animus, and the psychological implications of sex-based differences.
They also delve into the roles of Eros and Logos in understanding gender differences and the potential of psychedelics in exploring consciousness. More than ever, there is a pressing need for a synthesis of modern scientific understanding with the rich, archetypal dimensions of human experience.
Learn more about our Dream Telepathy Project
Find the books mentioned in the show
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 06 Feb 2025 - 1h 38min - 397 - Changing the Foundation of Personality: the Secret Power of Attitudes
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Transformation isn’t about muscling through change—it’s about loosening the grip on rigid perspectives so energy can move. Resist, and the unconscious will find a way forward anyway—through symptoms, dreams, and compulsions that shake up the illusion of control. Neurosis is just a traffic jam in the psyche—energy stuck where it no longer belongs. Real change isn’t an intellectual hack; it’s a shift in how we hold and release energy. The unconscious doesn’t hand out easy answers; it reveals what’s missing. Healing isn’t about control—it’s about letting things realign. The more we resist, the more we stay stuck. The moment we allow, the shift begins. What follows doesn’t just describe transformation—it helps it happen.
Find a Copy of the Dream we Analyze HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/attitudesLOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 30 Jan 2025 - 1h 18min - 396 - What Remains When All Is Taken: Standing in the LA Fires
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
Fire strips everything away, leaving only what truly matters. In the wake of the Los Angeles wildfires, homes have become ash, familiar streets are unrecognizable, and life feels uncertain. But fire is not just destructive—it is also transformational.
Pamela Power, a Los Angeles Jungian analyst and author, joins us to explore the tensions within this experience. Fire erases yet reveals. It devastates yet clears space for renewal. Loss forces us to let go yet also asks: What endures? Though grief pulls us down, something in us reaches toward life. The weight of ashes is real, but so is the quiet, unseen stirring of what comes next.
Find the dream we analyze HERE: www.thisjungianlife.com/LAwildfires/
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 23 Jan 2025 - 1h 05min - 395 - Feet, Fashion, and Freedom: Shoes as Symbols of Identity
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
What do the choices we make about the things we carry and wear reveal about who we are and the paths we take in life?
Shoes as Symbols connect identity, culture, and creative adaptation. Shoes reflect our movement through life and mark pivotal transitions, helping us hold the tension between vulnerability and agency. They appear in myths and stories as agents of change, signaling the emergence of a new attitude and facilitating its embodiment. The simple act of wearing shoes bridges the physical and psychological, grounding us while enabling exploration. Shoes communicate individual and collective identity, shaping and revealing roles in society. Tales, like Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes and Cinderella with her glass slippers, dramatize the tension between freedom and constraint, alienation and belonging. Exploring shoes in cultural narratives reveals their role in expressing and shaping psyche. Whether it’s the first tiny black patent leather shoes for a holiday or the first ski boots, their presence in childhood marks key moments of growth and self-discovery. Shoes empower us to adventure forward by protecting our vulnerable feet in innumerable styles that reflect the way we wish to be seen. Without realizing it, every step reveals where we’ve come from and where we are heading.
Prepare to discover… what shoes signify about the evolving relationship between our inner selves and the outer world we traverse, how shoes function as symbols of the soul's journey, expressing shifts in identity and steps toward psychological integration, which stories use shoes to represent the critical thresholds of life, such as independence, power, and self-discovery, whether the symbolic act of wearing or discarding shoes reveals the psyche’s readiness for change or its resistance to transformation, why shoes, seemingly mundane objects, have become symbols of the human struggle for purpose, freedom, and meaning…and so much more.
FIND A COPY OF THE DREAM WE ANALYZE HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/shoes-as-symbols
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 16 Jan 2025 - 1h 12min - 394 - Analyzing Our Childhood Dreams
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
What do our earliest dreams reveal about the hidden forces shaping our lives?
Childhood dreams offer unmediated access to the collective unconscious, revealing symbols that shape lifelong development. These dreams often dramatize psyche's early encounters with polarities, fostering individuation through the integration of opposites. Nightmares and numinous imagery invite engagement with shadow and the sacred, acting as catalysts for growth and transformation. By revisiting childhood dreams through active imagination, individuals unlock their latent meanings. These dreams serve as both initiations into personal mythology and ongoing reservoirs of psychic energy, guiding the journey toward wholeness.
Prepare to discover what early encounters with archetypal images reveal about psyche's relationship to the collective unconscious, how psyche uses symbolic opposites to foster growth and balance, which recurring symbols and universal patterns guide psychological transformation, whether unresolved experiences from early life hold latent potential, why numinous imagery provides a foundation for understanding life's deeper meanings…and so much more.
Find a copy of the dreams we analyze HERE: https://thisjungianlife.com/childhood-dreams
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
Lisa’s leading a retreat in ITALY!
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 09 Jan 2025 - 1h 23min - 393 - The Psychology of Meaning: Keys to Authentic Living
DREAM WITH US, and we’ll teach you how to interpret them!
What gives life meaning and guides us through times of emptiness and uncertainty?
The Psychology of Meaning: Keys to Authentic Living explores the processes of self-discovery, purpose, and transformation. Along with James Hollis, Ph.D., we examine how meaning shapes our lives through symbolic living, midlife transitions, dreams, and navigating despair. You’ll gain insights into aligning your inner and outer worlds, reclaiming your lost connections, and making choices that reflect your core values. Join us and wrestle with questions about purpose, fulfillment, and the human journey.
Prepare to discover what meaning is, how it shapes your inner and outer lives, which choices align with your values, whether crises and despair can lead to transformation, why aligning with deeper truths is essential for authentic living…and so much more.
READ ALONG WITH OUR DREAM INTERPRETATION HERE
Find more about James Hollis HERE
LOOK & GROW
Join THIS JUNGIAN LIFE DREAM SCHOOL
Do you have a topic you want us to cover?
WE NEED YOUR HELP! Become a patron to keep TJL running.
We've got totally NEW MERCH!
If you’ve been struggling in the dark trying to find the keys to unlock your dreams, help has arrived. Order your copy of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams from the hosts of This Jungian Life podcast and open the secret door.
Thu, 02 Jan 2025 - 1h 05min
Podcast simili a <nome>
El Partidazo de COPE COPE- Herrera en COPE COPE
- La Linterna COPE
- Dante Gebel Live Dante Gebel
- Es la Mañana de Federico esRadio
- La noche de Cuesta esRadio
- La Trinchera de Llamas esRadio
- Hondelatte Raconte Europe 1
- Affaires sensibles France Inter
- LEGEND Guillaume Pley
- El colegio invisible OndaCero
- La Rosa de los Vientos OndaCero
- Les grands dossiers de l'Histoire par Franck Ferrand Radio Classique
- Espacio en blanco Radio Nacional
- Enquêtes criminelles RTL
- Entrez dans l'Histoire RTL
- Le grand récit RTL
- Les Grosses Têtes RTL
- L'Heure Du Crime RTL
- Parlons-nous RTL
- El Larguero SER Podcast
- SER Historia SER Podcast
- Todo Concostrina SER Podcast
- Un Libro Una Hora SER Podcast
