• “The individual is the only reality. The further we move away from the individual toward abstract ideas about Homo sapiens, the more likely we are to fall into error”.
• “In our efforts to interpret the dream symbols of another person, we are almost invariably hampered by our tendency to fill the unavoidable gaps in our understanding by projection”.
  • Good verbalization of why the individuation process must be driven by yourself.
• “This [eliciting from the patient the realization and confession of their dislikes and fears] is like the much older confession of the Church, which in many ways anticipated modern psychological techniques”.
  • The next steps on the construction of a friendlier, more integrative view on my christian roots may be about finding psychoanalyst value in its motifs, rituals and propositions.
• “Meaning and purposefulness are not the prerogative of the mind”.
  • The main truth missed by the hyper rational persona I built and hid behind is that meaning is not something reachable through rational analysis alone. It emerges from surrendering to what wants to live through me.
• “There is no therapeutic technique or doctrine that is of general application”.
  • Here resides the core of my intuitive dislike for the modern simplifications generally understood as psychology and self-help content.
• “The term ‘archetype’ is often misunderstood as meaning certain definite mythological images or motifs. […] The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif—representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern” .
• “Like the [animal] instincts, the collective thought patterns of the human mind are innate and inherited”.
• “In the mythology of earlier times, these forces were called mana, or spirits, demons, and gods. They are as active today as they ever were. If they conform to our wishes, we call them happy hunches or impulses […] If they go against us, then we say that it is just bad luck, or that certain people are against us […] The one thing we refuse to admit is that we are dependent upon “powers” that are beyond our control”.
  • Hyper rationality creates an immense responsibility, after removing the ability to blame mystical objects for the hardness of reality.
  • The mystical systems I rejected were hiding obvious truth, access to intuition and a more forgiving perspective, where failure is a natural emergence instead of weakness of character.
  • Mi reencuentro con el mito trajo ilusión de control, desplegada en la idea de poder profetizar y crear futuro al convencerme de él. Me explica ahora Jung que la superación de lo hyper rational puede también significar lo opuesto: el control es compartido con fuerzas desconocidas.
• “The motto “where there’s a will, there’s a way” is the superstition of modern man”.
• Suppressed instincts emerge as the problematization of symptoms rather than causes.
• “Why, then, should we deprive ourselves of views [myths, magic, God, the afterlife] that would prove helpful in crises and would give a meaning to our existence?”
  • The hyper rational persona I built was not conscious design, or at least was not ever measured against the value of other perspectives. It was a defense mechanism deployed against the illusion I was presented with, a mere attempt at moving towards the truth.
  • Tampoco el reencuentro con el mito es algo que hubiese podido diseñar. Para que emergiera frente a mí fueron necesarios la vivencia del desencanto vital y un contexto menos punitivo.
• “The interpretation of dreams and symbols demands intelligence. It cannot be turned into a mechanical system and then crammed into unimaginative brains. It demands both an increasing knowledge of the dreamer’s individuality and an increasing self-awareness on the part of the interpreter.”
• “When we attempt to understand symbols, we are not only confronted with the symbol itself, but we are brought up against the wholeness of the symbol-producing individual”.
  • Symbolism in Jung is holistic
• “They [archetypes] are, at the same time, both images and emotions. […] I am aware that it is difficult to grasp this concept, because I am trying to use words to describe something whose very nature makes it incapable of precise definition. But since so many people have chosen to treat archetypes as if they were part of a mechanical system that can be learned by rote, it is essential to insist that they are not mere names, or even philosophical concepts. They are pieces of life itself—images that are integrally connected to the living individual by the bridge of the emotions”.
  • If archetypes point to patterns of life emergence, our access to them can only be indirect, coming through the context of our experience and the psychological content remaining from it. As such, an archetype is ultimately an interpretation of a pattern, informed by its appearances in the specific life experiences and world image of the interpreter.
• “There is one striking difference between the hero myth and the initiation rite. […] the novice for initiation is called upon to give up willful ambition and all desire and to submit to the ordeal. He must be willing to experience this trial without hope of success. […] the purpose remains the same: to create the symbolic mood of death from which may spring the symbolic mood of rebirth”.
• “[…] there is a conflict in our lives between adventure and discipline, evil and virtue, freedom and security […] There is a meeting point between containment and liberation, and we can find it in the rites of initiation […] But the rites do not offer this opportunity invariably, or automatically. They relate to particular phases in the life of an individual and unless they are properly understood and translated into a new way of life, the moment can pass.”
• “You useless mortal man, what do you know about useless trees?”
• “Each of us has a unique task of self-realization. […] Many people have criticized the Jungian approach for not presenting psychic material systematically. But these critics forget that the material itself is a living experience charged with emotion, by nature irrational and ever-changing, which does not lend itself to systematization except in the most superficial fashion.”
• “It is well known that children often forget events that seem impressive to adults but keep a vivid recollection of some incident or story that no one else has noticed. When we look into one of these childhood memories, we usually find that it depicts (if interpreted as if it were a symbol) a basic problem of the child’s psychic make-up.”
  • These events that mark the child, that we could refer to as a variety of core memories, what triggers them? When analyzing mine I realize two different triggers” trauma-based and realization-based. The first one is a painful shock, a traumatic learning, when something external is radically unexpected and intrusive. Normally a first demand of the outer world, as parting ways with your caretaker when joining school, or the first experienced instance of physical aggression. The second type is a sharp feeling of realization. For example, I very vividly remember this apparently inconsequential interaction, in which after seeing somebody fix a table with a hammer, I bring a toy hammer myself trying to emulate the situation, for the amusement of some present adults. In that moment something clicked. My failed attempt at carpentry created the space for something much relevant: formative self-understanding. What was nothing but my natural behavior triggered an unexpected warm reception in those looking, and although I was far from being able to articulate it, that made me realize that performing, simulating, was a way to pertain in reality, to orchestrate interactions between the inner and outer worlds, and at the same time to affect people, obtain their attention and generate favorable reactions. Core memories with triggers of this latter type are integrated into the psyche as critical pieces to understand our relationship with the world, and therefore, correspond with patterns we will find ourselves re-enacting. This comes to explain Jung’s observations on the anticipating character of these experiences, and also the intoxicating idea of humans knowing from an early age, in a faint and almost mystical way, what is ahead for them.
• A serious crisis can’t be fixed by external, vague advice. It requires you to forsake your ideas of yourself and of your place in the world, and to allow redirecting your life towards new objects, defined holistically after careful introspection.
• “If you feel an overwhelming rage coming up in you when a friend reproaches you about a fault, you can be fairly sure that at this point you will find a part of your shadow”
• “The shadow does not consist only of omissions. It shows up just as often in an impulsive or inadvertent act. Before one has time to think, the evil remark pops out, the plot is hatched, the wrong decision is made […]”
• “The anima is a personification of all feminine psychological tendencies in a man’s psyche, such as vague feelings and moods, prophetic hunches, receptiveness to the irrational, capacity for personal love, feeling for nature, and his relation to the unconscious.”
  • The idea of the anima, as the characterization of the repressed, forbidden or idealized femininity, holds huge power. But reading this simplified explanation by Jung makes something clear: my idea of femininity does not fit his. Two relevant realizations:
    • My idea of femininity has been dynamic, and understanding the earlier versions of it could provide more insight into what of it has been repressed or badly integrated.
    • What Jung labels as feminine here, and therefore as anima content, I could have labelled as irrational. Knowing I built and hid behind a hyper-rational persona during my years of formation, could I not conceive of an anima-like characterization of the irrational traits I rejected? Is this rationality-irrationality axis something more central for me than the male-female proposed one?
      • How do both axes correlate?
      • The shift in my conception of femininity has a clear cultural influence. This metacognitive awareness in itself can give for valuable analytical material and for better frameworks to think about my personal lived definitions of gender.