I work with archetypes and it helps me greatly. I'm actually not very comfortable with the word "spiritual", although I sometimes use it because it's a word that other people often relate to. I would always prefer the word "metaphysical" - beyond the physical, which to me is a fusion of physical laws, philosophy and psychology.
For me, metaphysics means there are laws to the universe and to ourselves within it. Such as, what you focus on is what you attract, what you need is revealed to you/provided for you although you might not like it or perhaps even recognise it. Maybe this sounds the same as spirituality to some people but for me I'd rather not use that word if given the choice. For me, spirituality has too much focus on a described idea, and - to be honest - too many ideas about being individually cherished. Metaphysics is simply how things work. Like gravity. It's impersonal in that it's not punishing us, favouring us or otherwise singling us out. But it's personal in that we are each in a very individual and complex situation, in the same way that no two snowflakes are identical.
After some initial trauma therapy (standard person-centred talk therapy with a trauma specialist, which was very helpful) I was lost as to finding a new therapist. I was torn because I was so drawn to Jungian ideas, but I did not want to do analysis. I didn't want to spend two or three sessions a week for a long time analysing my childhood. This might suit other people, and their finances and timescales, but it wasn't for me.
Fortunately, I found out that transpersonal therapy was the kind of mix of standard psychotherapy and Jungian ideas that would suit me. It depends on the individual therapist, as with any kind of therapy, and I like the fact that the transpersonal therapist I found and now see is an integrative (multi-approach) therapist and also a firm believer in practical approaches like dialectical behaviour therapy. She stated very clearly from the outset that she would work with the clients' views, not hers, and did not even require clients to identify with spiritual ideas at all.
My therapist actually sees archetypes a bit differently from me, I think. I follow a concept where we each have the same four fundamental ones (victim, saboteur, prostitute and one of the child archetypes) plus eight others that are our own mix that are with us throughout our lives. Others come and go for us, and we can also draw on them as we need to. This concept is a development of Jung's ideas by Caroline Myss (
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I think my therapist sees archetypes as subpersonalities, and I think there are other therapeutic approaches that also work with subpersonalities but the difference with transpersonal therapy is whether they are seen as with us all our lives or for part of them.
Personally, I relate very much to what Caroline Myss says - that we are born with 12 which remain with us, and others come and go. I have identified my twelve, and the way it explains me, my patterns, and my tendencies is incredibly helpful.
When I was little, we had a maths lesson at school that used Cuisinaire rods (they are different lengths and colours that you can put together in an experiential/tactile way to see that, for example, the blue 7cm rod plus the orange 3cm rod together are the same length as the brown 10cm rod). That single lesson transformed my concept of maths, which up until then had been laborious thinking about 7 apples, 3 apples and 10 apples. Suddenly I completely understood the fundamental relationship between 3, 7 and 10 in a way that was about their innate nature and not having to translate it into the rules of arithmetic. That was exactly what learning about archetypes was for me in relation to understanding myself.
Alchemy... wow, where to start. I've only dipped my toe into this, and I think the power of it to transform things is incredible. I'm not sure what your impression of it is, though. Would you like to say more?
I can't read Jung. I can't get through the sentences, let alone paragraphs, chapters or books. I read Jung "secondhand", through other people's writings. A book that had a big impact on me was "The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit" by Donald Kalsched. It's very dated in its context, which was post-holocaust. However, there were things in the book that resonated with me very directly. One was its reference to Jung's description of how we split ourselves during trauma, which Jung likened to us being on the colour spectrum, and part of us retreating to ultra-violet while another part rushed into infra-red - both still on the spectrum but at extreme ends of it, and only visible now in certain ways.
I'm very careful to see parts of myself as aspects of a whole, and not to confuse that with dissociative identify disorder, which I don't have and which I think needs different approaches. That's one reason why I like Jung's analogy of the colour spectrum - parts of me may have been pushed apart, even to the very edge, but they are still on a single, continuous plane.
being aware of and in touch with oneself has to be good right?
Yes! I actually think it's my main hope for finding my way to healing. I think the Jungian view is that we have access to what we need, through our connection to inner, shared or higher wisdom and understanding.
Jungian ideas suit me because of their focus on the intuitive side of ourselves (eg intuition and dreams), our shared experiences (eg archetypes, the collective unconscious) and the potential for transformation (eg alchemy). I like to think there's more to us than thinking selves... in my case, if I had to rely on my thinking self I would be in big trouble!
