A depth psychology babble.

[sepdet]

At Pacifica, I went for the mythological studies and got a crash course in depth psychology.

I'm still digesting it, still a newbie, and feel inadequate when I try to convey what I've learned from depth psychology. I wish I could, and I hate feeling like I'm defending and arguing something badly and amateurishly.

But after being reminded of the medical community's assertion that fibromyalgia may be a psychological problem, I started trying to jot down what I've absorbed.

The part that left the biggest impression on me is that the "it's psychological" diagnosis of medical and neurological science is sometimes a skewed response, like the much-derided edition of Gray's Anatomy that said, "in all cases, except in the female..."

(Note to HC: I'm not critiquing your use of the phrase, you just reminded me of how it's often used.)


Depth psychology starts with this premise: We have souls. That's not a religious or philosophical assertion; it's based on observation of this thing that calls itself "I" which thinks, feels, and is aware. Cognitive and most branches of psychology ignore soul/psyche-- the thing psychology is supposed to be studying -- because it can't be measured, dissected, run through chemical analyses. A lot of branches of psychology try to be purely scientific and treat "only psychological" problems with "only physical" treatments such as medications. If the problem's caused by an endocrine system that's not putting out the right balance of chemicals, that can work, but there's still a chicken and egg aspect that's being ignored.

Also, a huge chunk of our soul is UNCONSCIOUS: urges, feelings, dreams, inspirations, components of soul that our precious little "I'm ME!" egos are not in control of, and can't even see directly. When we are reminded of something, feel something, or are terrified/moved/delighted by something, it's not because we've consciously decided "oh, I shall now be reminded of X" or "oh, I shall now feel Y." It comes to us. The unconscious acts on us.

Depth psychologists argue that (a) the soul is a real phenomenon which psychology can't ignore, even if it's inconveniently non-physical; (b) that it's inadequate for psychology to focus on neurological, chemical, and behavioral psychology just because we can measure and quantify those things, and in some ways the discipline of psychology is more a discipline in the humanities than it is a science; (c) based on decades of case studies, psyche affects the physical body and vice versa — they are connected, if not necessarily one to one — and that (d) the psychological component of symptoms and conditions are just as real, valid, and relevant as the physical ones, albeit they cannot be directly measured any more than what's fallen through a black hole.

When the medical community defines something as "psychological," usually -- except in rare cases -- there is an implied "only." If the implication is, "that part of our existence that we can't measure, so we have to judge and act only upon physical factors," well, fine: that's like admitting you're going to tackle a spatial problem as if it's two dimensional when in fact space has more than two dimensions. But usually, "only psychological" seems to imply that the psychological part isn't real, but "imaginary," and can be dismissed.

The other inadequate assumption that appears even more often is that there's a defect in the person for not being able to control their psychology. News flash. Large portions of the soul are unconscious, and that is normal, not a failure or defect. We are not in control of all of our soul, any more than we are in control of the weather or plate tectonics, or at a personal level our genes and physiology (we didn't decide how many ribs are "normal" or how tall we are).

Other cultures have been able to accept and work with the unconscious part of the soul, taking dreams, visions, possession, multiple personalities and many other vehicles for the unconscious into account. Whereas since rationality, logic, and the scientific method came to be the touchstones for what our culture defines as real and valid, everything else is "imaginary," not real, and if we let those components of soul be expressed overmuch, we're classified as insane. One of the few remaining "acceptable" channels where we acknowledge and condone the expression of the autonomous unconscious is creativity: we're allowed to say that we don't know where some of our artistic outpourings came from, and give credit to the Muse.

But if the unconscious is manifesting as symptom, well then, drug it, block it, process and excise it, use self-help methods to sap its power and effect on your conscious daily life ... it must be chucked out!

Depth psychologists make the radical assertion that we need to pay attention to what the unconscious is telling us, learn to recognize and acknowledge when it's "breaking through" into conscious life, and spend a little more time being aware of it before we move on to reacting against and eliminating its influence. Which, admittedly, is often inconvenient -- if it's causing us physical pain or interfering with our social life or everyday functioning, we can't just say, "my unconscious knows what it's doing" and let our lives be screwed up. But a lot of the time, by coming to acknowledge and recognize, to sense and respect the parts of our unconscious breaking through, we stop being controlled and overwhelmed by it in the same way people can learn to live with the changing seasons, weather, and occasional earthquakes and hurricanes -- provided they're vigilant in recognizing, "aha, category 4 hurricane coming, time to take precautions."

Comments

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting. I'll be excited to see how it develops.

[aerynvale.livejournal.com]

I had no idea what depth psychology was until you explained it just now. I think you did a good job of explaining it because I feel like I have a much better idea of it now.

Also? I find it really, really interesting.

Thanks for posting this.

Yet more babble...

[sepdet.livejournal.com]

I was reading over my post and thought, "aha, I never defined the term 'depth psychology.'" In the process of trying to do so I spawned another whole post's worth of stuff...


________

Addendum: Not that the unconscious is not always negative: it's also the source of love, laughter, wonder, and creativity.

The term "depth" in "depth psychology" refers to the theory that the soul is composed of the ego -- the conscious part of us that thinks it's in chage -- and all the other layers we have more or less access to. Jung likened the ego to a boat floating on the surface of the sea. Different depth psychologists define or classify different layers (like Freud's superego and id), but depth psychologists who actually use the term "depth psychology" tend to be a little more fluid: the two divisions they all recognize are the conscious and unconscious portions (or perhaps, better, modes) of the soul.

Then there's the collective unconscious, Jung's puzzled attempt to explain recurring patterns, images, archetypes and motifs that show up in many world mythologies and in the dreams of people who haven't studied or been exposed to those images (many of his patients).

At times Jung speculated that the soul is a non-localized phenomenon (as Babylon 5 put it) that isn't necessarily defined/confined by physical form, and that might explain seeming examples of telepathy and other paranormal awareness. At other times he simply argued that the common patterns of human life -- motherhood, childhood, old age, mating rituals, alliances and arguments, family and travel, loss and growth -- have slowly shaped certain nodes/tendencies in the human psyche in the same way that the physical environment has shaped our physical evolution. So people tend to have associations with the mother-image and motherhood -- not necessarily the same associations in all cultures, but a tendency to attach feeling and value to the archetype -- and that's why mother goddess figures are so common and so important to our souls. Archetypal images (the tendency or raw pattern crystallized into some comprehensible image and/or myth) provide meaning, resonance, and are like psychic batteries that unleash certain feelings when we tap into the image. (Those with bad associations to the mother may get bad vibes from the image, but it's still powerful).

Depth psychology is oddly agnostic: it neither confirms nor denies the possibility of the divine, but argues that we experience the numinous and divine, and that whether or not God is real (this is where Jung broke with Freud), the experience of God is real for many. Gods are,in a way, autonomous beings of the unconscious. Those for whom traditional religious are inadequate may have the sort of self-sufficient soul that gets by just fine without god-archetypes, or they may feel angst and a sense of "life is meaningless", or they may latch onto another mythology, including something like Tolkien's Middle-earth, to satisfy the unconscious' need for a resonant, meaning-full reality that satisfies the soul at all levels, not just the logical, rational one.

[firerosearien.livejournal.com]

Guess what I found online?!

http://www.digital-brilliance.com/kab/alex.htm

[sepdet.livejournal.com]

I know. I'm haunted by it. It was a paper I wrote as an undergraduate which I removed from the web years ago, but it keeps circulating in bootleg format!