Main Street Stories

FICTION: A PORTAL TO THE SACRED

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 18:37:00 +0000

I entered the following paper in a writing contest sponsored by the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis. If you've read Main Street Stories, you will recognize "Philip" and "Arnie" traveling under assumed names. I am thrilled to report that my essay and six others have been published by the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis. The book was reviewed by Lionel Corbett and is available at the Jung in the Heartland Conference this month.

FICTION: A PORTAL TO THE SACRED

Here is my modest proposal to help us better understand our patients and ourselves:

1. Read fiction. 2. Write fiction.

I can hear you snort, read fiction? Fiction is a guilty pleasure, to be undertaken only on vacation or when serious reading has been thoroughly digested.

What's that stack of unread material on your desk? Several issues of The Journal of Analytical Psychology, a new work on Jungian psychology authored by a colleague, the book on neurobiology you have been intending to read? Not fiction.

I believe that fiction is not only one portal, but perhaps the best portal, to the sacred -- that is, to the heart of our analytic endeavors. It is our responsibility to understand ourselves and our patients. How do we ordinarily undertake this task?

To formulate diagnoses, we focus on symptoms, research family history, and draw genograms. To navigate the depths, we examine complexes, dreams, psychic energy, transference/countertransference. We circumambulate symbols and images in quest of the archetypal. Depending upon which theory or theorist most resonates with our own thinking, we might consider the ego/Self axis, the depressive position, the Oedipal struggle, psychosexuality, gender issues, neurobiology, childhood trauma, family dysfunction, addictions, the life cycle, the way of the dream, the way of the image, induced countertransference, typology, soul work, alchemical processes. We diagram the psyche in terms of ego, persona, shadow, anima/animus, and Self. We read Jung, Jungians, other theorists, sacred texts, myths, and fairy tales to find correspondences with our patients' and our own lives. We probe our dreams and journal our experiences to deepen self-awareness.

As a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and Jungian analyst, I used to read a great deal of psychoanalytic and Jungian literature, dwelling on case histories. In the process I suppose I learned some theory while taking in the myriad ways others worked with patients. But over time I had to force-feed myself this literature and finally stopped reading it altogether. Then I had time for fiction.

When I read fiction, I am compelled to relate to the characters as whole persons, as complicated and contradictory human beings, likable or not, familiar or foreign. Take, for example, my experience with Naguib Mafouz's Cairo Trilogy, the story of an Egyptian family in the first half of the 20th century. If I had related to the trilogy as a case history, I would have focused on family dysfunction, the subjugation of women, and perverted sexuality. However, the author engaged me in the more nuanced task of forming an emotional attachment to people living in the context of Egyptian Islamic culture during occupation, war, and strivings for national liberation. The patriarch of the family is tyrannical, narcissistic, self-absorbed, cruel -- in short, a hopeless chauvinist pig. But he is also a man who strives to protect and provide for his family. At the end of the trilogy he is a pitiable shadow of his former powerful self, diminished by losses of his children, his business, his health, his influence, and his friends. As Egypt became a more modern state, the pillars upon which he had built his life crumbled and fell.

I reacted to this character with revulsion and compassion. Moreover, I found in him aspects of my own personality: my narcissism, my wish to wield power, my conflict with religion. The theme of aging with its humbling diminishments and grievous losses resonated strongly with me.

Alain de Botton delightfully expresses the same idea in How Proust Can Change Your Life, which is part literary biography and part self-help book. Even if you haven't waded through In Search of Lost Time, you will enjoy chapters on how to suffer successfully and how to be a good friend.

In Ulysses, lest we miss the point, Joyce writes:

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.

One of my former patients was a young woman who came to me suffering from a severe case of writer's block and unable to complete her dissertation. Her field was European history, and she had done much research on her topic. It was clear that she had an attachment to the material and was bright and motivated enough to finish up. But she just couldn't seem to write.

Nothing in what she told me about her childhood, her dreams, or her current life helped me understand the meaning of her writer's block. She said that she would sometimes sit at her computer for hours, trying to make some headway, but without success.

I asked her how she spent the rest of her time. She blushed and looked away. "Oh, well, sort of reading."

"Reading what?" I pursued.

She slumped in her chair, eyes on the floor. "Just...nothing. I guess you'd call it trash."

Her version of trash turned out to be historical romantic fiction. I was not familiar with this genre (my own version of trash being British murder mysteries), and I asked her to describe these romances.

She balked. She couldn't imagine what this had to do with anything. She was ashamed of wasting her time on that stuff. She needed to stop reading trashy novels and get to work on her dissertation.

I let her object for awhile but repeated my question. After initial hesitation and embarrassment, she told me about the novels. As she warmed to her subject, I thought there was a connection between her dissertation topic and the theme of her favorite reading. But I was still in the dark until she told me what we came to regard as the key ingredient.

She identified strongly with low-born characters, male or female, who found themselves pursued by, or thrown together with, or in love with high-born characters. The "low-borns" were sometimes servants to royalty, or Eliza Doolittles to Henry Higginses. They were poor, but their virtue, courage, and physical beauty brought them to the attention of their superiors. Sometimes they helped or rescued their superiors. Other times they were wrongly used or perhaps raped by their superiors. Occasionally they were forced to masquerade as high-born people. Always a secret romance developed between a low-born and a high-born. That led to the problem of how to continue the relationship. Often the ending was sad, for it was impossible for a queen to marry her servant. My patient preferred these bitter-sweet endings for their authenticity and deplored happily-ever-after endings because they didn't ring true.

The next session she brought in a dream:

A young girl who is working as a waitress, asks me about going to college. "Is it expensive?" she asks. I answer yes, it is very expensive. She runs and throws herself into a shallow stream, apparently trying to commit suicide. I pull her out of the water and tell her she doesn't have to kill herself, that I will help her find a way to go to college.

She said the girl in the dream reminded her of Ophelia. It appeared that the cost of college was too much for Ophelia to manage. She decided she would have to die since she couldn't achieve her dream.

I asked about her own feelings of despair, and the connection was clarified. I interpreted her answer: she was a low-born without hope of attaining a high-born goal. Her dream was impossible. It would cost too much.

I reminded her that in her dream she had rescued the suicidal young waitress, a "low-born." In her dream, the cost was not a reason to give up.

This realization did not immediately lead to the end of writer's block, but it was the beginning of our understanding. The ego had made a connection with the higher self, who could see more clearly and knew that cost could be managed. My patient was able to value the higher wisdom within her which could overcome obstacles, even the obstacle of finishing her dissertation.

Two years later, after she had received her Ph.D. and moved away to take a teaching position in another city, she sent me a copy of the book which had been published from her dissertation. In the Acknowledgements section, she wrote: "Thanks to my analyst, who helped me find the way to myself."

Reading fiction is good, and writing fiction is even better.

Several years ago, I justified buying a new computer with the intention of writing several papers and even perhaps a book on Jungian theory and practice. I thought I had something to say. The computer's blank screen showed me otherwise.

One day I looked through a file of short stories I had composed for a creative writing class many years earlier. One story reached out, grabbed my attention, and demanded more. I arose early each morning to make a pot of coffee and write. After about six months, I had a 140,000-word novel. A version of this novel has been published and has led me to reflect on the relationship between writing fiction and individuation.

Writing a novel provided many benefits and challenges. One of my characters, let's call him Philip, is an irritant to almost everyone else in the novel. He is blind to his faults, inflated, nosy, self-righteous, preachy, a creep, a nut-case, a mama's boy. His psyche is dominated by constant battle between religion and sexuality. Compulsive masturbation is immediately followed by a compulsive promise that he will forever renounce that sinful habit. He frightens himself with Biblical threats concerning licentiousness and attempts to attain holiness and superiority in the most absurd ways.

I became so fond of Philip that I put him into several chapters where he wasn't necessary for plot development. I gave him long eyelashes, curly hair, a sexy girlfriend, a fresh start in life, and the possibility of release from the shackles his religion had placed upon him.

My affection for and interest in Philip led me to explore and relate to my own blindness, inflation, nosiness, self-righteousness, tendency to preach; my own creepy, nutty, mother-bound self; my own conflict between my body and the Body of Christ. I found some compassion for those aspects of myself and the energy to relate to them in a different way, through Philip.

Another favorite character in my novel, let's call him Arnie, is a teacher whose attraction to young girls puts him on the verge of being unfaithful to his wife. Arnie competes with his own nephew for the attention of a high-school girl. Arnie is willful, noisy, intrusive, bossy, and bull-headed. He is a nuisance and borderline pedophile. If he had been a case history, his therapist would have called Child Protective Services and the School Board.

But Arnie was my creation and I had to take all of him into account. I noticed the tenderness he displayed for his mentally retarded sister. I witnessed that he is not only selfish but also generous, lustful and loving, foolish but wise enough to recognize and overcome his foolishness.

Writing about Arnie encouraged parts of myself to emerge from hiding. I had to admit that my controlling nature masquerades as helpfulness. I owned up to my bull-headedness and my voraciousness. In doing so, I discovered that these qualities are paired with a tender heart and a wish to contribute.

It is my belief that we can't help our patients if we consider ourselves superior to them. We need to relate to them as whole human beings, not as cases, and certainly not as flawed inferiors. To do this important work, it is required that we find compassion for our own failures and flaws, that we search for our complete selves and not be satisfied with our ego ideals. We need new avenues into shadow territory, ones that are not overloaded with shame and blame, guilt and retribution, anger and remorse.

Reading and writing fiction are fine ways to work toward individuation by discovering not only shadow and ego but also the divine and the Self.

In his volume of essays, The Merry Heart, the great Canadian author Robertson Davies puts it this way:

It is through writing that you are most in touch with what is of greatest value in yourself. The special quality is the product of the writer's access to those deeper layers of mind that the depth psychologists call the Unconscious. The ability to invite it, to solicit its assistance, to hear what it has to say and impart it in the language that is peculiarly his own, is decidedly his gift and what defines him as an artist. He is not fishing up things from the Unconscious to astonish readers but to tell them things that they recognize as soon as they hear them, but which they have not been able to seize and hold and put into language for themselves. It is a direct revelation of reality which leaves us enlarged and in possession of some new ground in the exploration of ourselves.

Found in Translation: Archetypal Material and Jungian Concepts

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:38:00 +0000

I will teach this class to the Philadelphia Seminar in February 2012. Here are preliminary thoughts.

Jungian analysis relies on the ability to translate archetypal images into clinically useful concepts. Those seeking to understand the unconscious from a Jungian point of view must acquire a penetrative knowledge of the relationship between theoretical and philosophical material and the depths of the human psyche, and on this basis develop the ability to evaluate and interpret psychic products.

Jung states in Mysterium (CW 14:668):

Symbols are tendencies whose goal is as yet unknown. In psychotherapy it often happens that certain unconscious tendencies betray their presence by symbols, occurring mostly in dreams but also in waking fantasies and symbolic actions. Often we have the impression that the unconscious is making more or less playful attempts to attract attention to itself.

Jung further states in CW8:410:

Confrontation with an archetype is an ethical problem of the first magnitude, the urgency of which is felt only by people who find themselves faced with the need to assimilate the unconscious and integrate their personalities.

Reader, I trust that you are one of those people!

The Illusion of Control

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:08:00 +0000

If there is anything I have had to learn, it is that nothing in the external world is under my control. With difficulty, we can learn to control our own attitudes, emotions, behaviors, choices. But we are unable to control events or the attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and choices of others.

Most couples' issues revolve around control. Each person in the couple is trying to control the other. Both are under the illusion that they can -- or should -- control the other. Both believe that their way is superior to that of the other person. Watch Dr. Phil. And even Dr. Phil (whom I admire) seems to have his own illusions of being in control.

Some people believe they can control their environment. Perfectionists in particular imagine a world where they perform perfectly and where everything is perfectly organized. In this ideal world, they imagine they can be protected against the messy, the dirty, the disorganized, the imperfect, the unforeseen.

Others believe they can protect themselves from disappointment or heartache by preparing for the worst and controlling their responses to events. "So what?" and "I'm not going to let it get to me" are stock phrases.

It is shocking when one finds there is actually no protection and no control over others and events. But this is a necessary shock. When one can acknowledge that it is impossible to control others and the events of life, then one can begin to try to control one's own attitudes, emotions, behaviors, and choices.

It is more difficult and very humbling to be in charge of oneself. But there are rewards. Relationships become happier. How to deal with problems becomes clearer. We get to know ourselves more intimately.

As Sri Ramakrishna said:

Dwell, O mind, within yourself;
Enter no other's home.
If you but seek there, you will find
All you are searching for.

(Quoted in Be Love Now by Ram Dass (Harper 2010), p. 230.)

False Self and True Self

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 20:10:00 +0000

As an analyst, I observe that many people unconsciously develop strategies to survive the family into which they were born. Thus is born the false self.

Often when they enter analysis, they are unhappy and constricted, living provisional lives.

One reason that analysis is so difficult and painful is that those early strategies must be dismantled in order to find the true self. Deconstructing life-long ways of living is de-stabilizing and frightening.

ANALYSTS AS ORPHANS

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 13:32:00 +0000

Analysts have to go through the experience of orphanhood. It is essential to give up attachments and allegiances to analysts, teachers, supervisors, and others whom we have emulated.

When I was a candidate in Jungian analytic training, the curriculum was divided in three parts: 1. Reading courses(The Collected Works of C.G. Jung); 2. Archetypal courses (Mythology, fairy tales, dreams); 3. Case conferences.

It was rare that any overlap between courses occurred, and we were pretty much left on our own to learn to think and work analytically, as Jungians. Some of my fellow students copied their own analysts; some did the opposite. Some chose a teacher to copy, and some, like me, couldn't find anyone to copy. Before becoming a candidate I had been in psychoanalytic private practice for about ten years. My own analysis had been very helpful to me personally, but I couldn't determine my analyst's methodology, nor could most of my instructors present a coherent methodology.

It was up to me to develop my own way of working as a Jungian analyst. I sought not to model myself on another person but to risk finding my own way. It was my quest to value the soul rather than worldly success. In this way I became a true orphan.

I realized that to understand Jungian psychology, it was necessary to acquire a penetrative knowledge of the relationship of theoretical and philosophical material to the vast depths of the human psyche and on this basis develop the ability to evaluate and interpret psychic products.

I was required to develop both a compassionate and a ruthless approach to the contents and products of my own psyche, including: a lifelong effort to bring to consciousness those aspects most hidden to me; the courage to confront my own and my patients' infantile, destructive, and unanalyzed complexes; and the humility to attend to the voice of the Self in whatever form it appears.

Failing to attend to these requirements would put me in danger of avoiding and sabotaging the path of my own individuation and that of my patients.

Finally, I identified myself a student of Jungian psychology, not a devotee of Jungian theology. Jung himself was an orphan. He had to find his own way. Each of us has to do the same, if we want to help our patients and to transform our own lives.

The Necessity of Abandonment

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 14:34:00 +0000

My experience as a psychotherapist and Jungian analyst leads me to believe that most people who come for treatment suffer from the effects of some kind of abandonment experience. They are depressed, anxious, angry, fearful. Their lives are fraught with unhappiness and difficulty.

Often these people have been living their lives in an unconscious attempt to mollify, re-engage, or propitiate their abandoners. Even if their parents are dead, abandoned people often follow their parents' dictates. For instance, at age 60, Mary continues to be devoted to her deceased mother's religion, even though she finds little of value or consolation there. Mary's mother was a cold woman who neglected Mary's physical and intellectual needs but insisted that Mary follow the dictates of her religion. Mary has obeyed her mother and neglected her own spiritual growth.

It is my firm belief that consciously accepting one's abandonment experience is essential for psychological development. In adult life, one must strive to become free of the unconscious compulsion to lead a contingent life -- that is, a life restricted by the dictates of others. We did not choose the family and culture into which we were born, but it is necessary in adult life consciously to choose the paths of our own lives, even if it means violating family and cultural norms and rules.

For instance, Joe went into the legal profession because his grandfather, father, and older brothers were lawyers. At mid-life he became depressed. He learned in analysis that the root cause of his depression is the fact that he gave up his own dreams to live the life his family expected. Joe left the legal profession and went back to school to become a social worker. In doing so, he disappointed many people -- his fellow lawyers, his father, his brother and even his wife and children, who liked their life of privilege and status. Joe had to undergo suffering worse than depression as his family turned away from him. It was difficult to become established in his new profession, but he persevered. Now he is a case worker for a non-profit organization. He abandoned his family's expectations in order to follow his own authentic path.

Jungians and Politics

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:38:00 +0000

Jungians can and should help in the quest to understand politics, particularly in regard to the phenomenon of projection. For example, President Obama has been the recipient of positive projections such as hero and savior and negative projections such as trickster and shadow.

On September 10 The Asheville Jung Center will present a global internet seminar titled Symbols and Individuation in Global Politics: The Case of Barack Obama.

See www.ashevillejungcenter.org for more information.

Parenting and Individuation

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:12:00 +0000

My colleague Lisa Mullins of Philadelphia writes on the subject of motherhood and individuation. Watch for the publication of her book on this subject.

These days I have the chance for greater consciousness through my relationship with my grandchildren. Grandparenting, as all life events, provides us with another individuation opportunity, if we can remain conscious.

In my novel Main Street Stories, Nadine Coulter is unaware of how her relationship to her daughter Renee plays out in Nadine's own psyche. Finally Nadine is able to take the necessary action to protect her daughter and to clean up her own act.

Adam Robbins lives out the shadowy un-lived life of his father. The father sees himself as pious and holy and believes that Adam shares these qualities. But Adam is his father's opposite and lives a life shrouded in secrecy.

What effects did (or does) parenting or grandparenting have on you?

Barnes and Noble

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 15:09:00 +0000

Main Street Stories is now available from Barnes and Noble online and in stores.

Thanks, Mel!

Review of Main Street Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:38:00 +0000

I am grateful to Grady Harp for his review of my novel on Amazon. He wrote:

It is almost impossible to believe that MAIN STREET STORIES is the debut novel of Phyllis LaPlante, a Jungian analyst by day who seems to have spent countless hours dreaming up and pasting together the myriad wild characters with which she populates her little West Texas town of Massey circa 1950s. There are some strange folks in this seemingly quiet place and the manner in which LaPlante pops the tops off their secrets and lives is not only splendid writing but as entertaining as any fresh novel out this year.

LaPlante not only writes well, she thinks well and communicates her ideas with conviction and not a little candor. On one of her internet sites she writes the following:

'One of my characters, Wayne Pickens, is an irritant. He is blind to his faults, inflated, nosy, self-righteous, preachy, a creep, a nut-case, a mama's boy. His psyche is dominated by the battle between religion and sexuality. His compulsive masturbation is immediately followed by his compulsive promise to Jesus that he will forever renounce that sinful habit. He frightens himself with Biblical threats about licentiousness and attempts to attain holiness and superiority in the most absurd ways.

You may be surprised to learn that I became so fond of Wayne I put him into several chapters where he wasn't necessary for plot development. I gave him long eyelashes, curly hair, a sexy girlfriend, a fresh start in life, and the possibility of release from some of the shackles his religion had placed upon him.

My affection for and interest in Wayne led me to explore and relate to my own blindness, inflation, nosiness, self-righteousness, tendency to preach; my own creepy, nutty, mother-bound self; my own struggle between my body and the Body of Christ. I found some compassion for those aspects of myself and the energy to relate to them in a different way, through Wayne.'

And that is the way each of the beautifully crafted and sculpted characters affects us, the reader. People we think we would never care to know become embedded in our psyches through the careful skill of this author. Nothing is as it first seems: gossip and every form of corporal and spiritual dysfunction is explored and the joy of reading this book is discovering how very real these Texas townspeople (though they are not tropes, they could easily be from any small town in any state in this country) can become. Anyone who has ever spent part of this life in an Americana small town will smell the similarities - no, will recognize many of the people LaPlante has elected to plant in Texas.

Another aspect about this novel (and this may be due to the rich background in Jungian analysis the author brings to the pages) is the lessons of morality that are explored. No judgments are made - they don't need to be. The reader gets the pleasure of uncovering the secondary messages gently hidden here. This is a terrific read! And this debut novel is a winner.

Grady Harp, May 10

OCD and Jungian Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 16:28:00 +0000

A continuing education course on Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder states: "The pathophysiology of OCD is not fully understood" (CME Resource, June 2010, Vol. 35, No. 12). The course lists possible underlying causes of OCD, including genetics, a defect in neural pathways, serotonergic function, and immune-related disorders. However, it is clear that none of them has been proven to cause OCD.

Nonetheless, the course states that the American Psychiatric Association recommends two options for treatment: SRIs and therapy that incorporates exposure and response prevention.

The course material lists common OCD obsessions:

* Being contaminated or spreading contamination
* Causing harm to others
* Making an important mistake
* Committing a religious or moral sin

Common compulsions are also listed:

* Cleaning or washing hands
* Arranging objects
* Confessing to sins or errors
* Repeating a silent prayer

It is clear to me that the obsessions are manifestations of spiritual problems and the compulsions are actions unconsciously chosen to solve the spiritual problems. In my view, any treatment of OCD musst focus on the spiritual state of the sufferer.

One young woman's compulsive hand-washing ritual was traced back to childhood abuse in which she was forced to touch a male relative's penis.

A young man who grew up in a fundamentalistic religion tried to rid himself of homoerotic thoughts by hand washing and repeating a prayer.

These two examples illustrate unconscious attempts to eradicate the spiritual "problem" with a ritualistic "solution."

The Conclusion section of the Course states:

"First-line therapies [medication and 'exposure and response prevention' therapy] will relieve symptoms in some patients and provide partial improvement in others; however, some patients will prove to have illness that is refractory to established treatments. Changing or augmenting therapy...can be helpful when initial therapy provides only partial improvement or no improvement at all. Patients with severe or treatment-refractory OCD should generally be referred to specialty care."

I doubt that the writers would include Jungian analysis as "specialty care," but I hope that some OCD sufferers will seek a Jungian analyst who can assist them in discovering the underlying spiritual problem and in finding a conscious solution which will enhance their lives and free them from obsessions and compulsions.

Two Spirits and a Paradox

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:38:00 +0000

In his Red Book, Jung writes of two spirits, the "spirit of this time" and the "spirit of the depths." He says that in order to find his soul he had to forsake the spirit of this time and follow the spirit of the depths.

This spirit subjugated all pride and arrogance, took away my belief in science, robbed me of the joy of explaining and ordering things, and let the devotion to the ideals of this time die out in me. He forced me down to the last and simplest things. He took my understanding and all my knowledge and placed them at the service of the inexplicable and the paradoxical. He robbed me of speech and writing for everything that was not in his service.

He writes in Volume 6 of the Collected Works, paragraph 278:

He [Prometheus] sacrifices his individual ego to the soul, to the relation with the unconscious as the matrix of eternal images and meanings, and becomes de-individualized, because he has lost the counterweight of the persona, the function of relation to the external object. With this surrender to his soul, he loses connection with the surrounding world.

What would it mean to abandon reliance on the spirit of this time and sacrifice ego to the soul? What would it mean to surrender arrogance, understanding, knowledge?

Paradoxically, to answer these questions is an arrogant attempt to explain the inexplicable and to avoid the spirit of the depths.

Abandonment and Orphanhood

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 14:37:00 +0000

Abandonment is a universal human experience. We have all been abandoned in one way or another. Moreover, we have all been abandoners in one way or another. Each person deals with abandonment issues in his unique way. However, one almost universal consequence of an abandonment experience in early life is this: the person who was abandoned begins to abandon parts of her own personality in a misguided quest to gain acceptance from the culture or family of origin. We all have truncated some parts of ourselves which would scandalize our parents or set us at odds against religious and cultural traditions.

People who have experienced physical or emotional abandonment often unconsciously develop a permanent relationship with the archetype of the orphan. Abandonment becomes the organizing principle: it explains everything and locates the cause of all suffering in the abandonment.

There are of course times when one must comply with the wishes of authority figures, but by midlife it is essential to reclaim those abandoned parts of our psyches in order to become more fully who we are meant to be. This is a major part of one's individuation process.

The Red Book and the Wasp

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Jung says in The Red Book:

If no outer adventure happens to you, then no inner adventure happens to you either. The part that you take over from the devil -- joy, that is -- leads you into adventure. In this way you will find your lower as well as your upper limits. It is necessary for you to know your limits. If you do not know them, you run into the artificial barriers of your imagination and the expectations of [others]. But your life will not take kindly to being hemmed in by artificial barriers. Life wants to jump over such barriers and you will fall out with yourself. These barriers are not your real limits, but arbitrary limitations that do unnecessary violence to you. Therefore try to find your real limits. One never knows them in advance, but one sees and understands them only when one reaches them. And this happens to you only if you have balance. Without balance you transgress your limits without knowing what has happened to you. You achieve balance, however, only if you nourish your opposite.

Yesterday I noticed that a wasp was trapped between the window and the storm window of my office. Deciding to honor sentient life, I opened the screen to allow it to escape. I watched the wasp laboriously climb up the surface of the window over and over again, apparently unwilling to go down to the opening from which it fly free. Again and again it retraced its futile path. How often am I like the wasp, staying in the same old rut and ignoring the path to individuate. The Cosmos may open a door, but we must have the courage to go through.

Reviews of Main Street Stories

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:15:00 +0000

Check out the reviews for my novel, Main Street Stories, on Amazon. If you read and liked my novel, please compose your review on Amazon.

Midwest Book Review gave the novel 5 stars.

MainStStories

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:14:00 +0000

Follow me on Twitter. MainStStories.

Happy to be a Jungian

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:04:00 +0000

The proposed definition of a mental disorder being considered for the DSM-V (see below) provides a contrast between Jungian theory and a reductive approach to psychology. Jung viewed psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression to be the psyche's attempt toward re-balancing a one-sided stance toward life. He further taught that many psychiatric problems evolve from a person's unconscious attempt to avoid or sabotage the process of individuation.

The proposed DSM definition offers nothing which would help a clinician understand or treat a patient suffering psychological symptoms.

Makes me happy to be a Jungian.

A proposed revision for the definition of a mental disorder is being addressed by select members of the Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, Posttraumatic, and Dissociative Disorders Work Group, a member of the Mood Disorders Work Group, and additional individuals (see Stein DJ et al: What is a Mental/Psychiatric Disorders? From DSM-IV to DSM-V; Psychological Medicine, 2010; in press)
Features
A. A behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual

B. The consequences of which are clinically significant distress (e.g., a painful symptom) or disability (i.e., impairment in one or more important areas of functioning)

C. Must not be merely an expectable response to common stressors and losses (for example, the loss of a loved one) or a culturally sanctioned response to a particular event (for example, trance states in religious rituals)

D. That reflects an underlying psychobiological dysfunction

E. That is not primarily a result of social deviance or conflicts with society

Writing Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 17:57:00 +0000

On April 22, 2010, I will present a paper at the spring conference of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. Its title is "How Reading and Writing Fiction Helps Us Understand Ourselves and Our Patients." The ideas for this paper came from writing my novel Main Street Stories.

I will use some quotations from Robertson Davies and James Joyce. I plan to post the full paper after the conference.

Robertson Davies, The Merry Heart:

It is [through writing] that you are most in touch with what is of greatest value in yourself. The special quality is the product of the writer's access to those deeper layers of his mind that the depth psychologists call the Unconscious. The ability to invite the Unconscious, to solicit its assistance, to hear what it has to say and impart it in the language that is peculiarly his own, is decidedly his gift and what defines him as an artist. He is not fishing up things from the Unconscious to astonish readers but to tell them things that they recognize as soon as they hear them, but which they have not been able to seize and hold and put into language for themselves. It is a direct revelation of reality which leaves us enlarged and in possession of some new ground in the exploration of ourselves.

James Joyce, Ulysses:

Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.

The Holy Innocents

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, was enraged, and he sent and killed all the male children in the region of Bethlehem who were two years old and under. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: "A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation,Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more." Matthew 2:16-18

Herod's slaughter of the innocents following the birth of the infant Jesus is one of the most horrific passages in Scripture. Terrified that he would be supplanted by a new King of the Jews, Herod ordered the murder of all infant boys in and around Bethlehem to assure his own position.

Most sermons on this Gospel lesson for January 3, 2010 would focus on the theme of evil in the world. Preachers might invoke Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, or genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur and the former Yugoslavia. Others might talk of child abuse or exploitation. Some might speak of the work of the Anti-Christ or Satan in Biblical and modern times.

Most people hearing these sermons would decry the evil deeds of others and reassure themselves that they had never and would never engage in such evil actions. A few might feel guilty or ashamed of the way they had harmed their own children or students.

Each of us has engaged in slaughtering the innocents of our own personalities. As Lawrence Staples puts it in his book The Creative Soul (2009),

"Early in life we repress or suppress [parts of ourselves] that are
unacceptable to our parents and other authorities. We repress and
hide these unacceptable qualities in order to maintain our affectional
bonds and a respected place in conventional life. The result is a
wound to our young, fragile self, which cuts us off from large parts
of ourselves and diminishes our capacity to develop ourselves and
achieve higher levels of consciousness" (pp. 3-4).

Our need to be acceptable to our parents and other authorities remains long after childhood ends, and results in the continued activity of our inner Herod to do away with those unwanted aspects of ourselves which might get us into trouble. How many of us still try to truncate those parts of ourselves which would upset our parents -- even after our parents are dead? How many of us avoid self-knowledge, development, and higher levels of consciousness in order to try to remain acceptable?

In my novel Main Street Stories, Wayne Pickens tries to stamp out his own sexuality in order to stay pure and to comply with his limited understanding of religion. His self-imposed "purity" results in a great deal of shadow projection, where he self-righteously tries to ferret out the impurity of others.

That's how our inner Herod governs our lives. When we fail to deal with our shadow, we project it onto others. The most important psychological work we can do is to claim our own shadow, achieve higher consciousness, and become more fully who we are. Jung called that process individuation.

Phyllis LaPlante
January 4, 2010

Jungian Dream Analysis and Poetry

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 20:22:00 +0000

Poetry presents the thing in order to convey the feeling. It should be precise about the thing and reticent about the feeling, for as soon as the mind responds and connects with the thing the feeling shows in the words; this is how poetry enters deeply into us. If the poet presents directly feelings which overwhelm him, and keeps nothing back to linger as an aftertaste, he stirs us superficially; he cannot start the hands and feet involuntarily waving and tapping in time, far less strengthen morality and refine culture, set heaven and earth in motion and call up the spirits!

W'ei T'ai
Quoted by A. C. Graham, The Poems of the Late T'ang (1965)

One would not necessarily link poetry with the Jungian method of dream analysis. Yet the words from the eleventh century Chinese poet W'ei T'ai remind me of the precise nature of dream images and their ability to stir us. The image (or the thing, as W'ei T'ai puts it) is of supreme importance, for it conveys the feeling. Emotion springs from our encounter with the image, wherever we find it -- in a dream, in nature, in art, in the face of the beloved.

For instance, here are two dreams.

A bee stung my thumb.

A wasp stung my forefinger.

In both dreams the dreamer has been stung. But the dreams convey differing messages because of the images.

A honey bee is able to sting only once, and then dies, making the bee reluctant to sting. Wasps can sting multiple times and are more aggressive.

The opposable thumb makes it possible to grasp objects.
The forefinger is the digit used for pointing.

Since all images in a dream come from one's own psyche, we might say to the first dreamer: Your inner worker bee opposes to the death the part of you that wants to grasp or to be in opposition.

To the second dreamer: Your inner wasp aggressively opposes the part of you that wants to point out, accuse, or blame.

Of course it is up to the dreamer to study the dream's images in the context of his own life, behavior, and attitude. Both dreams indicate that opposing forces are at play in the psyche and the life of the dreamer.

My friend and mentor, the late Yoram Kaufmann, put it this way in his book,
The Way of the Image (2009):

How are we then to approach the understanding of an image? We have to try and look at the image objectively. We have to study the very nature of the image, what is essential about it; what makes it what it is and no other; what are its roots and what dominates it.

Phyllis LaPlante
December 2009

Individuation

noreply@blogger.com (Phyllis LaPlante) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:14:00 +0000

It is a question for any psychoanalyst or psychotherapist: why do some people develop and individuate, and why do others regress or stay stuck? How is it that some are able to transcend their circumstances of family history and trauma, while others who seem less seriously impaired cannot seem to change?

Here are a few examples of transcendence that I witnessed during twenty-five years' experience as a social worker, psychotherapist, and Jungian analyst.

A woman who was abandoned in infancy became a superb mother to her own child.

A man who suffered great deprivation in childhood became a loving father and creative artist.

A woman whose father abandoned her took care of him during his last illness, when everyone else had deserted him.

A man who served time for drug possession and burglary turned his life around to become a contributing member of society.

I have observed other examples of transformation. I have been a member of the Board of THC (www.thcdc.org) for several years, serving as president and secretary of the organization. THC's executive director, Polly Donaldson, says that our purpose is to help people transform their lives. The graduates of our programs have progressed from homelessness to home ownership, higher education, and well-paying employment. They have adopted parenting and life skills which protect them and their children from the scourge of homelessness.

At the outset of my novel, Main Street Stories, several characters seem stuck.

Although Daryl's wife has divorced him and moved away, he still clings to the notion that she will return. Daryl has a chance to form a relationship with another woman, but he can't seem to forego the old fantasy for the new possibility.

Coach Parker neglects his wife to focus solely on his high school football team. After a tragedy occurs, he is able to re-direct his priorities.

Miserable in his unfulfilling marriage with his narcissistic wife, Roy bends over backwards to please her, until surviving an accident frees him.

At 35, Nadine is stuck in extended adolescence, disregarding her daughter and risking her reputation for sexual pleasure. Illness forces her to re-evaluate her life.

C. G. Jung writes in Psychological Types:

"In general, [individuation] is the process of which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology. Individuation, therefore, is a process of differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.

"As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation" (CW6: paragraphs 757-758).

For Jungians, individuation is a process of development. It is not dependent upon one's history but an innate striving within each human being to become more fully her own individual person. But how to become an individual in relationships? How to break free from ties that encourage us to fit in or to fulfill the expectations of others at the expense of our own authenticity?

Analysis offers a person the opportunity to enter into a deeply human and authentic relationship with the analyst. It further encourages her to seek out and form other relationships which contribute to her own individuation.

Phyllis LaPlante
December 2009

Main Street Stories - Advance Press Release

noreply@blogger.com (Genoa House) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:18:00 +0000

Advance Press Release

January 1st, 2010

Genoa House announced today:

Available now
Main Street Stories
a Novel by Phyllis LaPlante

Tales intertwine in the small town of Massey, Texas, whose quiet streets seem to breed infidelity, betrayal, mental illness, and violence, in Phyllis LaPlante’s highly entertaining character driven novel Main Street Stories. The townspeople love gossip even more than high school football. Nadine Coulter, a divorced hairdresser, fulfills her sexual desires with a much younger lover, while fretting about her teen-aged daughter who is quickly earning a bad reputation. Janice Tuttle commits suicide by drowning. Joe Eliot hallucinates enemies and nearly kills his brother-in-law. Did Danny Tomlin actually kill his illegitimate child? Wayne Pickens is whipsawed between the demands of his religion and the urges of his body. Dorothy Harmon agonizes over her lesbian lover’s penchant for young girls. Adam Robbins, the preacher’s son, is perpetually on the make, living out the shadowy un-lived life of his father . . .

About the Author
Phyllis LaPlante is a Jungian analyst who lives with her husband in Fairfax, Virginia. She received a B.A. in English from Valparaiso University, MSW from Catholic University of America, and diploma from the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. She is on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia and a training analyst with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. She edited When the Body Speaks (Routledge 2000) and lectures on the archetype of abandonment. She is on the Board of THC, a non-profit partnership that combats homelessness in Washington, D.C. Main Street Stories is her debut novel.

Published by Genoa House and available from your local bookstore, a host of online booksellers, and directly from Genoa House. Main Street Stories - ISBN: 978-0-9813939-1-9, Publication Date: Jan 1, 2010, Price: $19.95. To order your copy call 1-888-298-9717. International orders call: +1-831-362-2086

Media Contact:
Patty Cabanas
559-362-2086
genoahouse@gmail.com
www.genoahouse.com