Opposing Personality

woman_man_boat

25 Apr: Marriage as a “Hotbed of Individuation”

Couples often wonder whether they are “ready” for such a commitment. I look for situations when each person’s “sore spot” is activated. When a couple is able to hold the tension of the activated inferior function and find a way to make their relationship a vehicle for the development of personality, then they are “ready” for marriage in one of the most crucial ways.

cobain_kurt

03 Jul: The “Forever 27” Tragedy

The environmental wounds to Cobain’s natural INFP disposition left his ego vulnerable to an anima invasion. It was she who allowed the instinctual power of the unconscious, in both its creative and destructive properties, to flow through the inferior function and overrun his personality, attempting to restore order by instigating archetypal modes of adaptation.

munch_woman_on_shore

03 Jul: The English Patient in the Mirror

The more I fell apart inside, the more I needed outside structure and order. One night I dreamed of an interior colorless and noiseless explosion that was followed by a voice that boomed, “You have the courage to let your interior world be chaos; there are no walls where there should be walls. You are a crab, and you need an exoskeleton.”

redon_head_of_sleeping_woman

10 Jan: Dream Tending

“Interpretations” of dreams must be filtered through a layer of consciousness. One contribution of dream tending as an effective tool for Jungian dream work is the value it places on the sensing function as an imaginal way of knowing. Thus, it de-emphasizes the intuitive and thinking functions many Jungians use in traditional dream analysis and brings sensing and feeling to the fore.

theseus_and_aethra

06 Jul: The Greek Hero in Crisis

Like the water that surrounds their country, the Greeks are very fluid and go with the flow. They are passionate and capable. However, their heroic use of extraverted sensing has contributed to the current economic crisis. The Greek hero must ease his extraverted sensing grip and use puer extraverted thinking energy to build analytical and efficient systems.

feininger_white_man

05 Apr: So Texas Walks Into a Bar …

With his unique thundering velvet hand approach, a Texan rarely says, “Shut up!” or “Don’t do that!” Instead, we hear, “Hush,” or “That would be ill-advised,” with a long drawl and a grin. The result is effective and charming, binding the man to his community. He easily compensates in robust, creative, and powerful ways to ensure full balance in his personality expression.

bonnard_country_dining_room

05 Apr: Liberté, Egalité, Sensualité

“Once upon a time, there was a quiet little village in the French countryside whose people believed in tranquillité.” This opening indicates that the psychological orientation of the village is one of peace and calmness, agreeability and order, suggesting that the village has certain values through which it judges situations—in other words a feeling function is at work.

heade_apple_blossoms

04 Jan: Resurrecting the Feeling Function

My Feeling is definitely not a matter of determining whether simply I like or dislike something, as Hillman suggested an undifferentiated Feeling function might do. For example, I feel a hundred different aspects of a rose—smell, vibration, gentleness, tone, harmony, et cetera, and all of these come into play when I evaluate its suitability for a certain spot in the garden.