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The aspect that differentiated Dr.
Carl Jung's psychology from many other modern schools of psychology
was his incorporation of spiritual experiences. He defended that
this was healthy for human psychology and did not mean any detachment
from reality. This quality made Jung the centerpiece for followers
of metaphysics, for good or for bad.
Although in a hesitant manner, Jung also defended astrology in his era. Many of my friends that mingle with “Psychological Astrology” have also acquired the title “Jungian”. My own interest in astrology has generated after discovering his dwellings in it.
Jung has added the concept of “collective unconscious’ to Freud’s acclaimed “individual unconscious”. While the individual unconscious controls our feelings, the collective unconscious forms the “archetypes”. Archetypes, traced in our dreams and mythological stories, form the instinctual behaviors and understanding. In his psychoanalysis,
Jung has given much less relevance to sexual instincts because he believes that the unconsciousness tries to achieve individual unity and “ individuation ”, the balance of all character functions. As all the humanistic psychologists would claim, the unconscious is not only a pathological power, but one essential for human health and our life force.
Dr. Jung argues that all humans are essentially unified within, yet most are detached with important components of one’s self. By understanding the messages in our dreams, using the methods such as active imagination suggested by Jungian analysts, we can reunite with the components within ourselves, which we have detached from. By understanding our differences from other people, we can become one with our self, and find our true identity.
Each person’s nature is different, each person’s calling belongs to them, if we do not merge with these aspects to help the unconscious and conscious to become one, we would face problems such as chronic dissatisfaction, depression and other psychological and psychosomatic troubles.
According to Dr. Jung one has to face their shadow and anima/animus in order to find one’s self. Dr. Jung calls one’s acceptance of their shadow ‘the first step of courage”. For some, facing their dark side is very disturbing. We do this because we reflect the feelings we cannot accept. In order to understand how we reflect them, we should observe our reactions to people and events in the outside world. The reflection comes with the feeling.
If there is no personal touch to the events that we find upsetting, the most we would feel is guilt or pity. Yet if the feeling is stronger than this, we should ask ourselves what makes us feel so strongly about it.
I have to add that not all reflections are necessarily bad, since righteous anger may also bring much needed social progress. The greatest advantage of owning our feelings and to relieving ourselves from reflecting our shadows is that we will see the world from a much brighter perspective and we would better the relationships surrounding us since we would also be relieved from our pessimistic nature. We would free ourselves from negative thoughts that we bring into the outside world such as “this is the world, it’s a bad place, we’re all going to die anyway…” The difficulty in facing our shadow is that they are generally embarrassing and disturbing for us.
The path you choose by having a birth chart consultation is not an easy one. You will need outside audience while doing the shadow exercises. This may be a close friend you trust or a Jungian therapist. You may discuss the information you have gained from chart analysis. In a stage of the analysis of the shadow, you will come across your anima/animus. These are the first steps you will take.
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