By Michael Etts, LMSW, NBCCH

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“Man’s task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.” — Carl Gustav Jung

“If she walked into my life again” came onto the radio. He raised his hand as if in a silent request, then closed his eyes and dropped his head slightly to the right. His previously opaque face had become flush with emotion and I almost didn’t recognize him. It was clear that he had left his 82 year old body behind and was returning to a memory whose raw power was palpable. Everyone knew it was time to be quiet.

In my silence, I began to wonder about his life choices and his regrets. And more generally, what causes people to make regrettable choices and what makes good choices possible? And all I could think was how it all leads back to the unconscious. Although I feel in control when I have my hands are on the steering wheel, I believe that it is my unconscious which actually makes the turns. The task then, of a fully conscious person, is to uncover those unconscious motivations so that fully informed choices are possible. Read the rest of this entry

By Gary Seeman, Ph.D.

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Awareness is Ever-Present

To be aware is to witness. And our witnessing selves are always there when we dream, [1] in daily activities, when feeling emotions, and in states of excitement or distress. We are constantly aware, though our focus may be clear or muddled. Without awareness, there is no consciousness. But awareness is hard to see. It is ever-present, like the air we breathe.

Although always present, awareness may not be remembered. For example, we may walk around a table while moving from one room to another. But we let our perception of the table recede from consciousness without storing memories that are easily retrieved. The encoding of memory depends in part on the intensity of experience, whether this intensity is influenced by the strength of a sensory perception or an emotional response.

We are self-aware when we attend to representations of experience – whether drawn from memory or visualizing a possible scenario. In psychotherapy, we train awareness on our lived experience to realize our hopes and goals and live more satisfying lives.

Every form of psychotherapy has methods to enhance awareness. This reflects the central role of improving the quality of awareness in the process of mental healing. Read the rest of this entry

A GoodTherapy.org News Update

Carl Jung, one of psychology’s brightest and best known –and certainly influential– figures, has long inspired the establishment of new therapies and ideas within the realm of mental health. From clinically-applicable research and development to significant influence in the healing work of thousands upon thousands of psychotherapists, Jung’s prolific and structured ideas have helped to shape the modern face of psychotherapy. But as many actors are finding out, Jung’s theories about the nature and meaning of human dreaming can transcend the textbook and become a powerful tool for method acting.

Dream work, which is described as a particular offshoot of method acting, has been taking the players of the stage and screen to astonishing depths in terms of discovering their roles, and the trend is rapidly growing. Jungian ideas about the dream as an expression of the unconscious, transmitting figures and symbols to the conscious mind for consideration, have been the subjects of scholarship and in-office treatment for a long time, but are only beginning to inspire a larger creative audience. Utilizing Jung’s theories about the role of dreams, actors seek to gain new insights about their characters while they snooze, stepping into their roles as they drift off in the hope that the unconscious mind will provide new clues about a character’s deepest thoughts and feelings. Read the rest of this entry

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