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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
 Posted - 09/03/2007 : 09:20:48
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I'm reading an interesting article about mid-life from a Jungian perspective. There is some interesting stuff for us TMS folks. Here are a couple of quotes.
"By Self, Jung means our authentic self, which is also connected to a larger force, whether we call it God, Allah, or the Tao, and the collective unconscious. The point of working through aspects of our personality is to live more from this center of who we really are, by making more of what is unconscious conscious."
"Persona is the mask we wear to interface with the outer world.... How much of what we believe and how we behave are truly ourselves and how much have we adopted in order to comply with the world that we were born into?"
"Psychoanalyst Karen Horney coined the term the 'tyranny of the shoulds.' When beginning our inner work, this is a good place to start. Finding ourselves saying or thinking 'should' or 'supposed to' raises a red flag. We can ask ourselves: whose voice is really speaking, ours or someone else's that we've incorporated into our operating system?"
"'Do anyone's insides and outsides match up?' asks a young boy from a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. This matching up is call congruence, and working toward congruence is one of the tasks of wholeness and integration."
"Defense mechanisms are a way that we hold our personas intact. Part of the business of soul-making is to determine not only which of these we operate from, but what they are defending. Could the defense of anger hide shame or vulnerability? Could the defense of hyper-sensitivity hide rage? Could the defense of arrogance hide feelings of inadequacy? The only way out is through--to loosen the glue of our defenses, we need to experience the painful emotions that are being guarded against."
"Jungian author Robert Bly calls the shadow 'the long bag we drag behind us.' The shadow is anything, 'good' or 'bad,' that we hide or repress. The word 'shadow' has the connotation of being something negative, like violence or anger or evil. But there are a range of things that get put into the bag. One could be creativity, perhaps put away when we were shamed by teachers....Another example is seen in past generations when girls were taught to put their intelligence in their bag, so as not to scare away potential mates."
"Jung said there is gold to be found in the shadow. Integrating the shadow will bring back to us not only the helpful, 'positive' traits that we have hidden away, but also whatever shunned parts that we need to integrat to move toward wholeness. We tend to spend a great deal of energy keeping these aspects of our shadow in our black bag. When we incorporated our shadow into our lives, much more vitality and aliveness come with it." |
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ralphyde
USA
307 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 10:40:30
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Thanks for posting this, Mamaboulet. I've long been a student of Jung, and agree that this brings a helpful dimension to TMS, and I especially liked the part about our defense mechanisms and what they might be defending.
Ralph
ps - where did you read the article? |
Edited by - ralphyde on 09/03/2007 10:41:22 |
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 11:15:01
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A paper/magazine thing called Sentient Times: Alternatives for Personal and Community Transformation. Based out of Ashland, OR.
info@SentientTimes.com |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 13:43:55
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Very nice.
I feel that I've been helped a lot by acknowledging that some parts of myself that I found "bad", like anger, are normal and indeed healthy and essential to being.
I also work on analyzing the "shoulds". If I find myself saying, I should, then I figure out what it's supposed to mean and try to say that instead.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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westcoastram
97 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 20:22:24
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Anyone know a good introductory text on Jung that I could check out?
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/03/2007 : 21:55:37
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| Man and His Symbols is interesting. A lot of stuff about dreams. |
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 07:10:06
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Jung's biography/autobiography is called Memories, Dreams, Reflections. That one kind of sums up his life ideas.
I just can't recall his more "clinical" works.
Jungian typology is also the basis for that Meyers-Briggs personality test. Anybody ever taken that? Fascinating particularly if you retake the test several times over a period of several decades, because it shows shifts in certain personality traits and life perspective. An interesting tool for people on a journey to understand and integrate their various parts of "self." |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 08:11:30
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Regarding Myers-Briggs, I first took an informal MBTI test in college which showed INTJ. Lately, if I take it the T is a lot less strong and F has increased. I think my TMS work of emotional awareness has been the major part of that change.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 08:15:25
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| A HUGE number of young women test as INTJs. That fascinates me. It suggests that the young female INTJ is some sort of cultural overlay on our actual personalities, or possibly a psychological life stage of human females. |
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 08:21:14
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I consistently tested as an INXJ for many years. I now test as an ISFJ. My husband tested as an ESTP years ago when I met him. I don't know what he is now.
I don't know how accurate tests like these are, but they do provide a good starting place for looking at yourself and asking questions about your essential self. |
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ralphyde
USA
307 Posts |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/04/2007 : 14:30:47
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mamab, that's a very insightful suggestion -- cultural overlay. Indeed. I'm going to have to process that a bit more before writing too much on it, but just quick thought that come I would say it certainly could be the overlay of the intelligent, high-achieving, critical/perfectionistic ethos on a natural personality.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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armchairlinguist
USA
1397 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 01:08:45
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The past topics on the MBTI are actually very interesting. I'm not the only one who's noticed a transition from T to F; sonora sky cites the same thing.
Reading the test just now, I noticed that there are some questions on which my orientation is currently shaky where I used to be solidly in the T camp, things like whether I easily sympathize/empathize with others, whether I find it easy to express my emotions, whether I'm guided more by my emotions or by reason.
These things are definitely changeable, as I'm learning from my emotional work. Not that many years ago, I asked a friend why we have feelings, because I truly couldn't quite work it out what purpose they served. I'm happy to say I'm not in that state anymore. And I am practicing learning to express my feelings, something that my family growing up didn't really support.
I think that there is the Real Self (inner child) and that this self does have certain innate tendencies. I don't think I'll ever score as an extrovert. I'm definitely more verbal than visual/kinetic. But there are overlays, perhaps familial, perhaps cultural or subcultural, that can exaggerate or otherwise change the MBTI classifications we get. I got a lot of positive feedback for being verbal(/analytical), and not so much for being visual, and a lot of praise for being scientific and not so much for being creative. So there is that overlay, for sure, wherever in the environment it comes from. According to Bradshaw, it can come in at many levels, including family, school, church, and friends (subculture).
In that sense I would say the MBTI is most likely indicative of the current state of our personalities but not necessarily a reflection of the true self. I think it's somewhat exaggerated to classify people as 'types' with certain defined characteristics and direct them to occupations based on it.
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Wherever you go, there you are. |
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smashist
19 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 01:17:18
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"Psychoanalyst Karen Horney coined the term the 'tyranny of the shoulds.' When beginning our inner work, this is a good place to start. Finding ourselves saying or thinking 'should' or 'supposed to' raises a red flag. We can ask ourselves: whose voice is really speaking, ours or someone else's that we've incorporated into our operating system?"
THIS is exactly what I have been battling. I've got sooo much freakin rage because I've been living the bulk of my life by under the tyranny of how I "should" be feeling at any given instant. It got so bad I swear I didn't feel emotions for like a year and a half, just anxiety and pain, and fake smiles. I got so lost for so long, I didn't even know what actually interested me anymore. I was a zombie, doing what was expected of me, nothing but a mess of internalizations. No life. Things are changing now though, I'm developing interests that are actually mine, plans that are actually mine, feelings and emotions I actually own now... it's been rough for sure. But this is a huge source of pain and anxiety for me, and has been for almost my entire life.
yeah right. |
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mamaboulet
181 Posts |
Posted - 09/06/2007 : 07:10:15
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quote:
Originally posted by armchairlinguist
The past topics on the MBTI are actually very interesting. I'm not the only one who's noticed a transition from T to F; sonora sky cites the same thing.
Reading the test just now, I noticed that there are some questions on which my orientation is currently shaky where I used to be solidly in the T camp, things like whether I easily sympathize/empathize with others, whether I find it easy to express my emotions, whether I'm guided more by my emotions or by reason.
These things are definitely changeable, as I'm learning from my emotional work. Not that many years ago, I asked a friend why we have feelings, because I truly couldn't quite work it out what purpose they served. I'm happy to say I'm not in that state anymore. And I am practicing learning to express my feelings, something that my family growing up didn't really support.
I think that there is the Real Self (inner child) and that this self does have certain innate tendencies. I don't think I'll ever score as an extrovert. I'm definitely more verbal than visual/kinetic. But there are overlays, perhaps familial, perhaps cultural or subcultural, that can exaggerate or otherwise change the MBTI classifications we get. I got a lot of positive feedback for being verbal(/analytical), and not so much for being visual, and a lot of praise for being scientific and not so much for being creative. So there is that overlay, for sure, wherever in the environment it comes from. According to Bradshaw, it can come in at many levels, including family, school, church, and friends (subculture).
In that sense I would say the MBTI is most likely indicative of the current state of our personalities but not necessarily a reflection of the true self. I think it's somewhat exaggerated to classify people as 'types' with certain defined characteristics and direct them to occupations based on it.
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Wherever you go, there you are.
I've never been comfortable with the full-on typing. I too have reached the conclusion that this test shows both some innate traits or tendencies (like introversion) and some life stage personality traits. I noticed that the last version of one of the MBTI books had a big section on life stages, so apparently those people have been coming to the same conclusions.
I've also noticed that young women tend to answer the questions in terms of what they WANT to be, whereas older women tend to answer the questions closer to what really is. I've seen this transition numerous times, including in myself. Rereading the questions and taking the time to notice your REACTION to them is instructive also. I'm only mentioning women because I've known far more women than men who have taken the test. |
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A Jungian Perspective
