Vibrant Jung Thing: Jungian Images and Reflections

Middle Aged Person Traumatized by Financial Losses...

Maybe you know this person, or maybe it's you.  When it comes right down to it ...  who DIDN't lose a lot of money in the Fall of 2008?

However, the person we're describing thought that everything was going great financially, and that they were in investments that were "safe as houses" -- until last Fall.  Then things suddenly and unexpectedly went south in the stock market, or in the housing market, and all of sudden there were losses -- big time.  Right out of the blue things began to feel really insecure and unpredictable.  Hopes, dreams and plans that people had for themselves, or for their families suddenly began to seem threatened.

And the feeling overall was a feeling of being overwhelmed, and just plain helpless as things spiraled out of control.  Perhaps things started to seem very fearful, and completely out of control.  And the effect was so dramatic that our person was shaken shaken right to the core.  And it may well be that he or she (or you or I) realize that things just haven't felt the same since.

I'm seeing people in my practice who have been through just this kind of experience, and who are strongly feeling the need to find their footing again.  And I'm convinced that there are a lot more people out there who have had just this kind of experience who really need to be talking to someone and getting this kind of help.

As you might be aware, usually, when professionals refer to people who have been through trauma, they think in terms of specifically life-threatening events.  Things like life-threatening incidents in wars, or terrorist attacks, or very serious car accidents, or violent crimes, where the individual specifically feels that they are in actual, physical danger of losing their lives, or are subject to watching others lose their lives, or get maimed, or something of that sort.  But this is too narrow: experiences of serious financial loss that are experienced as threatening the well-being or economic survival of an individual or of those close to that individual have a traumatic character.

If you have experienced any of the following, you should be seeking out help from a skilled, compassionate professional:

• Feelings of Being Overwhelmed - THis may be something you even experience physically, i.e., "limbs turn to jelly";
• Flashbacks or Intrusive Recollections - A flashback is a memory that is so intrusive that it feels like the event is happening all over again; an intrusive recollection is less intense, but is a memory that can set off a whole chain of traumatic recollections;
• Sleep Disturbances - Do you wake up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, or sleep restlessly and cry out in your sleep?
• Nightmares - Do you have dreams that involve re-living the circumstances of your financial loss, or that have horrific content?
• Bad Temper and Lack of Concentration - Do you find yourself becoming negative, argumentative, or easily irritated in ways that you were not before the experience of financial loss? 
• Intrusive Thoughts - Do you find that your thoughts about the financial loss will simply not leave you alone?
• Exaggerated Startle Response and/or Panic Attacks - Do you startle more easily now than you did before the loss?  Does the reaction stay with you for a log time?  Do you have panic attacks now, with sudden shortness of breath, severe chest pains or feelings of dizziness or faintness?
• Avoidance Behaviour, Emotional Numbness or Difficulty with Intimacy - Are you avoiding people, feeling "shut down" emotionally or finding intimacy difficult, emotionally or sexually?
• Increased Use of Alcohol, Drug Use or Comfort Eating - Are you using any of these things to block out painful reactions to what happened?
• Depression or Traumatic Grief - If you find yourself sleeping or wanting to just do nothing, or confronting feelings of unbearable sadness since the financial losses, you may be dealing with depression or grief.
• Guilt or Self-Blame - Do you blame yourself for the financial losses, or find yourself thinking "If only I had done things differently"?
• Decreased Self-Esteem and Loss of Confidence - If you are confronting feelings of lack of confidence in your abilities, or of hopelessness, then it may be that the financial losses have impacted your self-esteem.

If you are experiencing these reactions now, and you have recently sustained serious financial losses, it would be a very good idea to speak to a qualified professional, as your losses may have triggered a traumatic response.  Please remember: the sooner you address the signs of trauma, the easier it is to deal with them.  You do not have to live with these responses: there are concrete things that can be done.

All the best,

Brian Collinson, www.briancollinson.ca

PHOTO CREDITS:

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© Suzanne Tucker| Dreamstime.com

Anger: Everybody Has It, So What Do We Do With It?

There is no easy way with anger.  It can be one of the most powerful psychological forces that we experience.  As an old song once said, "anger is an energy" -- and it can be a force for growth in a person's life, or a source of misery and destruction.

At this time, the problem of dealing with anger is more on our minds in this society than it has surely ever been.  As a society, we really don't know what to do with it.  It is simply symptomatic of our confusion and uncertainty that a major fast food chain has created a major campaign centered around a hamburger called the "Angry Whopper"!

For many people, anger is the unacceptable "taboo" emotion, the one that has no real place in our lives, the one that "decent" or "reasonable" people avoid.  This is a lesson that many of us learned deep in the womb of the family.  When I think of my own upbringing, it is absolutely clear to me that most emotion was suspect, but anger in particular was completely anathema. 

There is a trend in modern thinking to isolate anger, to treat it as some intruder in the human psyche or soul.  There is a tendency in much of modern psychology to want to wall anger off and treat it as a specific discreet problem that has only limited connection to the whole of a person's personality.  So we hear a lot about anger management and rage addiction.  This type of term that ignores the fact that a person's anger stems from real issues in the whole of that person's personality.

But those who have to deal with their anger or rage as personal problem know that such emotions are anything but discreet.  When they are in full force, they can often seem to take complete control of the personality, and to be completely in the driver's seat.

PHOTO CREDITS:

© Olivier Lantzendörffer | Dreamstime.com

© Gareth Cosgrove | Dreamstime.com

© Fallsview | Dreamstime.com

Anxiety and the Downturn

The present economic conditions are deeply challenging to the ways that we all think about ourselves and our lives.  It takes a toll on all of us to be constantly bombarded with negative economic news that often seems only to get worse with each passing day.

It's evident to me from my practice how much anxiety is being created in each of us, and what a heavy burden a lot of people are having to carry in the present situation.  At the tail end of last week, there were numerous people who came through my office who were profoundly anxious and deeply scared at the things that they were seeing in their personal and working lives as we undergo the current economic crisis.

© William Attard Mccarthy | Dreamstime.com

How can we avoid being crippled by the anxiety and the fear?  There are a number of things to keep in focus.

First, the economic conditions that we are confronting are governed by the psychology of the crowd.  Modern communication technology only enhances and deepens this effect.  Crowd psychology is prone to irrational excitements and manias when things are good, and is equally prone to mass panics when they are bad.  In the short run, it can likely be expected that panic will actually worsen economic conditions, and we have to be prepared to weather that.

Second, we must fully expect that this mass panic is going to "hook" and activate all of our deepest fears.  Money is a very emotional matter for the vast majority of human beings.  It symbolizes our life-energy, which we have put into our work, through our sweat and sacrifice.  We can expect that, when we receive the kind of ominous news that has been about, we are going to initially respond with fear and anxiety -- maybe even with terror.

Third, it is important to "hang onto ourselves" by not giving way to this fear and panic.  On balance, weighing decisions carefully at this time, and realizing that we are being infected, so to speak, by the panic of the crowd, and taking action in a way that really is in line with our own true feelings and emotions will lead us to courses of action that will serve us better.  Also, we need to hang on to the recognition that this crisis will not last forever.

Fourth, find your basic trust in life again, and act from that.  This is the time to draw on your deepest philosophical and religious convictions.  What do you really believe is important in life?  Do you believe that life is a meaningful journey, which is unfolding in a way that makes your life and the lives of the people close to you valuable?  If so, now is the time to put that belief in front of you, and to remind yourself of it constantly.

It's Been a While Since I've Posted

...because it's been an extremely busy time for me, professionally and personally!

  I haven't given up on this blog, though.  I'm still enjoying it and I still want to keep sending out thoughts and reflections, and welcoming dialogue with all of you.

If I can just paddle my canoe past the end of November, I should be back to my usual blogging frequency.

 

© Jabiru| Dreamstime.com

Looking forward to more Vibrant Jung Thing, and wishing you all every good thing,

Brian

Desert: Depression and Suburban Life

"Depression" and "suburbia" are two words that you don't usually see in the same sentence.  Those who promote suburbia tend to want to portray it as a place where happiness and fulfillment abound.  However, as any therapist or counsellor can tell you, depression and anxiety are widespread in the 'burbs, just as they are in the rest of our society.  It's not that depression is more widespread in the suburbs and exurbs than elsewhere in our society.  It's just that, contrary to the suburban myth of joyful care-free family life, many ordinary, normal people in suburbia are dealing with depression.

Depression is a fairly common occurrence.  How frequent it actually is depends a lot upon the level of severity of depression that we're looking at.  Depression is sufficiently common that it can probably be said that most people have been subject to some level of depression at some time in their lives.  That being said, it's essential to not underestimate its potential for disrupting and impacting an individual's life.  If you are suffering from depression, it's important to take steps to deal with it, rather than just hoping it will go away.

Recently, a client said something to me that I think is very true.  Speaking about his own experience of seeking help for depression, he said, "I think that they were all focussed on treating the symptoms of the depression -- but they really didn't get at what it was about."

What is depression all about? Clearly it is important to take with all due seriousness the science of depression, which understands depression in terms of serotonin levels and all its other physiological and neurological dimensions.  But it is equally important to see depression as something human, with a human meaning for individuals like you and me.

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Is My Life Meaningful -- for Me?

One of the most fundamental questions a person can ask  is whether his or her life, taken as a whole, is meaningful to her or him.  This is different from an abstract question about "The Meaning of Life".  There is no abstract universal answer to the yearning that each of us has for a meaningful life.  Every "answer" that an individual finds in terms of meaning in his or her life is an individual answer, an answer that emerges from the very fabric of his or her unique life.  On this level the question is as important as it is urgent: Does your life or my life have meaning-- not in the abstract, but to us personally? 

image: Arjan Hamberg http://12186.openphoto.net

Meaning is to be found in the value that we place on our experience and our involvements.  It does not reduce to simply "just being happy": it is something more and deeper than that, something that is not incompatible with happiness, but that can abide through the difficult times and struggles of life.

What gives meaning can vary greatly from person to person.  Sometimes it is found in our relationship to other people.  Sometimes it is in our vocation, if our work is meaningful or satisfying, or in our avocation -- what we do with our time and our life outside of work.  Sometimes meaning is found when we can relate symbols intimately to our lives, whether those symbols are found in the arts, in organized religion, or in symbols that have emerged for us as individuals on a deeply personal level -- symbols from the depth of psyche.

image: Christof Wittwer http://7740.openphoto.net

When Shadow Puts the Pedal to the Metal

There is no manifestation in our modern lives of what Jungians call "the shadow" that is more dramatic or potentially more deadly than road rage.  In its Wednesday July 9/08 edition, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported on a particularly tragic and deadly incident which occurred in the town of Milton, here in Halton Region.

Apparently, two vehicles raced each other on the James Snow Parkway in order to be first onto the access to the eastbound 401, a major highway in our area.  After a struggle, one of the vehicles suceeded in getting ahead of the other, and it appears that the enraged driver then put on his brakes extremely hard.  The other vehicle swerved to avoid rear-ending his car, and ended up crashing into the highway median and rolling three times, with a tragically fatal outcome.  So a few moments of uncontrolled rage has led to the death of one man, and to terrible legal and personal consequences for the other.

I cannot be sure, but I would bet that, if we knew all the details, we would find that the two main players in this incident were decent, ordinary citizens.  How did they end up here, with this incredibly sad outcome?

Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wireless Email, the "CrackBerry" and The Psyche

Ever greater numbers of people are carrying pocket-sized wireless email devices, or pocket digital assistants (PDAs) like the RIM Blackberry or the Palm Treo.  As a phenomenon, it seemed to start with people in the financial sector and in IT, but it has spread rapidly throughout our society.  Today an ever-growing number of people are linked to their work by this type of device.  For many now, the capability to end and receive wireless email has become an indispensable tool of business.

The technology is amazing.  To be able to link with others via email through such small unobtrusive devices from virtually anywhere is fascinating.  I think for many people there's a feeling of empowerment from being able to do this.

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I have no expertise that would allow me to comment on whether these devices really do enhance individual productivity.  But a fundamental psychological question is "What is the real impact on the individual and his or her sense of personal power and agency?"