{"id":11904,"date":"2014-05-31T07:19:56","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T11:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/?p=11904"},"modified":"2016-10-24T15:25:48","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T19:25:48","slug":"individuation-and-the-conflict-of-opposites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/individuation-and-the-conflict-of-opposites\/","title":{"rendered":"Individuation and the Conflict of Opposites"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece from, <\/em>A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious, picks up on page\u00a078 with the Oddly Shaped Man (the conscious standpoint) struggling under the tension of opposites. Along with repressed emotions, the\u00a0pressures of new, creative contents from the unconscious increase the momentum of the individuation process, now perceived as an “alien will” as ego is openly confronted with the demand for wholeness…<\/em><\/p>\n

My head circles wildly as I strain with all my might;
\nAll around me lay the pieces of the ghosts I fight.
\nI’ve forced apart the gates of my own humanity
\nStaggered weary to the furthest reach of sanity;\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/address>\n
My own heart I’ve writhed and cried and suffered inside out —
\nYet unappeased still labor on uncertainty and doubt.<\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n
THE DARK PRINCE.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Hemmed in by God on all sides like Job he struggles;<\/address>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And his pursuit means other things pursue him too.<\/address>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Relentlessly the feeling-world his thinking juggles<\/address>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Brings him closer to the conflict of his conscious view.<\/address>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The torment thrust upon him from this dark abyss<\/address>\n
Is Nature’s dispatch to a partial consciousness:
\nShe strives now to inform him of her<\/em> wants and needs
\nAnd give him strength to follow on the path she leads.
\nHow a man must carry on when he is forced to see
\nThat the life he once conceived is not Reality!
\nHe may feel his little world is being torn apart
\nBut in fact it’s being put together quite unseen;
\nAnd he’s further than he knows from the inside of his heart
\nOr his notions of insanity and what they mean.\u00a0<\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
THE UNKNOWN WOMAN<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/address>\n
He’s not the victim of an angry god’s invective
\nSending wrathful thunderbolts of punishment and pain.
\nHe must remind himself the process is objective;
\nTo think outside his merely personal domain.
\nBut how else can his trembling thought be made to see:
\nHis life is subject to a fate he can’t control?
\nThat beneath his thinking is a greater force than he
\nSeeking to reveal to him the nature of his soul?
\nThis obscure moral process must depend on more
\nThan simply choosing to obey a god’s command.<\/address>\n
Which god will he obey?\u00a0 Which one will he implore?
\nWhen two crossed gods of equal strength before him stand?
\nOne is right the other wrong according to his view:\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/address>\n
The great deception of the life he knew before;
\nYet however he perceives it there is little he can do
\nFor his former life is gone and Nature’s closed that door.
\nThe one she opens now brings the opposites to light
\nUnveiling secret truths beyond his preconception
\nTo temper with a new sight the views of wrong and right
\nWhich form the basis of his modern self-perception.
\nIt will expose the partial attitude of consciousness
\nFlitting round its fantasies in airy self-pursuit
\nIn the highest branches of the tree of righteousness
\nThinking it had planted all the seeds of Love and Truth —
\nThough half-acknowledged grew to be a thing of wretchedness
\nAnd in the end bore little more than ignorance as fruit.<\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/address>\n
THE DARK PRINCE<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/address>\n
The cheap facade he financed with the treasure in his soul
\nIs quickly running out of credit with the man below.
\nThe life he once invested in is out of his control
\nFor the loan’s conditions call for more than he could know.
\nThe debt accruing from his youthful self-deception
\nMust be fully rendered from the life he leaves behind<\/address>\n
Until it is depleted of his half-perception
\nAnd he accepts the humble place his misery assigned.
\nThis task has led him down inside the knotted sphere\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/address>\n
Concealing images his thinking long repressed.
\nHow he perceives the inner man is hidden here
\nWhose image only surfaces when he’s depressed.
\nBut repression and depression are in fact related
\nTo form the tension aiming at a new direction.
\nHe must fight them both for how his thinking has created
\nThis upside-down collision with his own reflection\u2026\u00a0<\/strong><\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n
\n
\n<\/address>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Mental Health as a Social Concept<\/strong><\/p>\n

The conflict of opposites deeply affects consciousness as it begins to withdraw its projections from the external world and accept its struggle internally, fostering the recognition of a higher spiritual authority. The more frightening, rejected aspects of the personality then begin to impress themselves as living values with a vital meaning for the individual. The fear and anxiety of losing control is tempered by reflection. Jung once wrote that no one who ever had any wits is in danger of losing them in this process; however, there are many who never knew until then what their wits were for.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

THE ANCIENT KING<\/em>.<\/address>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The concept of one\u2019s mental health is relative indeed;<\/address>\n
Primarily a social one for cultures to assess
\nThe useful products of the citizens they breed<\/address>\n
To work within the sanction of the values they profess.
\nBut a culture has no conscious point of reference:
\nNo place outside itself to judge its valuations;
\nIts health or sickness no criterion for deference\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/address>\n
To its own psychology or that of other nations.
\nEvery man appears to suffer likewise from this fate
\nThough facts do not support this from a natural perspective:
\nThe psyche functions in a way itself to regulate
\nAnd beyond his preconceptions lives its own corrective…<\/address>\n
\u00a0<\/address>\n
\u00a0More info here: A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious<\/a><\/em><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This piece from, A Mid-Life Perspective: Conversations With The Unconscious, picks up on page\u00a078 with the Oddly Shaped Man (the conscious standpoint) struggling under the tension of opposites. Along with repressed emotions, the\u00a0pressures of new, creative contents from the unconscious … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[1292,1311,1303,1304,263,1302,469,1190],"class_list":["post-11904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psychology","tag-a-mid-life-perspective-conversations-with-the-unconscious","tag-individuation-and-the-creative-unconscious","tag-mental-health-as-a-social-concept","tag-rejected-aspects-of-the-personality","tag-repression-and-depression","tag-the-alien-will-of-the-unconscious","tag-the-conflict-of-opposites","tag-the-inner-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11904"}],"version-history":[{"count":60,"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23451,"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11904\/revisions\/23451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outlawpsych.com\/outlawpsych\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}