Professor Dr. Erhard Meyer-Galow | Download PDF
VUCA is an acronym used to describe or reflect on the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of general conditions and situations. The common usage of the term VUCA began in the 1990s and derives from military vocabulary and has been subsequently used in emerging ideas in strategic leadership that apply in a wide range of organizations, including everything from for-profit corporations to education. (Wikipedia)
If I look to the agenda of this conference there is a lot about spirituality and therefore I will point out more the aspects of Depth Psychology to generate an extended basis for our discussion and keep spirituality short. No doubt spirituality is key to survive in the VUCA world, but Jungian Depth Psychology can prepare us to make better use of spirituality.
Depth psychology states that psyche is a process that is partly conscious and partly unconscious and partly semi-conscious. In practice, depth psychology seeks to explore underlying motives as an approach to various mental disordersAionRED BOOK is already called the most important book of this 21st century.
The Red Book
The globalization and digitalization have increased the dimensions of disturbance dramatically.
In times of excessive economic growth most individuals are similarly focusing on their external well- being, diminishing their possibility of internal growth. It is difficult to convince people that external growth cannot represent the meaning of life. The harm resulting from this one - sided mind may be ignored, but the consequences are real. They include loneliness, depression, anxiety, selfishness and suicide to name but a few. We face double digit growth of burn-out, depression and of psycho-pharmaceutical drugs. According to the latest report of a German Health Insurance Company the amounts of absenteeism because of psychic depression increased by 70 % from 2000 to 2013.
We are so much only ego-minded that we have cut off our most important roots and sources.
DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY BASED SPIRITUALITY
Depth Psychology and Spirituality can be developed successively or parallel. Many people are stuck with their spirituality programs, especially when they come under pressure in spite of years of practicing.
I do not exclude that spiritual paths as religions, ZEN, contemplation, yoga etc. also lead to liberation from the ego-centered ego, but the dark side is blocking the progress of many of these paths.
As an example Walter Schwery, my Jungian teacher, told me:
Here, the dark brother has reported despite all the meditation experience.
It is the way of deep psychological individuation and ways of spirituality. Both ways can heal what was fallen apart out of the totality of the early childhood. And now the adults must be guided back into wholeness. But initial prerequisite is the reconciliation with the dark side of the person (Schwery).
A very difficult task in your life is the integration of the dark side. How can that be achieved? According to Schwery (8) the first step is the designation of the Evil:
Richard Schwery text from you
"After it has been possible to detect the dark brother as an autonomous content, it is now a matter to give this content a symbolic name. The creation of this symbol is the possibility to take a non-rational content and thus make it more aware ....
The designation of the shadow with a symbolic name, e.g. "Dark Brother," prevents us from becoming identical with the shadow, so that we can differentiate ourselves from him. Only if this succeeds, it is possible to grasp it and deal with it on. Jung noted that the psyche has a tendency to personalize these contents and to dramatize, so that they are experienced as dreams, daydreams, hallucinations and visions then. "
The shadow is a vital problem
"As a next step, we should try to see him not as a moral, but as an energetic problem. The shadow is usually very vital, but is hindering live or suppressed energies. Each vital energy, which cannot develop naturally, is negative and destructive ... .. "
It is about the development of the "whole person". Person comes from the Latin. "personare", that is, to sound through. In Greek tragedy tinged with the actors through the mask (persona) the message of the gods.
We need our mind only for the decision to make us on the chosen path and stay on it. Then we do not need the mind anymore, it disturbs us with all its attachments. During the years of practicing we feel more and more our inner peace and we win
Indeed it has no form, much less a name.
Eyes fail to see it; It has no voice for ears to detect;
To call it Mind or Buddha violates its nature,
For it then becomes like a visionary flower in the air;
It is not Mind, nor Buddha;
Absolutely quiet, and yet illuminating in a mysterious way,
It allows itself to be perceived only by the clear-eyed.
It is Dharma truly beyond form and sound.
It is Tao having nothing to do with words.
Wishing to entice the blind
The Buddha has playfully let words escape his golden mouth.
Heaven and earth are ever since filled with entangling briars.
O my good worthy friends gathered here
If you desire to listen to the thunderous voice of the Dharma,
Exhaust your words, empty your thoughts,
For then you may come to recognize this One Essence.
Says Hui the Brother, "The Buddha's Dharma
Is not to be given up to mere human sentiments."
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Depth psychology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Historically, depth psychology (from the German term Tiefenpsychologie), was coined by Eugen Bleuler to refer to psychoanalytic approaches to therapy and research that take the unconscious into account.[1] The term was rapidly accepted in the year of its proposal (1914) by Sigmund Freud, to cover a topographical view of the mind in terms of different psychic systems.[2]
Depth psychology has since come to refer to the ongoing development of theories and therapies pioneered by Pierre Janet, William James, and Carl Jung as well as Freud, which explore the relationship between the conscious and the unconscious (thus including both psychoanalysis and Jungian psychology).[3]
Summary of primary elements
Depth psychology states that psyche is a process that is partly conscious and partly unconscious and partly semi-conscious. In practice, depth psychology seeks to explore underlying motives as an approach to various mental disorders, with the belief that the uncovering of these motives is intrinsically healing. It seeks the deep layers underlying behavioral and cognitive processes. The initial work and development of the theories and therapies by Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler and Otto Rank have resulted in three main perspectives on depth psychology in modern times:
Jungian views
Criticism
