In an interview with Marie Louise von Franz in November 1990, Hein Stufkens asked her about the place of individuation in love relationships. Below is her answer: H.S.: What is the place of individuation in a love relationship? v.Fr.: In a love relation, as Jung once put it, you risk everything. You put yourself on […]
Individuation
There are many authors who write on the subject of the suffering of the soul, but the most prominent among psychotherapists is the Swiss psychiatrist, the founder of analytical psychology, Carl Gustav Jung. Thanks to his theory of individuation, Western man today has the opportunity to understand Christianity, not as a religion, but as the living myth that lives in the soul of humanity. To live this myth is to "become like Christ", going through the various forms of suffering symbolized by the incarnation of God in the Son and the theme of redemption. Therefore, the right way to work with this kind of suffering is "alchemy" - transforming suffering into something third, which transcends the duality of life in matter and whose symbol is the "philosopher's stone."
- 29-Day Program
- Analytical Psychology
- Anima and Animus
- Astro-psychology
- Calcination
- Carl Gustav Jung
- Cupid and Psyche
- David Gordon
- Desire
- Differentiation
- Duality
- Ego and the Soul
- Fear
- How Change Happens
- James Hillman
- Kundalini Awakening
- Lessons of Love
- Liz Greene
- Marie-Louise von Franz
- Mental health
- Morgan Scott Peck
- Mother Complex
- Parents and Children
- Projections
- Recommended books
- Relationships
- Selected Articles
- Self-Sacrifice
- Spiritual Transformation
- The Destroyer Archetype
- The Pain
- Venus
03.12.2024
The relationship between the conscious and the unconscious is both open conflict and cooperation
“But if we understand anything of the unconscious, we know that it cannot be swallowed. We also know that it is dangerous to suppress it, because the unconscious is life and this life turns against us if suppressed, as happens in neurosis. Conscious and unconscious do not make a whole when one of them is […]
“But I only achieve the feeling of limitlessness when I am extremely limited. Man’s greatest limitation is that ‘self’ which manifests itself in the experience of ‘I am only this’. Only consciousness of our narrow confinement in the self forms the link to the limitlessness of the unconscious. In such awareness we experience ourselves concurrently […]
23.07.2023
Psyche and Amur: The End of the Story
Here are Marie Louise von Franz’s last comments on the end of the story of Amur and Psyche, from which we learn more important things about the development of the soul and the embodiment of love on Earth. “In this ultimate, tragic moment, Eros comes down from Olympus and wakes Psyche, and, with the help […]
And this is the fourth and final task Venus gives Psyche to atone for her sin – to fetch a box of beauty cream from Persephone, queen of the underworld. Unlike the previous three tasks (sorting a pile of seeds, fetching a golden wave from the wild sun rams, and fetching water from the icy […]
After Psyche’s first task, which is to sort through a large pile of seeds, and the second task, which is to bring a wave of wild sun rams, comes the third task, which is to bring water from the icy waterfall of the River Styx that separates the earth from the underworld. What our soul […]
Psyche’s first task was to sort through a huge pile of seeds, and she tackled this ordeal with the help of the ants. I recall that Marie Louise von Franz interpreted this as help from the unconscious that comes when we are true to ourselves. After the first task comes the second, which teaches our […]
18.07.2023
Psyche’s first task – sorting the seeds
At last it is my turn to present how Marie-Louise von Franz interprets the various tasks Psyche receives from Venus in order to win back her beloved. I begin with her psychological interpretation of the first task, the sorting of the pile of seeds (a motif found in many fairy tales), what the ants symbolize, […]
This is the next part of Marie Franz’s analysis of the story of Amour and Psyche, told by Apuleius in his book The Golden Ass. The previous parts are: Marie Franz on the duality “romance – banality” in love Marie Franz: The incarnation of Venus is the embodiment of the god from the feminine side […]
15.07.2023
Eros is Puer aeternus
Marie Franz’s text with the psychological interpretation of the story of Amur/Eros and Psyche (see the article on “The Incarnation of Venus“) continues with an analysis of the correlation between Eros and the archetype of the“eternal child“, the so-called Puer Aeternus. For Eros is Puer Aeternus, and knowing this correlation helps tremendously if we want […]
After the articles on the spiritual dimension of love and the planet Venus, presenting the views of Liz Green and Alan Oaken, here is what Marie Louise von Franz has written on this very important topic, adding new and very important aspects to it. To this end, I would like to recall the nature of […]
03.03.2023
Liz Greene on what true self-sacrifice is
I continue this series of articles on the theme of self-sacrifice by turning to its most radical expression: the sacrifice of our desire for an easy and carefree life. Another way of saying the same thing is to stop resisting pain and to mature. I will begin with a quotation from Jung, because self-sacrifice is […]
