In recent days I have noticed my patients, and me for that matter, having more anxiety about  current events. It seems that the events in the news are stirring up deep feelings in my patients that they have been long trying to suppress or ignore. There is this tendency when a person has suffered from … Continue reading Identification with the aggressor

It is in the nature of political bodies always to see the evil in the opposite group, just as the individual has an ineradicable tendency to get rid of everything he does not know and does not want to know about himself by foisting it off on somebody else. Nothing has a more diverse and … Continue reading Projective Identification

Without even knowing it, we live our lives behind a mask. We are filled with feelings the we don't even know we have. When we look at or current political landscape, we see reasonable, and by all accounts, ordinary people screaming and yelling at each other as if we are at war with one another. … Continue reading What’s with all the yelling?

I was visiting with my supervisor at the institute last week and he told me this story that I thought I would share with you since I have not written in a while. I have seen this story all over the internet and can't find a source to give credit. Anyway, I really liked the … Continue reading The Donkey

The best political, social, and spiritual work we can do is to withdraw the projection of our shadow onto others.— Carl Jung The shadow self, coined by Carl Jung, was seen as the projection of intolerable aspects of the self onto others. We will find fault in others that are actually projections of unwanted aspects … Continue reading Projection