Analytical psychology

So really, the importance of this era, where this last era tau- taught us about, like, how our, how to love ourselves and all that, this era was more about showing fans how to discover and understand themselves.

Its core themes were really woven into every song, and the lyrics engaged listeners in this Jungian philosophy.

It definitely became, like, these psych concepts that I haven't seen f- since school, you know, like, resurfacing, and really getting to apply it to your own life, and then seeing it through the lens of BTS' lives as well.

This era just continued to explore, like, a lot of those subunit songs and solo songs as well, like getting Persona with RM, and Shadow with Yoongi, and Ego with J-Hope.

It was really a...

It really was a dark night of the soul, I think in the true Jungian sense of these periods between stages of being, where nothing makes sense.

And nobody was giving me any guarantees, and The Village Voice, which was this free paper that would come out on Wednesdays, everybody used to get it so they could find good apartments.

It was the only place to find apartments in New York pre-internet.

That shared sort of, you know, comedians have that.

Oh, it's the Jungian idea that if there's an idea out there, someone will have it and probably multiple people at the same time.

Yeah.

You're talking about like simultaneous...

Man cannot stand a meaningless life.

I'm Jason Smith, Jungian analyst and the host of this show.

A show about exploring what it means to live a life of meaning.

It's the human soul.

The full title of the book is Moby Dick or The Whale.

In thinking about how to approach this central symbol of the novel, however, we are immediately confronted with a problem.

Edward Edinger, in his book Melville's Moby Dick, a Jungian commentary, lays out the challenge of this task that we've set for ourselves here.

He writes, The problem is that the whale has too many meanings.

Embracing your shadow self and understanding your shadow self so you have a better sense of who you are in the world allows you to have a bigger impact.

It's the Jungian approach.

I'm dramatically oversimplifying and paraphrasing, obviously.

You cared about the environment.

Well, Van Til would want to apply this here.

It isn't the case that somebody coming out of a Freudian tradition or a Jungian tradition or being a psychotherapist of this or that sort, that they have nothing whatsoever to offer.

That would only be antithesis.

that's balanced off with common grace.

And I did shadow work with him.

And I won't go into the details of Jungian shadow work, but that's what I was doing with this group.

And he came to the realization that he's been running his whole entire life.

away to prevent himself from being hurt.

One can only be available to intimacy to the extent that they've overcome the fear of being alone, that they've taken on the responsibility for their own individuation, their own life.

Individuation is an idea from Jungian psychology, which is about becoming whole, becoming yourself.

And again, it's not like there's this self that you go back to and find.

It's finding out how to resonate with that inner tuning fork that is somewhere inside of you.

Carl Jung once said that neurosis, neurotic behavior, is a substitute form of legitimate suffering.

In other words, if we cannot legitimately suffer, we build a personality, a structure, a defense system to protect us from that.

James Hollis, a Jungian psychoanalyst, wrote, "The paradox of individuation is that we best serve intimate relationships by becoming sufficiently developed in ourselves that we do not need to feed off the partner." So if you are like most of us and you are on this path of self-help, of therapy, of waking up, of identifying your needs, of learning to tell the truth, of practicing this, understand that the step toward intimacy is a- a- another level.

It is abov- above and beyond the needs that you've identified.