DBT Skills: Balancing the Emotional Mind and Rational Mind

Queen of Shemakha & The Golden Cockerel

 Somewhere in a secret kingdom,
In a far and distant kingdom lived the famous Tsar Dadon....

              Images: Margarita Kareva

... the magus, brought before him, From beneath his ample frock

Drew a golden weathercock.

"Let this golden bird," he chanted,

"High atop the spire be planted,

And my clever Cockerel

Be your faithful sentinel.

...Behold, the curtains part
On the tent. . .The prize of maidens,
Queen of Shamakhan, in radiance

Lambent like the morning star,

Quietly salutes the Tsar.

Silenced by her brilliant gaze

Like a nightbird by the day's,

Numb he stands - her sight outstuns...

 Now she looked at him, beguiling,

Swept a graceful bow and, smiling,

Took his hand and drew him on

To her tent came Tsar Dadon.

At her table did she seat him

"Just you give me what I won,

This young queen of Shamakhan,"

Piped the sage in former fashion.

"No!" the Tsar spat, in a passion!

...Gone the empress sight unseen,

Just as though she'd never been.

Yalom's new therapy tales & an autobiographical film!

REVIEWS: The film, Yalom's Cure and his new psychotherapy tales book, Creatures of a Day provide profound insights into his own inner life and work.

 

An important film for anyone interested in the human mind and our capacity to understand it and each other. Best-selling author, popular scholar and existentialist, 80-year-old Irvin D. Yalom is one of the most influential living psychotherapists in the world.

 

This documentary is a journey through the many layers of the human mind, in which Yalom shares his insights and wisdom, which stress the importance of relationships. Dr Yalom’s books have sold millions of copies and critics describe him as “mind-bending”, “stunning”, “inspiring” and “life-changing”.

"All of us are creatures of a day,” wrote Marcus Aurelius, “rememberer and remembered alike.” In his long-awaited new collection of stories, renowned psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom describes his patients’ struggles—as well as his own—to come to terms with the two great challenges of existence: how to have a meaningful life, and how to reckon with its inevitable end.

In these pages, we meet a nurse, angry and adrift in a morass of misery where she has lost a son to a world of drugs and crime, and yet who must comfort the more privileged through their own pain; a successful businessman who, in the wake of a suicide, despairs about the gaps and secrets that infect every relationship; a newly minted psychologist whose study of the human condition damages her treasured memories of a lost friend; and a man whose rejection of philosophy forces even Yalom himself into a crisis of confidence.

Creatures of a Day is funny, earthy, and often shocking; it is a radically honest statement about the difficulties of human life, but also a celebration of some of the finest fruits—love, family, friendship—that life can bear. We are all creatures of a day.

Jung & Cinderella

 

 

 

The collective unconscious can be characterised as the body of knowledge with which all human beings are born. This knowledge is characterised by archetypes that represent inborn and universal ways of perceiving the world. Therefore, archetypes are notably reflected in fairytales.
 

 

Cinderella is the most universal fairytale theme, with over 700 versions worldwide. The story of abandonment, loss of love and recognition is known to humankind.

 

Films portraying genuinely meaningful archetypal figures create living icons that are used by

filmgoers as important personal anchors (Hirschman 2000).

Archetypes: Snow White & The Wicked Queen

 

 

Jungians closely examine fairytales symbolically to understand personal complexes and stories that are based on profound ancient archetypal patterns which inform them. The aim is to glean the underlying message from the personal unconscious and collective unconscious as it holds the potential to inform and nourish one's individuation process.  

  

Indeed, Snow White involves the confrontation of a woman's psyche with her more shadowy aspects. Snow White in meeting the Seven Dwarves is on her pathway to wholeness, providing her with hospitality,  creative energy, truths and earthy wisdom.

Images: Margarita Kareva

 

 

 

Snow White in eating the Wicked Queen's poisoned apple is confronted with the darker aspects of life and her psyche, and in the subsequent coffin-like deep process she awakens to her devoted Prince and her maturation.