’s and jung’s insights for artistically creating our lives a master’s … · 2015. 7. 18. ·...

Running head: ARTISTICALLY CREATING OUR LIVES 1

Adler’s and Jung’s Insights for Artistically Creating Our Lives

A Master’s Project

Presented to

The Faculty of the Adler Graduate School

_______________

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

The Degree of Master of Arts in

Adlerian Counseling and Psychotherapy

_______________

By:

Richard J. Chandler

March, 2015

ARTISTICALLY CREATING OUR LIVES 2

Abstract

This paper applies Alfred Adler’s and Carl Jung’s psychological principles to the question of

creating our lives in an intentional and artistic way. Although there is a body of psychological

writings comparing the principles of Alfred Adler to those of Sigmund Freud, and even more

writings comparing Carl Jung’s constructs with those of Freud’s, writings that compare and

contrast Alfred Adler’s body of work to that of Carl Jung’s, are limited. This paper presents

affinities, comparisons, contrasts and an integration of Adler’s and Jung’s insights for the

purpose of supporting artistic creation and self-actualization.


Acknowledgements

I gratefully wish to thank, acknowledge and express my deep appreciation to my professors, our

administration, staff, (with special thanks to Earl J. Heinrich), and fellow students of the Adler

Graduate School

Galen Martini, MA, LP, Jungian Analyst and artist for your generous contribution of time,

knowledge and original art. Your interviews opened the Jungian the world of artistry for me.

Roger Ballou, PhD, LMFT, LPCC for your interview and ongoing support, both for this project

and through your supervision classes. I treasure your profound expression of Adlerian thought.

Marina Bluvshtein, PhD, LP, LMFT, my Master’s Project Chair, and Ev Haas, MA, my MP

Reader, for your encouragement, for attending my November 8th

, 2014 community presentation

in Saint Cloud, MN, and for your insight and guidance throughout this Master’s Project.

Herb Laube, PhD, LMFT, for your contribution to my Master’s Project, your supervision

mentorship and for your gift of connecting through stories.

Eugene Beniek, MA, LICSW, LMFT, for mentoring me through your role as my clinical

supervisor. Your curiosity and compassion for clients continues to enthuse and inspire me.

Bonnett Chandler, my romantic mate, wife and practice partner. Taking this academic journey

with you, hand-in-hand, has been delightful, satisfying, supportive, and in every way fantastic!


Table of Contents

Abstract ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 2

Acknowledgements …………………………………………………………………………… 3

Table of Contents ……………………………………………………………………………… 4

What Motivated this Choice of Topic?...……………………………………………………… 5

Why Alfred Adler’s and Carl Jung’s Insights Inform Artistic Creation of Our Lives? ………. 5

Alfred Adler’s Insights for Artistically Creating Our Lives ………………………………….. 6

Carl Jung’s Concepts Inform Artistic Creation ………………………………………………. 12

Adler’s & Jung’s Similar Insights …………………………………………………………… 19

Jung’s Introverted Orientation Contrasts with Adler’s Extroverted Orientation …………… 21

Integrating Adler’s and Jung’s Insights for Artistically Creating Your Life ………………… 22

Generalized Protocol Summaries for Artistically Creating Our Lives ……………………….. 29

Summary Ideas of Alfred Adler and Carl Jung ………………………………………………. 32

References ……………………………………………………………………………………. 33


Adler’s and Jung’s Insights for Artistically Creating Our Lives

What Motivated this Choice of Topic?

Although much of psychology focuses on dysfunctions in mental health, this writer was

curious to discover how people without mental health impairments might utilize the

psychological principles of Alfred Adler and Carl Jung to artistically create their lives.

The word “artistically” implies:

Movement inward, by journeying deeply into our interior psyche.

Movement outward, by retrieving and transforming our inner discoveries into

creations of value, to be shared with others.

Aesthetics, by creating our lives as works of art, so our individually unique vision of

truth and beauty concurrently embraces principles of universality, and therefore

connects with our mutual humanity.

Intentionality, by embracing our responsibility for uniquely creating our lives.

Action, which is the indispensable ingredient for creating.

Why Alfred Adler’s and Carl Jung’s Insights Inform Artistic Creation of Our Lives?

In addition to acknowledging the artistic creation shown within their published writings,

Adler and Jung personified artistry and creation within their lives. In addition to his life as a

psychologist, author, lecturer and the inventor of “Depth Psychology,” Carl Jung lived the life of

a visual artist, working in drawing, in painting and in sculpture mediums (Shamadasani, 2009).

Adler also led an artistic life, taking the lead in creating - along with collaboration of his

colleagues - the field of “Individual Psychology” (Hoffman, 1994). Along with his associates, he

also created a network of children and parents’ clinics in Germany (Hoffman, 1994).

Additionally, Adler was a singer and engaged in music as a hobby (Bottome, 1957).


Alfred Adler’s Insights for Artistically Creating Our Lives

Inferiority, Superiority and Assigned Meaning

Alfred Adler (1917) postulated that inferiorities themselves, including their manifestation

within our bodies as organ inferiority, abnormal size, looks, or even traumas during our

development, are less relevant to living fulfilling lives, than how we respond to our inferiorities

(Adler, 1917). For Adler, our volition, our striving and our goal-orientation are paramount. His

position sharply contrasted with that of Sigmund Freud, who posited that instinctual drives are

the primary motivational determinants of human behavior. Adlerian authors Oberst and Stewart

(2003) write:

But in spite of the mutual respect the two men had for each other, a certain rivalry

between Freud and Adler existed from the inception of their relationship. It seems that

Adler never was wholly convinced of all of Freud’s ideas, especially the concept of

sexuality being the primary motivator of most behavior. (Oberst & Stewart. 2003, p. 3)

In Alfred Adler’s view (1992), we assign meanings to our experiences, from very early

childhood onward. Meanings assignment is a creative process that serves to either empower or

disempower us, either connecting us more deeply and empathetically with our fellow humans, or

to instead motivate us to cut our ties to others, or even to seek power over them. The meanings

that we assign become a filter from which we view all of our new experiences, often reinforcing

earlier assignments of meaning. Adler taught that it is not our hereditary givens, environmental

experiences, or even the behaviors of others towards us per se, but rather our creative assignment

of meaning to all of our experience that matters most (Adler, 1992). He also believed that our

foundational assignment of meanings occurs in our formative years. But meaning can be changed


later in our lives through an impact of a major life event, or due to intentional self-reflection,

commonly occurring within a psychotherapeutic process.

As infants and children, we notice our inabilities and feel inferior to older siblings and

adults. Feeling inferior is our human condition; we have all felt, and will continue to feel a “Felt

Minus” from time to time. Our innate desire to move to a plus position marshals us. A healthy

response is to move forward through actions that give us more of what we want, and away from

feelings of inferiority. Alfred Adler writes:

Our …creative power of life, which expresses itself in the desire to develop, to strive, to

achieve, and even to compensate for defeats in one direction by striving for success in

another. This power is teleological; it expresses itself in the striving after a goal, and, in

this striving, every bodily and psychological movement is made to cooperate. (Ansbacher

& Ansbacher, 1956, p. 92).

Thus we move from a “Felt Minus” toward a “Perceived Plus” of superiority, which is a healthy

human response.

There are three common ways that healthy striving towards superiority might be derailed:

1. When inferiority equals guilt or shame, we might attempt to hide our inferiority. When

this occurs, healthy striving toward mastery stops and our striving response instead might

become a quest for reasonable excuses as a justification for our perception of inferiority.

2. When healthy striving toward superiority is discouraged, we can give up, which often

leads to avoiding situations, or people, that remind us of our inferiorities.

3. We may overcompensate, which can develop into a “Superiority Complex,” as described

by Alfred Adler:


The superiority complex, as I have described it, appears usually clearly characterized in

the bearing, the character traits, and the opinion of one’s own superhuman gifts and

capacities. It can also become visible in the exaggerated demands one makes on oneself

and on other persons (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956, p. 261).

In Adlerian “Individual Psychology” we accept our inferiority as a natural part of being

human. In doing so, we embrace two stances that are vital for artistically creating our lives,

which Adlerian practitioners are fond of stating. These stances are: “the courage to make

mistakes” and “the courage to be imperfect.” Without committing to these stances, our creative

striving forfeits to the fear of our own judgments, or the judgments of others, and forfeits to the

fear of making mistakes and not arriving at an ideal conclusion in our initial attempts to create.

Much of the process of authentic creation involves outwardly creating our inner vision, even

though there are no guarantees that our creative work will be met with acceptance. In addition, a

great deal of the creative process is one of trial and error as we make multiple attempts to create,

followed by the typical realization that we have created something that clearly fails to have a

result that we wanted, and a result that others are able to accept as artistically competent.

But in those multiple, imperfect attempts, we learn through our efforts to create

something new. We also learn from our creations themselves, as they give us real-world

feedback as to what has and has not worked. Through years of attempting, and the feedback that

our imperfect creations have provided for us, we move towards personal mastery. It is imperative

that we make a critical delineation here, noting that personal mastery is not perfectionism.

Moving towards mastery is not done to be better than others, or to achieve perfection; personal

mastery is in service to making greater contributions to our fellow humans.


Common Sense vs. Private Sense

Adlerian psychology contends that our deepest need as humans is to belong and to be

significant (Oberst & Stewart, 2003). Adler describes our healthy impetus of moving towards

superiority, infused with “Social Interest” and “Community Feeling,” which are “Common

Sense” ways of contributing. Unlike socially recognized common sense, “Private Sense,” or

“Private Logic” along with “Mistaken Beliefs, consists of disempowering ways of viewing

ourselves, of viewing others, and of reconciling our place in the world, which might result in

procrastination or “Safeguarding” behavior. This can occur should we become discouraged in

our striving towards goals in the arenas of work, close relationships or community relationships,

placing us instead at risk to strive in less common sense ways, choosing to embrace “side-show”

goals, also known as a private logic ways of striving towards superiority (Oberst & Stewart,

2003).

Common sense ways of artistically creating our lives results from examining our own

private logic, and mistaken beliefs, so that we may decide whether or not those beliefs are

empowering or disempowering. Adlerians do this through a process of recalling our “Early

Recollections” or ER’s, in which we recollect memories from the early part of our life. By

remembering a specific event or story from our earlier life, we discover a direct pathway into our

less-conscious ways of thinking, believing and striving. Examples of disempowering private

logic, which may be discoverable through “early recollection” inroads into our unconscious,

might include internal messages of not being talented, smart or creative. Through ER’s, we

discover insights into our patterns of getting stuck, thus allowing us to make course corrections

and restore healthy forward movement towards our common sense goals (Mosak & di Pietro,

2006).


Perfectionism

A private logic mistaken goal, frequently experienced by many, is perfectionism. The

voice of perfectionism speaks in the dialect of mistaken beliefs. For both artists who create, and

for performance artists, including musicians, dancers and actors, the voice of perfectionism

might say:

“If my stage performance isn’t perfect, it’s not good at all.”

“If I’m not perfect, people will judge me harshly.”

“If I can’t do it perfectly, I shouldn’t even try.”

“I expect that others will have the same standards as me.”

Perfectionistic ways of believing has disempowering relatives. They include:

Anxiety, depression and self-image distortions

Loss of confidence

Procrastination

Fear of failure

Unwillingness to risk

Despair

Perfectionism’s Antidotes of Adopting Realistic Standards and Horizontal Striving

One antidote to perfectionism is to externalize it. This author suggests calling it: “The

voice of perfectionism, who speaks in the dialect of mistaken beliefs.” This voice tries to

convince us that we should not even try to artistically create our lives, as we don’t have what it

takes to do it perfectly. This statement is an example of a mistaken belief, because we know that

even if we do not achieve some unattainable perfection, we still will create our lives in more

optimal ways than would be the case if we had heeded this voice and not even tried. Adlerians


like to tell themselves and others that they will just “take a whack at it.” When concerned over

whether or not their creation, or their performance, was stellar in every way, Adlerians tell

themselves that it was “good enough.” We would do well to recall humorist and politician Al

Franken’s fictitious character, Stuart Smalley, who self-soothed by saying: “I’m good enough.

I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me” (Franken, 1991)

An Adlerian construct that is particularly helpful for performance artists, as well as

anyone who feels exposed when in front of others, is the “Vertical Plane of Striving vs. the

Horizontal Plane of Social Interest and Community Feeling.” When people strive vertically, it is

as if they live their lives on a skyscraper’s elevator, and are constantly monitoring who is living a

higher floor and who they have risen above. When their performance goes well, it is if as if they

have ascended several floors and can look down on even more people; but when their

performance isn’t as good, their elevator descends to a lower floor of diminished status. Vertical

striving places too much focus on us. We might compensate by:

Comparing, judging and criticizing

Occupying ourselves by deciding who we are better than, or not as good as

Believing that others are judging us, because after all, we are judging ourselves

Horizontal striving, in contrast, confirms that we are all in this together, audience and

presenter or performers alike. We believe that the audience is cheering on the presenter or

performers, due to inherent human empathy. Because the audience, presenter or performer, and

even behind-the-scenes stage people, all are co-creators of an event, everyone present desires the

best possible experience and outcome for the performance. Therefore, if we are in the role of

performer or presenter, we can afford to relax and let go; positive support is ever present.


The Creative Self

The final Adlerian concept that informs how we may artistically create our lives is “The

Creative Self.” Alfred Adler believed that our inherent makeup, in terms of the ways in which we

create our lives, is artistic. In other words, like artists, composers, inventors or entrepreneurs, we

create our lives as our own, unique works of art. It is our creative volition that determines what

we strive for in life. Adler (1956) said: “The individual is thus both the picture and the artist” (p.

177).

Carl Jung’s Concepts Inform Artistic Creation

The Personal and the Collective Unconscious

The “Personal Unconscious” informs us on what may have gone unnoticed in our lives. It

our personal repository for original ideas, felt emotions, images, soundscapes and

improvisational kinesthetic impulses. All of these, and many more, are our foundational building

blocks, the source material for what we create. What truly wants to come through for uniquely

creating our own way, which Jungian Galen Martini (2006) describe as the process of

“Individuation,” arises from our personal unconscious via our dreams, the symbols that we are

attracted to, or even through synchronous events that we both notice and mine as a source of

artistic insight (Martini, 2006).

The discovery of the “Collective Unconscious” is primarily credited to Carl Jung

(Shamadasani, 2009). As we travel inward, into the deepest regions of our personal unconscious,

we leave our personal references behind and have traveled into a vast repository of images,

symbols, stories and myths that are common to all of us as humans. The collective unconscious

connects us with all of humanity, across culture, ethnicity, geographic distance and even time. In


illuminating Carl Jung’s understanding of the relationship between the personal and collective

unconscious, author Sonu Shamadasani (2009) writes:

[Jung] … differentiated two layers of the unconscious. The first, the personal

unconscious, consisted in elements acquired during one’s lifetime, together with elements

that could equally well be conscious. The second was the impersonal unconscious or

collective psyche. While consciousness and the personal unconscious were developed

and acquired in the course of one’s lifetime, the collective psyche was inherited. …

[Jung] discussed the curious phenomena that resulted from assimilating the unconscious.

He noted that when individual’s annexed the contents of the collective psyche and

regarded them as personal attributes, they experienced extreme states of superiority and

inferiority. He borrowed the term godliness from Goethe and Alfred Adler to characterize

the state, which arose from fusing the personal and collective psyche, and was one of the

dangers of analysis. (Shamadasani, 2009, p. 208)

Psychological Personality Types

Carl Jung was the first to write about our innate psychological personality preferences, or

psychological types (Jung, 1971). The overall polarities that he established include:

Introversion vs. extroversion

Sensing vs. intuiting

Thinking vs. feeling

Perceiving vs. judging, or decision-making

All of these polarities may be measured by taking the Myers-Briggs® assessments, which

are based in large part upon Jung’s constructs. It is this writer’s belief that people may gain

advantageous insights into themselves and others, by taking and receiving an interpretation from


an experienced Myers-Briggs practitioner of the MBTI® Step II psychometric instrument, which

subdivides each of the above polarities into five sub-processes (K. D. Myers & P. B. Meyers,

2001, 2003). Although the simplistic Myers-Briggs instrument is helpful, the additional precision

and clarity gained through the MBTI® Step II instrument and interpretation is superior for

understanding how to artistically create the life that we aspire to.

Symbols, Dreams and Synchronicity

The landscape of our personal and collective unconsciousness is largely made up of

symbols, dreams and the common experience of synchronicity. Paying attention to the symbols

that we are drawn to, or repelled by, in our waking life, as well as the symbolic meaning of our

dreams, illuminates the meaning we assign to our lives. This rich reservoir from our unconscious

informs us of what we need to consider in order to grow and to move our lives forward. Our

unconscious symbols, dreams and synchronous events are messages from ourselves, to ourselves

(Martini, 2011).

The “Anima” and the “Animus”

Like Alfred Adler, who talked about the role of gender guiding-lines as an aspect of our

“Style of Life,” Carl Jung wrote about the influence of masculine and feminine energies within

the totality of our self, which he identified as the “Anima” and the “Animus.” Artistically

creating our lives may be informed by considering the ways in which “Yin” or female energies,

and “Yang,” or male energies, consciously and unconsciously influence us. Artistic creation may

be enhanced by choosing to include more yin energy, so our creations may be fluid and flowing.

In contrast we might find greater benefit by incorporating more yang energy, instead

emphasizing structure and more defined boundaries, in order to achieve the life that we want.

Men may particularly find balance by consciously embracing the female energy of the anima,


while women often achieve greater balance by embracing their inner animus, their masculine

energy (Millner, 2004).

Archetypes

Through insights gained from his lifelong interest in stories, fairytales, myths and the

metaphysical beliefs of other cultures, as well as from his own personal journey into the

collective unconscious, Carl Jung wrote about archetypal life patterns (Jung, 1964). Those that

most directly apply to artistically creating our lives revolve around archetypes of personal power,

wisdom and the act of creating itself. Creation-oriented archetypes include:

The “Hero”

The “Warrior”

The “Wizard” or “Sorcerer”

The “Shaman”

The “Wise Man” or “Wise Woman”

The “Artist”

The “Muse”

The “Musician”

For most people, archetypes operate unconsciously, emanating as they do from the realm

of the collective unconscious. By bringing our archetypal influences into conscious awareness,

we have the opportunity to examine the extent to which they empower or disempower us. In

many ways, artistic archetypes have chosen us. By acknowledging those patterns that do hold

sway over our lives, and consciously choosing the archetypes that best support our aspirations,

we may enlist our mix of archetypes as allies in our quest to artistically create our lives.


The “Self” and the “Shadow Self”

In Carl Jung’s mapping out of the psyche, we find both the conscious and unconscious

construct of the “Self,” which, in part, includes:

Our persona, which is the aspect of our identity that we are comfortable sharing with

others

Our ego consciousness, the aspect that we relate to as our conscious inner “I”

Our shadow self, which operates both within our conscious awareness and below it, in the

realm of our personal unconscious (Millner, 2004).

Our shadow self contains thoughts, feelings, desires and biases that may be embarrassing,

shameful or even abhorrent to us, and also perhaps to others. It may also contain latent aptitudes

and artistic sensibilities that yet remain unexplored (Jung, 1964).

Jungian’s believe that when our shadow self remains hidden from our conscious

awareness, it can powerfully influence our thoughts and behavior in ways that undermine ego-

control of our lives and lead to destructive ways of thinking and behaving. Confronted by our

shadow, we commonly respond by ignoring it, denying it, or distancing ourselves from

uncomfortable or even painful awareness of our shadow self. To more successfully create our

lives in an artistic way we need to do the opposite; we must welcome and except those unwanted

aspects of our “Self” into conscious awareness. Paradoxically, by doing so, those previously

exiled shadow aspects of our “Self” may be reincorporated into the totality of our conscious

awareness, and therefore those shadow aspects’ capacity to negatively impact our lives is to a

large extent mitigated, for they no longer operate as a shadow government, controlling the

operations of our lives without the conscious permission of our ego (G. Martini, personal

communication, August, 2014). For those latent shadow aspects, rich with artistic potential, the


act of welcoming and embracing our shadow might prove to be fruitful and rewarding as we

artistically create our lives.

How might we explore our shadow selves? For the more troubling aspects of our shadow,

Jungian’s recommend that we begin by noticing what really bothers us in other people, paying

special attention to those words, beliefs or actions of others that precede a strong emotional

reaction from us, as this is a major clue that we too house similar thoughts, beliefs or

propensities within our own psyches. Our dreams may also inform us of those latent, unexplored

parts of ourselves. While interviewing Jungian Analyst Galen Martini, I asked: “If people simply

wanted to more artistically create their lives, how might you proceed in a Jungian way?” She

responded: “What I would be exploring with them is what they are getting from their dreams that

show a side of themselves that needs to be heard. What is clamoring upward and asking to be

integrated into their lives” (G. Martini, personal communication, August 28, 2014). This is the

key to working with our shadow selves; reintegration of our shadow into conscious awareness

brings wholeness to our lives, allowing us to transcend and overcome the paralysis of a

fragmented self. Instead of vilifying our shadow, we out it!

Life Cycles

Carl Jung addressed the cyclic nature of our lives, from the early acquisition of

knowledge and experience, to our rising competence in our 20s and 30s, to the disruptive falling

apart that so often occurs in midlife and through a reintegration towards a more holistic

expression that may best describe our later years. Artistic creation frequently requires that

something die in order for something new to be born (Millner, 2004).

As people have the courage to allow many aspects of their earlier adult life to die, there

seems to be a kind of rebirth that occurs, a re-animation of their life by a self that had


been largely ignored, a self that might remind a person more of how they were in their

teenage years, in terms of being more optimistic and confident about life’s possibilities,

their possibilities. (Chandler, 2013, p. 4)

Individuation

Jungians believe that all healthy people go through a process of individuation; we grow

by breaking away from the life prescriptions written for us by our families of origin. To

artistically create our lives, or to actually become an artist, an even greater degree of

individuation often occurs as an expression of finding one’s own way, both in living life and

through acts of creating. Galen Martini (2006) states:

By tapping your unconscious strengths and uncovering repetitious, negative or self-

defeating patterns you can find and reclaim your life. … With reflection, you can move

out of old worn out attitudes, “the old house” of self-sabotaging beliefs that you

designed and inhabited to protect yourself at an earlier time, and into the house of

yourself.” (Martini, 2006, p. 27)

The Jungian-informed Technique of Drawing with the Non-dominant Hand

In much the same way that recurring symbols, the content of our dreams, and insights

from synchronous events reveal meaningful content from the unconscious, drawing with our

non-dominant hand opens our unconscious world to conscious reflection by intentionally

journeying inward. Galen Martini (2014) provides the steps for drawing with our non-dominant

hand:

First clear your mind, or alternatively, ask yourself a compelling question

With pencil in hand, let your hand float lightly across your paper, letting go of

preconceptions


Without interference from your conscious awareness, simply allow your hand to draw

what it will, noticing what is being drawn

Let your intuition guide the completion of the drawing, which may now be done, if you

choose, with your dominant hand

Fill the pencil drawing in with paint, or any other color medium that the drawing seems

to call for

During the process of making the drawing, or upon reflection after its completion, your

creation is likely to have a specific insight for you. This technique may be especially

useful when facing some uncertainty about how best to proceed forward in your life.

(Martini, personal communication, September 5, 2014)

Active Imagination

Jung taught and used the technique, “Active Imagination,” in which we dialog with

images from our unconscious, or with our dream characters. These could include parts of

yourself that had been put away, perhaps because of your family’s values. In her second

interview with this writer, Galen Martini (2014) stated:

After many years of conceptual work, I still needed to write my thesis, and I was very

tired. I needed the energy of my intuitive self, my right brain side, to balance out from all

of the left brain work, so I could actually write. Using Active Imagination while drawing

with my non-dominant hand, a muse showed up, admonishing me to paint as a way to

have energy to write my Jungian thesis. It showed up spontaneously on the page much

like a dream and gave me access to that artistic side of myself that I'd had to put aside

doing years of rigorous Jungian conceptual study. I really listened to it too, and wrote all


morning and painted from the unconscious each afternoon, and finished my thesis this

way. (G. Martini, personal communication, September 5, 2014)

Adler’s & Jung’s Similar Insights

The Jungian Shadow has Consonance with Adlerian Feelings of Inferiority

Alfred Adler and Carl Jung were contemporaries, and for a time, both members of the

Vienna Analytic Society (Hoffman, 1994). I found no evidence, however, that the concepts of

inferiority, or the shadow aspects of being, were developed through collaboration, or any

influence by one of these pioneering psychologists on the other. Both concepts appear to be

independent constructs. Even so, our shadow and our inferiority do share some commonalities:

Both our shadow, and inferiority, may reside to a large extent within the unconscious

They are often hidden, unwanted and exiled from conscious awareness

We often employ strategies to keep our shadow, and the inferior aspects of ourselves,

hidden from others

Owning our shadow, and our inferiority, and publically acknowledging their presence in

our makeup, frees up the energy that is often used to hide their presence from others

Integrating inferiority, and our shadow, ultimately makes us stronger, more whole and

more human to ourselves and to others

Adlerian “Early Recollections” relates to Jungian “Complexes of Energies”

During one of my interviews with Galen Martini (2014), she had just expounded on a

Jungian way to work with dreams. I interjected that her explanation reminded me of Alfred

Adler’s technique of using “Early Recollections” to discover unconscious, or at least less

conscious, patterns that relate to a presenting problem. Ms. Martini answered:


An Early Recollection, [in Jungian terms], is called a ‘Complex of Energies’ around a

certain topic that shows the habitual patterns that we can work with, both internally and

externally. The present situation has more voltage because it is built upon many years of similar

patterns in the client’s life (G. Martini, personal communication, September 5, 2014).

Life itself May Be Understood as Being Embedded with Meaning

Throughout Carl Jung’s writings, we find evidence of how important “life-meaning” was

to him. The following quotations illustrate this: “The least of things with a meaning is worth

more in life than the greatest of things without it” (Jung, 2015). “Your vision will become clear

only when you can look into your own heart” (Jung, 2015). “Who looks outside, dreams; who

looks inside, awakes” (Jung, 2015). “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the

intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the

objects it loves” (Jung, 2015). “As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is

to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being” (Jung, 2015).

In Alfred Adler’s writings we also have a great many references to life-meaning. Here is

one quotation that powerfully illustrates this:

The mark of all true ‘meanings of life’ is that they are common meanings - they are

meanings in which others can share, and means that others can accept. A valid solution to

the problems of life will always set an example for others also, for in it we shall see

common problems met in a successful way. Even genius is to be defined as no more than

supreme usefulness: it is only when a person’s life is recognized by others as having

significance for them that we called them a genius. The meaning expressed in such a life

will always be, ‘life means making a contribution to the whole’. (Adler, 1992, p. 20)

Jung’s Introverted Orientation Contrasts with Adler’s Extroverted Orientation


In general, Carl Jung preferred a more introverted, inward exploration of the

unconscious, as a way of informing us on how to uniquely create our lives. We see evidence of

this in many of his concepts including:

The path of “Individuation”

Jung’s exploration and extensive writings about archetypes

Life cycles, including our infancy and early years, adolescence, midlife and old age

The path of artistry, as seen in Carl Jung’s drawing, paintings, calligraphy, mandalas,

rock carvings and the summer house that he designed and built

The artistic creations of Jungian artists

In contrast to the inwardly focused approach of Carl Jung, Alfred Adler seemed to

primarily connect to the world of others in an extroverted, outward way. His following concepts

illustrate this:

The life tasks of love, sex and marriage, work and career, and social relationships are

about connecting to others

The movement from inferiority to superiority, as personal mastery in the service of

contributing to the lives of others

Social interest and community feeling

His extensive work as a lecturer

Alfred Adler’s writings were predominantly assembled from his lectures rather than the

more introverted approach of directly writing

Adler sang for others, even performing in public places

He had rickets yet chose to move his body extensively, in spite of the disease, which is an

active, outward strategy rather than an inner, more meditative one


Author Edward Hoffman quoted Alfred Adler who described the difficulties he had as a

young boy with rickets: “… for me movement of any sort was a strain…” Hoffman goes on to

describe how the young Adler responded: “In the wide meadows that stretched behind the house,

Alfred joined his many friends in vigorous games, and his rickets eventually dissipated” (E.

Hoffman, p. 7).

Integrating Adler’s and Jung’s Insights for Artistically Creating Your Life

Adler’s & Jung’s approaches inform us, as we integrate them, into an optimal way of

organizing and artistically creating our own lives.

Connecting with the Whole of Humanity

Both Alfred Adler and Carl Jung emphasized the universality of our humanity and how

we may connect more fully with our fellow humans. Dr. Adler inspires us to connect directly

with the whole of humanity, through our work, our intimate relationships, all of our other social

connections and even more universally by embracing social interest and community feeling as a

way to be in the world.

Dr. Jung also inspired us to connect with the whole of humanity via archetypes, the

collective unconscious, the universality of symbols and by understanding and honoring cultures

that might be quite different from our own. He did so in his own life through his connection with

far Eastern, African and American Indian cultures employing travel, study and translation of

their worldviews to expand the understanding of westerners in ways that deepened, corroborated

and expanded our Western civilization’s psychological and philosophical models.

Adler and Jung Developed Methods for Mining Our Unconscious for Insights

Carl Jung showed us ways to bring our unconscious shadow side into conscious

awareness. By exploring our unconscious through dream-work, symbols, synchronous events


and artistic pursuits, (including drawing with our non-dominant hand), we learn to pay attention

to those dormant, unacknowledged or fragmented aspects of ourselves. Doing so helps us to

become more whole by consciously deciding how we may incorporate those less conscious parts

into the whole of our being. Our inattention and ignorance of our shadow self, on the other hand,

provides no protection against our shadow’s influence upon us; Eugene Beniek (2014) stated:

“Our shadow will instead operate as a shadow government that at times hijack’s our lives” (E.

Beniek, personal correspondence, August 2014).

Alfred Adler’s method for assessing peoples’ deeper and more fundamental life goals,

known as the “Style of Life,” provides a way to bring those less-than-conscious ways of being

into greater conscious awareness. Through detailed questioning about upbringing we may learn

of:

Interactions and held beliefs by peoples’ mother, father, siblings and other significant

family members

Psychological birth order, including the overall attitudes and beliefs that were

individually embraced significance within the family

The gender roles that were modeled

Families’ held beliefs about the world itself

All of these contribute to the overall way people choose to move through their lives.

Absent a method like the style of life, peoples’ most fundamental life goals, their ways of

moving through life and relating with others, might remain largely unconscious. Much like the

shadow self, our style of life powerfully influences us. By bringing our style of life into

conscious awareness, we are in a stronger position to choose how our past influences may inform

the life we wish to live rather than dictate it.


Alfred Adler also had a way of working with dreams. Yet his most commonly utilized

method for directly accessing our unconscious is the technique of asking for, recording and

interpreting “Early Recollections” (ER’s). Like Jung, Alfred Adler’s dream techniques, style of

life analysis and ER technique take us directly into our unconscious, so we might make the

unknown in ourselves known.

This question was asked to Dr. Roger Ballou: “What Adlerian concepts relate to Jung’s

work, for constructing our lives in an artistic way?” Dr. Ballou answered:

From what I know, which is a little bit, Jung and Adler had a belief that something larger

unites us all; for Jung, the collective unconsciousness; for Adler, social interest. We hang

in the balance because of each other. They both saw that in people, and their

relationships, there is something larger. To Adler, we are all surrounded by our social

environment and we co-create that together, so we are united by our oneness with each

other. We can’t survive alone. We know this in the deepness of our core. So ultimately,

solutions to all of the problems of the world require a collective response. Global

warming is a good marker of how we might do this, as it affects us all. (R. Ballou,

personal communication, September 9, 2014)

Our Psychological Personality Type Informs How We Might Artistically Proceed

An inner-directed Jungian approach might initially be more appealing to those with

introverted psychological personality types. That being the case, introverted people may do well

to explore Adler’s more socially embedded ways, in order to connect more broadly with others

and reduce their risk of becoming insular. An Adlerian approach might initially be more

appealing to those with greater extroversion in their psychological personality type. Extroverted


people might find a greater depth of personal growth, however, as they can deeply explore their

own psyche in a Jungian way by journeying deeply into their individual uniqueness.

Explore Jungian Concepts and Jungian-Informed Artistic Techniques

Jungian concepts and Jungian-informed techniques are designed to uncover the deeper

truths contained within our personal unconscious, and our collective unconscious, so that we

might work with those truths productively, once we become consciously aware of them. Many of

the following techniques were gleaned primarily from artist, writer and Jungian analyst, Galen

Martini:

Write from the unconscious by clearing our minds, relaxing our bodies and journal,

without consciously directing the writing (G. Martini, personal communication,

September 5, 2014)

Assemble “Found Poems” by walking through a library or bookstore and jotting down

the titles or parts of titles that seem to stand out for us (G. Martini, personal

communication, September 5, 2014)

Draw with your non-dominant hand (G. Martini, personal communication, September 5,

2014)

Engage in “Active Imagination” through dialoging with the images that we have drawn

(G. Martini, personal communication, September 5, 2014)

Engage in “Active Imagination” through dialoging with the characters of our dreams (G.

Martini, 2011)

Find and get to know those aspects of ourselves that have been left behind, including our

shadow parts, as well as the creative aspects of our psyches (G. Martini, personal

communication, September 5, 2014)


Reflect upon our “Life Cycles”

Identify and explore those symbols and archetypes that resonate with us

We might also benefit by entering into Jungian analysis with a qualified Jungian analyst

so we can specifically explore our psyche in a more complete and in-depth way. In one of my

interviews with Galen Martini, I posed this question: “What other Jungian principles might be

employed for creating a person’s life in an artistic way?” She responded:

One of the things that I experienced as a young art student is that I could not get to my

own symbols. The whole artist idea, which you can also see in poetry, is that until you

find your own symbolic inner life, artists are basically ‘just moving the furniture’. If

people have not come into their own material, they are still on a surface level of

manipulating techniques. Art isn’t just technique. It’s the better artists who have found

something, and that they have found something at all is what makes their work unique.

That deep work takes a lot of diligence, just like it does in analysis. Whatever field you

are in, it is the deeper work of mining yourself that counts. It really shows when people

have done deeper work. The artist mode is the unique one-of-a-kind work that comes

from that deep core. And the hardest thing is to hold to it when everyone else is doing

something different; staying true to yourself, when no one else is going that particular

way. (G. Martini, personal communication, September 5, 2014)

Explore Adlerian Techniques and Concepts

Alfred Adler’s writings that speak of movement powerfully inform how we might

artistically create our lives. As we reflect upon where we have been, what we have done, and

how our experiences have impacted us, we gain confidence for making decisions on our future

direction, including those immediate actions that help us create new projects, connect with others


in more significant ways and propel our lives forward. For this writer, the path that leads to

fruition is our quest for mastery by moving from inferiority to superiority. We intentionally

move our lives forward on the horizontal axis of contributing to the welfare of others. In addition

to movement, useful Adlerian methods for artistically creating our lives include:

Exploring our early recollections to gain present-time insights from our unconscious

Reflecting upon and strategically managing our life tasks, so we might more fully engage

with others, thereby living with greater life balance

Embracing our inferiorities as an integral aspect of our humanness, so that we may free

up the energy presently used to hide the parts of ourselves that we have deemed to be

inferior.

Moving horizontally towards community feeling by learning from, receiving from and

giving to each other to deepen our bonds with those that we know and with all of

humanity

Alfred Adler’s optimistic and courageous response to vocal cord problems provides a

model for how to best respond to life’s challenges in a creative and energized way. The

inferiority of his voice did not deter him. Employing the same strategy of use and movement that

he used to cure his rickets, Adler sang anyway, eventually developing both his singing voice and

the strong lecturing voice. Adler Graduate School of Minnesota Professor Herb Laube shared the

story of visiting the historic Central Café in Vienna, along with Professor Marina Bluvshtein,

where amateur musician Alfred Adler enjoyed singing music in both classical and popular

idioms (H. Laube, personal communication, June 6, 2014). For this writer, singing in both

classical and popular styles exemplifies an egalitarian approach to music consistent with a high


degree of social interest. In my interview with Roger Ballou (2014), he eloquently shared Adler’s

way, saying:

We always have the power of response. We may not be able to control what happens, but

as long as we are alive, we create the response. Alfred Adler was an optimist. He thought

goodness would prevail. We can start at any time to live life differently. Many times in

people’s pain, they are stuck. We can help co-create the vision and the method to [help

them] un-stick themselves. Stop looking for normal. It is a common question in therapy.

Once people stop looking for normal, they can start creating the solutions that work for

them. That is a key to Adler’s statement: “The only normal people are the ones you don’t

know very well. (R. Ballou, personal communication, September 9, 2014)

Generalized Protocol Summaries for Artistically Creating Our Lives

Utilize Adler’s Principle of Teleological Movement

Alfred Adler postulated that much of our behavior can be ascribed to teleological

movement towards our goals. But absent an introspective process, or a therapeutic process,

which might include a style of life analysis for those involved with Adlerian psychotherapy, the

goals themselves, and our movement towards those goals, often remain below conscious

awareness. Intentionally employing teleological movement towards consciously formulated

goals may be enhanced by:

Directing our movement inward into the rich landscape of our unconscious, or even

deeper, into our collective unconscious, to illuminate new insights and expand our

existing understanding


After having an insight or inner discovery, retrieve it by moving outward from our

unconscious back into our more usual conscious state, manifesting what we have

discovered by translating it into form, via a medium of our choosing

Choose Mediums of Expression that are Personally Optimal for Artistically Creating

Alfred Adler’s primary medium of public lecturing, which may include storytelling,

constitutes a powerful and expressive performance art that may profoundly captivate and

influence watchers and listeners via sight, the depth and expression of hearing the

speaker’s voice and the palpable group energy kinesthetically felt by most all who are

present

Writing as fiction – which is a very sophisticated form of storytelling that typically

incorporates the deeper and more poignant experiences that we have as humans – tends to

connect writers and readers to the universality of our human experience

Nonfiction writing as a medium, (as both Carl Jung and Alfred Adler engaged in

throughout their professional lives), has an advantage over public lecturing in

communicating a greater breadth and depth of understanding, and offering the

opportunity to reread a work, than is possible with public lectures

Movement arts, including dancing, mime, acting and athletics, use our bodies themselves

as a vehicle for communicating stories and human experiences within space, via rhythmic

movement through time

The healing arts, including psychotherapy, make use of highly integrated sets of skills

requiring a depth of knowledge, critical thinking and compassionate human connection

with others for the purpose of relieving suffering and promoting wellness


Music composition – the creative manipulation of intervals and rhythm – allows

composers to create a consistent world of sound, as each aspect of the composition

aesthetically and synergistically relates to all of the other aspects of the work

Music performance, (engaged in by Alfred Adler through singing), compels musicians to

honor the recipes that composers have created by freshly creating those compositions as

unique, creative acts, which have a one-time existences within fixed segments of time,

never to be created again in exactly the same way

The visual arts, including but not limited to drawing, painting, sculpture, pottery,

weaving, glassblowing, architecture, artisan work and graphic design, exist within the

world of space and may last from the time of their creation until their destruction.

Science, technology, invention, entrepreneurial business, teaching and the full expression

of human endeavors may be done creatively

The ultimate medium for everyone is our own lives, and how invent, reinvent and live

them

Embrace Existing Structure or Create New Structure

Structure creates the container for creative energy. Absent structure, creative people often

experience the frustration of failing to produce actual creations. People commonly have the

mistaken notion that limits, boundaries, and structure itself is the antithesis of being creative. But

this is not so. Increased structure actually increases our creative output.

Become More Accepting of Yourself and of Others

Artistically creating our lives can blossom through acceptance of our inferiorities and of

our shadow self. Alternatively, having a perfectionistic stance typically leads to self-doubt and

procrastination. Perfectionism is not the same as high standards; it instead consists of impossibly


unrealistic standards, leading to despair. As we embrace our humanness, we become more

humane. Accepting ourselves and embracing ourselves, as well as accepting and embracing our

fellow humans, is integral to artistically creating the life that we want.

Share Your Creations, and Yourselves, Broadly

Our greatest gift to others, to our community, and to posterity, is our uniqueness. Sharing

those creations that have materialized from our uniqueness, and the unique ways that we have

touched the lives of others, serves to warm, uplift and connect us with our fellow humans and the

whole of humanity.

Take Action

The one indispensable ingredient for artistically creating our lives is action. To truly

benefit, we must do more than simply consider Adler’s and Jung’s insights for artistically

creating our lives; we must act. This quotation, whose author is unknown to this writer,

poignantly implores us to act: “One only becomes real at the point of action.”

Summary Ideas of Alfred Adler and Carl Jung

For Carl Jung, the process of growth was primarily focused on journeying directionally

inward, to deeper and deeper levels of the psyche, in exploration of our unconscious. In so doing,

we are likely to perceive a great deal of our own reservoir of imagery, myth and psychic

building-block materials from which we eventually construct a more artistically oriented life.

With an exclusive Jungian approach to artistically creating our lives, devoid of an Adlerian call

to contribute and serve the whole of humankind, increased personal understanding may not

necessarily make use of our increased inner psychological insights in ways that are practical and

useful to our fellow humans.


For Adler, we also connect to our deeper and more inner aspects of our psyche, through

use of early recollections and exploration of our style of life. After connecting with our less

conscious mental constructs, we may intentionally choose to analyze them through the lens of

common sense and social interest, rather than through a private sense lens of viewing ourselves,

our relationships and our place in the community. This Adlerian approach places us in service to

social interest as we artistically reinvent ourselves, fulfilling our life tasks and connecting us to

the larger community of humans.


References

Adler, A. (1917). Study of organ inferiority and its psychical compensation. New York, NY: The

Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company.

Adler, A. (1931). What life could mean to you. Rockport, MA: Oneworld Publications.

Ansbacher, H. L., & Ansbacher, R. R. (1956). The individual psychology of Alfred Adler: A

systematic presentation in selections from his writings. New York, NY: Basic Books

Inc.

Bottome, P. (1957) Alfred Adler: A portrait from life. New York, NY: The Vanguard Press

Chandler, R. J. (2013). Midlife reinvention to pre-death metamorphosis: Carl Jung’s travel-

guide to the second half of life. Richfield, MN: Adler Graduate School.

Franken, A. S. (1991). Daily affirmations with Stuart Smalley. New York, NY: SNL.

Hoffman, E. (1994). The drive for self: Alfred Adler and the founding of individual psychology.

Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Jung, C. G. (1971). Psychological types. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University press.

Jung, C. G. (1964). Man and his symbols. London, England: Aldus Books Limited.

Jung, C. G. (2015). Online quotations retrieved from

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/carl_jung.html

Jung, C. G. (2009). Introduction. In Shamadasani, S. (Ed.), The red book: Liber novus. (pp. 193-

221). New York, NY: WW Norton & Company.

Martini, G. (2006). Finding your own life: The path to individuation. Saint Cloud, MN:

IntegraLife Publishing.

Martini, G. (2011). Dream manual for therapists and other listeners. Saint Cloud, MN: North

Star Press of Saint Cloud, Inc.


Millner, N. B. (2004) Applied Jungian psychology: Navigating the seasons of later life: A self-

exploration guidebook for MBTI users. Greenville, SC: CAPT.

Mosak, H. H., di Pietro, R. (2006). Early recollections: Interpretive method and application.

New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Myers, K. D., Myer, P. B. (2001, 2003). Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Step II ™ (Form Q)

interpretive report. Sunnyvale, CA: CPP, Inc.

Oberst, U.E., Stewart, A.E. (2003). Adlerian psychotherapy: An advanced approach to

individual psychology. New York, NY: Brunner-Routledge.

’s and jung’s insights for artistically creating our lives a master’s … · 2015. 7. 18. ·...

Documents