Description
Depth Calls to Depth: Jungian Psychology and Spiritual Direction in Dialogue draws on the author’s dual background as a certified Jungian analyst and psychologist as well as a spiritual director with a master’s degree in theology. Over the last several decades, spiritual direction has moved beyond its monastic origins to become a major force in contemporary spirituality. Its emphasis on direct spiritual experience offers a natural parallel to Jung’s model of psychospiritual healing.
This book describes how Jungian dreamwork can enhance the practice of spiritual direction. There is much interest in Jung’s thought in spiritual circles but little informed understanding of the details of his model and its application to work with individuals. In an effort to meet this need, chapters alternate between descriptions of Jung’s approach, augmented by extensive case material and accounts of spiritual direction sessions. In this way, the book combines a comprehensive summary of Jung’s main ideas and methodologies with vignettes that illustrate their practical application. Larger issues regarding the relationship between psychology and spirituality are discussed as well as Jung’s complicated relationship with the Christian tradition. The author’s background in Ignatian spirituality and the work of mystics like Meister Eckhart allow him to demonstrate how these approaches can bridge gaps between the Christian and Jungian models of spiritual growth. Parallels to 12-Step spirituality also are explored.
“Depth Calls to Depth is a much-needed exploration of the dynamic interplay of psychology and spirituality for spiritual directors. With years of experience as both a Jungian therapist and spiritual director, John Ensign brings layers of insight and a fresh writing style that makes the depth human journey truly accessible. His grounding in the story of one directee and their interactions across time makes the exploration concrete and eminently useful. I will recommend this gift of a book to directors-in-training as well as those currently practicing!”
-Sandra Lommasson. Bread of Life Center founder, spiritual director, and spiritual direction faculty for 30 years
“Like looking through a kaleidoscope, spiritual directors will find a generous illumination of the ever-present entanglements as spirituality and psychology play in the lives of their directees. With access to the intimate soul and dream sharing of a spiritual directee, Dr. Ensign provides layers of rich and reverent encounters that examine the stages of spiritual development from adolescence into adulthood. This intimate endeavor offers a compelling view through the lens of Carl Jung alongside threads of wisdom from Saint Ignatius, Meister Eckhart, the scriptures and other inspired writings. The depth of Ensign’s attention to bridging the ‘human and divine’ powerfully demonstrates the sacred tending of the spiritual lives with those we companion in spiritual direction.”
-Colleen Gregg, MA, Director of Mercy Center Auburn, Spiritual Director, Supervisor for Spiritual Directors
“In this thoughtfully written book, John Ensign employs Jungian and Christian-Ignatian methods of integration in his practice as a spiritual director. He has a rare ability to clarify for readers how spiritual direction and Jungian analysis can complement one another to form a guidebook for individuals who are in search of religious experience and meaning through the wisdom of dreams, meditation, and the imagination.”
-Steven Herrmann, Ph.D., MFT. Jungian analyst and author of Swami Vivekananda and C.G. Jung: Yoga in the West
“In Depth Calls to Depth, Dr. Ensign offers a refreshingly readable, lively, and pragmatic illustration of a particular approach to spirituality, individuation, and development, revealing the inexpressible aspects of spiritual reality that might emerge out of dedicated attentiveness to both spirituality and psychology. Faithful to a tradition of spiritual direction and to his vocation as a Jungian analyst, he deftly interweaves these domains, attending to one directee’s life experience and dream expressions through this dialogical approach. Dr. Ensign’s work not only reveals his solid scholarly ability and an astute clinical mind, but a deep sensibility to both models, drawing on them ‘to better understand how the divine unfolds within a human life.’ Whether one takes up this book from the spiritual direction tradition or from a more psychological footing, the dialogue will captivate attention, offer new perspectives, and enhance an appreciation of the natural harmony of both approaches.
-Susan Calfee, Ph.D. Analyst Member, C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco
Table of Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 1
CREDITS 3
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 5
CHAPTER 2 UNLESS AN EGG FALLS TO THE GROUND 19
CHAPTER 3 IS NOT/IS TOO: SPIRITUALITY AND PSYCHOLOGY I 33
CHAPTER 4 FINDING GOD IN THE DITCH 47
CHAPTER 5 BRIDGING THE CHASM: SPIRITUALITY AND PSYCHOLOGY II 61
A Letter To A Minister 68
Jung’s Treatment Of Symbols 70
God-Images 72
Philosophical Underpinnings Of Jung’s Approach 75
The God Of Our Experience 77
CHAPTER 6 UP POPS THE DEVIL 83
CHAPTER 7 BUT IT FEELS SO TRUE: COMPLEXES, PROJECTIONS, AND VAMPIRES 97
Psychological Triggers and Spiritual Growth 98
Tied Up in Knots: Complexes 99
I Know You: Projection 102
Complexes in Jung’s Psychological Model 103
Balancing on a Seesaw: Psychological Compensation 103
All These Voices in My Head: The Personality’s Compound Nature 105
The Bigger Picture of Psychological Wounding and Spiritual Transformation 110
The Vampire in the Details 112
CHAPTER 8 WRESTLING IN THE DARK 119
CHAPTER 9 THE ME I DO NOT WANT TO BE: JUNG’S CONCEPT OF THE SHADOW 133
Shifting Shadows 135
Whatever Possessed Me: Spirits and Complexes 137
Types of Shadow 140
Weighed and Found Wanting 143
Old Shadows Never Die 149
Shadow and Evil 155
CHAPTER 10 IN THE NIGHT KITCHEN 159
CHAPTER 11 INTIMATE STRANGERS AND THE INNER OTHER 183
Anima and Animus in the Mirror 187
The Negative Anima and Animus in Dreams 189
The Intrapersonal Anima and Animus 191
Criticism Of Jung’s Anima and Animus 195
Gender Identity and Jung 199
Ethnicity and Cultural Narratives in Dreams 205
It Is All about Relationship 210
CHAPTER 12 NOT BAD FOR A BAPTIST BOY 215
CHAPTER 13 THE SELF: WHOLENESS AS RELATIONSHIP 237
Big Self and Small Self 237
The Double Marriage 240
The Self over the Lifespan 243
The Second Half of Life 249
The Self in Relationship with Itself 252
Ego and Self in Relationship 258
Journey to the Self with Others 261
The Self Is in the Details 262
The Self and the Helper 264
CHAPTER 14 SPACE ALIENS AND DISH DRYERS 269
CHAPTER 15 JUNG AND THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION:
IMPLICATIONS FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTION 297
God beyond Image 297
Form and Formlessness, Image and Imagination 300
Working with Symbolic Material 303
Where Is God in All This? 305
Symbols and the God-Image 307
The God-Image vs. the God of Traditional Faith 313
Meister Eckhart’s Model of Personality 316
Is There Any There There? 319
Living in the Zigzag 321
CHAPTER 16 THE SPIRITUAL PATH: JUNGIAN AND CHRISTIAN
PERSPECTIVES 323
Coming Full Circle 324
Purgation: Encountering the Shadow 328
Mark’s Purgatorio 335
Illumination and the Soul-Image 341
Divine Union and the Self 344
Being Himself in the Life He Was Already Living 347
CHAPTER 17 EPILOGUE 353
DREAM 1 355
DREAM 2 359
BIBLIOGRAPHY 367
