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Relationships
Animus & Anima: Inner companions that can make us whole

Animus & Anima: Inner companions that can make us whole

Anima and animus function as autonomous contrasexual archetypes that guide ego into the depths of Psyche, unlocking creativity, feeling, empathy, and spiritual insight when integrated, yet triggering seduction, aggression, or control when projected or repressed. These figures emerge in dreams and active imagination as evolving personae—primal sprites, erotic goddesses or heroes, mature partners, ultimately spiritual guides—yet they need not appear as literal men or women, but as any radically other image. Their role lies in carrying undeveloped qualities across the threshold of consciousness, demanding precise, phenomenological attention to their symbolic form and affect. Through that attention, therapy enacts an alchemical conjunction of opposites—culminating in an inner Androgyne that restores psychic balance and advances individuation.

Episode 29 – Envy and Jealousy: Hobgoblins in Relationships

Episode 29 – Envy and Jealousy: Hobgoblins in Relationships

Envy is a painful symptom of disconnection from the Self. We relate envy and jealousy to early developmental dynamics, with envy related to the dyad of mother-and-baby and jealousy arriving a later, when the child realizes that sometimes he is left out of his parent’s relationship with one another.

Episode 26 – Betrayal

Episode 26 – Betrayal

The experience of betrayal is painful, confusing, and damaging to one’s basic sense of self and reality.