Vocational Dreams: Calling Archetypes and Nuclear Symbols
Book Description
Jungian analyst Steven Herrmann advances his hypothesis in this book that vocational dreams can grace us with a sense of destiny. By paying careful attention to our dreams, calling archetypes may suddenly break forth from the Self to heal neurosis by dissolving defenses against the inner voice.
After more than four decades of dream research, Herrmann's message is that vocational dreams are the single most important variables in the process of analytic work with patients and readers. Vocational archetypes have a center to them, a nuclear point of contact with the deepest parts of the Self.
Some of our deepest motivations are produced by what Herrmann calls nuclear symbols, which are one of the most powerful sources of inspiration we can experience. They are dynamic factors of evolution in the personality, and are sources of centeredness and peace in the psyche and the world.
To validate this theory, the author provides a number of examples from anthropological research, including child cases, interviews with young adults, biographies, and clinical vignettes from people in mid-life.
Vocational dreams give us trust in our future destinations. They infuse us with purpose, energy, or life-force. This book will show psychotherapists, analysts, parents, teachers, career counselors, anthropologists, vision quest guides, coaches, and others how to recognize and affirm the emergence of calling dreams, which can free us to experience joy and human fulfillment through a process of vocational metamorphosis.
Review
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From the Introduction
Attention will be given in this book to four primary principles, as guiding posts, throughout the work while positing a new hypothesis of what it might mean for my readers to follow their own Self path towards the continuing expansion of consciousness through an emergent ideal of staying true to one’s calling throughout the human life cycle without sacrificing one’s own individuality through socialization or prejudiced education. These four principles are 1) the primary function of the vision quest is what I believe to be the underlying pattern of individuation throughout all world cultures, 2) a process of personal evocation is involved in the process of maturation and spiritual metamorphosis throughout life, 3) occupational complexes are obstacles to evolution and they need to be overcome through analysis for transformation to become more universally accepted by educators and sociologists, and 4) the role of vocational archetypes in the shaping of an individual’s sense of individual fate and destiny is crucial during early childhood to latency (3-11 years), adolescence (12-17), early adulthood to maturity (21-35), midlife (35-63) and the transit towards retirement, and well into old age (63-92). Accompanying all of these seven vocational life stages, calling dreams emerge as sign posts along the way that illuminate the path forwards towards Self-realization and the continuous transfiguration of human awareness.
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Meet Steven Herrmann, Ph.D., MFT
Learn more about Steven Herrmann, Ph.D., MFT, Jungian Analyst & ask about his fees for presentations and speaking engagements: sbherrmann@comcast.net
Vocational Dreams
Vocational Dreams
Let me begin with a few questions for the reader to consider:
1) What are Vocational Dreams?
2) What can they teach you about who you really are?
3) Are there basic truths that such dreams can reveal to you from within the vocational doorways?
4) What are your vocational archetypes, or calling symbols?
5) Do you have a vocational archetype
Let me begin with a few questions for the reader to consider:
1) What are Vocational Dreams?
2) What can they teach you about who you really are?
3) Are there basic truths that such dreams can reveal to you from within the vocational doorways?
4) What are your vocational archetypes, or calling symbols?
5) Do you have a vocational archetype that is nuclear in your personality, a source of deep motivation, and psychic energy that has been activated since childhood?
6) What are your callings, or spiritual purposes in life?
7) How can the fulfillment of your vocations lead to better forms of relatedness with your family, your community, and the world?
Vocational dreams and the Self-Path
The reader may be wondering: What does my dream mean? In my practice of Jungian psychotherapy I bring over three decades of study on the psychology of CG Jung and the interpretation of and research into the nature of vocational dreams and Jungian archetypes. (For an audio recording of a presentation of my 2016 talk at the Unitarian
The reader may be wondering: What does my dream mean? In my practice of Jungian psychotherapy I bring over three decades of study on the psychology of CG Jung and the interpretation of and research into the nature of vocational dreams and Jungian archetypes. (For an audio recording of a presentation of my 2016 talk at the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Berkeley, CA, on "Vocational Dreams" you may click download below.) When I think of my life’s journey, I think of it as a Self-path―a path to individuation and wholeness. Ideally, I think of my quest for wholeness as being realized through a vocation, or calling in life. I have spoken about this quest for Self-realization in my book William Everson: The Shaman’s Call. I’m writing about the subject now in a plural sense, not as one, but as numerous callings of sacred work. Life is too complex to manifest its multiple meanings through a single calling. Dreams of vocation are instinctually and spiritually patterned by a balancing function in the unconscious. The primary function of vocational dreams is to harmonize our material and social drives in movement towards increasing spiritualization, physical and emotional health, self-esteem, and the crystallization of our personal and cultural identities.
Journaling Exercise
Journaling Exercise
Here is an example of a Journaling exercise for the reader to experiment with if you would like: Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths, at your own pace. Feel yourself sinking into your body and notice if there are any sensations, feelings, images thoughts that are present there. If you find yourself wandering just bring yours
Here is an example of a Journaling exercise for the reader to experiment with if you would like: Close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths, at your own pace. Feel yourself sinking into your body and notice if there are any sensations, feelings, images thoughts that are present there. If you find yourself wandering just bring yourself gently back to the present. Take another deep breath and then imagine yourself approaching some kind of a doorway. It may be the door to a sacred room of some kind. Any kind of door that you can imagine there. Now imagine yourself going through that door and see what emerges on the other side. Is there an image or vision? Colors? Textures? What feelings arise for you? Sensations? Allow yourself to engage in an inner dialogue or in a way you can relate to it, with whatever you experience in your mental imagery. Stay with this experience. When you are ready, pick up your pen or begin typing into your computer whatever words want to flow through you.