The World's Homepage > I noticed your name on the Junglist from Mass.,
suggesting that you work at a
> State Agency and are interested in using Jung's ideas in
your work.
Your inference is correct. I work at the Central Office of DMH (at the Lindemann Center).
My responsibilities, however are involved with information management and I have no direct-service involvement. So there is no direct, obvious connection of my day to day activities with Jungian ideas. This is not to say that I lack a fertile imagination and a fair degree of curiosity. Certainly the quality of my on the job interpersonal relations is a consequence of inner explorations stimulated and luminated by my conversations and associations with persons more deeply and directly involved in varieties of Jungian practice.
Also, my professional imagination is somewhat shaped by Jungian thinking. That is to say that I approach management information from an organizational dynamics perspective (the cultrural anthropology of post-industrial information society) asking questions and framing hypotheses that are highly influenced by Jungian perspectives.
> So, how did you get interested in Jung?
During my decade of work at a halfway house for exoffenders (where Reality Therapy was given lip service, but not practiced), I observed allot of "self-defeating" behavior, as well as displacement of responsibility and signs of projection (among staff, as well as clients) that I thought had explanations that were inconsistent, perhaps even incongruous with the Freudian focus on repressed sexuality. I also thought that many of our clients could have been diverted from their criminal lifestyles if at some time during their teen years they had recieved appropriately targetted and organized mental health assistance. So, it was clear to me that a deeper understanding of what I was observing could be beneficial to clients, as well as staff, whose work was hindered by their own lack of understanding of the motivational issues of their activities.
The only knowledge of psychology I had at that time, beyond having read some basic works of Freud, was the result of some dabbling in Gestalt Psychology in the context of Encounter groups in the early '70's. So I began to interpret what I was observing in terms of self image being in a gestalt relation with world view and the implications that had for constructive personal change in the direction of assuming more responsibility for the consequences of personal choices. My chief challenge at the time was to explain the resistance to change that was so readily observable. This resistance came as no surprise to me when I considered that self-image, if it was in a gestalt relation with world view, should not be expected to change without a congruous change in world view. Since most intervention modalities that I was aware of did nothing to criticise world view, but operated within a largely unquestioned set of conventional assumptions, a high failure rate should be predictable.
While this conceptual framework encouraged me to look further than Freud, it did not help me to understand effects such as projection and compensation. Since I had encountered a few aspects of Jungian theory in the context of educational psychology courses I was taking concurrent with my halfway house job, I decided to investigate Jungian theory more extensively. At the same time, by wildest coincidence, I happened to meet, in the neighborhood laundramat, a young woman very much involved in Jungian studies. In conversations with her, my understanding and interest grew to a persistent preoccupation.
Q: Do you believe in the Bible?
A: Since that can mean allot of different things, depending on
who you ask, I'll start by saying I believe the orthodox gospel
of Salvation by grace, through faith in Jesus Christ which is
revealed in the Bible and I believe the Bible is the true and
authoritative guide to the life of faith and the eternal destiny
of the soul.
Q: What do you think about your relationship with God?
whether you are feeling that you are getting close with God?
A: I'm daily dying to sin; day by day being conformed in the
image of His Son; by His grace I live a life that is pleasing to
Him. While the focus of my faith is the death and Resurrection of
Jesus Christ as the confirmation of God's promises of Salvation,
a day does not go by that He does not demonstrate His love for
me.
Q: Do you have any expectation in your life?
A: I'm well into my career and I'm doing much of what I want to
be doing - carreer wise -; many things are not yet accomplished;
a major expectation is to be open to the leading of the Holy
Spirit in the manner in which unfinished business is brought to
fruition. That leaves allot of uncertainty ahead of me.