News from the dissertation front
I had a really good day writing today. This morning a quote from psychologist James Hillman leaped off the page at me and finally I understand the focus of my dissertation. I had been dithering about whether it was really a process thing, or if I needed some earthshaking result or huge insight (which didn’t seem to be forthcoming).
Here’s the Hillman quote:
We need an imaginal ego that is at home in the imaginal realm, an ego that can undertake the major task now confronting psychology: the differentiation of the imaginal, discovering its laws, its configurations and moods of discourse, its psychological necessities. Until we know these laws and necessities we are caught in calling its activities ‘pathology,’ thereby condemning the imagination to sickness and the persons of it into making their appearances mainly through pathological manifestations. (Re-Visioning Psychology, pp. 37-38, italics in the original)
You all know how easy it is to get labeled “crazy,” or be told you’re hallucinating, if you admit to experiencing any communication with someone not “present” in the sticks-and-stones world. And yet we who have experienced these folks know they’re quite real.
Even depth psychology (the kind that I study, which focuses on the unconscious) has been reluctant to accept that imaginal persons have any reality other than as parts of someone’s psyche-as a manifestation of their mother complex, or something like that. But you and I have experiences that show us that Brian and Justin and Sherlock Holmes are quite real and very much their own persons.
Those are the kinds of experiences I’m trying to explore and validate in the dissertation. Now, after reading Hillman’s statement, it makes sense-the dissertation is about learning how to work in and with the imaginal world. This is something that only a few “crazy” persons like me have wanted to tackle in any sort of scholarly way. It happens to lots of folks, but just kind of happens without them trying to engage the imaginal figures in a systematic way. It’s important work for me as a psychologist precisely because psychology hasn’t undertaken it.
But it will be much easier to just tell the stories, do my artwork, and explore the process of getting to know these imaginal folks without worrying about the outcome.
I got about ten pages of the Literature Review written today, but the most important thing was feeling like I finally know what needs to be included. A lot of stuff that I was going to put into the Lit Review now doesn’t need to be there-it will go in the body of the work, if it goes in at all. I’m very excited.
Whew! I might survive the dissertation after all!
Here’s the Hillman quote:
We need an imaginal ego that is at home in the imaginal realm, an ego that can undertake the major task now confronting psychology: the differentiation of the imaginal, discovering its laws, its configurations and moods of discourse, its psychological necessities. Until we know these laws and necessities we are caught in calling its activities ‘pathology,’ thereby condemning the imagination to sickness and the persons of it into making their appearances mainly through pathological manifestations. (Re-Visioning Psychology, pp. 37-38, italics in the original)
You all know how easy it is to get labeled “crazy,” or be told you’re hallucinating, if you admit to experiencing any communication with someone not “present” in the sticks-and-stones world. And yet we who have experienced these folks know they’re quite real.
Even depth psychology (the kind that I study, which focuses on the unconscious) has been reluctant to accept that imaginal persons have any reality other than as parts of someone’s psyche-as a manifestation of their mother complex, or something like that. But you and I have experiences that show us that Brian and Justin and Sherlock Holmes are quite real and very much their own persons.
Those are the kinds of experiences I’m trying to explore and validate in the dissertation. Now, after reading Hillman’s statement, it makes sense-the dissertation is about learning how to work in and with the imaginal world. This is something that only a few “crazy” persons like me have wanted to tackle in any sort of scholarly way. It happens to lots of folks, but just kind of happens without them trying to engage the imaginal figures in a systematic way. It’s important work for me as a psychologist precisely because psychology hasn’t undertaken it.
But it will be much easier to just tell the stories, do my artwork, and explore the process of getting to know these imaginal folks without worrying about the outcome.
I got about ten pages of the Literature Review written today, but the most important thing was feeling like I finally know what needs to be included. A lot of stuff that I was going to put into the Lit Review now doesn’t need to be there-it will go in the body of the work, if it goes in at all. I’m very excited.
Whew! I might survive the dissertation after all!