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Having practiced psychotherapy as a clinical social worker for 40 years, I have felt torn between the life of my professional identity and the studies I have pursued outside my profession.  I have lived two worlds which became increasingly difficult to resolve: the world of empirical psychotherapy in my daily work  vs. the world of astrological psychology.

Of course the usual justifications existed and I could prepare my defense.  But Astrological psychology was not able to be brought out in the sun to be scrutinized by my peers.  It was too vulnerable and would only be measured for efficacy by standards that were not suited to it.  So I had to be cautious and preserve its precious caldron of meanings, insights and faith engendering proclamations.

Today I have written this article to state my position and make it clear to myself what I believe and why.   I feel less threatened by being labeled kooky, charlatan or mentally ill.  So here is not my defense but the foundation of a new way of finding meaning in life in pursuit of being mentally healthy.  I propose to make us all our own psychologists for it is possible for anyone inclined to look inside and try to understand the puzzle of their own psychic existence.

The Prevailing Waning Collective Consciousness:

The conscious psyche in the life of people is the focus of much attention especially as it relates to mental health of individuals in the constantly shifting and changing world of the 21 century.  The Western development of therapeutic treatments to heal the imbalance of psychic troubles has been only in existence since the early 1800’s and only systematically studied since the 1900’s.  The 20^th Century had seen the emergence of The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, which is a compendium of atheoretical behaviors, in which patients have presenting problems which they bring to consulting rooms of psychiatrists.   With the advent of psychotropic medications in the 1960’s many people who were institutionalized were discharged because the medications they were given controlled their symptoms well enough for them to live somewhat independently.  These two developments: a classification system of mental disorders and psychotropic medication have shaped the field of psychotherapy in the Western world but not for the best. Diagnostic categories pigeonhole people and medications try to make delusions and hallucinations extinguish when they can provide insights into life’s quandaries during the modern-day.  We have settled for a mediocre standard  of mental health rather than being focused on helping our people find meaning in their lives so they could be integrated, balanced human beings.

Western societies define pathologies of their people in relation to  the degree of negative adaptation they exhibit in their societies.  Maladaptive behaviors can be looked at as social anomalies depending on the evidence of a lack of functioning defined by negative survival skills. Generally positive survival skills are those that have high social value in capitalistic societies: ability to hold a job, to have a partner and be able to distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy.  These judgments of  good mental health are assumptions based on mores and values of the majority of society.  Dominance of  these value-based assumptions of what  in society constitutes as the healthy occupational, relationship and reality testing is evident as the world becomes more homogenized through globalization.  For centuries  Western Societies have framed  the cultural definition of mental health.  United States and Western Europe’s  ability to conquer ,  with English spoken as the key to business institutions,  and to define the major cultural Weltanschauung or spirit of the times is well documented.  But now  that  world view is breaking down, as recent dominance of Western societies is being challenged the world over.

When we survey  the Western models of treatment of the  pathological psyche,  the academic and treatment focus is concentrated on building ego-strengths. Most psychotherapies are designed to build a healthy “executive function” of the ego through cognitive strategies  (Ego Psychiatry, Anna Freud).  The ego then is perceived as the center of the psyche with ultimate say in the every day functioning of life.  And this is appropriate for ego development in early adulthood. But in America and the Western world ethos,  ego building is the model for the whole life cycle. That assumption is fallacious, because, ego strengths are important to survival at the young  and middle adulthood stages of the life cycle but actually maladaptive as one reaches mid- life and retirement age. I  shall propose that this value system is an unsound model for  the healthy psyche putting too much emphasis on youth without an alternative for the rest of life cycle when ego energies wane as in later life.

The value system of this Western  psychological treatment approach supports the beliefs that individualism is the end-all and teleological purpose of man in society.  Along with this view is supported the clichés that “time is money” and one has to develop his/her ego potential or else lose to competitors, “you have to use your will to take chances, you may not get another one“ and to be successful one has to possess the conscious attitude of  the  all important ‘youthful‘ approach to life.  These views are based on social Darwinism.  They represent  one way to view today’s societies;  but  they are not pragmatic because they assume that people are pitted against people to compete for limited resources.  In the reality of today’s job market, not everyone has access to the competitive market place to make a survivable living.  To survive today we have to learn cooperation or else we shall limit our existence by war and end humanity as we know it on earth.

When the ego fails to serve our survival needs, when chaotic losses enter into our lives; the ego breaks down and all the support that structure has been given us, fails.  Futile attempts to find reasons why bad events happen to us fill the case notes of many psychotherapies.  The suffering of the ego may cause us to return the pain to the “reasoned” sources of our pain but that is only revenge.  Profound self-examination is needed.  Self esteem may be attempted by some by making supplication to God to give them Grace through prayer.  Thus a mystical journey awaits some and a humility  is needed in that case to give up our ego-self-righteousness.  In this way, what can lead to real healing is spiritual not psychological.  By reflecting on observing ourselves and learning to be receptive to intuitive guidance is an answer even when doing so may humiliate us and defy reason. (Caroline Myss, Defy Gravity, 2010).

Conscious spatial perceptions in the West are structured  in terms of seeing land that is guarded or infringed upon (through Imperialism) by the ever watchful eye of the collective conscious ego.   Protecting land boundaries and building walls between sovereign states is a common defensive stance to allow only those in who can contribute to the economy as immigrants.   And by imperialists, intrusive forays into the borders of nation states to “democratize them” belies the underlying motive of exploiting their resources for selfish state-sponsored materialistic ends.   Notice the American business practice of  the cement curbing off  of restaurants from competitors that makes it impossible in a strip of chain restaurants to drive /or walk from one parking lot to an adjacent competitor’s parking lot in order to compare menus or prices.  Add to this the rights of property owners to defend themselves against perceived intruders by ’the gun’. It is now a right that if someone enters your property without just cause, you can shoot them.   This has led to tragic results even fathers killing their own sons.

Today’s social fabric of education and upward mobility promises more than it can deliver.  A meritocracy like the United States promises more than it can deliver.  There is no American Dream within reach in 2019.  Ego inflation is endemic to society; in that the higher one goes in the stratum of society in career advancement, the more one is able to violate the ego boundaries of others and dominate them, through  the exercise of sex and power.  For example, wealthy Politicians, Actors/Actresses, and Sports stars are known for multiple sexual liaisons and not conforming to the boundaries of monogamy which is the norm in common society.  Witness the ‘me too movement’ which tries to balance the field of equality in the marketplace.

Overemphasis on the development of the individual  conscious ego is valued over development of society with the assumption  that all are given equal opportunity to survive and fulfill themselves materially.  Supporting this egocentric mind warp is the myth that there is a ‘top- down’, trickle down economic benefit to the lower classes from the sterling enterprise of wealthiest among us.   Thus, we should be grateful that the wealthy create jobs for the rest of us.  History has shown us, this does not work for the middle class as wages have been stagnant since the 1980’s for working class Americans.

As stewards of this  popular political illusion, the wealthy tells us that people who are poor are lazy, and they just want a hand out. It is only they with their positive motivation and enterprising spirit as capitalists who  are virtuous ones.  These views are “democratized” in a preferentially pluralistic society where only the wealthy can get access to lobbies that promote legislation that support and sustain their status quo and world view.  The political result, for example,  is  to cut medical access to the poor  and to cut budgets for education for the young  rather than tax the wealthy.  Head start programs for children  and subsidies to Universities are cut before raising taxes.

The computer has for decades replaced human workers on the job through automation and artificial intelligence.  And more than that, statistics have become the language to justify,  measure goals and award pay for  good work performance.   Algorithms are employed by physicians to treat presenting medical problems with the mixed outcomes.  Now people in the work force  are evaluated on how much they conform to performance measures, thresholds of achievement and productivity standards. Because this is often the only measure of work performance, it has dehumanized the process of  workplace trust among people and created a lack of social responsibility in others. This one-sided way of measuring human achievement creates an imbalance in the individual and society leading to more alienation and mental illness in the workplace and society as a whole. This is due to the way the ego has dominated consciousness in the western world and it has become inflated.   As societies have become inflated, narcissistic and devaluing of humanistic values and institutions becomes common normative social behavior.

The dominant values that this collective consciousness represents are now reaching a nadir as new developments occur in perceptions of mental health.  The emergence of these new forms of consciousness has been revolutionized by the Internet, which equalizes the playing field for all people as long as they have access to information.

1. The New Consciousness:

We are heading to a paradigm shift, some call it a new Age of Aquarius where deterministic values are becoming subservient to a more holistic approach that takes into account measurable, objective realities plus humanistic considerations. As humanistic values seem to threaten the hold on materialistic and measurable approaches to truth, the anxiety increases among the stewards of the old order.   W.I. Thompson describes the phenomenon known as “the sunset effect“ that occurs at the end of a  millennium, when the tenacity to hold onto waning values becomes more desperate as we move closer to the future with new values emerging.  Within the collective consciousness of the culture,   there is a powerful tendency to see life through a rear view mirror and hold onto old worn-out values in the face of  threatening changing times.  “Make America Great Again” becomes a byword of a passing generation.  Myths that reflect the Weltanschauung  and mesmerize our people into glorifying the times gone by  are “The Fountain of Youth”, “The Spirit of Capitalism” , The “Magic Bullet” , “God and Country” and “The Cowboy” to name a few.   In this environment,  nativist movements and nationalism replace a cooperative world view.

The propaganda proposed by the proponents of reactionary politicians   are using our fear of change to prevent us from realizing a  “reality we are living in (which) remains largely unconscious, but (which) we acknowledge  by grabbing back onto the sentimental things of the past” (William Irwin Thompson,  New Story , “It Has Already Begun- The Planetary Age is an unacknowledged daily reality“, 1986).

But there is a counter movement.  Consciousness is becoming less bound by fear of  poverty and pride in material wealth  and more focused on courage to be. (Hawkins, David Transcending the Levels of Consciousness p. 167) What this present reality means to the individual is that he/she can let him/herself  be led by his personal dreams to prepare for critical periods in his life.  But this is really a new process because it is possible only by a  loss of  old, ego identifications.  This is such a new awareness, to be able to stop our striving and look at subtle images, revealed by  our personal visions.  But it is also much  more. It is also gaining a perspective that involves personal  timing of events in our lives as revealed by Astrology, namely the Huber method of Psychological Astrology  (The Cosmic Egg Timer, Hopewell, Llwellyn).

Dreams have been relegated to a small corner of the psychological reality for individuals in our study of the psyche.  But dreams are important to development as they contain vital personal information and insights that can guide our inner and external goals.  When dreams are interpreted  in conjunction with the Huber method’s timing of nodal and radix age point aspects and Cross Points in the horoscope , they can help increase personal power addressing psychosocial crises.  Age point aspects in the horoscope mark critical shifts in the developmental understanding of ego attachments and when aligned with dreams of that time. They can yield important psychological insights about when to act and when to retreat in the external world.

To hold back, to withdraw and retreat by reframing losses in external affairs is the mix that is needed to negotiate the world of today.  However, few Westerners can  achieve the emotional detachment to persevere with the losses of occupational  identity, role identity in the family or bodily identity through illnesses that threaten ego integrity as narrowly defined by the West.  Dreams that occur at these critical times that indicate a reversal and change from dominant ego identities to submissive ego identities resulting in different tactics of engagement with the external realities are facing us.  They are blessings and curses but they can be clues to upcoming losses and gains.  Getting rid of the illusion of the ego as the seat of consciousness is most difficult without a road map.  But being  able to understand one’s dreams, put them in the context of critical periods astrologically and finally relinquish  the ego attachment that allowed one to believe in the ego dominance in the first place, can be a source of fulfillment and renewal.

Most Westerners face a crisis or  depression when facing such losses in occupation, relationships or their hold on reality.  And the more they attempt to hold onto the ego identity that is threatened and  forge ahead in another direction blaming external factors for an internal process, the more mentally unbalanced they become.  We westerners are psychically one-sided with amalgamation of the ego identity to the  persona or dominant function of our psychological type (Jung, Psychological Type ).  We do not have the broad-based foundation of wholeness with which to withstand  losses when our dominant ego function is thwarted.  This is because we know little of our personal  inner processes and how our own unconscious can interpret for us through dream imagery how to time and apply ourselves to real life events. Plus, we do not know alternative rituals to help us cope with the losses so that we still feel psychologically secure.  So this is the challenge that this work will try to accomplish:  helping people at critical times with the relinquishment of the force of the ego illusion as a dominant focus in the person.  Thus, we can find the true meaning of what is mentally healthy and balanced.

Flexibility in psychic attitudes is called for but not the ego’s total annihilation.  This shift is true on individual as well as collective levels.  W. I.  Thompson  illustrates  that the world in the present is a world of an integrated planetary consciousness in which all the old forms of industrial might: defense, territorial imperialism, and the work ethic break down.  In his article in New Story, he notes the new era:

“In the emerging planetary world, what counts can’t be counted and so you don’t have a world of objects that are separated in space – wealth and mansions here and dioxin dumps over there. You have a world of interpenetration of presences; you have a world in which consciousness is immanent in matter in that matter isn’t separate from consciousness. You have a world of play, of performance, of a willingness to lower your lifestyle if that will increase the joy, and the spontaneity, and the innovation and the risk-taking, and the imaginative fun of being.”  (William Irwin Thompson,  New Story , “It Has Already Begun- The Planetary Age is an unacknowledged daily reality“, 1986)

On a macro- level, paralleled to the individual loss of ego identity, one can assume that with these dramatic shifts of Collective power in governments, the change to being a second or third-rate nation, not being dominant as a world power will be felt as having  devastating effects on the unsuspecting nation states and individuals within their boundaries.  “Look at what we have lost” becomes a nostalgic rallying conversation among those who cannot embrace a new vision of humanity.

How shall we endure such a shift of consciousness on so many levels without losing our psychological security our self-esteem?  With the advent of self-psychology mostly propagated by Carl G. Jung and the Jungian, comes the small, but vigorous movement to re-define the nature of the psyche rather than focus on  the narrow conscious mind of the behaviorist and  on ego strengths alone.  Coming from it roots in Hinduism, the Self is seen as the center of the Psyche, not the ego.  And it is mostly unconscious.

“The recognition of this civilizational unconscious, this hidden cultural reality, is the end of a process that began intellectually in the early 20th century. Freud began with the instinctive unconscious. Jung followed him and reflected the instinctive life into consciousness as it was created in the collective unconscious and reflected in patterns of imagery that would occur in science or poetry or dreams or the rest of it. It wasn’t instinct. It was instinct reflected in imagery creating consciousness“ (Thompson, William, see above reference).

TAken from my book Dreams and Astrological Psychology by John D. Grove

 

This process of dreaming and using the images to navigate life’s challenges throughout the life cycle according to one’s needs for psychological growth can be most effective using Huber’s Life Clock to determine the context of the issues involved.

This post has two theoretical basics: Use of  the psychological model of Assagioli’s Psychosynthesis and The Huber method of Astrology.  This approach is determined by why people visit astrologers in the first place…”one is a crisis situation of some kind and the other is due to awareness of something in the person needing to change that comes into consciousness.” ( Astrological Psychology, The Huber Method. Barry Hopewell editor, Hopewell Publishing, Knutsford, England. 2017.)  This blog has therefore, the use of astrological and psychotherapeutic skills of this writer to guide the reader him/herself to deal with both of these situations.  I am a clinical social worker with 40 years clinical psychotherapeutic experience as well as a trained Huber astrologer having a diploma in advanced Huber theoretical astrological psychology obtained in 2015.

To understand psychosynthesis, it is best to use the “Egg diagram” below to identify parts of the psyche that influence our behavior as individuals.  Broadly, the top part of the EGG diagram represents the Future, the Middle Part is the Present, and the lower part is the Past.

The past (section 1 at the bottom of the Egg diagram below are the forgotten influences, personal complexes, long repressed memories and instincts over which we have little control.  These experiences have conditioned us to  yearn for the need for security (Saturn), the need for belonging (Moon) and need for Self-Esteem (Sun) as explained by Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs.

Section 2 refers to all states of mind easily brought in consciousness.  It is made up of sections 4 and 5.    The ego needs are represented in the horoscope by the planets Sun, Moon and Saturn respectively.  ( See section 4 which represents the field of awareness of which we identify with the consciousness of one of the three ego planets).  Psychosynthesis challenges  the individual : to integrate one of his/her ego needs in the ‘personal self ‘so that he/she can have confidence in a preferred consciousness such as  thinking, feeling or sensation in meeting his/her needs (Section 5).     This is determined by which of the ego planets is the strongest quantitatively by placement in the horoscope by house, sign and aspects number. The field of consciousness is dominated by one of the 3 ego planets (section 4)  that influences either our  thoughts, emotions/desires and sensations.  If the strongest ego planet is integrated, then the  personality  is induced  to act or not to act in a consistent manner.   This determines our choice of occupation and partner relationships and many other areas.

Section 3 of the EGG refers to superconsciousness, the evolutionary future and our receptivity to illumination and inspirations.  It is not determined by ego needs but instead is associated with the 3 transcendent planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) in the horoscope and their aspects to one or more ego planets.

Section 6 represents Transpersonal SElf and the realization of that which lies beyond conscious awareness, the Divine Self.  This can influence our behavior through grace and intervention of archetypes out of our control.

Section 7 represents the Collective unconscious which is a field of other sentient beings.   These archetypes can influence us through dreams as visitations or other forms of psychic phenomena.

Dreams:   For many years I have been recording my dreams and it  wasn’t until I took a course in Astrological Psychology using the Huber Method and a course in Psychosynthesis by Will Parfitt that it all came together.  Yes, the Egg diagram is somewhat obscure without knowing how to use it.  Consider section one, the Past and its unconscious memories and associations.  This is the area that dreams come from.

At the time a person enters young adulthood, he/she is entering the phase of individualization.  That is, the functions that are amalgamated with identity are forming and becoming specialized.: thinking, feeling, intuition or sensation. (Jungian Types).  Usually there are dreams with some anxiety about making it in the outer world, making a living and starting a family.  I discovered that I used water as a symbol of the unknown in my dreams and that covered these anxieties at that time.  So in my young adulthood, I had recorded many dreams with water themes but they were threatening:  I had water dreams in which I was fearful of violent waves or tidal waves with their full destructive fury unleashed on coastal villages (circa 1976); I dreamed  of water seeping through my house and breaking up the plaster walls (circa 1978); I dreamed that i was overcome by a wave that crested over my head as droplets fell to my head then I woke up (circa 1980); I dreamed I was finally brought under the water by a wave that crashed down on me as I tumbled about underwater but to my surprise I could breathe underwater! (circa 1983).  So these themes evolved over time but finally transformed into an element I could handle I could survive in the water medium.  From that time on in the 1980’s I dreamed that I could ride on the water in a swift boat going fast down a canyon river; I could scuba dive underwater and find treasures; I could change ice into water by taking heat from nearby hearth fires of the dwellers near the frozen river; I could cross the great river and go to a new-found land.

What force was changing my relationship with water, an experience that previously terrified me?  Some say the Self guided me on to transform my fears to adventure; I say it was God through Love who changed me from within.  That whole process Jung called individualization was guided by an invisible hand into roles as a father and a psychotherapist and I was transformed with a confidence and faith in Divine Will.   This transformation in me had occurred with the element of water being the medium because as my horoscope below indicates, I have no planets in water signs so it is a deficit. 

Water symbolized my feeling function; as a thinking type, my emotional side was the least developed function.in my personality.  I was guided by Divine intervention to have faith in my inner processes of development that I so needed to balance out thinking with the relationship feeling functions.  Thus started the inviduation process for me around the age of 37.  That was the goal of individuation:  to bring about balance, wholeness, equity in relationships, justice, harmony and love beside my pragmatic thinking nature.

Age Point Progression and Dreams:

Age Point progression in Astrological Psychology is a time-based method in which the passage of a point called the Age Point (AP) traverses all twelve houses of the horoscope starting with the ascendant at birth.  As it starts in House 1 when the child is born, it takes 6 years to travel through the first house and 6 years for each of the 11 subsequent houses.  One full revolution around the horoscope takes 72 years as it passes through the 12th house and returns to the ascendant once again.  Below is a chart with the twelve houses.  0 on the left is where the child starts her age AP progression in the first house of the Life Clock depicted below as a time piece.  At Age 6, she is moving into the second house, and so on every 6 years until the whole cycle is completed at age 72.  The the AP starts over again in the first house, moving at the same pace through each house 2nd house at age 78 and third house at 84, etc…

As the AP highlights sensitive points in the horoscope, certain challenges, issues and opportunities confront us.
This process continues throughout life and determines behavioral outcomes and consequences as one experiences the world.  

I believe that unconscious processing of complexes in the personal unconscious, (section 4 in the Egg) as revealed in dreams when timed to sensitive points based on  AP progression can reveal much to show the developmental conflict that the AP progression highlights.  Dreams inform the ego, based on triggers in everyday life experiences, of the context of life problems beyond the external stressors we encounter.  Dreams come from the core of the individual, the Self and from God.  Through the psychic structure of the Self, the dream images lead the identify of the ego of the person.  Knowledge of one’s dreams as they coincide with AP progressions, along with techniques of amplification can provide solutions to life’s problems.

References:

Life Clock, Bruno and Louise Huber, 2006 , Hopewell Publishing, Knutsford, UK.

Dreams and Astrological Psychology, John Grove, 2014 , Hopewell Publishing, Knutsford, UK.

Life Passages: Wen Age Point Aspects and Dreams Coincide, John Grove, Hopewell Publishing, Knutsford, UK, 2017

Psychosynthesis: the Elements and Beyond, Will Parfitt, PS Avalon, Glastonbury, UK,2006