Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes
Carl Jung (1875 – 1961)
Am I having a mid life crisis?
Mid life crisis tend to occur any time between the ages of 35 – 60. If you:
- feel emotionally flat, low and possibly a bit depressed,
- have little energy for things that used to please you,
- have low motivation
- get little satisfaction from things that usually satisfy you
- are doing irrational things like cheating on your partner or spending too much money
then you might be having a mid life crisis. But don’t despair, Jungian therapy may be able to help you.
Jungian psychotherapy and mid life crisis
If you have come to a point in your life where you know you need to make changes but are not sure where to begin, a Jungian approach might be for you. It is a talking therapy that helps you find a way of engaging with the problems you are going through.
Jungian therapy sees mid life as a natural time for change.
Is a mid life crisis normal?
Yes. In a Jungian approach it is natural that we reach a mid-point in our lives when we realise that the identity that has been meaningful to us in the first part of our lives has reached a natural time for change.
Different people will experience the sense of mid life change at different times to others, for some it occurs around 35, for others it might not happen until you are in your 60s.
Mid life change is personal and individual to each of us. But, in a Jungian approach it is a given that the second half of life will be different from the first. It is natural that there will be a mid-point when we will change, when our priorities will change, when we start to want different things from our relationships and our work.
It is natural to think that you might want different things from the next phase of your life.
Will talking to someone about my mid life crisis help?
Change can be bewildering, and frightening, it can be hard to know where to begin, which is why it is helpful to speak about the changes that you feel need to be made. You don’t have to face these kind of worries alone.
A Jungian approach supports the idea that we all naturally change and develop throughout life. This means that it sees what you are going through as normal, difficult perhaps, but definitely normal.
A Jungian approach would see avoiding change as more likely to cause us harm than embracing change.
A Jungian approach is interested to know more about the questions that have brought you to this point in your life. It is a therapy that does not want to shut your enquiry down or limit you, it is interested to support you to find out more about the questions that are on your mind.
It was Elliott Jaques who first coined the term mid-life crisis. You might find Jung’s autobiography a useful read. Here is a link to an on-line copy of ‘Memories, Dreams and Reflections‘.
But how can I change? How can we transform our lives?
If you come to Jungian therapy feeling that you have reached your mid-life point, you will be supported to think not just about what you may be losing about the first part of life, your energy and virility and so on, you will be supported to engage with new opportunities too. Opportunities that are to do with ageing, getting older and growing maturity and wisdom.
In the grip of a mid life crisis these opportunities may currently be overshadowed by the sense of loss and possibly a depression you feel about losing your earlier youth. But, as I say, in Jungian thinking the mid-life change is natural.
Our imagination, our wish to play and create are vital parts of our identities that modern living tends to overlook. When we let our imaginations speak to us, we see vital possibilities for change that we generally ignore.
This work will help you understand and connect with the patterns of how you live, and to see how those patterns can develop further. This means that it will help you start to see the pattern beyond your mid life anxieties.
In the Jungian tradition, myths and fairy tales, from mythology to Star Wars, are all part of the eternal human psyche’s desire to develop and transform itself.
The talent is in finding meaningful ways to engage with the energy that will help the change happen.
All of this means that Jungian work helps you reconnect with your natural capacity to transform from one state and identity to another. Jungian work pursues the possibility of your life transforming like a story from Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Joseph Campbell‘s books are a useful source of material in these areas.
Jungian therapy helps you find out more about the changes you need to make
Where as some psychotherapy and counselling interventions work by trying to squeeze the client into a pre-established template, in Jungian work the client is encouraged to let their imagination emerge and develop their individual nature.
There is life beyond your mid life crisis, there is more to you than you currently are aware – Jungian work helps you engage with that
A Jungian approach sees your potential to transform, and to be reinvigorated as natural. At its best it can feel like a very organic approach to understanding and changing things about your life.
If for whatever reason you feel that you have come to a point in your life where change is required but you are not sure of how to let that change develop, then a Jungian based therapy might be a useful approach for you.
Though now your life may feel stalled and flat, Jungian therapy will help you reconnect with your capacity to develop and transform yourself.
Jungian approach and Counselling Buckinghamshire
A Jungian approach has an important place within Counselling Buckinghamshire. Contact now for a free telephone consultation to discuss how this approach may be relevant to you.
