The Devouring Mother: Facing Archetypal Darkness

Every archetype has a dual aspect: light and dark, and ‘mother’ as devouring and destructive is the dark side of this ever-present, over-arching archetype. The mother’s life-giving, bright aspect is counterbalanced by her engulfing, attacking aspect. The devouring mother is present across cultures in myth, fairy tale, religion, and literature, and most of us have at least had glimpses of her in our experiences as children or later, as parents.

In this episode Jungian analysts Lisa Marchiano and Deborah Stewart explore Erich Neumann’s The Great Mother and his and Jung’s concept of the unconscious as devouring mother.

Drawing on myths of the Aztec goddess Tlaltecuhtli, the Hindu goddess Kali, the tale of Snow White, and the film Black Swan, we examine the archetypal image of the mother who nourishes and devours, protects and possesses.

We also look at how the devouring mother shows up in ourselves and in our own parents. This dynamic can present as enmeshment, helicopter parenting, fear-based control, or an inability to allow our children to separate and become fully themselves.

Read the dream we analyze in full on our website.

Connect With This Jungian Life

We’re analyzing your short dreams or dream fragments to celebrate the publication of the paperback of our book, Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams: ⁠⁠send your short dream here⁠⁠.

Pre-order the paperback edition of ⁠⁠Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams.⁠⁠

Take a look at ⁠⁠This Jungian Life Dream School⁠⁠, our online course in Jungian dream analysis.

Follow This Jungian Life on ⁠⁠Instagram.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(452)

Outsourcing Love: AI and Relationships

When we ask AI for advice, what we are offered is comparable to psychopathy: a performance of warm emotional intelligence without care or concern for our fate. As today’s guest Dr. Aaron Balick has wr...

1 Loka 1h 16min

Patience is Not Passivity

This week’s guest, Jungian analyst Dr. Warren Sibilla, defines patience as the ability to live one's life with eyes, ears, and heart wide open. That is a far cry from waiting to see what happens, or g...

24 Syys 1h 18min

The Princess Who Changed Her Fate: How to Negotiate with Destiny

The fairy tale of the Princess Who Changed her Fate enacts what Jung tells us will happen when we remain unconscious of an inner situation: it happens outside us, as fate.Just as the princess in the s...

17 Syys 1h 18min

Inner Life, Outer World: The Psychology of Adaptation

Adaptation is a bread-and-butter concept in psychotherapy - can we accept, adjust to, and thrive in the outer and inner worlds we live in? Given constraints, what does it take to find life at least me...

10 Syys 1h 27min

Lindsay Clancy & Maternal Infanticide: An Archetypal Perspective

Lindsay Clancy has brought renewed attention to the horror of infanticide: babies and children dying at the hands of their mother. Infanticide has taken place for millennia, most often due to social p...

3 Syys 1h 30min

Goblins, Demons and Goddesses: A Conversation at the Edge of AI

OpenAI recently had to explain to frightened users why their models kept introducing goblins and gremlins into otherwise humdrum conversations. Is it possible that archetypes are emerging through the ...

27 Elo 1h 34min

The Psychology of Magic: A Jungian Exploration

Magic can be viewed as intentional engagement with what Jung called synchronicity. It is closely related to a mythological worldview, which recognizes a grand narrative supraordinate to everyday life....

20 Elo 1h 27min

In Search of the Wild Man: Befriending Bigfoot

The wild man is an enduring archetypal figure worldwide, from Enkidu in Gilgamesh, to the Greek god Pan (worshipped in glens and woods), the Green Man in England, and Bigfoot and the Sasquatch in the ...

13 Elo 1h 28min