I try to give a “pointillistic” view of depression in these newsletters, from the very pragmatic (as with here) to the rather abstract (like here), to give multiple ways to think about this complex experience. Today’s newsletter will be more of the latter, although in a weird sense (as hopefully you’ll see) fundamentally pragmatic. So, this month I’ll be describing what Carl Jung called the archetype of the Divine Child, specifically seen through the lens of a Jungian analyst named Donald Kalsched.
Kalsched writes about what he calls the “self-care system”, which is essentially the way our psyches protect themselves from damage when in contact with a threatening or caustic outside world. We’re all aware of the normal protections, such as defensiveness (“I didn’t do anything wrong!”), but Kalsched unpacks a more primal phenomenon, a defense system at the level of the basic archetypes which is organized around the protection not of the personal “Inner Child,” but of the more fundamental Divine Child.
Take a read and see if or how this idea might apply to your own life. Once you get the concept, it can be a very useful addition to the pragmatics of dealing with depression.
May your summer be progressing with the right mix of comfort and challenge.