On Unconscious Exploration
Your ‘Unconscious Mind’ is a vast and rugged landscape. Dipping into unconscious exploration can allow you to take a more depth approach to your self-work, as it forces a non-direct yet intimate look at the ‘Why’ behind your behaviors and actions. As with everything offered in this classroom, this is a tool that may or may not be useful to you. This work is unique to you and your experience - both conscious and unconscious! Feel free to come with thoughts on how you would like to explore further to our sessions together.
Below you will find resources related to Unconscious Exploration.
More about Unconscious Exploration
What is Unconscious Exploration?
The ‘unconscious’ is a term that you have likely heard of. The unconscious is associated with depth psychology and is often considered a vehicle for understanding the ‘why’ behind our thoughts, patterns, and behaviors. I believe that the unconscious is difficult to define, and is more easily understood by what it is not. It can be thought of as anything not a part of our present mind or experience - i.e. conscious thought.
Consider a house. You are this house. I think of conscious and unconscious as the front and back doors to a house, respectively. The conscious mind is our constant stream of thoughts and rationalizations, the front door to our mind and body. The unconscious is the back door, the subconscious, the hidden parts of ourselves that can only be understood by following the thread into the labyrinth of our own mind.
To unlock the unconscious we need to take a ‘back door’ approach - unconscious exploration is less direct than working with emotional management, communication styles, and cognitive tools. Many of the tools in the Depth/Spiritual section are forms of unconscious exploration. Expressive Arts, your Wounded Child, and Ceremony all touch aspects of the unknown. They are all ‘backdoor’ techniques designed to tease out the underlying motivations for our behaviors.
There are several other techniques for unconscious exploration that date back thousands of years. However, for the purposes of this classroom, I’ve identified and discussed a few that I believe are a great place to start with this exploration. If you’d like to learn some additional techniques, please let me know and we can collaborate on some resources for you.
How can this exploration help me grow as a person?
Think of unconscious exploration as another tool to add to your burgeoning toolbox. It is a means to better understand yourself and increase your self-awareness. Remember that with self-awareness comes the ability to change. By realizing your underlying motivations for a behavior, you can address those motivations and, in doing so, change the behavior. Combining this depth work with your more conscious work can accelerate your change process.
How can I apply this exploration to what’s going on in my life right now?
My suggestion for starting with your own unconscious exploration is to bring some ideas to our sessions together. What would it be like to start a dream journal? To create your own daily Expressive Arts meditation? How can we plan a ceremony for you to address and find closure from past relationships?
The beauty of unconscious exploration is that there is no set format or structure for healing. You are a unique person with unique experiences and history. That gives you the creative license to develop a practice that works best for you.
As you are identifying how to get started, consider asking yourself a few of the following questions:
What are my goals for counseling? How are these goals being met through the work we are already doing in session together? What else can I add to this experience?
What depth modalities are most interesting to me? Art, ceremony, movement?
What am I able to give to this exploration? 10 minutes a day? 30? What is realistic for me and my life right now, and how can I hold myself accountable to that commitment?
What are some areas in my life that I currently feel stuck? How do I know that I feel stuck?
What are some of my behaviors that I do not understand - ie ‘why do I do some of the things that I do?’
I look forward to discussing these topics in more detail in this classroom, and in our sessions together.
Unconscious Exploration Suggested Activities
Take time this week to consider the following activities related to exploring Unconscious Exploration. There are several different options for you to explore, in case one modality works better for you. Please note that your Conversation Prompts can also make great Journal Topics.
Journal Topics
What is your definition of your ‘unconscious mind?’ How can you see this work benefitting this work you are doing?
How do you define spirituality? (ie - I define it as a sense of connection to, or disconnection from, people, places, and things). How can you see your own sense of spirituality influencing this work you are doing?
What do you hope to get out of digging deeper into your soul? What do you think might come up for you? How do you hope to process this information?
How do you want to get started doing this unconscious exploration?
What are some times that you have felt connected to something ‘larger than’ yourself? What was that experience like for you? How did you make meaning of it?
Conversation Prompts
With your partner or close friend, discuss your definitions of ‘the unconscious.’ Consider your own biases around this topic and talk about how these biases may influence this work.
How do you see your unconscious mind influencing your conscious decision making?
Experiential & Artistic Activities
Create an artistic representation of your unconscious mind. Notice what it feels like to have this physical representation. What came up for you during the process of creating? How do you want to treat this piece now that you have it?
Consider writing a poem to your soul. Give yourself all the space and time you feel comfortable with for this activity.
Additional Resources for Unconscious Exploration
Documents/Books on Unconscious Exploration
Modern Man in Search of a Soul, by C.G. Jung
The Hero with a Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
Everyday Life and the Unconscious Mind, by Hannah Curtis
Videos on Unconscious Exploration
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Other Chapters in DEPTH/SPIRITUAL
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References
Campbell, J. (2004). The hero with a thousand faces (Commemorative ed.). Princeton University Press.
Curtis, H. (2015). Everyday life and the unconscious mind : an introduction to psychoanalytic concepts. Karnac Books Ltd.
Durchslag, H. B. (2021). The collective unconscious in the age of neuroscience: Severe mental illness and Jung in the 21st century. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.
Edwards, D. & Jacobs, M. (2003). Conscious and Unconscious. Open University Press.
Sharma, M. (2019). Jung’s collective unconscious, integrative (mind-body-spirit) yoga, and self-realization. In S. B. Schafer (Ed.), Media models to foster collective human coherence in the PSYCHecology. (pp. 93–108). Information Science Reference/IGI Global. https://doi-org.proxy006.nclive.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-9065-1.ch005
Wiers, C. E., Zhao, J., Manza, P., Murani, K., Ramirez, V., Zehra, A., Freeman, C., Yuan, K., Wang, G.-J., Demiral, S. B., Childress, A. R., Tomasi, D., & Volkow, N. D. (2021). Conscious and unconscious brain responses to food and cocaine cues. Brain Imaging and Behavior, 15(1), 311–319. https://doi-org.proxy006.nclive.org/10.1007/s11682-020-00258-x