As some significant writing projects are beginning to loom I find myself drawn to revisit two classics which align significantly with my analytic process: Writing Down the Bones and Writing from the Body.

It goes against our rational bias to think that our elbow might want to speak, but science has been increasingly narrowing the gap that imagination has never found it difficult to bridge.  Trauma is clearly held in the body.  As we open up to our bodies, we discover that the stories extend beyond the traumatic.

“The risk is, that the artifex becomes identical with the goal of his opus. He becomes inflated and crazy: “multi perierunt in opere nostro!” There is a “demon” in the prima materia, that drives people crazy.” Unpublished Letter to Alice in Jung History

Not identifying with the collective unconscious is a crucial first step to establishing the ego/Self axis, whereby the energies which are present in the work are not usurped. Instead, they are served.   The risks on a path of individuation are real, for the energies that want to manifest and can show a disregard for the fragility of the ego through which it takes place.  (see definition of Inflation)