John Hill on The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness

by John Hill, from the preface of
The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness

The Orphan addresses loneliness and the feeling of being alone in the world, two distinct characteristics that mark the life of an orphan. Regardless if we have grown up with or without parents, we are all too likely to meet such experiences in ourselves and our daily encounters with others. Our technological age has enabled us to create networks with many people, but these relationships often fail to meet the need to belong to someone, some place or something in a world that suffers from “spiritual depletion, emotional alienation, and personal isolation.” With numerous case examples, Dr. Punnett describes how loneliness and the feeling of being alone tend to be repeated in later relationships, especially when the earlier attachment patterns have been insecure, disruptive, or intrusive and can eventually lead to pathological states of anxiety and depression.

In an historical survey, Dr. Punnett outlines some of the appalling conditions that parentless children have suffered. One just has to think of 19th century England, as described in the novels of Dickens or the Dying rooms of Asia. Despite Biblical exhortation to care for the homeless and the gradual increased social empathy for orphans, as witnessed in the creation of orphanages and their gradual replacement through foster families, improved outer circumstances fail to bring the kind of healing that makes such devastating experiences meaningful.

A main purpose of this book is not just to stay within the context of the literal orphan, but also to explore its symbolic dimensions, for the author believes that symbols provide meaning to the diverse experiences of feeling alone in the world. Regardless if a child is brought up by parents or not, the orphan complex can be constellated, especially if attachment patterns have been problematic. In order not to remain limited by a purely biographical approach to the psychological orphan, Dr. Punnett elaborates on the archetypal foundations of this complex. She notes that many heroes have suffered abandonment in childhood. Their birth and early development, usually emerging from miraculous circumstances, bear the characteristics of a Divine Child, symbolizing hope and renewal for the individual, for society, and for our culture.

The constellation of this archetype in dreams, fantasy, and sandplay can act as an inspiration and bring transformation to those who have endured the sufferings of an orphan. With the help of amplification and case material, the author shows in a convincing way how the constellation of the orphan archetype with its accompanying feelings of isolation, anguish, and despair can act as a catalyst for the individuation process. Inspired by Jung’s creation of the Orphan Stone in Bollingen, Dr. Punnett’s book has placed the orphan at the center rather than at the periphery of human concern and invites us to explore the creative potential in feeling alone in oneself and the world. This is a remarkable book on a subject that tends to be viewed with attitudes that are too narrow and restrictive. The author concludes that in accepting the orphan within, we begin to take responsibility for our own unique life journey, an attitude that also celebrates authentic relationship with the other.

John Hill
Zurich, Switzerland

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Guilt and Individuation - Always Pay!

“A wise man will know it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay.” 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson[1]

by Lawrence H. Staples

The Jungian model for psychological growth and development is called individuation. It is the process by which we achieve our unique potential as an individual. All psychological growth is difficult and often painful. The Jungian way, however, is especially so because it requires us to sin and bear guilt. The path is strewn with guilt mines. We must step on many of them to complete our journey. The guilt that lies along this path creates a formidable deterrent.

Individuation describes a person’s “process of personal growth, of becoming himself, whole, indivisible, and distinct. Key attributes that describe the process of individuation emphasize: (1) the goal of the process is the development of the personality; (2) it presupposes and includes collective relationships (i.e., it does not occur in a state of isolation); and (3) it involves a degree of opposition to social norms that have no validity. The more an individuating person’s life has previously been shaped by the collective norm, the greater is his individual immorality.”[2]

Jung, of course, clearly saw the conflict between his developmental concept of individuation and collective mores. He knew that we couldn’t individuate without sinning and incurring guilt. He explains the consequences in a brief passage:

Individuation and collectivity is a pair of opposites, two divergent destinies. They are related to one another by guilt... Individuation cuts one off from personal conformity and hence from collectivity... It means stepping over into solitude, into the cloister of the inner self… Since the breaking of personal conformity means the destruction of an aesthetic and moral ideal, the first step in individuation is a tragic guilt... The accumulation of guilt demands expiation.... Every [further]step in individuation creates new guilt and necessitates new expiation.[3]

Jung was clear and emphatic that there is a high and demanding price of guilt to be paid when one gives up conventional life and travels the path of individuation. We cannot grow without suffering guilt. It’s a path that requires courage.

But Jung also offered ideas as to how this guilt might be redeemed:

[The individuating person].... must offer a ransom in place of himself, that is, he must bring forth values, which are an equivalent substitute for his absence in the collective, personal sphere. Without this production of values, final individuation is immoral and- more than that-suicidal.... 

Not only has society a right, it also has a duty to condemn the individuant if he fails to create equivalent values, for he is a deserter.... Individuation remains a pose so long as no values are created.

The individual is obliged by the collective demands to purchase his individuation at the cost of an equivalent work for the benefit of society.[4] Only by accomplishing an equivalent is one exempt from the conventional, collective path. A person [who individuates] must accept the contempt of society until such time as he has accomplished his equivalent.[5] 

Jung’s way is essentially the Promethean Way where “sin” eventually leads to something good for humanity. In order to accomplish our equivalent, we have to turn inward to the unconscious. We have to search there for what needs to be developed within ourselves in order to become the complete persons we are called to be. Only then do we have the capacity to give back the most we are capable of giving.

A similar idea is presented in Plato’s The Republic, in the allegory of the cave, where the philosopher king goes away to the cave, the symbolic equivalent of the unconscious, and returns to give his society the wisdom and the fundamental forms underlying life that he found there. An analogy are the vision quests of the shaman and medicine men of the Native Americans and other primitive tribal societies, who enter the world of the unconscious and bring back knowledge and skills that benefit their people. In Greek mythology, Prometheus went far away to where the gods lived, stole fire, and brought it back. He offended the gods and incurred guilt and punishment for his deed. But his guilty deed brought great benefit to mankind.

Learn more about Guilt and Individuation in Guilt with a Twist: The Promethean Way by Lawrence H. Staples and The Guilt Cure by Nancy Carter Pennington and Lawrence H. Staples.


[1] Ralph Waldo Emerson expressed similar ideas in his essay, “Compensation.” He writes, “A wise man will know it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just demand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay.”(Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Essays, New York, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1883)
[2] A Critical Dictionary of Jungian Analysis, Andrew Samuels, Bani Shorter, and Fred Plaut, Routledge& Kegan Paul, London and New York, p. 76.
[3] Jung, C.G., Collected Works, vol. 18, pars. 1094–1099. 
[4] Emerson, “Compensation.” 
[5] Jung, C.G., Collected Works, vol. 18, pars. 1094–1099.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

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Riting Myth, Mythic Writing

News Release - Fisher King Press to Publish:

Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story

by Dennis Patrick Slattery

Available June 1, 2012 - Advance Orders Welcomed.

Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story is both theoretical as well as an interactive book on the nature of personal myth. Its intention is to offer participants who wish to explore further the terms and structure of their personal myth over 80 writing meditations that are spread throughout 9 chapters in order to guide the readers-writers on a pilgrimage into the deepest layers of their personal myth.

An added feature of the book are writing meditation responses from participants who have been part of the author's writing retreats in both the United States and Europe. Their power and authenticity attests to the strong desire and need of each of us to explore what myth guides us, what terms it does so within and what one can learn to become more conscious of those deep forces in the psyche that seek expression in all we do and are.

Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D., has been teaching for 42 years, the last 17 in the Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology and Depth Psychotherapy programs at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Carpinteria, California. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of 18 books and over 300 essays on scholarly and cultural topics as well as book and film reviews that have appeared in books, magazine, journals and newspapers.

Product Details
Riting Myth, Mythic Writing: Plotting Your Personal Story
220 pages - Large 7.5 x 9.25 page format
First Edition
Publisher: Fisher King Press (June 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN: 9781926715773

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com