Podcast Review: Betts on Jung’s Analytical Psychology #17

The podcast reviewed here is the 17th in John Betts series on Analytical Psychology and freely available here. Betts continues with the Moreau guidelines for analysing fairy tales and focuses here on techniques for amplifying symbolism in fairy tales including the appropriate use of symbol dictionaries. Here Betts tells us that people who preferentially use the sensing function may overamplify symbols. He advises the listener to read plenty of fairy tales (just before bedtime!) and myths. The suggestion of reading fairy tales just before going to sleep is an interesting one as this is the time that children are typically read bedtime stories. Perhaps fairy stories are meant to be the stuff of dreams! He mentions a few of the more important symbols used. Betts also makes a number of others suggestions for the analysis of fairy tales including assessing how it relates to the process of individuation and examining your feelings in response to the tale. He then goes on to analyse the Nixie of the Millpond which he read in an earlier episode of the series. He moves through the characters identifying those that are the most appropriate for analysis and as a result of his skills makes the process appear effortless. Betts gives us a fascinating insight into the son in this story. He argues that the son must work through the issues that his father has not been able to succesfully work through. He provides a number of other insights into this story also. Betts practical suggestion of reading a story just before bedtime complements his suggestion in an earlier episode of writing down recalled dreams first thing in the morning and both activities perhaps shouldn’t take too much time and may be time well invested for those with an interest in this area.

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