Therapy as an Underworld Journey

In addition to being ACT and EMDR therapist, I’m also a Jungian. I love dreams.I love myth, metaphors, symbolism.

My preferred metaphor, my consistent myth, about the overall process of therapy is that it is an Underworld journey. 

I'm most familiar with Greco-Roman Underworld myths but many cultures have versions of heroes descending into the underworld to rescue/reclaim something with varying degrees of success. 

But what do I mean by the Underworld? Putting it simply, I mean the deepest darkest depths of ourselves. The parts of ourselves that have been shoved away or relegated to the dark hold the mysteries, the secrets.  

I also mean the Underworld in the sense of our relationship to death and dying.

Death is the thing we all know exists and everyone will experience - but in many ways we avoid it, or glamorize it (true crime) but we struggle to be with 

We often make jokes about being “dead/dying inside”, but we do die many deaths in our lifetime. 

We die to the lives we thought we’d have.

The dreams we hoped for. 

The body functioning we expected.

The family we wanted to have, or not have 

The brain we thought we could hack into existence 

The partner/marriage/system we hoped to be joined with or not 

Even when we die into “better” things, even when the dreams we couldn’t conceive of happening actually happen - something else died in its place. 

Life is a series of deaths. 

It may sound dramatic, but it’s true.

We’re born, we live, we die (a lot) and then we die finally. 

So, why bother? 

Well, to me, death and its depths are the point. You deserve to fully see and know yourself. You deserve to see your own depths. 

Of course, healing matters, and healing is attainable. 

But your unhealed self is also valuable as is. Do you feel like your unhealed self is worthy of attention beyond your coping skills? 

Beyond your poor choices? 

Beyond your wounds? 

What if, as you are, right now, in this moment, there is so much to you that is dying to be known.

And what if it could be known without expectation? What if it could be known for the sake of itself? 

That we don’t ask or explore options of “better”, “different”, “healed” before the “lesser”, “worse”, “unhealed” has our full attention.

Not as an endorsement of the behavior(s) that can come along with those pains. 

But trusting that this version of me wouldn’t exist without purpose, and before I change the trajectory, can I challenge myself to understand its original course?

Even if that original course is: dying. Suicide. Addiction. Oblivion. 

Of course you can change it, you can pick a new course.

But that part of yourself that would sail directly into darkness — that’s a part that has a tale to tell.

I think it deserves to be heard - and therapy can be a journey of following it.

Let me know if you have questions.