por Márcia Ferreira Silva
Astrology and Jung’s Analytical Psychology are intertwined more than one might think and some possible correlations between them give us an indepth analysis and enriches our understanding on both bodies of knowledges.
In this regard, we will begin with some brief notions on Jung’s theory of the Complexes to bring more light to our following astrological chart analysis.
Complexes
Some of Jung’s most important findings were the Complexes.
He realized that there are disturbances in consciousness that appear regardless of one’s rational understanding and he concluded that the psyche is composed of many centers, which he called “autonomous centers of complexes” which are highly charged, possessing a strong energy of their own and creating their own core beliefs.
Thus, Complexes are groups of unconscious ideas associated with events or particular experiences and loaded with emotional charge. The more intense a Complex, the greater the emotion and tendency to action.
Such autonomous centers or core beliefs are reinforced by environmental events and happen through our interaction with others. According to him, they result from the “clash between a demand for adaptation and the special and inappropriate constitution of the individual to meet this requirement.”
These core beliefs are like “intrapsychic stories” about ourselves and in which we totally believe becoming a self-fullfilling prophecy for the reason that what we believe to be true inside ourselves ends up being true in the outside world. The intrapsychic story becomes reality.
This continuous repetition of patterns leads to a lack of renovation and consequent psychic impoverishment.
Projections
A Complex, when unconscious and in disagreement with the Ego, tends to be projected upon the outside world on the relationships, creating projective and introjective interconnection processes.
As something not integrated, a Complex is easily projected onto another person and thereby she or he develops a relationship with the projected Complex and not with the real person in a way that these processes can go indefinitely, on continuous basis.
The resolution would be to incorporate these unconscious contents not rationally, but in the emotional level or comprehension meaning, allowing all these unconscious connections to be activated along with the correspondent emotion that belongs to it.
If we achieve this difficult task, of connecting them with the Ego, bringing the shadow to light into the consciousness, then they can become an enriching source of criative energy for our process of individuation and personal growth.
Astrology:
Astrology is all archetypal: the symbolism of the signs, planets and constellations are entangled with the origins of mankind. Throughout the ages and in different civilizations this archetypal understanding of the sky has always taken place and the correlation between the movements of the planets and the synchronicity with the occurrences here on Earth have been established.
In an astrological chart, we can also see the presence of the Complexes as described by Jung through the chart networking, or in other words, through the relationship between all the planets, asteroids and other points.
The symbols of our archetypal processes are interconnected forming Complexes in a given chart, usually in some of the following astrological configurations:
* Stelliums
* Yods and/or Yod focal planets
* T-Squares and/or T-Square focal planets
* Conjunctions
* Planets receiving hard aspects ( in general )
* Unaspected Planets
* Retrograde Planets
* Planets in IV, VIII or XII Houses
When we have any of these particular configurations mentioned above, we can make assumptions that very likely we will find an unconscious Complex there, if one did not do any self-knowledge work towards bringing light to such a conflict.
As we saw ealier, these Complexes are groups of unconscious ideas associated with events or particular experiences, reinforced by environmental events and built-up through our interaction with others.
In our chart example it will be very clear that whenever a Complex is in disagreement with the Ego, it tends to be projected upon the outside world on the relationships, resulting in projective and introjective interconnection processes and forming self-fulfilling prophecies:
FEMALE CHART
This is the chart of one of my clients, a woman in her early fifities. Her main complaint was that she felt very lonely and that all her previous relationships in life had failed.
.jpg)
For the purpose of this analysis, we will just focus on the T-Square between Sun conjunction Neptune square Moon conjunction Saturn and the square to Mars. This T-Square, as mentioned above, gives us an idea of a strong Complex existing there.
So, how does a person deal with such a T-Square?
An usual projective mechanism in T-Squares is to keep one of its sides in the consciousness, in one’s Ego, and project the other, the rejected and unnaceptable side onto the outside world as something not belonging to oneself.
So, in this case, le’ts see how she expelled one of her sides.
She came to see me twice. In the 1st session, when I was beginning to explore her Moon Saturn conjunction, she told me that as a child, she was beaten by her mother every single day, with no exceptions (!!). If for some reason, on a particular day she had not been beaten, she had the feeling that something was wrong.
She had been married in the past and was divorced, had 03 children who were young adults now, but all of them currently with mental issues. She described her ex-husband as a truculent man, who beated her very often, for no apparent reason. Her recent ex-boyfriend, suddenly began to become very rude apparently for no reason too, what made her break up with him.
She seemed to be a very sweet and tender person. She described all this awful story very calmly and with no pain, with no connection with the underlying emotion, what seemed to me more like a denial or a detachment. When she mentioned her mother agressive behavior, she even laughed and said she could forgive and understand her difficulties. Not only her mother, but she seemed to be able to forgive anything or anybody. Even her separation from her rude husband was only obtained after her father’s interference.
She was also very envolved with esoterism, following Osho and seeming to ignore her children’s mental problems.
So, it does not take long for us to conclude that she was projecting her Mars onto the outside world and not integrating it in her consciousness. It was as if the planet Mars did not belong to her chart.
Her mother was representing her Mars in this T-Square in the first place, followed by her husband and then the recent boyfriend.
The only side belonging to her was the Sun Neptune conjunction and in our conception of the Sun as the Ego, this conjunction with Neptune led her to a sort of non-Ego realm, with some of the following outcomes:
Sun/ Neptune conjunction:
– no assertiveness
– self-idealization: an unconditional forgiveness, having no bad feelings towards her mother or anyone else; she was above these human impulses
– the victmization was another expression of this Sun Neptune conjunction, so she was always in a situation of being hurt and emotionally abused, as if she deserved that treatment
– the need for a deep merge in the relationships with no boundaries or discrimination; no capacity of a distant perspective
– deffensive mechanisms such as evasion, reactive formation, projection, regression
assume the psyche control preventing the person to be aware of the painful reality
– Neptune took over her Sun and her capacity of discrimination ( no Ego ), leading to escapisms to other dimensions through spiritual searchings and no grounding
Mars projection:
– she was totally deprived of her agressive impulses since they were not integrated in her conscious Ego
– deffensive mechanism denying aggressive impulses ( Mars ), made them not magically disappear, but instead the outside world played them in her place
Moon Saturn conjunction:
– self-depreciation and low self-esteem; she felt as if she deserved to be treated that way
– self-injury taking the place of the aggressions she suffered
– Aquarius moon manifesting as a detachment deffensive mechanism
Complexes or intrapsychic unconscious “stories”:
We also saw above that these core beliefs are like “intrapsychic stories” about ourselves and in which we totally believe becoming a self-fullfilling prophecy and becoming true in the outside world, as in some of her examples:
“I’ll try to play Mrs. perfect or to be a saint in order to make her love me and not beat me anymore” ( Moon / Neptune)
“Mom beats me because she doesn’t like me” ( Moon / Saturn )
“Deep inside I have a feeling it’s all my fault” ( Sun / Neptune – Moon / Saturn )
“Mom has her reasons to act this way, she herself has suffered a lot in her own life” ( Moon / Neptune)
“Life is all about suffering” ( Sun / Neptune )
“I can forgive it all because deep inside I know I am superior” ( Sun / Neptune – Mars projection – self-idealization )
The discussion here is not about forgiveness or about spirituality, because intrinsically these are good and healthy functions of the psyche and forgiveness is for sure the ultimate resolution, but in this case she skipped some steps towards the resolution process and jumped right into deffensive mechanisms and escapisms.
Some of these core beliefs she did verbalize in the session and what we can see is that they ended up becoming true in her adulthood causing so many problems and maladaptations.
Her projected Mars was clearly and repeatedly projected in the outside world. Even with all her kindness, it is very curious to see that some situations were being unconsciously created that triggered the other person’s aggressiveness and she had no awareness or control over them. They just happened!!
Resolution or possible integration:
We also saw above that the resolution for such a conflict ( Complex ) would be not to avoid the impulses or deny them, but instead to incorporate and integrate these unconscious contents in the consciousness, not rationally, but in the emotional level and accept the difficult task of facing them.
Through this process of accepting such rejected impulses, one can feel the deep inherent pain, but finally face them and THEN as a last step in the psychological process reach the final forgiveness and transcend it all.
Skipping parts of the process definitely is not the way out.
So, part of the resolution process could be some other intrapsychic “stories” such as:
“What they are doing to me hurts and makes me very angry” ( Mars integration )
“I realize I have to face this difficult situation and express my feelings and work to make it stop” ( Mars / Neptune integration )
“I understand they have their problems, but I also understand it has nothing to do with me and it is not my fault” ( Sun / Neptune – Moon / Saturn )
Our second session was even better. I could notice she was different, saying that the first chart reading had had a strong impact on her. We had the chance to explore all these issues more deeply, particularly this projected and denied Mars and on how the external world was representing all her repressed anger.
She had begun a psychoterapy process and was much more receptive to an indepth analysis. She was listening more closely to all that was being said and was participative, taking an active role in the session. She was definitely not that same detached person of the previous year. She cried and apparently had a deep insight.
We could approach this strong Complex in an effective way, with her recognition of what was going on and all that should definitely cease in her life.
This is a good example of how a chart reading can mobilize a Complex bringing insights and helping people through the activation of unconscious patterns never touched before.
The real benefit of an astrological session lies in facilitating this connection of our clients’ Complexes into their consciousness, because it is possible to turn an unconscious Complex into an enriching source of criative energy for the achievement of the process of individuation and personal growth.
Our client was beginning to follow this path.
Thank you!
