Citation

Stimson WR. Ment. Health Relig. Cult. 2010; 13(5): 485-512.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13674670903433678

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper analyses the dream of a middle-aged professor in Taiwan whose marriage and life had fallen apart. "All my life," she said, "I followed the agenda, but I didn't get the reward." She contemplated suicide. The dream revealed that at this time in her life her conventional Confucian agenda, corresponding to Jung's ego psychology of the first half of life, was changing into a postconventional Taoist one, representing the enlightened trans-egoic psychology Jung, Maslow, Campbell, Wilber, and others find in lives that continues to develop. Only from the Confucian viewpoint had her life come to an impasse. According to the Taoist one she merely faced the death of her former way of being and the prospect of a remarkable new one. Viewing Chinese culture as merely Confucian misses the ontogenetic relationship between its two ancient wisdom traditions and the rich transformative potential of China's indigenous post-conventional Taoist tradition. © 2010 Taylor & Francis.

Language: en

Keywords

Suicide; Dreams; Chinese culture; Chinese psychology; Confucius; Lao tzu; Ullman experiential dream group