Donald Kalsched’s book on trauma The Inner World of Trauma is one of the most enlightening books I have read on the psychic defences that spring into action to protect the soul from traumatic experiences, feelings and affects from a young age. I just stumbled across the following video today from Kalsched on the soul and its connection to the spiritual/divine/transcendent. It includes the story of how Jung when falling apart following his break with Freud found his way both to his soul and the divine child inside of himself which formed a central conviction of this later practice and theory, leading us into the imaginative realm, especially through deep psychic suffering of childhood, so often buried.
“Trauma is an injury to the capacity to feel.”
In every adult there lurks a child – an eternal child – something that is becoming, is never completed, and calls for unceasing care, attention and education. That is part of the human personality that wants to develop and become whole.
Carl Jung
Emerging From The Dark Night 