Jungian Coaching Room Podcast EP1 –

Written by Dana Kabaila

Call in the Jungians | Jungian Coaching Room w/ Anita Aniksdal

In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with the incredibly warm and grounded, Anita Aniksdal, about her work with the “grown-up children” of parents who experienced mental illness and substance addiction. 

This area is of great interest to me as a caretaker in familial, vocational and community roles. I also surround myself with many people who are similarly inclined. This means that I have experienced, first hard, how being skilled at caring for others can be a source of huge inspiration and a potential contributor to identity loss and burn out.

I love stories, especially those about depth, meaning, identity, connection, trauma and healing. I can listen to people telling their stories in my work or social chats and then go home and connect with the journeys of characters in a TV show and then read parts of a memoir before I fall asleep.

Frustratingly, our passions often have their own claws and teeth – their own shadows. The risk of falling into one-sidedness are restrictions to my own freedom and development. This fits with Anita’s descriptions in the episode of clients consulting her about feelings of depression, exhaustion, frustration or “something lacking in lives”. 

Learning to ask for (or even accept help) is a discrete skill. Our society reinforces the idea that caring work is implicit to women and further not worthy of revere, admiration, support or renumeration. This is doubly dangerous to those who became caretakers so early in life that it can be difficult to separate this with their sense of self. So, how do we explore healing and balancing when we catch ourselves falling into the archetype of the wounded healer?

Anita offers two very profound processes. The first is the lived experience group work that offers unique opportunities for mirroring of a participant’s own experiences; the chance to share their story in their own words with people who know, in their bones, what that can be like. The healing that occurs when we feel seen, heard and known in community, in spaces of laughter and tears, can be transformational.

The second method that Anita shared was her use of hypnosis and free drawing to reveal unmet needs and lost parts. I am so passionate about accessible, all abilities creativity. It made me very happy to hear the ways Anita encourages her clients to forget about technical ability and even label it as a hindrance. The symbols generated are owned by the people who marked the paper and are fuelled with known and hidden meanings. Anita then collaborates with Jungian specialist, Nada O’Brien in a virtual session. Nada applies a Jungian lens and her characteristic appreciation of symbols that spans so many realms and disciplines. Associations may move from mythology to sport through academia to local craft. Even the shapes and sounds of words and what they remind us of. 

It is so special and affirming (and mystifying) to engage in symbolic work. Beyond the cause and effect thinking of our times, we get to explore paradox and complexity. Further we get to be moved by nature, each other, our ancestors and our creative work. Jung placed great therapeutic value of working with the numinous. There is a quote by fellow Aussie, Nick Cave in his email newsletter The Red Hand Files (#157) that I feel speaks to the numinous quite poetically:

“Awe is the feeling when have when we encounter the monumental or immeasurable. We experience a sudden shrinking of the self, yet a rapid expansion of the soul”

Nick Cave

In talking with Anita, we conferred that symbolic practices exist well outside mainstream settings in both Norway and so-called Australia (“so-called” to highlight the need First Nations Australian language, ref: https://thelatch.com.au/facts-indigenous-history-invasion-day/). I mean, it is present in mainstream settings, but it is devalued, silenced and minimised. The contribution of the feminine ways of knowing and being often gets this treatment. The incredibly rich symbolic work of First Nations Australians holds such a source of wisdom and leadership that is tragically and frustratingly ignored and resisted in many parts of settler Australian society.

Still, there are little sparks of interest and intrigue across all sorts of settings and communities. Depth psychology houses such a richness of lifelong learning opportunities. Even in fields that regard themselves as rational and empirical, the work of the unconscious is present. In the episode I reference the idea of night science that I have seen played out for my own loved ones. I have also heard about things like mathematical formula as being “beautiful” and “like a symphony”. Anita shares experiences from loved ones of attuning to other prior to using technology for this.

We conclude with the humbling and heartwarming notion of gazing in wonder at the night skies. Anita’s experience in the cool, crisp mountains and my hazy Australian nights, buzzing with insect song. What a joy it was to spend time with Anita. To traverse many topics. To move in rhythm from both sides of the globe.

Please do share, like and subscribe. I invite you to email me with any questions or reflections at dana.kabaila@iajcc.org

Our next episode “It Starts with a Stone” looks at storytelling for collective harmonizing and healing. Stay tuned!