Depth Psychology and Giftedness: Bringing Soul to theField of Talent Development and Giftedness

F. Christopher ReynoldsJane Piirto

While the field of gifted education has reliedon educational, cognitive, counseling, behav-ioral, developmental, and social psychology,the domain of depth psychology offers specialinsights into giftedness, especially with regardto individuation. The notion of passion, or thethorn (J. S. Piirto, 1999, 2002), the incurablemad spot (F. C. Reynolds 1997, 2001), theacorn (J. Hillman, 1996, 1999), the daimon (C.G. Jung, 1965); the importance of integrationthrough the arts and through dreams; the exis-tence of the collective unconscious; the pres-ence of archetypes; and the transcendentpsyche—all have resonance with the binaryetymological idea of "gift" as both blessing andpoison. Depth psychology offers a way ofunderstanding that is physical, psychological,and spiritual.

F. Christopher Reynolds is a teacher andsinger-songwriter. He teaches French and cre-ativity in Berea public schools and creativitystudies for teachers of the gifted as an adjunctprofessor at Ashland University. He special-izes in creativity, spirituality and culture. Hehas released 13 original CDs and tapes and isthe founder of the Urrealist art movement(www.urrealist.com).E-mail: spiriman@aol.com

Jane Piirto is Trustees' Professor, Director ofTalent Development Education, at AshlandUniversity. She is an award-winning poet andnovelist. She has written many scholarly arti-cles and books, including Understanding Cre-ativity (2004). E-mail: jpiirto@ashland.edu

Whether he understands them ornot, man must remain consciousof the world of archetypes,because in it he is still a part ofNature and is connected to hisown roots. A view of the worldor a social order that cuts him offfrom the primordial images oflife not only is no culture at allbut, in an increasing degree is aprison or a stable. If the primor-dial images remain conscious inone form or another, the energythat belongs to them can flowfreely into man...I am far fromwishing to belittle the divine giftof reason, man's highest faculty.But in the role of absolute tyrant,it has no meaning- no more thanlight would have in a world

where its counterpart, darkness,is absent...the rational is counter-balanced by the irrational, andwhat is planned and purposed bywhat is. (Jung, 1959, p. 23)

In the above quote, written morethan 50 years ago, C. G. Jung

expressed the need for the archetypal,symbolic dimension to life lest it becomelike a prison or a stable. Yet, archetypesand psychologies that include themremain marginalized, often unknown inthe field of talent development and gift-edness. The psychological ground of thefield has been dominated by clinical,behavioral, developmental, and multipleeducational psychologies of learningstyles, intelligences, and brainchemistries. At first, that list seemsextensive, but in fact, all of them are egopsychologies and their central focusgathers around what Jung called "thedivine gift of reason" in the openingquotation. Allowing waking conscious-ness to furnish our only psychologicalpoint of view holds our educationalefforts to a fixed way of seeing, of feel-ing, of knowing and of understanding insuch a way that it unexpectedly restrictsthe very innovation, imagination andcreativity that we wish to cultivate in ourprograms. Acknowledging what is belowthe surface, beyond the ego, broadensthe possibilities for educating.

Definition of DepthPsychology

The term depth psychology is thecontainer for a number of psychologiesthat concern themselves with the uncon-scious. Though its existence was knownand utilized by mesmerists and hypno-tists (Meissner, 2000; Robertson, 1995),the unconscious gained its first scientificfoothold in modern times with Freud.However, the psyche recovered itsgreater depths in Jungian psychology,Hillman's (1975) archetypal psychology,Sardello's (1996) spiritual psychology,and Roszak's (1992) ecopsychology. Inall, the rational, intentional human mind,waking consciousness, or gift of reason,is only one player in a much larger fieldof consciousness.

The reason for the present conceptu-al paper is that, while most people

acknowledge that there are depths, andwhile they seem to yearn for connectionwith these, the current educational scenesteers away from such, except inadvanced studies of philosophy, litera-ture, and clinical psychologies. Depthpsychology approaches human experi-ence with a view towards multiple inter-pretations and expressions. Depthpsychology could be called postmodernin its intricacies. Writers and thinkers inthe depth psychological and postmodernmode have given voice to ancient com-plexities only now beginning to resur-face from the depths. The works of J. K.Rowling have permitted the return ofmagic, mystery, and arcane delights tochildren's literature (personal communi-cation, Stephanie S. Tolan, November15, 2003). The surprise best-seller TheDaVinci Code, by Dan Brown (2003),has given the study of symbols new life.And, as Grasse (1996) said, such a per-spective "tells us life is not empty, but isin fact rich in meaning, purpose andarchetypal resonance" (p. xii).

Depth psychologists believe thatthe ego consciousness, our day-

time "I," is not the master of the psycho-logical house. They feel this was provenearly on by the word association tests(Jung, 1910, 1970), where the individ-ual, after an initial ease with associatingwords with given prompts, would beginto take extra long for some responses,draw blanks, give answers that rhymed.The unexpected or what went wrong,when taken together would often exhibita thematic quality, be connected toreturning emotions, memories, repressedinstincts, which came to be known as thecomplexes. The word association testsdemonstrated that in spite of our inten-tions, something other, not known to thedaytime "I," could interfere and partici-pate in our behavior. Over the years, themetaphoric characters and the inner dra-mas of the complexes led psychologiststo call their approach to the psyche a"poetic basis of mind" (Hillman, 1975,p. xi).

Since the appearance of Freud'sInterpretation of Dreams in 1900, theexistence of the unconscious has held asa psychological fact. The exact nature ofwhat is in the unconscious is what distin-

Manuscript submitted September 9, 2003.Revision accepted January 20, 2004.

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guishes the different depths of the depthpsychologies. For Freud, the uncon-scious contained various forms ofinstinct and memory in the form of com-plexes, a personal unconscious that hademotional and somatic/physical attribut-es. For Jung (1959), that personalunconscious rested upon an even deeperlayer, the collective unconscious or theobjective psyche, which was far moreancient than an individual lifetime andcontained the primordial images, thearchetypes. The archetypes featured notonly emotional and somatic attributes,but also spiritual and worldly attributesthat appeared in vision, dream and syn-chronicity. Synchronicity is Jung's wordfor the meaningful coincidences that arepart and parcel of deep psychologicalexperience. For Jung, the objective psy-che also contained a guiding, organizingcenter, the Self, very much like theHindu Parusha, the God Within.

Hillman (1975) wished to keeppsychology free from the dog-

matism of Jung's Self. He said that ourpsychological depths do contain arche-types, but they are best served by anunderstanding that respects their fullautonomy. In other words, for Hillman,the depths are polycentric and if there isa Self, we honor it best by not dictatinghow it should behave. Hillman pushesarchetypal theory to its fullest stature.For him, an archetype and a God, in theclassic (e.g., Grecian or polytheistic)sense of the word, are the same. Addi-tionally, he prefers the word soul to thewords personal or collective uncon-scious. Hillman amplified the term"soul" by using these related words:"mind, spirit, heart, life, warmth,humanness, personality, individuality,intentionality, essence, innermost pur-pose, emotion, quality, virtue, morality,sin, wisdom, death, God" (Hillman,1964, p. 44).

Sardello (1996), wished to free thesoul from Hillman's thought. In particu-lar, he sought freedom from the idea ofan archetypal soul rooted in Hellenisticculture. For Sardello, the imaginaicapacity of our beings is best honoredwhen it serves not so much the pastGods or the Self. The soul seeks to co-create with the world a deeper culturalfuture, based as much as possible inLove. He pointed out that "for peoplewho lived in times past, care of the soulwas natural and instinctual, carriedthrough ritual, ceremony, mystery cen-ters, an oral tradition of story, myth, andart" (p. 7).

Finally, although he might notstrictly be called a depth psychologist,Roszak (1992) wishes to return the depthrecovered through humanity to natureand the cosmos. He makes the assertionthat the environmental health of theplanet and human psychological healthare in relation with each other, that onewill not be whole without the other. Hesuggests that humankind has been col-lectively insane in its treatment of thebiosphere. Roszak asserts that we haveimmense power to harm what we need inorder to live, and we continue to harmthe earth. This indicates that the culture"is mad with the madness of a deadlycompulsion that reaches beyond our ownkind to all the brute innocence about us"(p. 70).

Although present in Jung, Hill-man and Sardello, Roszak's

(1992) assertion that human psychologyis embedded in nature represents a fullreturn of soul in the form of the worldsoul, or Anima Mundi. Roszak saw theJungian idea of the collective uncon-scious as the "most serviceable in thecreation of an ecopsychology" (p. 302).Today we call this theory Gaia. Earthitself is a living being and through ourbecoming conscious, she becomes con-scious: "the collective unconscious, at itsdeepest level, shelters the compactedecological intelligence of our species,the source from which culture finallyunfolds as the self-conscious reflectionof nature's own steadily emergent mind-likeness" (p. 301).

Why Educators Should BeInterested in Depth

Psychology

The depths should interest us aseducators for three reasons. The firstconcerns the value we place upon ourwork. In all, even in Freud, as Bettle-heim (1983) noted, depth psychology isa care of soul. With soul as the centralfactor, education returns to its deepestroot, educare, a leading out from lessermeanings to deeper ones, from lesserconnectedness to greater connectedness,from naive shallowness to the deepexperience of being alive that JosephCampbell spoke of so often (see Camp-bell, 1949, 1968; Fideler, 1995; Marian,1997; Myss, 2001; Reynolds, 1999).Ego, cognitive, and developmental psy-chologies currently hold the field of edu-cation of the gifted and talented. Withthe perspective of depth psychology,

education is no longer an ego-basedwork of strengthening brain function,problem finding, problem solving, devel-oping talent in some domain, mentalinventiveness or cleverness, nor cultivat-ing economic, technological, explanato-ry skill. Our students, our schools, ourcommunities, our watersheds, our cos-mos, and we become rooted and in rela-tion with the mystery of being -ensouled.

The second reason for us to be inter-ested in the depths of depth psychologyconcerns the biographical and autobio-graphical. Depth psychology increasesour capacity to understand and respectthe psychological experiences commonto the lives of the talented and gifted,namely those heights and depths ofmood, inspirations, dreams, oceanic andtranscendent moments, insights, intu-itions, spiritual visitations (Aziz, 1990),the slings and arrows of outrageous men-tal states, even unto bouts of unexplain-able somatic symptoms, of mentalillness, of compulsiveness, hyperdrivenself-destructiveness, bipolar disorder andsuicide attempts (Piirto, 1998a, 2002,2004,2005, in press, in preparation).

In our test-driven and socially con-structed definitions of who is or who isnot gifted and talented, we lose sight ofthe mystery of exceptionality in people.No one can really understand this mys-tery, and we reduce it when we try to puta test score to it. The Dabrowski Theoryof Positive Disintegration ( 1965)explains, in a hierarchical model, thevarious levels of adult development, butthese levels, too, are reductive whenused to explain instead of understand.Depth psychological approaches to themystery of giftedness and talent honorthe unknown, with its shadows and deepwells beneath the surface, and do not reston the merely quantifiable.

The third reason educators shouldbe interested in depth psycholo-

gy concerns our capacity to perceive andhonor genius in a way proper to it. Weuse the term "genius" because it is usedby most depth psychology thinkers asinterchangeable with the term "daimon."All the names given to the quality ofgenius over the years indicate an"other," who is the protector of our rea-son for being. It is this daimon (Cobb,1992; Hillman, 1996,1999; Jung, 1965;Moore, 1994; Myss, 2001), this Thorn(Piirto, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c, 2002,2004, 2005, in preparation), this Incur-able Mad Spot, (Reynolds, 1997, 2001,2002, 2004, 2005), which can be best

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understood when seen archetypally, notonly as the presence of physical prowessand genes, not only in the presence ofdrive, resilience, heroic strivings, butalso in our pathologies, crimes, acci-dents, chance, spiritual visitations, expe-riences of being in the hands of a higherpower, positive disintegrations, darknights of the soul, or the madness thatcomes when the Muse speaks (Dabrows-ki, 1965; Graves, 1948; Plato, 1952).When considered from the depths, it isirresponsible to develop assorted talentsof our students, even those super-humanones, without some inquiry into themeaning that the presence of those tal-ents might serve.

With soul comes the presence ofdeath, which tribal peoples say was thefirst teacher. That is to say that deathalways reminds us of the preciousness oflife, and that mainly through our brusheswith death do we learn what truly mat-ters most. With soul comes the presenceof love, including eros and its claimsupon the heart of teaching and learning.Many of us teach because a teacherloved us, even because we were in lovewith our teacher or our teacher was inlove with us. Plato (1952) in Phaedrusinsisted on the presence of that love forthe deepest education to occur.

Education as Educare:The Return of the Soul

When we as educators seek to edu-cate with soul in mind, a radical spark isstruck. Hillman (1983) pointed out "bydefinition, education must lead out" (p.179). He suggested that educators lead thechild out by leading the child in, by focus-ing on the imagination in the child's fan-tasies. He urges the education of theimagination. Hillman (1975), in Re-vision-ing Psychology, was most pointed andsuccinct in his description of soul. He askspsychology to return to the deepest root ofits own meaning, the psyche of psycholo-gy. As educators, the depths bring us toreconsider the deepest root of the meaningof teaching, our own educare, in the Pla-tonic sense. As noted above, to lead outfrom makes the most sense when wespeak of it with soul in mind.

'rom soûl's perspective, the indi-' vidual comes with the task of

perceiving and bringing into the worldthat which only he or she can bring, evenunto what the Greeks called mediation,in the sense of embodying propheticcapacity. Joan of Arc, Ghandi, Krishna-

R-

murti, those who Simonton (1995) calledthe eminent, who Nietzsche (Heidegger,1990) calls the great man, have a placein soul's classroom. The cosmos can beknown as the immensely creative, ongo-ing work of art that it is.

With soul comes a realization thatcreating, directing, and maintaining pro-grams of talent development are whatthe ancients called eldering. Thus, theyare cultural work, a care for the indige-nous culture to be considered in relationwith the village's joy in living. In tradi-tional cultures, this individual's self-apprehension through experience thats/he had a soul and a deep calling in lifewas done through rites of passage. Inthose rites, the student was helped tomove from the world of childhood intothe world of adult relationships.

With soul comes the higherorders of human conscious-

ness, namely contemplation; reflection;intuition; metacognition; knowing thetrue, the beautiful, and the just; dreaming;and imagining with arts-based, philosoph-ical, ethical and social justice curriculathat feature a capacity for sufficient depthand complexity. With soul comes creativ-ity and reverence for creation in its deep-est sense.

Lastly, and leading into our next sec-tion, with the perspective of soul comes afoundation that holds a mature respect forthe darker side of human nature. Such aneye has seen what Hillman means whenhe writes, "The psyche does not existwithout pathologizing" (1975, p. 70). Asteachers of the gifted and talented, we canacquire the eye that can see in the darkfrom experiences with these students overthe years, from speaking with others, andfrom biographical studies (e.g., theGoertzel [1962,1978] studies; Gruber's[1982] studies). We often find the pres-ence of traumas, mental illnesses, crimes,and afflictions accompanying eminence.For better or worse, bad things happen togood people. Biographies of certain cre-ative productive adults, especially in thefields of visual arts, creative writing,mathematics, music, and theater showthat some spent time in the psychiatricward, in the hospital emergency room, inthe prison, sometimes at the funeral home(Piirto, 1998b). Piirto jokingly, yet seri-ously, tells parents who want their chil-dren to become creative adults that thestudies show the best thing they could dois "get divorced or die" (p. 342).

Depth acquainted with the dark isnot naïve about creativity. Creativity isnot all light, warm and fuzzy activities

infused into content lessons; it is notdescribed by lines and charts; it is notputting on silly costumes and tellingjokes; it is not self-esteem exercises, norfluency and other cognitive divergentproduction exercises. Creativity is notalways friendly. It is sometimes autistic,bent on harming, turned against life,death-bringing, even satanic.

With soul comes the knowledge thatgiftedness is something we have to wres-tle with in our hearts, something thatshapes us as much as we shape it. Gifted-ness takes us out of the comfort zone.Marsilio Ficino (1489), the translator ofalchemical texts, of the lost books ofPlato, the teacher who introduced to theWest the ideas that would bring forth theRenaissance in Florence, Italy, models amaster educator's attitude toward thepathologizing inherent to soul when headvises, "there is nothing so deformed inthis whole living world that it has no soul,no gift of soul contained in it" (p. 86).

For us, as educators of the giftedand talented, this means that

when we consider our curricula and oureducational systems, we must also listencarefully in the places where the progressis disrupted and where the process breaksdown. Where schooling gets deformedisn't to be too quickly cured with Ritalin,Zithromax, behavior modifications,detentions and expulsions without tem-perance based on the knowledge that soulis also breaking forth precisely at thatsame place where the educational processis pathologized. In fact, where our workgets deformed is often where soul makesits first claim on how education shouldproceed and how a deeper psychologicalperspective is being requested.

Gifted and Talented:An Archetypal Perspective

Part and parcel of the tradition of soulelucidated above, a tradition that can betraced back through Plotinus, Plato,through Heraclitis, comes a very highesteem for humanity and the cosmos. Soulmediates between spirit qualities, whichFicino (1980) calls "divine," and physicalqualities, which the renaissance doctorcalls "fallen." Ficino and other Renais-sance thinkers made a psychologicalbreakthrough in that they saw humanityand the cosmos as tri-partite, body, soul,spirit (see Figure 1). We lost this usefuldescription in the process of the Enlight-enment, with the myth that scientificmaterialism could solve all, that

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"progress" was key, that we could providefor our psychological needs by acquiring,destroying, rebuilding, cutting down, andbombing with ever "smarter" technolo-gies. At this time, only the idea of thearchetype makes room for those threequalities, not as divided from each otherand at war, but as coming together in anunderstandable way. Hauke (2000) arguedthat depth psychology can function todayas a response to modernity, and that it ispresciently aligned with the postmoderncritiques of contemporary culture.

Soul Diagram

Figure 1

With the archetypal view, aphysical or somatic basis is

necessary, but to limit understanding toonly measurable elements and outcomesis a materialistic fallacy. A spiritual viewthat takes in the power of the divine -even unto prophecy - is necessary, but tolimit it to only the ways of the spirit ofthe local culture and history is a control-based hubris that degrades the individualsoul's very personal, sacred vocabulary.An emotional perspective is vital, butwhen it limits its view to personalizingall feelings as mine and generated byme, it constricts the full capacity of thehuman heart's intuitive capacity. Thearchetypal view is what we use to appre-hend our students in the most reverentand loving way.

C. G. Jung, first to bring the collec-tive unconscious or objective psyche andits archetypes to depth psychology, gavemany descriptions of them over theyears. Jung (1970, Vol. 9) in The Arche-types and The Collective Unconsciousdetails the sources, the ways that we mayapprehend the archetypes, which are"complexes of experience that comeupon us like fate" and whose "effects arefelt in our most personal life" (p. 30).These are dreams, active imagination,the delusions of paranoiacs, fantasies

received in trance states, and the dreamsof early childhood, ages 3 to 5. In Sym-bols of Transformation, Jung (1970, Vol.5) writes various descriptions of arche-types: "The archetype is, as such, anunconscious psychic image, but it has areality independent of the attitude of theconscious mind" (p. 56); "It is a psychicexistent" (p. 56); "They are the universaland inherited patterns which takentogether, constitute the structure of theunconscious" (p. 228), and "The arche-types are the numinous, structural ele-ments of the psyche and possess acertain autonomy and specific energywhich enables them to attract, out of theconscious mind, those contents best suit-ed to themselves" (p. 232).

Hillman (1975) saw archetypes as"the deepest patterns of psychic

functioning, the roots of the soul govern-ing the perspectives we have of ourselvesand the world" (p. xiii). He said thatarchetypes are "axiomatic, self-evidentimages to which psychic life and our theo-ries about it ever return." As such, arche-types resemble "the models or paradigms,that we find in other fields... translationsfrom one metaphor to another." All lan-guage, all definition is metaphorical, evenin science and in logic. Archetypes, how-ever, possess us and blind us: "one thing isabsolutely essential to the notion of arche-types: their emotional possessive effect,their bedazzlement of consciousness sothat it becomes blind to its own stance."Hillman even goes so far as to say "Anarchetype is best comparable to a God"(p. xiii).

The archetypal principle is bothancient and complex. However, in itsapplication it is quite simple. When con-sidering a life, it is more appropriate towonder what story or myth is beingenacted. What is this situation like? Is itlike the story of Cain and Abel? Is thisboy like young Sir Gawain knockedcompletely out of his boat by the strongemotion of the woman he loves? Is thisgirl like Grimm's girl in Mother Holle,so sad that she falls down a deep well. Itis the image, the story that relieves thesoul from isolation, which leads it outfrom its cave of ignorance because nowthe person is not the only one. Jungianssay often that when the situation can beseen as a present-day playing out of aneternal story, there is a curative effect.

Our boy, then, may feel ashamedthat he fears the strong emotion of hisgirlfriend, but when he learns that one ofthe knights who found the Grail had thesame problems, he has a way through; infact, the trouble reveals hidden gold. Our

girl may hate herself for her depressions,but when she learns that the golden girlhad the same problems, she can beginlooking for the wise old woman of natureat the bottom of her well. The trouble hashidden gold; the story shows the way.Connecting one's behaviors and dreamsto ancient stories common to all culturesprovides a way of "seeing through" to theimplications of the multiplicities withwhich we live our lives, the patterns weenact of which we may not be aware.

There is no end to the archetypalpersons, stories, and myths that appear.Western psychologists could considerhow a person may be enacting the arche-type of Kore and her birth, or the PuerAeternus learning from the SaturnalSenex or the Apollonian warrior battlingfor divine truth, or the Dionysian ecstaticlover, suffering and delighting in beingdismembered by women, but all cultures'heroes, Gods, ancestors, dreams, visions,and stories can appear (Edinger, 1994).Jung (1970, Vol.9) has detailed descrip-tions of the Mother archetype, the Childarchetype, the Wise Old Man and WiseOld Woman archetypes, the Anima, theAnimus, the Maiden, the Trickster/Shad-ow archetype, the Wise Magician/Medi-cine Man archetype. Stevens (1983)states that archetypes cannot be graspedacademically, for they have a feelingtone recognized by the individual experi-encing the archetype: "Ultimately, youcannot define an archetype, any morethan you can define meaning. You canonly experience it" (p. 67). These aspectsof the collective unconscious appear toall, but especially to those who are recep-tive, who notice symbols, who think inabstract ways, all of which are character-istics of the gifted and talented.

Application of the archetypal wayis simply to put students in touch

with those stories, myths, books, persons,which seem to be reflected in their lives.Teachers are encouraged to tell stories toanswer life questions. We often say,"Your situation reminds me of this story Ionce heard." This archetypal principle iscentral to the works of psychologicalteachers like Robert Bly, Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, and Caroline Myss. Their books onthe wild man archetype (Bly, 1990), thewild woman archetype (Pinkola-Estes,1996), and the archetype of spirit (Myss,1999), all deepen and bring understandingto everyday life by connecting it to myth.

The first author has applied depthpsychology's deeper view in his highschool French classes as a means to helpstudents understand historic art andarchitecture. As noted above, all psy-

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chologies of depth regard the presence ofthe unconscious as a psychological fact.(See Table 1 for suggested materials).

(1) The Cro-Magnon caves of initiationin the Dordogne, Lascaux for example,were places where the men transformedthe initiates' psychological state fromchildhood literalism into an adult view.The death and re-birth there opened theneophyte to the "world behind theworld," where spirit was real and soulwas the calling of his life.(2) The Celtic dolmens, menhirs, align-ments, were all formed around a knowl-edge of cycles. Those cycles includedthe death and rebirth of the soul fromembodied life to embodied life.(3) The Gothic cathedrals, especiallyChartres, were symbolic teachingtools. The beheaded figure of St.

Denis at the left-hand door of entrysaid to the students and pilgrims thatthey would have to "lower the head tothe level of the heart," in other words,think symbolically, archetypally, tounderstand anything at all within.(4) The Renaissance and the image ofthe Vitruvian man who "squares thecircle" (most persons know Leonardo'sversion of this, but it was everywhere),described the profound value of thehuman soul that had a reach beyond the4-directioned square of Earth and end-less circle of spiritual Heaven. With mystudents I explain why the French kingFrancis the First brought Leonardo toFrance, why Francis spoke to the mas-ter every evening, why Da Vinci isburied at the Chateau of Amboise. TheRenaissance insistence that humanity

held a station higher than the angels isfully understood with the knowledge ofthe tri-partite view described above.(5) The fuller reality of the Surrealists- the "Pope," Andre Breton; alongwith, Dali, Magritte, de Chirico, Cha-gall, Klee, Tanguy, Duchamp, and fora time, Picasso, - represented divinghead-first into the reality of the worldof depth psychology. I tell my studentshow the Surrealists, fully disillusionedby World War I and the ego-basedmaterialism of modern culture,worked to overthrow the literal, ratio-nal consciousness. They worked torestore intuition, freedom of imagina-tion, and dreaming through art, poetry,literature, games, automatic writing.My students then do projects workinglike Surrealists.

Teaching High School French Archetypally

Topic Required Materials Suggested Materials

Cro-Magnon Caves

Celtic Stone Images

Gothic Cathedrals

Renaissance

Surrealism

Literature thread

Christopher, N.G., Mahdi, L.C., & Meade, M. (Eds.) (1996).Crossroads: The quest for contemporary rites of passage.Lasalle, IL: Open Court.

Some, M.P. (1995). Of water and the spirit: Ritual, magic and ini-tiation in the life of an African shaman. New York: Penguin.

Davidson, H.R.E. (1995). Myths and symbols in pagan Europe:Early Scandinavian and Celtic religions. Syracuse, NY: SyracuseUniversity Press.

Celtic myths and legend: From Arthur and the Round Table to theGaelic gods and giants they battled. (1999). Franklin Lakes, NJ:New Page Books.

Querido, R.M. (1987). The golden age of Chartres: The teachingof a mystery school and the eternal feminine. New York: Anthro-posophic Press.

Sardello, R. (1995). Love and the soul: Creating a future forearth. New York: HarperCollins.

Reviving the academies of the muses. In D. Fideler (Ed.), Alexan-dria: The journal of western cosmológica! traditions, (pp.213-226). Grand Rapids, Ml.: Phanes.

Lawlor, R. (1997). Sacred geometry: Philosophy and practice.London: Thames and Hudson.

Breton, A. (1952). Conversations: The autobiography of surreal-ism. (Mark Polizzotti, Trans.) New York:Paragon House.

Gablik, S. (1991). The reenchantment of art. London: Thamesand Hudson

La chanson de Roland: Texte critique. Gautier, L. (1958) Tours:Amame et fils

Tristan etlseult. d'Angleterre, T. (1999). Ivry, France: FernandNathan.

Gargantua. (Texte établi et annote par Pierre Grind) Rabelais, F.(1939). Paris: Editions de Cluny.

Les amours, de Ronsard, P. (1963). Paris: Editions Gamier.Freres

Essais de Montaigne. Montaigne, M. (1872). Paris: Garnier Frères.

Rousseau par lui-même. May, G. (1961). Paris: Editions du Seuil.

Candide. Voltaire, F. (1993). New York: Dover.

Cahiers: 1716-1755. Montesquieu, C. (1951). Paris: Grasset.

Eliade, M. (1958). Rites and symbols of initiation. Dallas:Spring.

Campbell, J. (1988). Historical atlas of world mythology vol 1:The way of the animal powers. New York: Harper and Row.

Turner, V. (1987). Betwixt and between: The liminal period inrites of passage. Lasalle, IL: Open Court.

Campbell, J. (1959). The hero with a thousand faces. Prince-ton, NJ.: Princeton University Press.

Monick, E. (1995). Phallos: Sacred image of the masculine.Lasalle, IL: Open Court.

Artress, L. (1996). Walking a sacred path: Rediscovering thelabyrinth as a spiritual tool. New York: Riverhead Books.

Matthews, C. (1991). Sophia goddess of wisdom: The divinefeminine from black goddess to world soul. Matthews, C.London: Mandala/HarperCollins

Hillman, J. (1975). Revisioning psychology. New York: Harp-er and Row.

Piirto, J. (1998). Understanding those who create (2nd Ed.).Scottsdale, AZ.: Gifted Psychology Press.

Reynolds, F. C. (2001). Creation: The pyramid and the suns.Berea: Shirtless Records.

Warlick, M. E. (2000). Max Ernst and alchemy: A magician insearch of a myth. Houston: University of Texas Press.

Jung, CG. (1964). Man and his symbols (Jaffe ed.). NewYork: HarperCollins.

Sardello, R. (1999). Freeing the soul from fear. New York:Putnam.

Table 1

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(6) In the realm of literature, chansonssuch as La Chanson de Roland, Tristanet Iseult; stories like Gargantua ofRabelais; the poetry of Ronsard; theessays of Montaigne; the books ofRousseau, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Zola,Gide; the poetry of Baudelaire, Ver-laine, and Rimbaud; The Little Princeby St. Exupery; all appeal to talentedhigh school students and demonstrateliterature's value to the soul. Sardello(1999) says this about literature:

All literature falls into four greatmovements of the soul-epic,tragic, comic, and lyric. All sortsof mixtures of these soul patternsoccur, but they are always varia-tions of these four worlds of thesoul. In the epic, we are shownthe heroic movement of the soul;in tragedy, the fallen character ofhuman beings; in comedy, theworld is redeemed; and in thelyric, we get a taste of the imagi-nation of paradise, (p. 233)

Little Prince who perceives withhis heart, and postmodern

thinkers like Foucault and Lacan, whosee through games or metanarratives, allmake little sense without knowledge ofthe unconscious. We read and discuss allof these in my high school French class-es from French 1 to French 5.

The Capacity toUnderstand Genius

The first author had a gifted studentwho suffered from an extreme depressionand who had to be hospitalized. Shereturned to school heavily medicated andassigned to group rational-emotive thera-py. This is the typical educationalresponse to psychological difficulties.The guiding principle is that depression isan imbalance or sickness that blightshumanity's natural upbeat outlook. Often,chemicals and interventions are applied inorder to make the pain go away, but whatis underlying the pain is not addressed.However, for the darker eye of depth psy-chologies, the educational process can beseen through in its pathologizing as wellas in its sunnier guises. Seeing throughthe literal to the underlying patterns,myths, and archetypes provides insightthat is often telling.

All the names given to the quality ofGenius over the years, indicate an"other," who is the protector of our rea-son for being. It is this Thorn, this MadSpot, which can be best understood when

seen archetypally. The word gift alsomeans poison. Where the poison is, youwill also find the Genius. The studentabove tested for very high verbal ability;she wrote in a style that was older thanher age. On paper, she appeared as a stu-dent who should breeze through schoolwith good grades, which she did untilpuberty. She went through a radicaltransformation that was accompanied bya powerful dream of the end of the world.It was as if she was taken down the wellby this question: What constitutes thedeepest meaning of this life?

Where the Daimon/Genius/Thorn/MadSpot intervenes is where education,being led out, is being requested. Thosewho worked best with her honored thepain of her question and worked with herto help her find her way through. Thosewho made light of her suffering, point-ing to underachievement, were bent toremove the problem. They only foundmore trouble.

Her travels led her down under toNew Zealand, later to a Sufi

community, later still to work as a vol-unteer in compassionate causes, includ-ing her own project that was to bringmeditation to public schools. Her inspi-ration continues through this paper, arequest on her part to bring to educationthe teachings of soul, the depth psy-chologies that were so helpful to her inher quest to understand herself as physi-cal, psychological, and spiritual. Thatshe left this world too young after livingthrough so much brings a painful call tous to continue working for depth ofunderstanding in our field. Evidence ofthat appears in our gentleness in theclassroom and in the culture we formaround our schools.

The Poetic Basis of Mind

Depth psychology is not science. It ispoetry (Hillman, 1975). Rooted in aes-thetics and in imagination, everything isinterpreted as image, as story and aspotentially meaningful. One doesn't lookup a dream image in a dream book for theanswers; one doesn't read a dream as lit-erary criticism; rather, one seeks to gobeyond the literal to the poetic, beyondthe psychoanalytic to the imagination inthe image. Losing one's teeth in a dreamis not a sexual image, as the dream manu-als may say; rather, every image, everystory is interpreted with reference to thedreamer, the individual having the dream.Every student has an individual dream -is an individual dream - and has a vision.

With a poetic basis of mind, the sym-bolic is paramount. It takes precedenceover the literal. Perhaps this is most aptlyillustrated in the ongoing discussion in ourfield about "giftedness" and "talent devel-opment." The discussion, as we see it, setsup straw men, for talents are what must be"developed," in order for the person torealize his or her deepest giftedness.

The term "talent," in AmericanEnglish, refers to a mostly

inborn skill, capacity, or propensitytoward being able to do something well.Developing "soul" in this context meansfollowing your bliss, as Joseph Campbell(1968) so often said. While we are dis-cussing the deepest, most profoundaspects of humanness, the talented per-son must have the will and the passionfor the demands of the talent domain.Part of being ensouled, or filled withsoul, is to acquire expertise in the placeof passion.

Talents are not to be developedblindly without inquiry into the student'spassion. Depth psychology insists onincluding a student's heated interests.Depth psychology inquires where andwhy a talented student is engaged in acertain domain, be it mathematics, a cer-tain branch of science, literature, music,sports, or other domain. Multitalented stu-dents are encouraged to notice when theylose track of time, enter oceanic con-sciousness (sometimes called flow), evenwhen they get into trouble because of aparticular overexcitability. They areencouraged to notice those areas where anincredible drive compels them to work ina domain. That drive is like a Thorn, anIncurable Mad Spot, or Daimon. None ofthese terms can be defined, except phe-nomenologically - in symbol and inaction; in metaphor or in motion.

For example, the first author had astudent who scored a perfect 800 on themath portion of the SAT, who also per-formed violin with the Cleveland YouthOrchestra. Her passion, however, was forlanguages. She came to me after her thirdyear of Spanish, wanting to learn French.She advanced through to French 4 in twoyears. In Spanish, her teacher created alevel 6 to accommodate her talent. Shewent on to study languages at the univer-sity, even though she could have achievedin the other domains. Passion and drivemade the difference. Depth psychologyinsists on that deeper view of the student.

The second author had an undergrad-uate honor student who was going on tomajor in public administration in graduateschool. She received this letter from him:

Spring, 2005, Roeper Review/169

Dear Dr. Piirto.I am writing to you now inorder to ask for your help.I had contact with two of my rel-atives recently. Each approachedme individually and asked what Ihave planned for the future. Ibegan to tell each of them of myplans to get my master's in pub-lic administration. I tried myhardest to explain this career forthem, but I felt like a fool. Iexplained the different aspectsand I tried to define it, but Istumbled and faltered. I felt as ifI were lying to their faces. . . . Iam accepted into the School ofPublic Policy and Management[at a Big Ten university]. . . Iplan to start grad school in thefall. I am getting married... .Myheart is not in public administra-tion. But I had this greatfear/anxiety. If I were to die, atthe end of my life, and go toheaven, I fear God's gaze on me.I could imagine Him asking me,"What did you do with the giftsthat I gave you?" And I couldonly show him a shabby degreein public administration. I am atthe point now when I have sup-pressed my desires too much. Iwant to live entirely for my truetalents rather than just usingthem casually. I have never hadenough faith to believe that Icould support myself and a fami-ly with a job that involves writ-ing. . . 1 want to write. I want tolive inside this inexhaustible giftthat God has blessed me with.

This young man at the age of 21 exhibitsthe passion that we speak of. Depth psy-chology validates passion as the primalnecessity in living life.

Another example comes from RobbinRogers, a teacher with her master's degreein talent development education. She is ahigh school English teacher, taking a sem-inar in depth psychology and education.Her weekly memo described a lesson inteaching from the depths (See Appendix).

Words have life; they are alive.Images have life; they are alive. Shiftingand changing, enunciating and expand-ing, the approach is qualitative, phenom-enological, and even more (Moore,1989). Miller (2000) noted that "it is theliteralist who violates the text by not see-ing its poetry, that which it fingers, thatto which it points; whereas the poeticreading" (p. 57) respects the manymeanings of depth of all texts. Hillman

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(1975) said, "archetypal psychologyholds that the true iconoclast is theimage itself which explodes its allegori-cal meanings, releasing startling newinsights" (p. 8). He argued that one mustlove the image in order to get to its soul.

In the field of the education of thegifted and talented, we view poet-

ry and image as products rather than asprocesses. To view the development of achild as poetic takes imagination and asense of play as well as a deep sense ofresponsibility to the child's own imagesand dreams. To possess talent is onething, to develop talent is another. Oftenparents and teachers do things to talentedchildren rather than with them, and aform of child abuse is wrought (Miller,1997). Toiler and DiGeronomo (2000)have even given this the status of a syn-drome called Achievement By ProxyDistortion Syndrome.

Intuition is key here. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, based on a Jun-gian idea of preferences (Jung, 1970, Vol.6), has indicated that students who aregifted and talented overwhelmingly preferIntuition (N) over Sensing (S; Piirto,1998b). The intuitive minds of these stu-dents often do not meet the like intuitivemind of a teacher until they are in highschool or college. The Western world isExtraverted (E), Sensing (S), Feeling (F),and Judging (J) (Betkouski & Hoffman,1981). The academically talented studentsseem to overwhelmingly prefer Intuition(N) over Sensing (S) and Perception (P)

over Judging (J). A gaze at the image heremight reveal a veil, a curtain, or even awall between what the student prefers andwhat the school expects (See Table 2).

In conclusion, the field of psycholo-gy called depth psychology can open upan understanding, or at least an intuitiveperception, of giftedness that appreciatesits mystery, its richness, and its individu-ality. This paper has shown that attentionto poetry, archetypes, symbols, anddepths can reach the inner truth, thesouls of students and their teachers.

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Grasse, R. (1996). The waking dream: Unlocking the symboliclanguage of our lives. Wheaton, IL: Quest Books.

A Creativity Course Utilizing Depth Psychology PrinciplesTheme

Core Attitudes

The Six I's

The Seventhl-lmprovisation

Meditation

Synaesthesia

Exercise

Exploring Passionin a Domain

Conversationand Friendship

Visiting (Field Trips)

ActivitiesRisk-Taking (The Princess and the Pea)Naivete (The Raisin Meditation)Group Trust (Red Wounds-lndividuation)Self-Discipline (Thoughtlogs-lndividuation)

1. Imagery (Ten minute movie-archetypes)2. Imagination (fingerpainting, clay, poetry, fiction)3. Intuition (Intuition Probe, Psychic Intuition, Dreams)4. Insight (Grasping the Gestalt, Aha, Zen Sketching)5. Inspiration (Visitation of the Muse)6. Incubation (Individual Creativity Project)

Jazz, Theater, Word Rivers, Writing Practice, Creative Movement,Rhythm & Drumming, Scat Singing, Doodling

Meditate on Beauty (15 Minutes Before a Work of Art - aesthetics; archetypes)Meditate on the Dark Side (A Visit to a Cemetery; The Shadow)Meditate on God (Bring a Sacred Text to Class-Literature)Meditate on Nature (I Am a Naturalist;This Is the Day Which the Lord Hath Made"; Gaia)

Mixing It Up - Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, Touching (Fantasy)

A Walk, a Run, Aerobics, Games, Dance (Gabrielle Roth)

Noticing Oceanic Consciousness (Flow)

A Creativity Salon

Bookstore/library, a Museum, a Concert, a Play, a Movie,a Reading or Lecture, a Place (Travel)

Individual Creativity Project - Show How You Used All Core Attitudes Toward Creativity

Table 2

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Moore, T. (Ed.). (1989). Blue fire: Selected writings of JamesHillman. New York: Harper & Row.

Moore, T. (1994). Care of the soul. New York: RandomHouse.

Myss, C. (1999), The anatomy of the spirit: The seven stages ofpower and healing. New York: HarperCollins.

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Piirto, J. (1998a). Understanding those who create (2nd ed.).Scottsdale, AZ: Gifted psychology Press.

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AppendixA Lesson Using Depth Psychological Principles

by Robbin Rogers (used with permission)

I decided to start with poetry. To prepare them for the eventual concepts, I had the studentswrite a journal entry on what life is like as a teen in today's society. Then the students brokeinto small groups and brainstormed on the same topic. In an essay the students went backto the topic and delved more deeply into one or two aspects of their lives as teens, eitheron a personal level or reflecting on the group experience. In addition the students wereasked to bring in poems or edited song lyrics whose central purpose was to comment onsome aspect of society today (it did not have to deal with just teen issues).

After checking their poems/lyrics (some incredible examples of societal commentaries fromstudents' own poetry to published poets and songwriters), I played Bob Dylan's Blowin'inthe Wind, introducing the concept of the great poet. Next, I introduced Jung's edited discus-sion on modest and great poets and why society needs to listen to the poets (and I addedartists to set up future assignments and thought processes). What followed was some ofthe most intense teaching I have ever done (in my infinite wisdom I decided to do this workwith both seniors and juniors which means teaching It to 158 students, seven times a daywhich equals 28 presentations and discussions in four days).

Of course, the students struggled with Jung: Who doesn't? I assured them Jung was deep,and the whole concept of growth and path to understanding required one to struggle, tothink and reflect, and to observe. I quoted you when I told the students that a studentshould struggle to reach the next level of growth and development. We studied and dis-cussed what constitutes an average versus a great poet. During this discussion I openedthe door to the concepts introduced in The Adolescent Psyche (Frankel, 1998), and weexplored why teenagers are more receptive to the poets of our time than most adults andthe mass of society.

Wow. What followed were discussions ranging from religious principles to the gulf betweenchildhood, adulthood, and adolescence to depression to drug and alcohol use to conformityand fitting In. And those are just some of the issues. The floodgates to imagination, commu-nication, and the desperate need to be heard and for understanding were opened. The tor-rent of ideas and ways of knowing poured out. The puer was released, but a wiser puerwho had done some serious soul searching and had all these incredible ideas, feelings,questions, and insights about life and meaning. It was absolutely incredible.

The humbling, while simultaneously exciting, thing for me was learning that many studentsalready knew about what I was learning to see for the first time in the passages I had soexcitedly marked to share and teach to my students. How arrogant and how typically adult.They did not need me to teach them; they already knew (not about Jung, but about theadolescent psyche: all they needed was someone to hear them and listen to them, to valuetheir ideas, perspectives, and experiences, both outwardly and psychologically). The powerof the puer was released in the group consciousness as we broached feelings, exploredideas, raised questions, posed insights, and offered validations. I gave their consciousnessdirection and voice, but the students awed me with their ways of knowing. I mentallychecked off the points I had marked in the book to share with them. The beauty of classlast week resided in the experience of students and teacher giving one another the pre-cious gifts of human awareness and open communication, of willingness to listen, probe,and share perspectives and insights, and of delighting in one another's being.

Interesting to note, I was observed by my supervisor. The class was on fire with ideas,insights, deep thoughts, and open communication. Even he could not contain his excite-ment at the electricity charging the learning environment that period.. . . I intentionallystressed the discussion on iconoclasts and the importance of people questioning the statusquo. My supervisor even added to the list of iconoclastic, great poets to include Neil Young.

After completing our rather exhausting discussion on Jung's criteria for analyzing poets, thestudents listened to Blowin'in the Wind again, this time marking notes on their lyric copies,then briefly sharing with the class what criteria of the great poet were evidenced in thepoem. Next week we will explore examples from Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, and NeilYoung. The students will work in small groups, discussing meanings and applying knowl-edge gleaned from prior discussions and from studying Jung, write in journals on topicsreflective of their work, do Thought Logs, engage in class discussions, and end the weekby writing a reflective essay on their selected thought processes of the week.

Next, the students will choose which modern day poets and lyricists they want to discuss intheir small groups, then present their analyses to the class. As a parallel assignment, stu-dents will be required to read and clip newspaper and magazine articles and pictures ofcurrent events, tape TV programs and commercials, bring in advertisements, computer dis-plays, movie ads, fashion articles and pictures, etc. that underscore the collective cultureand how they represent and influence the collective psyche, both consciously and uncon-sciously of our times. Eventually, they will make collages that reflect the mixed messagesof society and reveal the soul of the collective unconscious.

During our discussions last week, students admitted to never considering which poets andlyricists would be considered modest or great. We discussed this criteria in no way dimin-ishes the enjoyment of their poems or songs and, in the case of musicians, how the musicmust be separated from the lyrics in this consideration, not an easy thing to do. This part ofthe unit will culminate in the students 1) analyzing her/his own poem/song choice in a writ-ten paper and 2) demonstrating an understanding and developing evaluation criteria ofwhich poets they read and listen to would be considered modest or great.

Spring, 2005, Roeper Review/171