Soul loss is a spiritual ailment that has been likened to depression (Tanaka-Matsumi & Chang, 2002) and can cause many to fall into the throes of addiction. Feeling empty inside, and often out of touch with her body, a woman can spend countless years of psychic energy searching outside for her lost self, hoping to fill up that hole in her middle. Then, of course, it’s so easy to become addicted to chemicals, food, sex, shopping, needing to always be the good girl, too needy for attention, or constantly giving yourself away in codependence. And all this just makes perfect sense. In spiritual psychology (e.g., Ingerman, 1991; Jung, 1933; Winkleman, 2002), the most common indicators of soul loss are:

• Gaps in one’s memory of childhood, and sometimes adolescence
• Having blocked complete memory of past traumas, with a certainty they occurred
• The tendency to live outside one’s body, seeing oneself as in a movie
• Preference to live out-of-body
• Numbness, apathy, or feeling deadened
• Trouble staying in an intimate relationship
• Chronic depression and a sense of unworthiness
• Tendencies toward addiction to chemicals and other things that help keep you numb, or feeling more energetic
• Difficulty finding one’s true life’s work
• An inability to really believe someone else loves you, even when they vow they do
• In severe cases, symptoms of dissociative personality or multiple personality disorder

Soul loss is felt in one’s inner life, and is not usually verbally expressed. It has been written that the social work profession is “in the process of recovering from collective soul loss” (Canda, 1998), which perfectly reflects what so many of our clients are experiencing. Spiritual psychology recognizes that everything we think or feel is filtered through our psyches, giving us our knowledge of the world and the picture we make of it. The majority of these beliefs, attitudes, and feelings we hold come from childhood experiences and from those who influenced us early on. Based on the theory of psychospiritual thought, when a child experiences abuse or neglect, her soul leaves her body during these painful events.

Psychospiritual therapists know the soul can split into parts and travel in many dimensions of consciousness. And sometimes it simply doesn’t return; it can constrict and hide in the unconscious or expand into the superconscious realities. Since your soul is your consciousness, this explains the gaps in memory, feelings of emptiness, or lack of selfhood a client may be living with. It is also related to nightmarish visions that some clients experience. A spiritual crisis runs deep, and limits one’s life in many ways, often unconsciously. Some turn to religion to find solace. However, religion has the potential to only make the person feel worse, like sinners unworthy of God’s love.

If soul loss is a client’s issue, talk therapy isn’t usually effective. Why? Because no one is home to receive the therapy! Much of her consciousness is living somewhere else. Consequently, it is wise to implement experiential methods that can retrieve her soul. Shamanic journeying, integrative breathwork, Jungian psychotherapy, hypnotism, guided imagery, music, art, or movement therapy, and past-life regression are a few effective options. Therapists with a transpersonal or spiritual orientation know how to do soul work. Conventional talk therapies and behaviorism work with building ego skills, which is good work but doesn’t access the soul. Without the proper help, soul loss can lead to spiritual emergencies that masquerade as psychosis, or can even end in death.

Any kind of recovery requires a re-awakening to the higher aspects of oneself, a re-integration of one’s soul. To retrieve a lost soul, the client must travel backward in time with the proper guidance, to find where her soul is hiding. Relating to the soul with consciousness and compassion, with the guarantee that it can now be safe, often brings it back. Yet your client can only do this by committing to a deep process of self-exploration and a willingness to return to the source of her loss.

Learning from the myth of Psyche
The first step in recovering from any addiction or depressive condition is remembering that you are much greater than you seem! The mythical story of the goddess Psyche reminds us of our true spiritual nature. Myths speak to us symbolically of our universal human story, and consequently, of the life experiences of every individual. They help us not feel so alone. Such stories also can reveal truths that are the unconscious motivators of our feelings, attitudes, and behaviors.

Every god and goddess has a specific sacred function. Psyche is the goddess who fell to Earth and became a human girl. She functions in our psyches as the goddess of personal transformation. Her myth is a spiritual parable of the transformational trials we all must encounter and resolve to regain the memory that we are divine. Her treacherous journey on earth as a human girl, lost and searching for love, is indeed our story, too. It is a harrowing journey, full of peril and promise, mysterious helpers, miraculous in-sights, tricks, stratagems, disobedience, despair, and victory. My hope is that her story will remind you of who you really are, and that it will feed both your clients’ souls, as well as your own.

This article briefly relates Psyche’s story, and describes the four initiations that the soul is required to undergo on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels, to be whole, or home, in this world. Being at home with yourself, fully conscious of your true nature and sacred purpose, is living beyond the extremes of any kind of addiction.

Psyche’s story
Psyche began her life here in an unconscious trance, still living at the mercy of the gods. Her love affair with her soul mate, Eros, began in the innocent world of childlike fantasy. Then losing him, and, through the rigorous human trials of initiation, she reunites with her soul. This is our psyche’s story of awakening from innocence to the wisdom of experience.
In their initial pairing, Psyche and Eros were content to remain in an unconscious dream state, enjoying whimsical pleasure without accountability. She’d had to promise Eros to never see his face in the light of day. In their fantasy life everything was done for them; they didn’t even have to think!

How often have we seen clients try to live like this — or even try to do this ourselves? Wanting to escape in fantasy from the harsh realities of life, and especially in our romantic pursuits, is natural. Unrequited love will always remain perfect, since it never has to be tested in reality. This can become the seedbed for seeking chemical “highs,” or for the romantic love addiction — which, by the way, took me a great deal of relationship drama to finally make conscious and heal.

Psyche eventually tired of living in ignorant bliss and began to question her love. One night when Eros was sleeping, she shined candlelight on his face, and saw that he was indeed a god. The candlelight is symbolic of consciousness, and when it dripped and burned Eros’ flesh, he awoke enraged and fled, accusing Psyche of betraying their love. Eros wanted to remain eternally youthful, so he could not face the light of day.

In order to reunite with her soul, Psyche was now to enter the path of transformation and undergo the trials of initiation that purify the human ego, and remind us of our divinity. To the extent that we can be conscious travelers and spot the seeds of wisdom that appear at significant points along the way, we can make rapid progress. We discover that, although the twists and turns of each person’s journey are unique, most of us pass similar markers.

The four tasks Aphrodite forced upon Psyche to reconnect with Eros are the ones we all must meet in order to realize our true nature — that we are both human and divine.

First task: sorting the seeds
When Psyche came out of her unconscious dream state, she was in a frenzied panic. Aphrodite ordered Psyche to “sort the seeds” in an enormous pile of mixed wheat, barley, lentils, and corn. She was forced to recognize each individual seed’s true nature and treat it appropriately. By design, this task conveyed a key lesson of the human condition: running away from pain without examining the source of our pain and its hidden messages keeps us in an unconscious, non-growth state, lacking maturity. Through this task, Psyche realized her dormant human skill of discrimination. We have to learn that we are each a self, a being who can reason, make choices, and take action.

Here are some questions you can ask your clients to help them recognize unconscious patterns of stagnation at the root of their misery:

• Do you belittle physical reality as not being as important as the spiritual realms?
• Are you willing to live in your body, fully present in this world, or do you excessively seek out-of-body experiences?
• Do you have trouble recognizing the true nature of things and feel you cannot relate to them wisely?
• Do you passively put your mind in neutral and refuse self-introspection?
• Do you still allow authority figures to tell you what to do, or expect others to magically come to your aid?
• Does confusion or lack of discrimination keep you from taking wise action?

The task of sorting the seeds teaches Psyche to use her dormant human strengths. Once the client can recognize what’s really important to her, new abilities will arise to help her fulfill her dreams. We learn to be an active participant in our lives rather than passively waiting for others to rescue us. This grounds us in the physical world.

Second task: gathering the fleece
Psyche’s second task, in which she had to retrieve the golden fleece of a pasture full of fierce rams, teaches her to balance her emotional nature and bring it to maturity. She was intimidated by this task until the swaying reeds along the riverbed told her to observe how the rams drew their fierce power from the sun and were only powerful during the day. At dusk, the rams’ energies dissipated and their wild frenzies ceased, allowing Psyche to gather the fleece that clung to the bushes in the grove while the rams were sleeping.

Psyche learned that she could outsmart these emotionally-crazed beings through careful, harmless subterfuge and logic. She learned to balance her feminine emotions with masculine thought — heart and head, intuition and reasoning, a central task on the path to wisdom. Many women fear they will be annihilated when in contact with primal masculine force. Women often remain too soft and unresolved, due to their conditioning. We all must learn, as did Psyche, to emerge from any unconscious, impulsive emotion-ality into the clear air of willed intention and thoughtful action. We must never be driven by emotional over-reactions, which invite consequences that lead to addiction, codependence and other unhealthy distractions.

Anytime you observe a client who is intensely emotional about something, ask her, “What part of you is being triggered by this situation?” And from there, assist by asking these questions:

• Do you feel too heartfelt, soft, or vague, unable to cope with your problems without excessive emotionality?
• Are you afraid of your passions, afraid to risk being yourself?
• Are you able to know how you truly feel about something and then act in a healthy, realistic manner?
• When emotionally upset, can you get to the bottom of what’s really bothering you and take responsibility for your part?

Your client may need experiential emotional release work to resolve this second task.

Third task: containing the watersof life
In Psyche’s third task, she was forced to go into the dark, lethal River Styx, and fill Aphrodite’s crystal goblet with its dangerous waters. Feeling hopeless and terrified, she was about to give up when an eagle — the royal bird of the high god Zeus — approached her and said, “Give me the goblet.”

Upon seeing the eagle and recognizing his royal nature, the waters quieted, and the eagle dove into the river, filled the goblet to the brim, and delivered it safely to Psyche.
Depth psychology sees this river as the powerful human floodtide of unprocessed, disorganized archetypes, images, and passions. Within these waters is carried all of life’s generative vitality — birth, death, joy and suffering, triumph and disaster, eternal movement, eternal change.

As Psyche begins to use her own creative mental powers, aided by the eagle, her human container, or ego, strengthens. For us, the lesson is clear: We, too, need a healthy ego to hold up to the stresses of our complex, evolving nature. Like the eagle, we are to develop the discriminating bird’s-eye view to see clearly what boundaries to set up, what of humanity’s “waters” to take on and what to leave alone. When we can acknowledge that we are the authors of our own successes and failures, our creative achievements strengthen our sense of who we are.

The questions, then, for clients, are these:

• How can you leverage the energy of transformation, mold it, shape it, and give it form?
• How can you learn to take on only the tasks that are yours and let the rest go?
• How would your whole life appear from the bird’s-eye view?
• Have you accepted the fact that you, like Psyche, are both human and divine? And how does this change your feelings about your life right now?

Fourth task: descending to the underworld
In this final stage of her initiation, Psyche must travel down into the dark Underworld and retrieve from Persephone, the Queen of Hades, a jar of her beauty ointment, ordered to bring it unopened back to Aphrodite. Putting in on her own face would kill her, she was told. Psyche was not aware that the heavenly goddess Aphrodite and the Underworld goddess Persephone are two sides of the same divine feminine archetype. Psyche must discover now that mature femininity contains both light and dark, creation and destruction, love and death. In their meeting, Persephone passes her grounded female wisdom to Psyche, though she remains unaware of the gift until later when it bursts forth spontaneously by her decision to disobey authority and put the beauty ointment on her own face.

Now, one wonders: Why would Psyche put the ointment on her own face, knowing it would kill her? Well, we human girls can certainly relate. She was dreaming of reuniting with her beloved, her longing for him having become so strong she could feel his arms around her. As she reveled in this happy anticipation, she happened to see her reflection in a pond and was horrified at how bedraggled she looked! Remembering the precious goddess ointment, she thought, “If I can anoint my face with this divine beauty, my lord will find me irresistible, for I will be as a goddess myself, fit to be his bride.” Opening the jar, a noxious cloud of sleep emerged, wrapping Psyche in a deathlike slumber. As she lay there like a corpse, her life force seemingly extinguished right at the time of her greatest triumph.

What on Earth shall we make of Psyche’s new disobedience? First, she disobeys Eros and shines light on his face, and now, this. Had she simply succumbed to vanity and self-forgetfulness; all her efforts for naught? Or, was there a higher purpose this new disobedience served? Indeed, Psyche’s apparent fatal decision was the kind of mistake known as a felix culpa — which means “a happy sin” — a disobedience that pushes one toward a greater good. This is the kind of sleep that shifts us from one state of consciousness to another. When Psyche falls asleep, she dies to her identity as an unconscious, innocent girl.

Through this final act of disobedience, Psyche unwittingly announced her willingness to enter into a mature love and raise it to the level of the sacred — to marry the human with the divine. Her love was so strong that it was felt by Eros, who flew to awaken her. Psyche has grown from a young girl to a conscious woman who has claimed her life’s purpose as the goddess who brings divine love and beauty from the archetypal dimension down to Earth. She opened a new door for humanity — a new possibility that divine love can live in human minds and hearts.

As a mortal, Psyche became the wife of Eros, the immortal god of love and inspiration, connecting once again to her soul. Psyche’s daughter — whose name in heaven is Joy, while on earth she is called Pleasure — is the marriage of the soul’s happiness with earthly sensual delights.

Reuniting with your soul
So, what can this last task teach you and your clients about our own journey home? With support from spiritual psychology and Psyche’s myth, we can remind our female clients who they truly are and assist them in unfolding their life’s true purpose, which is essential to recovery from soul loss and its debilitating symptoms. To ever be whole, we are all to remember that we are both human and divine, each with a unique and sacred purpose. The following questions can lead to more understanding of this:

• In what ways does your current life reflect your highest purpose for being on this Earth?
• If you could write your story as a myth, what kind of bigger story would it be?
• Reflect on your own initiations, and those soul events that brought you significant dreams and inner visions. Do they suggest a particular theme? If so, what is your role? What purpose are you here to serve?
• Since beauty is love made visible, how much beauty do you allow in your life? What might you do to make your life more beautiful?

The merging of psychological health and our innate spirituality is the key to living beyond soul loss and addiction. Seen from the soul’s infinite view, human trials always take on a deeper significance. Usually, while undergoing an initiatory task, we are unable to fathom its purpose; we must experience it first to know it. In the end, the human Psyche realizes she is a divine goddess. How do our clients see themselves? Are they conscious of their divinity? If not, we can help them realize it by becoming conscious of our own — and Psyche is always here to guide us.

Jacquelyn Small, LMSW ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is the Founding Director of Eupsychia Institute (www.eupsychia.com), and author of nine books on personal and planetary transformation, including Becoming Naturally Therapeutic, Awakening in Time, and her newest from Health Communications, The Sacred Purpose of Being Human.

References
Canda, E. R. (1998). “Spiritually Sensitive Social Work: Key Concepts and Ideals.” IUC Journal of Social Work Theory and Practice: 1 (http://www.bemidjistate.edu/
SW_JOURNAL/issue01/articles/canda.html).
Ingerman, S.(1991). Soul Retrieval: Mending the Fragmented Self Through Shamanic Practice. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco.
Jung, C. (1933). Modern Man in Search of a Soul. San Francisco, CA: Harcourt, Inc.
Small, Jacquelyn (2005). The Sacred Purpose of Being Human. Deerfield Beach, FL, Health Communications, Inc.
Tanaka-Matsumi, J., & Chang, R. (2002). What questions arise when studying cultural universals in depression? Lessons from abnormal psychology textbooks. In W. J. Lonner, D. L. Dinnel, S. A. Hayes, & D. N. Sattler (Eds.), Online Readings in Psychology and Culture (Unit 9, Chapter 2), (http://www.wwu.edu/~culture), Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington USA.
Winkleman, M. (2002). “Shamanism as Neurotheology and Evolutionary Psychology.” American Behavioral Scientist: 45(12): 1873-1885.

This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, June 2006, v.7, n.3, pp.54-60.

One person has commented on this article.

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Jessica C, Unregistered

This is such a brilliant story! So inspiring it's making me wonder about myself...a lot for me to learn from and think about. Thank you!!

 Posted 2007-11-20 03:19:29

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