Lynn's Blog

The Secret Language of Symbols: Stars, Space and Earth Dreaming Amongst the Stars I recently dreamt that I was in space. I was surrounded by stars of every size and shape. There were shooting stars too, and the whole experience was surreal and breathtaking. At one point, I was explaining to someone what a supernova was. Then I was back on Earth, trying to describe how extraordinary it had been. I had been able to see the Earth from space and was pointing out the places I had

Photo by Anita Jankovic on Unsplash Some symbols appear once in a dream and are never seen again. Others seem to hang around. A client I’ll call Jessica had been in therapy for about twelve months when we noticed that handbags and purses began appearing repeatedly in her dreams. Jessica originally came to therapy after the end of a long-term relationship. The breakup had cost her more than the relationship itself. Much of her social life had revolved around her partner, John,

Credit: Coarse + Fine on Unsplash A client of mine—I’ll call her Anna—dreamt that she was sitting on three eggs. The eggs were unusually large and golden, and she knew they were full of promise. She sat upon them patiently until, in time, they began to hatch. From each egg emerged a golden, healthy baby. Anna gathered the babies into her arms and cradled them against her, holding them as though they were precious jewels. It was a beautiful dream, and it came at a significant

Photo by Townsend Walton on Unsplash On holiday recently, I found myself watching a young seagull on the shoreline. It was already quite big, but still obviously a baby, and it was crying and crying. I somehow knew it was looking for its mother. Eventually, it found her — the baby was almost as big as the mother — and hurried after her, calling insistently. The mother pecked into a rock pool, and the baby immediately opened its mouth, clearly expecting to be fed. But she didn

The Secret Language of Dreams and Symbols The Dream A client of mine — I’ll call her Andrea — dreamt that she was sitting on three eggs. They were unusually large and golden, and she instinctively felt they were full of promise. She sat on them patiently until they eventually hatched. From each egg emerged a healthy golden baby. Andrea gathered the babies into her arms and cradled them as though they were precious jewels. It was a beautiful dream, and it came at an important

My Book Is Six Months Old! James Hillman suggested that, just as an acorn already contains the pattern of the oak, each of us comes into life carrying the seeds of who we might become. Therapy cannot decide what those seeds should grow into, but it can help create the conditions in which they have a chance to flourish. Six months ago, my first book, The Seeds of Change: How Therapists Cultivate Personal Growth, was published by Routledge. I still find that rather extraordinar

Credit: Photo by Blake Cheek for Unsplash A client of mine—I’ll call her Sarah— dreamt that she was rescuing her cat from a pack of dogs. When she examined the cat, she saw that its right eye had been injured and was weeping pus. Sarah awoke feeling anxious, then relieved when she realised it had only been a dream. Her first associations were: cat, pus, pussy. I enjoy the puns and wordplay that dreams sometimes offer us. They can seem almost too obvious, even faintly ridiculo

It’s been a hard year. My husband has had several operations, culminating in heart failure and two weeks in the cardiac care ward. He is recovering well now, and perhaps that is what finally did it. The adrenaline wore off and, for the first time in months, I felt able to breathe again. Unfortunately, without the adrenaline to keep me upright, I crashed. This weekend, after a relatively minor setback to our plans — it is often the pebbles underfoot that hurt more than the roc

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash The Chapel of Bones The Sedlec Ossuary, near Prague, is a small chapel decorated with the bones of thousands of people whose graves were cleared over the centuries. In 1870, a woodcarver called František Rint arranged the bones into chandeliers, garlands and even a coat of arms. Macabre, certainly, but not intended simply to horrify. The chapel is a memento mori. The phrase is Latin for “remember that you must die”—or, more simply, “rememb

Photo by Bruce Christianson on Unsplash We fall in many ways—physically, emotionally, socially and symbolically. We fall in love, fall over, fall unconscious, fall into the abyss. We hope someone will catch us when we fall. We fall out of love, into despair, into depression. We fall back into old habits, fall under someone’s spell, fall into a trap. We fall from grace, out of favour, behind, into debt, from power and between the cracks. Tears fall, petals fall, shadows fall.

The Ego’s Vehicle Cars often appear in dreams when something is being shown to us about the way we are travelling through life. No dream symbol has one fixed meaning, but cars often seem to represent the ego: our known identity, the part of us that gets us through the everyday world and tries, more or less successfully, to keep us on the road. The car carries us, rather as the ego carries the soul through the journey of life. It also protects what is inside, although some veh

Photo by Laura Seaman on Unsplash The Toad at the Threshold Some years ago, when I was about to embark on a new pilot workshop, I dreamed of meeting a toad in a desert. At the time, I would not have said I was especially worried. I was excited about the project and busy getting on with it. Looking back, though, I think the dream knew something I did not. Beneath my conscious enthusiasm, there was anxiety about stepping into unfamiliar territory, putting myself forward and not

Credit: ConstantinosZ iStock The Worm in the Apple When I was training as a psychotherapist, a worm appeared in a visualisation I was doing with a client. She had arrived saying she had nothing in particular to talk about, so I thought I’d try a visualisation and see whether it stirred something in the psyche. The Apple Appears I asked her to imagine a rose and, in its centre, to allow something to appear. She saw an apple. Brilliant, I thought. An apple: knowledge, temptatio

The Rose, the Thorn and the Awakening Photo by Gruescu Ovidiu on Unsplash The rose is one of those symbols we think we understand. We associate it with love, romance and beauty. But, like most powerful symbols, it contains an opposite. Its colour, scent and softness draw us towards it, while its thorns remind us that beauty is not always harmless. The Latin phrase sub rosa means “under the rose” and has long been associated with secrecy and confidentiality. A rose placed abov

Photo by Warren on Unsplash Being cast out by a community is a particular kind of wound. It doesn’t only hurt socially. It can feel as if something much deeper has been disturbed — as if the circle that once held you has closed its gates, leaving you standing outside, trying to understand what has happened. In Jungian terms, this is the territory of the exile or the outcast. Although that can sound bleak, it is worth remembering that, in myth and fairy tale, the one who is se

Some symbols arrive quietly, like a feather found on a path. The peacock is not one of them. The peacock enters like an opera singer in full costume, having apparently missed the memo about humility. It does not sidle into the symbolic imagination. It fans itself open. It shimmers. It says, in no uncertain terms: look at me. And that, of course, is where the trouble begins. Because many of us are deeply uneasy about being seen. We are taught, often very early, not to show off

Photo by Curology on Unsplash The toilet may not be the most glamorous symbol in the gallery. It does not have the majesty of a tree, the mystery of a snake, or the poetic shimmer of a river. It is unlikely to appear on a greeting card alongside the words “follow your dreams”. And yet, symbolically, the toilet has a great deal to say. In dreams and the inner life, toilets often appear when something needs to be released. Something old, unwanted, toxic, embarrassing, private,

Photo by Sarah Penney on Unsplash The mirror is a tricky little object. At first glance, it seems to tell the truth. There we are, apparently: hair doing whatever it has decided to do, face slightly more tired than we had hoped, expression suggesting we may need either a holiday or a decent cup of tea. But symbolically, the mirror is rarely just about appearance. It is one of the great images of self-recognition. In fairy tales, myths, dreams and the inner life, the mirror ma

Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash The snake is not always the most popular guest at the symbolic table. For many of us, it arrives with a certain reputation: danger, temptation, poison, something lurking in the grass that we would rather not meet while wearing sandals. And yet, symbolically, the snake is one of the great images of transformation. It sheds its skin. It knows when an old covering has become too tight, too dry, too small for the life moving underneath. There is

Photo by Daniel Arroyo on Unsplash A river rarely moves in a straight line. It begins somewhere hidden, as a spring, a source, a small stirring beneath the earth. Then it gathers itself. It widens, deepens, bends, rushes, slows, floods, dries, and somehow keeps finding its way. Rather like us, really. Symbolically, the river can speak of feeling, change, grief, longing, surrender, and the deeper current of the unconscious. We may like to think we are in charge of our lives, s

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash The tree is one of the great symbols of the inner life. Rooted in the earth, reaching towards the sky, it holds together two worlds: the grounded and the spiritual, the visible and the hidden, the life above the surface and the life beneath. Its roots may speak of ancestry, belonging, memory and the places from which we come. Its trunk suggests strength, steadiness and the capacity to remain standing through many seasons. Its branches reach

There are some symbols that seem to speak to us before we have had time to think about them. The door is one of them. A door is such an ordinary thing. We pass through doors every day without much thought. We open them, close them, lock them, knock on them, wait behind them, stand outside them. And yet, in dreams, myths, stories and the inner life, a door is rarely just a door. It is a threshold. It marks the place between one world and another. Inside and outside. Known and

Each year, like many psychotherapists, I find myself carving out time not just to deepen my understanding or nourish my practice - but to prove that I’ve done so. Logging CPD hours, gathering certificates, listing webinars, copying receipts for books I have purchased, providing reasons for buying the books, and summarising the books. The process is supposed to ensure ongoing professional development. But more and more, it feels like I’m spending less time genuinely educating