The Chiron Complex:

From Spiritual Bypassing to Individuation

by
Owen B. Graham

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of

Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology

Pacifica Graduate Institute

01 March 2017
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 ii

© 2017 Owen B. Graham

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 iii

I certify that I have read this paper and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable
standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a
product for the degree of Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology.

____________________________________
Aaron Kipnis, Ph.D.
Portfolio Thesis Advisor

On behalf of the thesis committee, I accept this paper as partial fulfillment of the
requirements for Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology.

____________________________________
Avrom Altman, M.A., L.M.F.T., L.P.C.
Research Associate

On behalf of the Counseling Psychology program, I accept this paper as partial

fulfillment of the requirements for Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology.

____________________________________
Jemma Elliot, M.A., L.M.F.T., L.P.C.C.
Director of Research
 iv

Abstract

The Chiron Complex:

From Spiritual Bypassing to Individuation

by Owen B. Graham

This thesis uses hermeneutic and heuristic methodologies to draw together the myth of

Chiron and the phenomenon of spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to

use spiritual beliefs, teachings, and practices to avoid dealing with one’s psychology,

painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental issues. Chiron is a mythological

figure who mentored a number of Greek heroes and Asclepius, the god of medicine in

ancient Greek religion and mythology. Chiron, like his mentee Asclepius, embodies the

Wounded Healer archetype. Chiron’s wounding and healing journey can serve as a

roadmap for spiritual practitioners on how to navigate out of bypass and deepen their path

toward self-realization and individuation. Developing an archetypal awareness of one’s

wounds appears to reveal the aspects of one’s psychology defended against in spiritual

bypass. This emerging roadmap and lessons from Chiron’s journey may help therapists,

healers, and spiritual teachers accelerate their own path and assist clients.
 v

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my family for believing in me and encouraging me to follow

my passion. I would like to acknowledge the work of John Welwood and Robert Masters

as well as my colleague Muraliselvam Navaneethan who have all written so eloquently

on spiritual bypassing. I would also like to acknowledge the work of depth psychologists,

mythologists, and astrologers who have explored the myth of Chiron for its spiritual and

psychological relevance. I am particularly indebted to the work of Melanie Reinhart and

Pacifica alumnae Nathalie Fine and Eileen Cavalier. Without your inspirational works

this thesis would not have been possible. I would also like to thank Pacifica faculty and

my Pacifica cohort for creating the temenos or sacred space for this alchemical work to

occur.
 vi

Dedication

This work is dedicated to all spiritual seekers, teachers, healers, and therapists.
 vii

Table of Contents

Chapter I Introduction ..................................................................................................1

Area of Interest ........................................................................................................1
Guiding Purpose.......................................................................................................2
Rationale ..................................................................................................................3
Methodology ............................................................................................................5
Ethical Considerations .............................................................................................6
Overview of the Thesis ............................................................................................7

Chapter II Literature Review.........................................................................................8

Overview ..................................................................................................................8
What Is Spiritual Bypassing? ...................................................................................8
Healthy Versus Unhealthy Transcendence ............................................................10
Grounding ..............................................................................................................11
Trauma and the Body .............................................................................................12
Psychological Defense Mechanisms in Spiritual Bypassing .................................15
Individuation and Jungian Views on Psyche .........................................................16
Shadow .......................................................................................................17
Anima and Animus ....................................................................................17
Persona .......................................................................................................18
Tension of the Opposites ...........................................................................19
Myth of Chiron ......................................................................................................20
Archetype of the Wounded Healer ........................................................................22
Healer-Patient Archetype .......................................................................................22
Wounding ...............................................................................................................24

Chapter III Findings and Clinical Applications ............................................................26

Introduction ............................................................................................................26
Chiron’s Wounding ................................................................................................26
Rejection of Instincts .............................................................................................28
Mind–Body Split ....................................................................................................29
Masculine and Feminine ........................................................................................32
Helping Others .......................................................................................................34
Crisis and Calling to Individuation ........................................................................35
Persona ...................................................................................................................36
Wounded Healer ....................................................................................................38
Wounds ..................................................................................................................40
Underworld ............................................................................................................43
Transcendent Function ...........................................................................................44
Inner Feminine .......................................................................................................46
 viii

Clinical Applications .............................................................................................47

Chapter IV Summary and Conclusions ........................................................................50

Summary ................................................................................................................50
Suggestions for Further Research ..........................................................................51

References ..........................................................................................................................52
 Chapter I
Introduction

Area of Interest

This thesis draws together the ancient myth of Chiron and the phenomenon of

spiritual bypassing. Spiritual bypassing, a phenomenon as old or older than the Greek

myths, is the tendency to use spiritual beliefs, teachings, and practices to avoid dealing in

depth with one’s psychology, painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental

issues (Masters, 2010; Welwood, 2000). It is the attempt to rise above or prematurely

transcend one’s human needs, emotions, and psychological challenges. This research

explores spiritual bypass as an avoidance of underlying psychological pain and addresses

the need to integrate into consciousness unconscious wounding as an aspect of healing

and wholeness.

I have witnessed spiritual bypassing within myself and many other people who

are on Eastern-oriented or New Age spiritual paths that emphasize transcendence.

Spiritual bypassing is particularly common among the youth who are dealing with

developmental challenges and trying to navigate the demanding and fast-paced world of

today. It can become particularly tempting to avoid life’s challenges and one’s

unresolved psychological issues by dwelling in the impersonal absolute or trying to

transcend them altogether. Emphasizing spiritual realization or what Chinese philosophy

calls the Heavenly Principle (Welwood, 2000), one may neglect a deeper relationship

with the Earth and Human Principles or one’s body and the human side of life with all its
 2

messy emotions, instinctual urges, and needs. Repressed, unwelcome, and split-off

aspects of self can fester and act autonomously from the conscious will, returning to

disrupt thought, emotion, and behavior (Jung, 1937/1969, p. 121 [CW 8, para. 253]).

They can also resurface through an injury.

Guiding Purpose

The guiding purpose of this study is to explore the symptoms of spiritual bypass

through the life of Chiron to help spiritual individuals, teachers, and therapists learn from

and navigate out of bypass. Neither knowledge of spiritual bypassing nor the life of

Chiron is widespread. A cursory reading of the material on each of these topics, however,

points to their psychological and spiritual implications. Like two rivers that come

together in a confluence, each subject—spiritual bypassing and the myth of Chiron—

weave together to form a roaring synergy. As I have explored their connection in dreams

and synchronicities—instances in which “an event in the outside world coincides

meaningfully with a psychological state of mind” (Sharp, 1991, p. 132)—have

continually revealed the nexus and depths of these subjects and their relevance to

contemporary spiritual and psychological pursuits.

Having spent nearly 20 years studying and practicing spirituality and being

affiliated with a spiritual bookstore, I now recognize the tendency toward spiritual

bypassing. A deluge of information on spirituality has swept over the internet during the

last 15 years. Without proper discernment and little time and short attention spans to

navigate the islands of potential truth, many wayfarers are onto the next site, looking

perhaps for a quick panacea to the distress or discontent that drives them.
 3

Moreover, in our fast-paced world of instant gratification—instant coffee,

oatmeal, communication, aps, and more—many spiritual teachers or would-be gurus

entice students with rosy views of self-realization and promises of instant enlightenment

and self-realization. In my experience Eastern-oriented or New Age teachers often do not

emphasize the importance of therapy, grounding in conjunction with spiritual practice,

and shadow work, the confrontation with “unconscious aspects of oneself, which the ego

has either repressed or never recognized” (Sharp, 1991, p. 123). This creates a situation in

which teachers who have not done deep shadow and body work themselves likely will

marginalize this work or even be uncomfortable if a student is undertaking it (Masters,

2010). Like a mirror, they also will tend to attract students who have not done this work.

Rationale

The rationale behind this thesis is that knowledge of where individuals are

bypassing their psychology can assist and deepen their process of individuation and self-

realization. Individuation, as defined in analytical psychology, is the process of

integrating unconscious contents into consciousness, the goal of which is wholeness or

“the synthesis of the self” (Jung, 1951/1969a, p. 164 [CW 9i, para. 278]). The story of

Chiron offers a fascinating odyssey to view the signs, symptoms, and avenues for

correction in spiritual bypass. Chiron is a mythological figure who was the mentor to a

number of Greek heroes and to Asclepius, the god of medicine in ancient Greek religion

and mythology (Atsma, 2017). Chiron’s wounding and healing journey can inform

spiritual practitioners and serve as a roadmap out of spiritual bypass. This emerging

roadmap may also help therapists, healers, and spiritual teachers to accelerate their own

path and provide greater assistance to clients.

 4

This research explores Chiron, like his mentee Asclepius, as embodying the

Wounded Healer archetype. Archetypes represent potential ideas that are grounded in

fundamental human experience, are inherited as part of the collective unconscious, and

arise as “the most important mythological motifs . . . common to all times” (Jung,

1921/1971, p. 443 [CW 6, para. 747]). In this thesis when a quality is discussed, such as

that of a wounded healer, it is capitalized when referring to its archetypal nature. Because

of the vulnerability of the human psyche and the fragility and mortality of the body,

wounding, suffering, and healing are universal and thus archetypal motifs or forces

within human experience. The archetype of the Wounded Healer arises in the motif of a

healer who cures but remains eternally ill or wounded (Sedgwick, 1994). The idea behind

this image is that healers must be in touch with their inner wounds if they are to help

others heal. Without this self-awareness, therapists risk projecting their own unconscious

material onto the client, “using the patient to bear the burden of all the severe

psychopathology in the whole relationship” (Searles, as cited in Sedgwick, 1994, p. 112).

In viewing Chiron as a wounded healer, this thesis pursues the idea that his

unhealable wound to his knee emerged as a symbol of deeper wounds. In Jungian thought

symptoms have a teleological significance, indicating the presence of unconscious

material that would provide a more holistic perspective and communicate the presence of

that which transcends the ego as the center of consciousness (Jung, 1921/1971, p. 419

[CW 6, para. 694]). They have something to teach us. Like shards of light encased in

darkness, there are gifts within one’s wounds. These gifts are revealed through the psyche

and all its messages—symptoms, dreams, accidents, and synchronicities—when viewed

symbolically point beyond themselves to something unknown (Jung, 1921/1971, pp. 473-
 5

480 [CW 6, paras. 814-828]). Behind these manifestations, yet deeper, is the Self. As the

self-regulating function of the psyche, the Self is continually producing symbolic imagery

or messages to help one become more whole and individuated (Sharp, 1991). Too often

spiritual teachers, seekers, healers, and therapists are psychologically defended against

coming into greater relationship with their own wounds and shadow material. They have

developed a persona that presents to the world a mask of health and enlightenment. This

mask prevents them from attending to the shards of light emerging from the unconscious

as symptom and image through which the darkness is differentiated. These hidden gifts

can assist clients with their immediate need and stimulate the client’s inner teacher and

urge for individuation.

Methodology

This thesis amplifies the myth of Chiron to illustrate themes of spiritual bypassing

in general and in my own life. Jung (1961/1963) developed amplification as a method to

explore comparative mythology, symbols, images, and fairy tales (p. 316). Amplification

is a method of association used in the interpretation of dream images and drawings

(Sharp, 1991). Amplification makes images, stories, and myths more conscious and

relevant to an individual’s life.

The research question I am investigating is, “How does the relationship between

spiritual bypassing and the myth of Chiron inform the spiritual seeker, therapist, or

client?” I believe this study is important because many are unknowingly caught up in

spiritual bypass or psychological bypass in general. It is always tempting to see oneself as

the enlightened practitioner, healer, teacher, or therapist. This persona can lead

individuals to bypass their own wounds and related psychology. There can be negative
 6

consequences as shadow elements grow, gain repressed energy, and reemerge from the

unconscious in symptoms (Jung, 1937/1969, p. 121 [CW 8, para. 253]).

The methodology of this thesis is qualitative. It focuses on the meaning and

essences of the human experience (Pacifica Graduate Institute [PGI], 2013) explored

through the myth of Chiron and the concept of spiritual bypassing. The primary interest is

in the subjective experience of the author as it interfaces with the subject matter.

This thesis uses both hermeneutic and heuristic methodologies. Hermeneutics

involves the search for meaning within texts, stories, and art. It places concepts in

dialogue with one another to look for deeper meaning in their relationship to each other

(PGI, 2013). Heuristic research involves examining a phenomenon in a researcher’s

experience over time (Moustakas, 1990). The self-reflective nature of this method allows

insight into intrapsychic dynamics and is ideal to explore the researcher’s growing

relationship with his own wounds and engagement in spiritual bypassing. As a researcher

called to this topic over time, I hope to synthesize my experience in light of the research,

yielding insights that may also serve others.

Ethical Considerations

With regard to ethics, my primary concern is the limitation in using my own

experience as it relates to spiritual bypassing and psychological wounding. My

perspective is likely to be biased and the generalizability of my findings is constrained by

the scope of my personal and cultural experiences and context. It is not my intention to

denigrate spirituality or spiritual paths. Rather, I am trying to bring the two great streams

of spirituality and psychology together, redirecting the waters of each to a greater river.
 7

In this endeavor, to insure the privacy of others involved in my heuristic account, I have

omitted the names of spiritual organizations and spiritual teachers I have worked with.

Overview of the Thesis

Chapter II reviews relevant authors and literature on spiritual bypassing. It also

examines Jungian views on the psyche and the Wounded Healer archetype. These will be

used as an interpretive device to examine how spiritual bypassing presents in the life of

Chiron and as a roadmap to emerge from bypassing.

Chapter III integrates the differentiated literature on Chiron and spiritual

bypassing, building on the theories derived from Chapter II. In hermeneutic fashion,

concepts from Chiron and spiritual bypassing are placed in dialogue to investigate their

relationship. In addition, Chapter III is a heuristic inquiry demonstrating how these ideas

have unfolded in my life. It reveals the way in which this journey has helped me develop

greater awareness, empathy, and insight, thereby helping me to become more whole and a

better clinician in training. This is the work of a lifetime. This chapter suggests ways

therapists, healers, and spiritual seekers can employ the lessons from Chiron’s life.

Chapter IV closes the thesis with a summary of the literature review, the hermeneutic

dialogue, and the heuristic exploration and findings. This chapter includes the research

findings, implications for further research, and the clinical implications of this work.
 Chapter II
Literature Review

Overview

This chapter lays the foundation for exploring the hypothesis that the lessons from

the myth of Chiron can illuminate the phenomenon of spiritual bypassing (Masters, 2010;

Muraliselvam, 2016; Welwood, 2000). To contain the themes of spiritual bypassing and

Chiron’s healing journey, it discusses Jungian views of the psyche (Hart, 2008; Jung,

1928/1966; 1954/1969; Sharp, 1991; Von Franz, 1964); and the path of individuation,

archetypal healing, and the archetype of the Wounded Healer (Guggenbühl-Craig, 1971;

Halifax, 1990; Kerényi, 1958/1960; Sanford, 1997).

This knowledge should prove useful for spiritual practitioners, healers, and

psychotherapists to better assist clients and accelerate their own work and healing. The

chapter defines spiritual bypassing and reviews how spiritual teachings or practices can

be used to bypass or avoid psychological, emotional, and physiological pain. It is

intended to augment the body of research on Chiron and the Wounded Healer archetype

by Jungian depth psychologists (Fine, 2007; Sedgwick, 1994; Von Franz, 1964),

archetypical psychologists and historians (Bolen, 1989; Kerényi, 1959/1963), and

astrologers (Greene, 1996; Lass, 2005; Nolle, 1997; Reinhart, 1989).

What Is Spiritual Bypassing?

Spiritual bypassing is the tendency to use spiritual beliefs, teachings, and

practices to avoid dealing in depth with one’s psychology, painful feelings, unresolved
 9

wounds, and developmental issues (Masters, 2010; Welwood, 2000). According to

psychotherapist Mariana Caplan (2009), spiritual bypassing can happen on all levels of

spiritual development from the beginner on the path to the advanced yoga practitioner

(p. 108). Caplan wrote that she was influenced to write about spiritual bypassing after

seeing many clients over the years who had become profoundly disillusioned by their

spiritual teachers, communities, and practices.

Clinical psychologist John Welwood (2000) suggested that spiritual bypassing

was particularly prominent among the youth of today:

While still struggling to find themselves, many people are introduced to spiritual
teachings and practices that urge them to give themselves up. As a result, they
wind up using spiritual practices to create a new spiritual identity, which is
actually an old dysfunctional identity based on avoidance of unresolved
psychological issues, repackaged in a new guise. (p. 12)

Welwood (2000) wrote that this new spiritual persona can reinforce and rationalize old

defenses. For example, if individuals have a need to see themselves as special they can

emphasize the specialness of their spiritual teachings and insight or their relationship with

the guru or spiritual teacher. Many of the perils of the spiritual path such as spiritual

materialism—using spirituality for personal gain—and narcissism— inflations of

grandiosity—can result from trying to use spirituality to compensate for underlying

developmental deficiencies (p. 12).

Welwood (2000) and integral psychotherapist Robert Masters (2010) wrote that

spiritual bypassing is fueled by trying to avoid underlying pain. Rather than go into the

raw reality of one’s painful emotions, individuals will apply all kinds of methods to avoid

it. In his master’s thesis in psychology, Navaneethan Muraliselvam (2016) wrote that one

can attend numerous spiritual retreats, read spiritual books, chant, meditate, and speak
 10

about spirituality all day long but not process and work through one’s psychological

issues (p. 7). Welwood (2000) and Masters (2010) wrote that psychotherapy can

complement spiritual practice. However, there is often not sufficient support or

encouragement from spiritual teachers for practitioners to engage in significant depth in

psychoemotional work. The emphasis, instead, is on transcendence.

Healthy Versus Unhealthy Transcendence

Welwood (2000) looked to Chinese philosophy and its three dimensions as an

antidote to spiritual bypassing (p. 14). The three dimensions of the human condition in

traditional Chinese philosophy are heaven, the primordial energy that governs life and

cosmos; earth, the environmental influences on life; and human, life as experienced by

the individual. The human body is seen as a metaphor for these three principles in that it

encapsulates and is affected by all three. Those caught up in spiritual bypassing are

usually inordinately focused on the heavenly transcendence and devalue the human and

earth principles. Not honoring one of these dimensions leads to an imbalanced life.

Welwood (2000) wrote that spiritual bypassing can occur when someone tries to

avoid, repress, or utterly transcend the human aspect of life (p. 17). These aspects include

painful emotions, instinctual impulses, and relational challenges. Such transcendence

could take the form of meditation, mantra, or other spiritual practices. Rather than face

one’s shadow elements and the human side of life, spiritual practitioners take refuge in

meditation or the impersonal absolute. This can become a way to avoid dealing with

one’s personal psychology or the demands of the world (p. 196). Avoidance, denial, or

repression of these elements can create large shadow elements. Welwood pointed out that
 11

such shadow elements show up in spiritual communities and in the lives of individuals

with devastating consequences.

Many Eastern-influenced teachers and spiritual traditions emphasize

transcendence (Welwood, 2000). Many of these teachers do not understand and have a

hard time assessing the “pervasive self-hatred, shame, and guilt, as well as the alienation”

that many of their Western students feel (p. 207). Welwood (2000) cautioned that when

teachers do not emphasize and encourage depth in psychoemotional work students are

left to try to work out their psychological issues only through spiritual techniques.

Masters (2010) wrote that transcendence is an unquestioned virtue in New Age

circles. When the emphasis is on rising higher and “good vibes,” going “down” into

darker elements such as fear, shame, and depression is a “downer” and “lower” (p. 11).

Because of this psychotherapy is often devalued compared to spiritual practice.

When transcendence is healthy, Masters (2010) suggested, what is transcended is

not excluded from one’s being but “repositioned” or related to in a way that serves well-

being (p. 29). Splitting off the condition from consciousness and one’s sense of self

involves escapism, disconnection, or dissociation (p. 29). Psychotherapy, ideally, can

help facilitate a healthy transcendence and new relationship with one’s shadow,

emotions, and physical reality.

Grounding

As observed by Welwood (2000) and Masters (2010), a telltale sign of spiritual

bypassing is a lack of grounding—relatedness to and awareness of one’s body, emotions

and sensations, and immediate surroundings—and of embodied spirituality. This occurs

when transcendence is emphasized while the earth principle is given short shrift.
 12

Astrologer Stephan Arroyo (1975) wrote that those with too little emphasis on the earth

element are not naturally attuned to the physical body, world, and requirements to thrive

on the physical plane. They can often appear not grounded in the here and now. Such a

person fights growing up and is often forced by necessity to heed the demands of reality

they would prefer to ignore. This can lead to a person feeling out of place in the world

and difficulty finding a job or profession. They have no place to stand. Arroyo wrote that

this feeling of being out of place in the world

leads these people to a search for direct experience with some dimension of life
that seems more real to them . . . such as . . . the world of imagination . . .
pursuing a spiritual quest in order to transcend the limitations of the material
world. (p. 115)

Masters (2010) and Welwood (2000) wrote that Westerners find it difficult to

recognize the importance of a more embodied spirituality and processing the

psychological pain held in the body because “our secular culture has long perpetuated the

mind–body split, privileging the mind over the body” (Masters, 2010, p. 125). Most

Westerners are caught up in their minds. There is also a long history in the East of

denying the body. This can take the form of conceiving of the body as simply a container

for the soul or spirit and viewing the body as an “it” or burden. Masters observed, “No

matter how much we might neglect or mistreat it, our body calls us back through its aches

and pains and imbalances to take real care of it, to integrate it with the rest of being”

(p. 126). Reclaiming one’s relationship with one’s body also means coming into

relationship with the underlying trauma or psychological pain that it holds.

Trauma and the Body

Trauma refers to any threatening, overwhelming experiences that a person cannot

integrate (Ogden & Fisher, 2015). Bessel A. van der Kolk (2014), professor of psychiatry
 13

and trauma expert, wrote that psychologist Pierre Janet long ago coined the term

dissociation to describe the splitting off and isolation of traumatic memories. Janet

discovered that although most people can change and distort their memories, persons who

have suffered trauma or posttraumatic stress disorder are unable to put the actual event or

source of those memories behind them. Dissociation prevents the individual from

integrating this traumatic memory with normal autobiographical memory; it is stored

separately (van der Kolk, 2014, p. 182). Psychologists Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton, and

Clare Pain (2006) wrote that Janet’s findings suggest that traumatic memories are split

off from conscious awareness and stored as sensory perceptions, obsessive thoughts, and

behavioral reenactments (p. 234). They explained that even when an individual

consciously remembers a traumatic experience in a coherent narrative, the body does not

forget and may still hold these memories and the reactive energies with which they are

infused in a variety of ways. The individual’s body “remembers” what happened by

reliving nonverbal “iterations of the historical traumatic event through mysterious

physical symptoms that seem to have no organic basis” and that present via “images,

olfactory and auditory intrusions, intense emotions, sensations, and maladaptive physical

actions” (pp. 234-235).

Daniel Siegel (2010), clinical professor of psychiatry, described the brain science

behind this phenomenon. When an individual is filled with terror and shock the body

produces a fight–flight–freeze response and is flooded with the hormone cortisol. This

can shut down the hippocampus, which is associated with memories, and block the

formation of explicit, meaning conscious, memories. Paradoxically, this same intense

reaction will cause the amygdala to release another fight–flight–freeze chemical called
 14

adrenaline. High levels of adrenaline will “sear into implicit [unconscious] memory

traces of the original traumatic experience—the feeling of terror, perceptual details, the

behavioral reactions characteristic of fight–flight–freeze, and any bodily sensations of

pain that were suffered” (p. 157).

Ogden and psychologist Janina Fisher (2015) wrote that the body’s fight–flight–

freeze reactions to threat and trauma are survival mechanisms designed to protect the

individual from harm. These initial responses to threat were adaptive but become

maladaptive when they continue long after the traumatic event, causing the same physical

sensations and reactions to arise in the present as when they were initially experienced

(p. 82).

Van der Kolk (2014) noted that Janet wrote that there are heavy costs associated

with keeping these memories beneath the surface of consciousness. If patients are unable

to integrate their traumatic memories, they would “lose their capacity to assimilate new

experiences. . . . It is . . . as if their personality had definitely stopped at a certain point,

and cannot enlarge any more by the addition or assimilation of new elements” (van der

Kolk, 2014, p. 182). According to van der Kolk, Janet concluded that if individuals did

not become aware of the split-off elements and integrate them they would experience a

slow decline in their personal and professional functioning.

Van der Kolk (2014) wrote that unresolved trauma can disconnect people from

their body as a source of pleasure and comfort, or even as part of themselves that needs

care and nurturance. “When we cannot rely on our body to signal safety or warning and

instead feel chronically overwhelmed by physical stirrings, we lose the capacity to feel at

home in our own skin and, by extension, the world” (p. 307). He added that not
 15

surprisingly, around one-third to one-half of severely traumatized persons develop

substance abuse problems (p. 329). Masters (2010) wrote that until the trauma and

underlying pain is addressed, individuals will use spiritual transcendence, drugs, sex, or

other methods to cope with or relieve the underlying pain.

Psychological Defense Mechanisms in Spiritual Bypassing

Nancy McWilliams (2011), a professor of psychology, explained that

psychological defenses perform many benign functions. They begin as healthy and

creative adaptions to find social acceptance and belonging and continue to work

throughout life. They serve to protect self or ego against threat. When the defenses are

overused they can become maladaptive and pathological.

The following is a tentative list of defenses that are used in spiritual bypassing,

explored by Muraliselvam (2016) and described by McWilliams (2011): extreme

withdrawal (McWilliams, 2011, p. 104), denial (p. 105); projection, seeing one’s own

unconscious material as belonging to others (p. 111); somatization, converting

psychological material into physical symptoms (p. 117); repression (p. 127);

intellectualization (p. 132); rationalization (p. 133); and sublimation, diverting an impulse

to a more socially acceptable form (p. 146). In addition, the defense of psychological

inflation (Drymalski, 2016) as discussed below figures largely into this issue. These

defenses should be evident in the myth of Chiron as they serve to shed light on spiritual

bypassing.

To show the relationship between spiritual bypassing and the myth of Chiron,

various Jungian views on the psyche are explored to contain and draw out the
 16

connections. Chiron’s journey as a wounded healer has strong correlations with the

process of individuation.

Individuation and Jungian Views on Psyche

Psychiatrist Carl Jung (1939/1969) described individuation as “the process by

which a person becomes a psychological ‘in-dividual,’ that is, a separate, indivisible

unity or ‘whole’” (p. 275 [CW 9i, para. 490]). In another area, Jung (1928/1966) wrote,

Individuation means becoming an “in-dividual,” and, in so far as “individuality”

embraces our innermost, last, and incomparable uniqueness, it also implies
becoming one’s own self. We could therefore translate individuation as “coming
to selfhood” or “self-realization.” (p. 173 [CW 7, para. 266])

Jungian analyst Murray Stein wrote (1998) that the goal of individuation is to

achieve a “psychological unity in the larger sense of the term, which entails uniting

conscious and unconscious aspects of the personality” (p. 175). In this regard, Jungian

analyst David L. Hart (2008) noted that Jungian psychologists view whatever emerges in

the client—dreams, behavior, or symptoms—as efforts of the client’s unique personality

to come into realization from the unconscious. The unconscious makes itself “known” in

numerous ways—dreams, hunches, slips of the tongue, behaviors, accidents, and

synchronicities (pp. 97-98).

Within the unconscious and underlying this effort of the personality to come into

greater realization, Jung posited the existence of an ego-transcendent Self (Sharp, 1991).

The Self is the unified whole of the person of which the conscious ego is only one

important part (Jung, 1921/1971, pp. 460-461 [CW 6, paras. 789-791]). The rest of the

Self is unconscious and limitless. The Self includes a self-regulating function that drives

the development of the individual toward becoming more conscious and whole through

the production of material that symbolizes unconscious content (Hart, 2008, p. 97). The
 17

promptings from the unconscious are particularly evident in dreams, which often reveal

the shadow and other contents of the unconscious (Hart, 2008). Dreams “regularly find a

way to provide balance, support, and correction to the particular conscious attitude of the

dreamer” (p. 97).

Shadow. Hart (2008) wrote that acknowledging the shadow or the unwelcome

and unconscious side of one’s nature is a critical step in the work in individuation. Sharp

(1991) summarized the shadow as made up of “repressed desires, uncivilized impulses,

morally inferior motives, intentions, and desires, childhood fantasies, resentments, etc.—

all the things that a person is not proud of” (p. 123). These are the elements that the ego

has never come to terms with. The shadow “also consists of instincts, abilities and

positive moral qualities that have long been buried or never been conscious” (p. 125).

As the work of individuation proceeds these repressed elements tend to come to

light. Hart (2008) wrote that becoming familiar and working with the shadow is an

ongoing process throughout life. As repressed aspects of the shadow surface to conscious

awareness they must be reconciled with the ego and persona. Hart (2008) wrote that a

healthy relationship between the ego and the shadow is needed so that the “greater

‘depths’ of the psyche can be safely explored” (p. 98).

Anima and animus. Hart (2008) wrote that within the shadow one will encounter

what Jung called the anima or animus, unconscious personalities that are one’s inner

feminine or masculine respectively They are made up from an individual’s experience

with the opposite sex, beginning with one’s parent, and from the archetypal energies of

the feminine principle of Eros or relating and love and the masculine of Logos or

differentiating and logic (Jung, 1951/1969b, p. 14 [CW 9ii, para. 29]). In Western
 18

patriarchal culture in which the feminine has been associated with females and the

masculine with males, these figures compensate for a generally one-sided attitude of

being a man or a woman and the related persona.

The anima and animus are encountered in projected form by the individual and

have a numinous quality to them. For example, when a man falls in love with a woman

and sees her as a goddess he is meeting his own inner anima (Jung, 1954/1969, p. 70 [CW

9i, para. 144]). Sharp (1991) wrote that the anima can reveal itself in dream images of

women ranging from seductress to spiritual guide. A man’s ability to relate to women and

his emotions is directly correlated with his relationship to the anima or Eros. When a man

is out of touch with his anima it can become activated and reveal itself suddenly through

moods (Jung, 1954/1969, pp. 70-71 [CW 9i, para. 144]). He can become moody, sulky,

and irrational. Women, likewise, can become possessed by their inner masculine side and

present as “hard driving, insistent, and super-logical” (Hart, 2008, p. 99). Post-Jungians

no longer consider the anima and animus to be gender linked, but as existing within every

individual as the unconscious aspects of the feminine and masculine principles in their

illimitable, archetypal natures (Casement, 1998; Moore, 1989).

Jung (1951/1969b) believed that it was crucial to come to terms with these inner

figures and saw them as meditators to the unconscious (p. 14 [CW 9ii, para. 33]), leading

to the experience of the Self. The key, observed Hart (2008), is to have a conscious

relationship with them. This is difficult, however, because the ego and the persona defend

against the integration of unconscious content that challenges one’s current identity.

Persona. The persona of the individual is the outward appearance, façade, or

ideal personality one presents to the world (Sharp, 1991). The word persona originally
 19

meant a mask worn by actors indicating the role they were playing. This could be the

lawyer, parent, therapist, or spiritual yogi. The persona develops from an early age

through the pressures of society and the influence of parents. An individual can become

overly identified with the persona because the outside world showers praise, money,

power, and respect toward it (p. 98). People can lose sight of who they are when overly

identified with the persona. Identification with one’s persona can become a trap and

source of neurosis because behind the mask lies the inner private person who is “often

vastly different” with hidden emotions, attitudes, and conflicts (Hart, 2008, p. 100).

Tension of the opposites. An individual’s entire shadow, therefore, is in a

compensatory relationship with the ego (Jung, 1921/971, p. 419 [CW 6, para. 694]). This

is the case because “whatever attitude exists in the conscious mind, and whichever

psychological function is dominant, the opposite is in the unconscious” (Sharp, 1991,

p. 94). For example, if a person is identified with a persona that portrays spiritual

transcendence or purity, opposite qualities will constellate in the shadow. This opposition

causes inner conflict and disturbances to the ego’s identity and perspective. Thus the ego

defends against, but also, “without being aware of it, seeks its unconscious opposite,

lacking which it is doomed to stagnation” (Jung, 1943/1966, p. 54 [CW 7, para. 78]).

A goal of Jungian therapy is to become aware of opposing elements of the psyche,

holding the tension between them without suppressing either, producing conflict and

friction (Hart, 2008).

Out of this painful but honest work, energy will finally recede from the conflict
itself and sink into the unconscious and out of that source will emerge a totally
unexpected solution . . . doing justice to both sides of the original conflict.
(p. 101)
 20

The emergence of this third idea or image that stands above and helps unite the opposites

of the ego and the unconscious Jung called the transcendent function (Singer, 1994,

p. 337). It is part of the self-regulating nature of the psyche.

In the context of Chiron’s injury, it is important to note that Jung believed the

conflict between the persona and the shadow can lead to neurosis if there is excessive

tension (1928/1966, p. 184 [CW 7, para. 291]). “When a conflict is unconscious, tension

manifests as physical symptoms, particularly in the stomach, the back and the neck.

Conscious conflict is experienced as moral or ethical tension” (Sharp, 1991, p. 41). Jung

(1943/1966) wrote, “The repressed content must be made conscious so as to produce a

tension of opposites, without which no forward movement is possible” (p. 54 [CW 7,

para. 78]).

The process of individuation, therefore, involves becoming aware of the

conflicting elements that make up the psyche (Hart, 2008). Because unconscious contents

are defended against by being projected outward onto others, this involves identifying,

withdrawing, and assimilating projections into conscious awareness. This lifelong

process toward wholeness “involves an ever-growing admission of who we are” (p. 97).

Myth of Chiron

The myth of Chiron is a fascinating journey explored in this thesis as revealing

the calling and the trials on the path of individuation. Chiron was born to the god

Chronos (Saturn) and a sea nymph named Philyra. Philyra tried to escape from Chronos

by changing herself into a horse (Atsma, 2017). Chronos quickly changed himself into a

horse and raped her. When Chiron was born he emerged as a Centaur—half man and half

horse. Philyra was frightened by the grotesque appearance of the baby and asked the gods
 21

to take her away from him. The gods granted her request and turned her into a linden tree.

Chronos also departed the scene. Chiron was thus rejected and abandoned. The Sun God

Apollo found Chiron and took him under his wing. Apollo taught Chiron music, poetry,

and the arts of healing. Chiron became known as a wise man and was the mentor and

teacher to many Greek heroes such as Achilles, Hercules, and Jason. Chiron taught his

mentees everything from medicine to archery, hunting, and ethics (Nolle, 1997).

Chiron was a Greek god and a Centaur. The Centaurs of Greek mythology lived

on the outskirts of civilization in the forests, mountains, and off the beaten path (Greene,

1996). They were portrayed as followers of Dionysus (Reinhart, 1989) and called savages

by Apollodorus (Greene, 1996). The Centaurs were often at war with their civilized

neighbors the Lapiths. Whereas the Centaurs were notoriously violent and unruly,

especially when drinking, the Lapiths were portrayed as the opposite, even tempered,

modern, and refined (Reinhart, 1989, p. 18). The wars between the Lapiths and Centaurs

are a prominent motif in the myth. It was in one such battle that Chiron was wounded.

During that war, Hercules shot an arrow at one of the Centaurs and it accidentally

struck Chiron in the knee or leg (Kerényi, 1959/1963). Kerényi (1959/1963) wrote that

after the wounding, “A healer, [Chiron] crept away with his pain into the darkness of his

cave like a sick animal, and longed to die” (p. 122). Driven by his suffering, Chiron

searched the earth to find a cure. During this search, Chiron became a great healer and his

empathy and compassion grew for others as he experienced intolerable pain in his knee.

Despite all his success healing others, he was still not able to find a cure for himself.

Chiron eventually found surcease from his pain by sacrificing himself and his

immortality for Prometheus and taking his place in the underworld (Fine, 2007). Chiron
 22

was in the underworld for 8 days and Zeus decided to release and immortalize him by

exalting him in the heavens as the constellation Centaur, also called Sagittarius (p. 11).

Archetype of the Wounded Healer

Chiron is associated with the Wounded Healer archetype, a healer who cures but

remains eternally ill or wounded (Sedgwick, 1994). Jung (1951/1966) spoke to the

importance of this archetype for psychotherapists in his discussion of the importance of

therapists undergoing their own analysis and knowing their own wounds. He wrote, “It is

his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the

meaning of the Greek myth of the wounded physician” (p. 116 [CW 16, para. 239]). The

myth Jung was referring to was that of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing and medicine

(Sedgwick, 1994). Chiron was the mentor of Asclepius and taught him the healing arts.

Carl Kerényi, classical philologist and a friend of Jung, wrote that psychologically

the wounded healer archetype means, “to be at home in the darkness of suffering and

there to find germs of light and recovery with which, as though by enchantment, to bring

forth Asclepius, the sunlike healer” (as cited in Levy, 2014, para. 1). In his

autobiography, Jung (1961/1963) wrote that the doctor or therapist must use his or her

own wounds and suffering to be effective with a cure. “The doctor is effective only when

he himself is affected. ‘Only the wounded physician heals.’ But when the doctor wears

his personality like a coat of armor, he has no effect” (p. 134). Physicians’ vulnerability

and knowledge and use of their own wounds, therefore, account for the healing mystery.

Healer–Patient Archetype

Jungian psychiatrist Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig (1971) later conceptualized the

image of the wounded healer as the “healer–patient archetype” (p. 85). The archetype is
 23

bipolar and both poles are contained within each individual. Psychologically, this means

there is a patient inside the doctor and a physician or inner healer inside of the patient

(p. 91). The doctor and the patient are two aspects of the same. Guggenbühl-Craig wrote

that when a person gets sick and goes to the doctor the healer-patient archetype is

constellated in the relationship. In fact, as soon as the sick person begins to seek a doctor,

his or her inner or “intra-psychic healer is activated” (p. 90). This inner healer is often

referred to by physicians as the “healing factor” (p. 90). Most patients are not aware of

the inner healer; because this archetypal energy of the Self is unconscious they project it

onto the doctor and identify solely as the patient.

Likewise, the patient within the analyst’s psyche—including shadow material,

unresolved psychology, and physical ailments—stands in relationship with the analysand

(Guggenbühl-Craig, 1971). Therapists who are unaware of their inner patient, repressing

their own wounds and projecting them onto patients, trap patients in the position of

woundedness (p. 92). This tends to occur when therapists are overidentified with a

persona as the healthy and knowledgeable healer. Guggenbühl-Craig wrote that it is

difficult for the patient’s ego to identify with the inner healer and for the physician’s ego

to identify with being wounded because “the ego loves clarity and tries to eradicate inner

ambivalence” (p. 91) by splitting off into the unconscious one side of the bipolar healer–

patient archetype. When the physician believes that “weakness, illness and wombs have

nothing to do with him” and only his patient, the physician can no longer constellate the

archetype of the wounded healer to help the client (p. 92). The healer reaches an impasse

where they are not able to effectively help the patients and the best one can hope for is

that external remedies can provide some relief.

 24

For the healer or therapist “it is only through repeated confrontations with the

shadow that he can fulfill his task” of staying connected to both poles of the archetype

(p. 155). “It is the moment when he begins to understand that all these ailments are in

himself [that] he becomes the ‘wounded healer’” (p. 98). Guggenbühl-Craig (1971)

distinguished between initiating the process of individuation in a client and relieving

immediate symptoms (pp. 147-148). Because of the illimitable nature of the unconscious,

individuation requires a relationship to and between both the inner healer and inner

patient, working with the shadow in a life-long process. Because a therapist can only

bring clients as far as he or she has gone, the therapist “can seldom stimulate an

individuation process if he has closed himself off from it” (p. 148).

Wounding

Jungian analyst Benig Mauger (2017) wrote,

Wounds drive us into ourselves, and can genuinely allow us an immediate and
intimate contact with our soul. . . . In order to awaken the transformative aspect of
the archetype of the healer, we have to move through our wounds to find the
wisdom hidden there. (“Chiron in the 21st Century,” para. 2)

She wrote that Chiron’s message is that wounds cannot be healed without suffering. It is

this suffering that allows the wounded healer to empathize and constellate the

transcendent or numinous energy of healing.

Jungian analyst John Sanford (1977) wrote that those who engage in individuation

experience a painful process of confronting the unconscious, inner conflicts, and their

illness and woundedness. Using Chiron’s leg wound as an example, Sanford noted that

some people can hide from their woundedness better than others, but that when repressed,

psychological wounding goes into the body and creates distressing physical symptoms.

When one can no longer hide from wounding one is ready for individuation (p. 33).
 25

The Chironian wound that will not heal is “the wound of the healer [that] is both

the fountain of the ability to heal and yet has the destructive characteristics that the word

‘wound’ connotes” (Cavalier, 1993, p. 12). Because the unconscious boundlessly

challenges the ego with that which is beyond awareness, “the unconscious is the wound

that no one, least of all a therapist, can get rid of” (p. 13). It is the therapist’s “task to aid

clients in becoming more conscious” (p. 13) of the meaning that lies in the unconscious

beneath the wound.

Building on the information presented in this chapter on the use of spiritual

transcendence to bypass psychological pain, the understanding of the importance of

working with one’s wounds, and the role of the Wounded Healer archetype, Chapter III

discusses spiritual bypassing in the myth of Chiron and my own life. Examining both

Chiron’s and my processes of growth, it illustrates how an individual can grow through

spiritual bypassing toward individuation and how suffering reveals where one is out of

balance and holds the key to empathizing and helping others.

 Chapter III
Findings and Clinical Applications

Introduction

The focus of this chapter is on exploring the myth of Chiron through the lens of

spiritual bypassing. The chapter will amplify the myth to show the signs of spiritual

bypassing and how they can be addressed through an understanding of the Wounded

Healer archetype and the path of individuation. The research question I am investigating

is, “how does the relationship between spiritual bypassing and the myth of Chiron inform

the spiritual seeker, therapist, or client?” At the outset of this study I was focused on what

lessons this myth might have for the spiritual seeker. During the course of research, it has

become evident that no therapist, healer, or person in the helping profession is immune to

bypassing his or her psychology on some level. Knowledge of such tendencies can only

deepen one’s spiritual or helping work. The framework that emerges from the myth of

Chiron can assist individuals in a therapeutic relationship to identify where bypassing

may be occurring in their own lives. The signs of spiritual bypassing—using beliefs and

practices to avoid one’s shadow (Masters, 2010; Welwood, 2000)—will become more

evident in the life of Chiron as the discussion progresses through this chapter. It is

important to first gain a deeper understanding of Chiron’s wounds, the exploration of

which sets the stage for his calling toward greater individuation.

Chiron’s Wounding

Chiron’s immediate pain began when he was struck by an arrow from Hercules

(Kerényi, 1959/1963); however, this injury masked much deeper pain and division.
 27

Chiron suffered from the pain of abandonment by his father and mother. According to

psychologist Claudia Black (2009), the most important job a mother can do to support her

child’s developing ego is mirror the baby. Mirroring can be described as looking on with

joy, approval, and delight (pp. 22-23). Rather than providing such mirroring, Chiron’s

mother looked at him in horror and tossed him away in disgust (Atsma, 2017). In

addition, Chiron’s father Cronos deserted him.

This trauma from rejection was seared into Chiron’s body and soul. It is likely

that Chiron did not remember what happened to him consciously. This can be taken as a

metaphor for the dissociation that people experience after a traumatic event. When an

individual does not consciously remember traumatic experience in a coherent narrative

the body still remembers (Siegel, 2010; van der Kolk, 2014). Traumatic memories are

split off from conscious awareness and arise in the body as sensory perceptions,

obsessive thoughts, and behavioral reenactments. It is likely that Chiron would re-

experience this trauma via images and olfactory and auditory intrusions that might be

associated with the scene, sensations, and intense emotions of the original trauma.

The rejecting mother and the absent father is an archetypal theme experienced in

many people’s lives and arising in a number of myths (Reinhart, 1989). Reinhart (1989)

wrote that the loneliness and isolation that results from this combination often sets the

scene for the emergence of the hero in children who in the absence of parenting imagine

themselves born of archetypal, or larger than life, parents. Children who are orphaned

often feel that their earthly parents are not their parents and that their “real” parents will

one day come. On a positive level this can instill a drive and sense of destiny to develop

one’s individuality and skills. This is evident with Chiron and how accomplished he
 28

became as a mentor and healer (Atsma, 2017; Kerényi, 1959/1963). Negatively, this early

childhood trauma and related pain can cause individuals to flee from their wounds into an

“increasing emphasis on the spiritual in a rarefied and one-sided way” (Reinhart, 1989, p.

21). Seen in the light of spiritual bypassing, such a move toward spirituality in a rarefied

(high altitude) way can be viewed as a move toward heavenly transcendence. When this

occurs, astrologer Melanie Reinhart (1989) wrote, “the instincts are suppressed in order

to maintain a false sense of elevated consciousness” (p. 21).

Rejection of Instincts

The repression and suppression of the instincts are regarded by Reinhart (1989)

and marriage and family therapist Nathalie Fine (2007) as a primary theme in the myth of

Chiron. They view Chiron’s leg injury on his lower animal half as a wound to his

instinctual side. When Chiron was rejected by his parents they were in animal form and

instinctual union. Philyra had changed herself into a horse to get away from Cronus and

Cronus quickly changed into a horse and raped her (Atsma, 2017). After Chiron was born

his mother Philyra asked the gods to turn her into a Linden tree. By rejecting Chiron,

Philyra rejected her instincts or the “product and expression of her own instinctual side to

the point of preferring to be eternally imprisoned in tree” (Reinhart, 1989, p. 20).

The rejection of instincts is further represented in Chiron’s wound. Jung

(1934/1983) wrote that the horse in mythology and folklore is associated with the

instincts, feminine principles, and the unconscious: “As an animal it represents the non-

human psyche, the subhuman, animal side, the unconscious . . . it is closely related to the

mother-archetype” (p. 188). He added that the horse represents “the lower part of the

body and the animal impulses that arise from there” (p. 188).
 29

Mind–Body Split

Chiron’s wounds, therefore, point to a fundamental split between Chiron’s lower

animal nature as a horse and his human or higher nature as a man. This can be seen as

symbolizing the split between the mind and body so prevalent in Western and most

Eastern spiritualties and culture (Masters, 2010; Welwood, 2000). It can also be viewed

as the split between spirituality and psychology. Much of mainstream psychology

dismisses matters of the spirit, or that which transcends the individual and ordinary

sensual consciousness, as neither measurable nor quantifiable.

In my experience of spiritual bypassing, one’s body is seen as a container for the

spirit, while instinctual impulses are often deemed negative and devalued, repressed, or

denied. The mind–body split can also include the splitting off or devaluation of emotions

and feelings. Post-Jungian James Hillman (1975) wrote that the mind in relationship with

spirituality seeks to transcend the body, and the experience of embodiment and suffering

(pp. 67-70). The mind–body split includes the split between humankind and nature,

which largely began in Western civilization when nature-based religions were superseded

by Christianity, and the Enlightenment period and the ascent of reason and science

relegated the gods of nature and humankind’s relationship with them into the shadow.

Astrologer Martin Lass (2005) saw the mind–body split as the tendency to divide

the world up into dualistic opposites. He wrote that when Chiron was wounded in his leg

or lower horse side, it symbolized the “woundedness of our lower nature—a nature that

sees one side of the world while repressing, ignoring, denying, disowning, condemning,

and/or failing to acknowledge the other balancing sides” (p. 7). On my spiritual path, I

found all too common this polarization between two extremes, splitting toward the spirit
 30

and mind and away from the body, instincts, and emotions. Although this split is found in

both Eastern and Western traditions, its reversal is prescribed in the Buddhist story of the

life of Siddhartha and in Greek philosophy.

Siddhartha was raised a prince and lived in luxury, surrounded by sensual

pleasures (Middle Way Society, n.d.). After sneaking out of the palace one night he

witnessed an individual suffering and dying. Determined to find answers on how to

alleviate suffering he left his life of luxury and lived as an ascetic in the forest. He spent

days fasting and practiced mortification of the body. One day he collapsed and a woman

came upon him and fed him a meal. This returned the life to his body and he began to

rethink the extreme path he was on. Both luxury and yogic asceticism and intense

austerities were not satisfying and caused him suffering. It is from this point that the

Buddha walked the Middle Way or the path of equanimity between two extremes.

One can also look to Plato and Aristotle and the golden mean for direction in

integrating mind and body. Plato (1969) wrote that a person should shun excess in either

direction and choose the life “seated in the mean” (p. 619a). Subsequently, in the

Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (1934) spoke about the importance of the “observance of

the mean” by learning how to navigate between extremes such as excess versus

deficiency, fearful cowardice versus rash boldness, and indulging in every pleasure

versus shunning all (p. 1104a). The golden mean is the balance between extremes. The

reintegration of opposites—mind and body, instincts and spirit—and finding the golden

mean between extremes, therefore, is one of the major themes associated with Chiron.

The splits between mind and body and spirit and instinct are most evident in the Lapiths

and Centaur motif in the background of Chiron’s story.

 31

Chiron was a Centaur and the Centaurs are juxtaposed with the Lapiths. A major

theme in the myth is the battles between the Centaurs and the Lapiths (Atsma, 2017). The

Centaurs were known as notoriously violent, unruly, and lecherous (Reinhart, 1989).

Their passions were quickly ignited and they would become particularly violent after

drinking. The Lapiths, on the other hand, are portrayed as exactly the opposite of the

Centaurs. They were refined and civilized (p. 18). The Centaurs were associated with

Dionysus. According to Jungian analyst Jean Shinoda Bolen (1989), Dionysus was a

Greek god associated with wine, revel, and ecstatic dance. Those influenced by the

archetypal energies symbolized by Dionysus experience ecstatic moments and intensely

contradictory impulses (p. 255). They are torn by internal contradictions such as their

good and evil sides. This inner conflict creates an internal feeling of dismemberment.

The Lapiths, on the other hand, were associated with Apollo (Reinhart, 1989).

Apollo was the obedient son of Zeus (Bolen, 1989). Those influenced by Apollo tend to

be more rational and logical than emotional. They are ruled more by Logos and matters

of the mind than Eros and relationship. We live today in an Apollonian culture. Apollo

men and women excel in this world, have excellent grades, and pursue measurable goals

in life (p. 135).

The juxtaposition of these opposites and the warring between Centaurs and

Lapiths is symbolic of Chiron’s inner conflict. Raised by Apollo but also a Centaur

(Atsma, 2017), Chiron was part civilized, educated, and spiritual as an immortal man and

part unruly instinctual animal. One can imagine that rather than acknowledge and give his

instinctual urges any expression in the civilized world of Lapiths, Chiron would repress,

hide, or seek to transcend such impulses. Associating these impulses with his lower body
 32

and his mother’s rejection, Chiron likely felt tremendous self-loathing and shame about

his body and appearance. A common Chironian theme, wrote Reinhart (1989), is that

individuasl will project their shame and embarrassment for existing onto their bodies.

They may feel mortified by features that others do not even notice, but to them seem

monstrous or ugly (p. 104). For Chiron looking in a mirror could initiate a constant

rewounding and stimulate memories or behaviors from his original trauma. This can be

compared to individuals on an ascetic spiritual path of denying the body waking up in the

morning and remembering they gave their instinctual and impulsive side free rein the

night before. They would feel ashamed.

Reinhart (1989) wrote that Chiron’s wound collectively personifies “centuries of

repressing and persecuting our instinctual selves” (p. 24). Learning how to handle one’s

instinctual impulses is a challenging part of the spiritual path. When instinctual urges

arise they are often deemed negative and immediately repressed. This can create

monstrous shadow elements in an individual’s life or in a spiritual community. When

individuals cannot tame their instinctual side and it continues to pop up or lash out, this

can cause intense shame and eventually disillusionment with the spiritual path. Chiron’s

solution to this dilemma was not an either–or approach but a uniting of the opposites and

coming into a new relationship with his instincts, an approach that led him toward greater

wholeness.

Masculine and Feminine

Another theme of opposites between the Lapiths and Centaurs revolves around

the masculine and feminine energies. These opposites reveal a split between the

masculine and feminine. Bolen (1989) wrote that Dionysus was close to women and
 33

nature. His worshippers were predominantly women who would engage in an embodied

and ecstatic dance in the forest on top of a mountain. This indicates that they were also

close to nature. In India, Dionysus was initiated by a great mother goddess placing him as

a priest of the Divine Mother. Apollo, on the other hand, was the embodiment of the

masculine characteristics of order, logos, reason, and logic (p. 130). The Apollo

archetype favors thinking over feeling, distance over closeness, and objective assessment

over subjective intuition (p. 135).

Jungian analyst Barbara Sullivan (1989) wrote that an Apollonian masculine

approach reaches toward the world of spirit and transcendence. Feminine consciousness,

on the other hand, “orients toward a state of wholeness that includes imperfection”

(p. 22), and places Eros or relationship at the center of life. The feminine seeks an

embodied relationship to the world, one’s feelings, and one’s body, while the masculine

seeks to transcend it. She wrote that neither approach is superior and that both are

needed. In Welwood’s (2000) terminology and Chinese philosophy, the feminine

approach would fall more into the categories of the human and earth principles rather

than heavenly transcendence.

It is noteworthy that Apollo was mostly unsuccessful in his love affairs and

relationships (Bolen, 1989). Although Chiron had a wife (Atsma, 2017), I found scarcely

any references to her. In addition, his friendship or relationships were mostly with his

students and would have been solution focused or academic. Like an Apollonian

businessman, Chiron was focused on his job. The split between the masculine and

feminine energies is also evident in Chiron’s unique birth in Greek mythology. Chiron’s

birth union was not directly incestuous. Cronos was related to Philyra but they were
 34

distant cousins. Thus, Chiron represents a “breaking away from the original matrix, the

primordial Earth Mother Gaia and her offspring” (Reinhart, 1989, p. 21). Rather than

being embraced by the comforting and supportive earth mother, Chiron’s first experience

or imago of mother was the Terrible Goddess. This impacted Chiron’s inner anima figure

as discussed below.

One can amplify that Chiron had underlying pain and shame about his Centaur

side from being rejected by his parents. Rejection and abandonment at a preverbal phase

of life leave deep wounds. Because of this pain, he fled from his wounds and repressed

the Centaur side of himself in favor of developing his Apollonian side. Feeling the pull of

his instinctual and more earthy and feminine side, Chiron experienced anxiety and a

dissociative feeling of dismemberment. To manage these unwelcome thoughts and

feelings and the underlying anxiety, Chiron could have sought to transcend them through

dwelling in the impersonal absolute, replacing them with mantras or positive

affirmations, or helping others. The parallels to spiritual bypassing are clear. One can

move toward the spirit in a rarefied way while repressing, devaluing, or splitting off the

instincts, feelings, and human needs for authentic relationship. This is one way to

sublimate or manage the underlying anxiety. Another way is through focusing on others.

Helping Others

Although I found no indication that Chiron processed his inner pain and conflict,

there is an abundance of references to Chiron helping others. Ogden et al. (2006) wrote

that in the face of unresolved trauma and pain one can attempt “self-regulation via

‘staying on the go,’ living a fast-paced life with no opportunity for reminders of the

trauma to surface” (p. 207). By keeping a fast-paced schedule of helping, healing, and
 35

mentoring others, Chiron could have been trying to self-regulate as well as heal himself

indirectly. A related Chironian theme is being able to help others more than one’s self

(Reinhart, 1989, p. 71). Reinhart wrote there is a strange discrepancy in which one’s

focus is on helping others with the healing that one needs for oneself “but cannot make

the necessary inner surrender to receive” (p. 71). Chiron’s process of surrender to look at

his own wounds closer would take a while. Like many, it would take a crisis to get his

full attention.

Crisis and Calling to Individuation

When Chiron was struck by the fateful arrow from Hercules (Atsma, 2017), it

initiated a crisis tantamount to an earthquake. All of Chiron’s wisdom, teachings, and

skills up to this point in life did not prevent his wounding or help him heal himself. The

crisis disrupted Chiron’s ego state of homeostasis and called him toward greater

wholeness or individuation.

When Chiron was struck by the arrow he began to feel intolerable pain. This pain

propelled him out of his cave on a quest for healing. The process of individuation usually

begins at midlife, often with a crisis such as existential loss of meaning, a debilitating

illness, death in the family, loss of job, divorce, or depression. “It is in this crisis,

however, that one has the chance to become an individual—beyond the determinism of

parents . . . and cultural conditioning” (Hollis, 1993, p. 26). An individuation crisis

recalls the pattern of initiation with Shamanic healers: “The most usual pattern of

shamanic initiation in older cultures involves the experience of a catastrophic encounter

with psychological and physical suffering” (Halifax, 1990, para. 6).

 36

In 2013, I began my own quest for healing. During this time, I was working as a

foreign policy researcher at a prominent think tank in Washington, D.C. I began to

experience back pain and knee pain. I was able to assuage some of the back pain, but I

was not successful in finding a cure to my knee. I went to the doctor and was told I

needed surgery. Around this time, new management entered my workplace and I realized

that it was time to find a new position. I was also feeling a call to return to my spiritual

practice in greater depth. The combination of these events spurred a physical and

professional crisis.

Persona

After spending nearly 10 years focusing on foreign policy my ego was heavily

invested in its persona as a professional researcher and policy guy. As a published author

and young professional, my persona was rewarded with praise and respect. Washington

D. C. was an Apollonian world where the emphasis was on the head and not the heart or

feeling world. Eros or relationship often supported Apollonian objectives and did not go

far beneath the surface. Like Chiron trying to fit into a world of Lapiths, I largely

concealed my inner spiritual, instinctual, and anima side. Parts of me knew I was

concealing or repressing these parts of self. I often felt an inner conflict. I would think to

myself: “Where is my tribe?” “Where are the spiritual people and those into health

food?” While I was a rising young professional, I felt limited and constrained in this

environment. My persona was only one part of my larger Self and identifying with it was

giving me limited returns. One’s inner person can often be “preposterously different”

than their persona (Jung, 1929/1983, p. 94). Overidentification with one’s persona can

become a source of neurosis as people lose sight of who they are. Despite the proverbial
 37

writing on the wall at work and in my inner feelings, I remained in a “dead job” for over

a year.

Chiron too was closely identified with his persona. Homer recorded that he was

known as the “wisest and justest of all the Centaurs” (as cited in Atsma, “Encyclopedia,”

2017, para. 1). He is also described as good, noble, and gentle. Chiron was renowned

throughout Greece as a successful healer, teacher, and mentor. His persona was

reinforced with each successful healing or mentoring. When Chiron was struck by the

arrow and could not heal himself this was a blow to his ego and persona. Although

Chiron learned much in his search and became a better healer, he was not able to find a

cure for himself. Through his pain and long search, however, his ego was humbled and

became open to receiving greater direction from his unconscious and Inner Healer. It

would be a process, however, for Chiron to go deeper and look behind his persona. By

leaving his familiar world and presumably his wife to search for cures, Chiron eventually

heeded the call toward individuation.

I finally heeded the messages from my unconscious and the call toward

individuation. After encouraging interviews on Capitol Hill I realized that my heart was

no longer invested. If I took the job I would be tied to a desk and on call 24/7. There

would be little to no time to pursue my passion of spirituality, health, and helping others.

Therefore, I enrolled in a contemplative religious studies program at Naropa University.

Although this was a positive choice, I should note that I was still choosing an area of

study that was familiar, comfortable, and inviting to my ego. I had practiced meditation

and spiritual practice for 20 years.

 38

After a year of meditating and studying profound spiritual concepts in Boulder,

Colorado, I realized that to accomplish my then goal of becoming a spiritual director or

spiritual life coach, I would have to learn more about psychology to help other people

with their psychology. I still did not realize that I needed to delve more deeply into my

own psychology, shadow, and anima. As a would-be alchemist, I was still trying to obtain

the gold without going deeply into the muck. This is a common problem in our time of

fast-food, microwaves, instant coffee, and instant communication. The path toward

greater self-realization cannot be obtained like a pizza—in 30 minutes or less or one’s

money back. I also believed that my spiritual tools where sufficient to transform the

impurities and dross into the gold of the Christ, Krishna, or Buddhic consciousness.

My quest took me next to Pacifica Graduate Institute to study Jungian-oriented

counseling psychology. It was at Pacifica and in Jungian analysis that I began to examine

my attempt at spiritual bypassing, the myth of Chiron, and the individuation process. This

is when it became clear that the road toward self-realization, individuation, and the Self

was through the unconscious and in contact with my own wounded nature.

Wounded Healer

As I discovered, in moving down the path of individuation and working out one’s

psychology, the ego and its associated persona resist the depths. In addition to a

professional persona I also had a spiritual persona. After 20 years of spiritual practice I

had an inflated belief that I was far along the spiritual path. Chiron’s persona was inflated

as a “great healer” because he had helped many people and had a strong reputation. This

inflation compensated for his inner sense of division and pain. According to Jungian

analyst Andy Drymalski (2016), psychological inflation occurs when an individual

 39

merges or identifies with an archetype in the unconscious, such as the God, Hero, Healer,

or Sage. This can result in arrogance, grandiosity, and a devaluing of other people who

are not as enlightened or expert. Drymalski wrote that inflations are associated with the

air element of the mind and spirit. This is the sublimatio phase in alchemy. The earth

element stands in opposition to this: “In alchemical terms, inflation is a defense against

coagulatio, the process of coming down to earth and experiencing life’s constraints and

your own limitations” (para. 10).

Drymalski (2016) wrote that inflations are defensive postures adopted by the ego

to deflect or forestall an imperative for change. They are defenses and compensations

against looking deeper at one’s psychological issues and the underlying pain. Healers and

therapists can be prone to repressing parts of their shadow and identifying with a God

archetype. In spiritual bypassing one can become engrossed in a persona that allows one

to feel spiritually awake or enlightened and project onto others that they are ignorant or

asleep. This psychological inflation can be subtle and inflations usually become more

pronounced in direct proportion to underlying pain.

I imagine Chiron saw himself as the healthy healer and his patients as the

wounded ones. Chiron projected his wounds and shadow onto his patients. Like all

projection, this colors one’s view of clients. Contemplating the two poles of the wounded

healer archetype is one antidote to this inflation. When therapists have an inflated self-

identification as the healer and responsible for the cure, they can only provide remedial or

surface remedies at best (Guggenbühl-Craig, 1971). When healers do not identify with

their own inner patient—their own wounds, psychological challenges, and shadow—then

they will not be able to activate the “healing factor” (p. 90), the patient’s Inner Healer or
 40

Teacher. To take the air out of one’s inflated persona and come back to earth, one must

be in touch with one’s wounds. When this happens, a therapist enters into authentic

relationship with the patient and can activate the patient’s inner healer and stimulate the

process of individuation.

To activate the healing factor within his patients, Chiron would have to go into his

pain and come into relationship with his shadow—with the split-off aspects of self he

fears are inferior, and that have been rejected, abandoned, and traumatized. He must

withdraw his projections onto his patients as the ones who carry sickness and pathology.

Jungian scholar Marie-Louise Von Franz (1964) noted that the shadow is also

“everything that is unknown to the ego including even the most valuable and highest

forces” (p. 173). In the context of Chiron, one can posit that these higher forces include

the self-regulating and holistic nature of the ego-transcendent Self reintegrating body and

mind, spirit and instincts, and civilization and nature.

Wounds

One path to the split-off shadow material is through one’s wounds. This may not

be immediately obvious to the Westerner where the medical model is based on an

Apollonian mindset. The disproportionately masculine Apollonian Western medical

model prefers to separate out parts from their union with one another, seeking laser-like

clarity and perfection (Sullivan, 1989). This model approaches wounds in a literal way

and not symbolically or metaphorically. Sullivan’s emphasis on avoiding either-or binary

choices and the necessity of both masculine and feminine approaches underscores the

importance of recognizing the bipolarity of archetypal forces and integrating splits in the

psyche such as healer and patient, persona and shadow.

 41

In my own experience and observations as a spiritual quester, in spiritual

bypassing there is often a lot of shame about one’s body and patient-self, shadow and

inner wounds. These are the areas where one is not “perfect” yet. I found that to maintain

my bright persona reflecting spiritual transcendence, it was imperative to appear “up” and

fully self-realized. Ironically, such perfection colludes with the fragmented nature of the

psyche. Spiritual bypassing defends against wholeness as it is precisely one’s wounds

that point to the aspects of self that one is bypassing and the steps one needs to take to

become more whole. However, in accordance with what Sanford (1977) wrote, I was not

ready for individuation until I was no longer hiding from my woundedness behind

spiritual bypassing.

In Jungian thought, wounds or symptoms are not “bad” or something to be

quickly dispensed with. Jung (1935/1976) understood neurosis as a symptom of repressed

wounding—of not being “quite at one with” oneself (p. 168)—and as symbolic of the

underlying condition. “Neurosis is really an attempt at self-cure . . . an attempt of the self-

regulating psychic system to restore balance” (p. 169) by bringing awareness to what has

been repressed. Jung cautioned that neurosis contains an essential element of the client’s

psyche and if it were taken away without finding the meaning within it, it would not be a

cure but an amputation. Mythologist and poet Dennis Patrick Slattery (2000) wrote that

“a cure begins when one does not flee from the wound but is motivated by curiosity to go

into the pathology rather than away from it” (p. 171).

Hillman (1989) wrote that a wound “is both a learner and a teacher . . . it has a

message” (p. 108). Hillman distinguished between a wound and a symptom. A symptom

points to the wound underneath, whereas the wound takes one into the archetypal
 42

condition of the woundedness. One must probe the particularity of the wound for an

archetypal awareness of the forces and meaning at work in one’s psyche and life and to

see how they relate to one’s path. Therapy must touch this painful spot. Entering into his

painful knee and not fleeing from it, Chiron would begin to enter into the archetypal

condition of his woundedness.

Astrologer Liz Greene (1996) shed light on the nature of Chiron’s archetypal

wound:

Chiron is one of the long list of lamed gods who have been injured in the foot, or,
in other words, in their relationship with physical reality. The legs and feet are
how a person makes contact with the physical earth. It is how one stands in the
world. (p. 240)

Seen through a spiritual bypassing lens, Chiron was heavily focused on heavenly

transcendence and his Apollonian mind. He repressed or devalued his instinctual,

feminine, and related Dionysian side as well as his earthy body—the archetypal forces at

work in his condition of woundedness. Chiron’s flight from childhood psychological

wounding to these aspects of self was driven by emotional pain, and these aspects of self

were relegated to the unconscious. The later physical wound pointed symbolically to the

underlying archetypal aspects of self that were split off in the original wounding.

Sanford (1977) wrote that when parts of the psyche are ignored, disowned, or split

off the psyche takes revenge. In other words, these repressed areas will resurface or

present in one’s life, often in unpleasant ways, that are intended to get one’s attention.

When one moves toward the spirit or mind in a rarefied way and represses the instincts,

“the instincts will eventually hit back in to redress the imbalance, often by causing crisis

of physical or mental illness” (Reinhart, 1989, p. 21). This crisis took the form of an

arrow to Chiron’s leg.

 43

After being struck Chiron searched for a cure in an Apollonian way, seeking

solutions from other experts to fix his leg, which he perceived as the problem. Chiron

would later search the earth for cures (Atsma, 2017). Although ultimately unable to find a

cure, Chiron grew in the process of his search and became a better healer. Chiron’s

suffering expanded his empathy, which increased his ability to help others with theirs,

which in turn increased his endurance. In this way his contact with his wounds helped

constellate the inner healer in his patients, and their process supported the suffering

patient in him.

Underworld

After much suffering and being humbled while looking for cures, Chiron finally

opened to a different way to heal his leg. Prometheus, during this time, was chained to a

rock for all eternity for stealing fire from the gods (Fine, 2007). Chiron heard that Zeus

would release Prometheus if another immortal would take his place. Chiron decided to

sacrifice himself and his immortality for Prometheus and take his place in the

underworld. Chiron had been in the underworld for 8 days when Zeus decided to release

and immortalize him by exalting him in the heavens as the constellation Centaur, also

called Sagittarius (p. 11).

Chiron’s sacrifice for Prometheus can be viewed symbolically as the sacrifice of

his ego to give up more of its control. This process of ego-attrition had already begun

when he was struck by the arrow and could not heal himself. As discussed by Jungian

analyst Sylvia Brinton Perera (1981) in her interpretation of the Sumerian goddess

Inanna’s journey to the underworld and back, one can amplify that a descent to the

underworld is equivalent to entering therapy and going down into the unconscious. With
 44

this in mind, one might imagine Chiron in the underworld as in therapy coming into

relationship with the “ghosts” of his past in an “immersion in the unconscious” (Jung,

1946/1966, p. 246). This would mean that listening to his wound and opening himself up

to the unconscious, Chiron would begin to acknowledge and admit the split-off and

conflicting parts of self into consciousness. This would be difficult because the ego is not

comfortable holding ambiguity and gravitates toward choosing one extreme over the

other. Rather than completely reject his instinctual, feminine, and Dionysian side and

cling to his overdeveloped and familiar Apollonian side, Chiron would struggle to hold

the opposites, honoring his body, instincts, and feelings, together with his mind and spirit.

This would allow the friction and energy in the conflict to sink into the unconscious,

becoming the raw material for the transcendent function of the psyche and the production

of an unexpected image or idea for a way forward (Hart, 2008).

Transcendent Function

One of the ways the transcendent function operates is through dreams (Sharp,

1991, p. 135). Dreams in Jungian psychology are viewed as messages from the

unconscious and the Self. They are teleological and purposive toward helping one

become more whole. In the underworld, Chiron could have had a dream that revealed to

him the parts of his psyche that he had relegated to the shadow. In my own underworld

journey through Jungian analysis it was a dream that gave me insight into the areas of my

psyche I was bypassing. This occurred during a time when I was contemplating the

psychological significance of my knee and other bodily issues. In my dream, I soared at

nearly light speed toward the sun. I had the power of Iron Man as I soared. Looking all

around as I blazed upward, I saw fiery purple, golden, and violet streams of light. It was
 45

remarkable. As I got farther up, however, it felt precarious and less real. Later in the

dream, I was meditating. As I meditated, my attention coalesced and drew down a

pyramid, anchoring it onto the earth.

I realized later that I had an archetypal experience of Icarus, the youth in Greek

mythology who flew too close to the sun and fell back to earth after his wings were

burned (“Icarus,” n.d., para. 1). This myth is a cautionary tale against moving too fast

toward any extreme. It is a reminder of the importance of the Golden Mean (Aristotle,

1934). Working with the dream through the help of my Jungian analyst I realized that I

was excessively focused on the spirit and mind and needed more earth element. From an

alchemical perspective, I had too much sublimatio and needed more coagulatio. The term

“sublimation” comes from the Latin, sublimas, meaning “high” (Edinger, 1994, p. 117).

The images representing sublimatio in dreams often involve climbing, flying, or soaring

birds. Sublimatio, as Edinger noted, is also associated with psychological inflation.

My primary associations with the pyramid in my dream were based on my

spiritual path. I had always believed that like a pyramid humans have four sides: physical,

mental, emotional, and etheric or spiritual. Greater self-realization occurs when these are

in balance. Despite this knowledge, I had always tended toward the etheric or spiritual

and the mental side of myself. The four sides can also be compared to the four elements,

the four directions, and likely other religious or symbolic references; “psychologically, it

points to the idea of wholeness” (Sharp, 1991, p. 110). Through an ascending Icarus-like

image my dream pointed to my imbalance, then in its transcendent function provided me

with the descending pyramid as an image of wholeness unifying earth and spirit.
 46

Inner Feminine

Within Chiron’s shadow, he would also confront his anima or his inner feminine.

Jung (1951/1969b) wrote that this step is a difficult task because “it is easier to gain

insight into the shadow than into the anima or animus” (p. 17). Whereas individuals may

have an idea that they have darker side and inferior character traits, it is harder to imagine

an inner contrasexual self. There is little education on this topic. I thought that I knew all

about my inner feminine side because I had studied and practiced mystical and religious

teachings on the Divine Mother. This belief was reinforced by my spiritual persona. It

took 3 years at Pacifica Graduate Institute to learn more about how to work with feelings

and the body—both associated with the feminine principle (Sullivan, 1989)—without

quickly interpreting or abstracting them into thought when sitting with a client. Somatic

intelligence is a subtle art that I will be working with the rest of my life.

Chiron’s journey into his anima would require coming into relationship with and

healing his image of the feminine. As Fine (2007) wrote, when Chiron was rejected by

his mother and abandoned, his inner imago of the feminine was damaged. Rather than

experience mirroring and loving affection, Chiron met the Terrible Mother or dark

goddess. As a result, Chiron’s repressed anima and his instincts would reveal themselves

in destructive and devouring ways. This could present as addictions or other forms of

seeking the Mother in indirect ways, that as symptoms point to both the unmet need for

comfort sought in the substance and the annihilating internalized mother in the damage it

does. This could include dissociating into an absence of self by watching television,

playing video games, eating for comfort, or spiritual bypass. Chiron would also project

onto other women and Centaurs this darker image. Part of Chiron’s work here would be
 47

to withdraw his projections. It would also mean working with the body and going into the

trauma.

Reinhart (1989) saw Chiron’s descent into the underworld as his embrace of the

“Death Goddess and of his wounded feminine instinctual nature” (p. 66). She wrote that

while Hades, ruler of the underworld, is a masculine god in Greek mythology “the land of

the dead was previously the terrain of the great Earth Mother in her death aspect” (p. 32).

It is here in the unconscious that Chiron embraced his wounded Dionysian and

Centaurian side, his inner feminine, and reconciled the opposites of his dual nature (Fine,

2007, p. 51).

Clinical Applications

Chiron’s journey provides a template of the quest to heal oneself and become

more whole, self-realized, or individuated. It suggests that intimate knowledge of one’s

suffering and wounds have manifold implications to clinicians and those in the helping

profession. Bypassing one’s own psychological material can create a shadow element that

will likely be projected onto the client, trapping the client in the role of the sick one. This

blocks access to the client’s inner healer—the self-regulating function of the psyche-

transcendent Self (Guggenbühl-Craig, 1971). Denying one’s own wounds robs one of the

potency of the Wounded Healer archetype, which centers on the therapist’s ability to

safely contain and stay present to both wounding and healing in oneself and client.

Helping clients to see where they are spiritually bypassing or avoiding pain begins with

the therapist and his or her own lack of avoidance.

Assessing for spiritual bypassing is important when working with clients. Part of

this assessment will necessitate familiarity with the signs of spiritual bypassing. Clients’
 48

wounds offer clues to where they might be bypassing or out of balance. With clients who

are spiritual and men, one may find a wounded anima or repressed feeling nature. There

will likely be a challenge in coping with the physical plane and demands of material life,

or a tendency to prefer talking in abstractions or focusing on thoughts rather than

emotions. A lack of grounding, excessive detachment, and devaluing of Eros and

relationship are telltale signs. This assessment will be especially important with young

people who have recently begun a spiritual path. Young people can get caught up in

spiritual bypassing in their eager zeal to gain enlightenment (Welwood, 2000). This may

collude with their defenses against their shadow, encouraging them to develop a bright

persona that compensates for underlying psychological issues. In addition, those who

have been on a spiritual path for many years may have a long history of bypassing. It may

take a crisis for these clients to come to therapy.

One of the lessons from the myth of Chiron is the importance of suffering and

empathy. As Mauger (2013) wrote, Chiron became intimately familiar with suffering in

all forms because of his incurable wound. Working with clients in a Jungian and

Chironian way is a different way of approaching therapy. It requires that therapists be

intimately aware of their own wounds and shadow. In staying aware of his or her own

wounds the therapist is impacted and moved by the therapy (Sedgwick, 1994). The

mystery in this action stimulates the patient’s inner healer and the process of

individuation within them. This requires radical honesty and undergoing therapy, self-

analysis, and self-observation. Chironian consciousness also requires the capacity to sit

with one’s suffering and irreconcilable opposites in one’s psyche, rather than prematurely

transcending them.
 49

It is the therapist’s job to gently track the wound and invite the client to return to

it and its symbolic invitation to engage with split-off aspects of self. In this effort it may

help to encourage a client who is on a spiritual path to pay attention to both sides of an

inner conflict, the Buddha’s Middle Way (Middle Way Society, n.d.) and Aristotle’s

(1934) Golden Mean. Their ideas of the path between two extremes or opposites appear

to interface nicely with the Jungian idea of the transcendent function (Hart, 2008; Singer,

1994). Helping a client hold the opposites, observe the mean, or find a middle way while

waiting for the messages of the psyche to appear holds the promise of movement toward

reintegrating mind and body, spirit and instincts, and humankind and nature.
 Chapter IV
Summary and Conclusions

Summary

Chapter II laid the foundation for addressing the relationship between spiritual

bypassing and the myth of Chiron, and their application to clinical work. It introduced

spiritual bypassing as the tendency to avoid dealing in depth with one’s psychological

wounds (Masters, 2010; Welwood, 2000). Many spiritual paths are oriented toward

transcendence and neglect psychology and deep work with the body, an imbalance

supported by the Apollonian emphasis in Western culture on the mind and spirit (Bolen,

1989). Through inflation or spiritual pride, the individual can assume a persona that

defends against split-off, undesirable aspects of self (Sharp, 1991). Jungian views on the

self-regulating psyche and the path of individuation (Hart, 2008; Jung, 1928/1966;

Singer, 1994) and the Wounded Healer archetype (Sedgwick, 1994) were reviewed as

offering a roadmap out of spiritual bypass.

Chapter III explored Chiron’s journey as a template for the quest to heal oneself

and become more whole and individuated. Chiron sought to avoid the pain of childhood

wounding by dwelling in the Apollonian mind and focusing on others. However, his

repressed material struck back from the unconscious in the form of an arrow and wound

to his leg. To become more whole Chiron had to penetrate through his persona as a great

healer and face his pain and shadow. This meant a descent to the underworld symbolic of

coming into relationship with his unconscious, including his lower animal nature and his
 51

feminine or feeling nature. Heuristic data from my experience with spiritual bypass,

descent in Jungian analysis, and the transcendent function was interwoven with Chiron’s

process. The chapter ends with a discussion of the importance of working with one’s own

shadow for therapists, assessing for spiritual bypass in clients, and supporting the process

of holding the tension of opposites in a client’s process of individuation.

Suggestions for Further Research

One area of further research is how somatic-based psychotherapies can interface

with Jungian approaches to the psyche and spiritual bypassing. This study explored

Jungian views on working with wounds and the body. This approach takes wounds out of

the literal and into the symbolic, archetypal, and metaphorical. Research tracking the

results of holding the tension between these two approaches may offer much promise to

support a more embodied spirituality.

Another area of further research is the astrological aspect of Chiron. Although this

study did not address astrological elements, it was formulated to cover many of the

Chironian themes astrologers have identified (Lass, 2005, Reinhart, 1989). In addition to

being a myth, Chiron is a small planet or planetoid between Saturn and Uranus located

and named in November 1977. The placement of the Chiron in an individual’s natal chart

is used by astrologers and some depth psychologists to locate and bring greater awareness

to one’s Chironian wound, an area that is “initially blocked, wounded or functioning

poorly, although it can also describe where we have a unique and individual contribution

to make” (Reinhart, 1989, p. 38). Research might examine if identifying the placement of

Chiron in natal charts can help individuals delve deeper into their core wounds and

realize where their contribution to healing or helping others can be developed.

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