#153 - Jungian Analyst Erica Lorentz: Body as Shadow - Jungs Method of Embodied Healing
"In modern culture, our sensitivity to our embodied soul has largely retreated into the shadow. An individual may be an excellent athlete or a consummate dancer, for example, but that does not guarantee a healthy relationship with our sensual authority, emotions, or imagination. Indeed, to excel in these areas and achieve our goals of efficiency and precision, we need to focus acutely on breathing, muscles, bones, and rhythm. This creates false gods of perfectionism and achievement." (from page 44 of Body as Shadow, 2026)
I am so glad to welcome teacher, lecturer, workshop facilitator, supervisor and Jungian Analyst Erica Lorentz to this chapter of TAP. Erica is the author of Body as Shadow - Jungs Method of Embodied Healing, that she just published after many years of conceiving it. Themes that come up include healing of trauma, where do you go during dissociation, trust the somatic unconscious, what does it mean if there is only darkness when you go into your imagination, and what the subtle body is, even though it cannot fully be expressed in words. Erica spontanously shares from this place in the book that magically enough already was more own favorite, both this quote but also other passages around this lunar consciousness:
"As we use the radar of our own experience to feel what a client is emitting—sensing something in the field between us that has not yet flickered into focus—we must soften into it. This is a lunar consciousness (in alchemy, a "making of the silver"). Schwartz-Salant (1982) describes what it means to perceive this kind of awakening and sight:
'This shift of consciousness can be described as a movement from a "solar consciousness" that readily leads to interpretations, into a "lunar consciousness" that focuses upon images and imaginal perceptions. This shift involves an introverted act in which psychic energy—attention and consciousness—is surrendered to the unconscious and to a symbolic sense of oneness, the One Continuum.' (p. 140)
Jung discovered this introverted act in psychic energy, which he called "indirect thinking" (1971), when he followed his soul into the underworld."
Erica has practiced Authentic Movement for many years, and had the experience of healing a serious headache through - she shares how that happened, and we speak a whole lot on Jungian psychology, symbolic journeys, and how the whole embodied soul got pushed into the shadow, and for us to heal, we need to reconnect to it and go into the imaginal creative space.
So all in all - I hope you will tap in with us - beforehand Erica had asked me to look astrologically at how the book will be received and so I interpret the Saturn aspects to her natal chart, which are many, to be a place of solid authority and a lasting impact and things becoming real now- Erica mentions the new beginning, and I totally agree that right now and the coming year is big initiation into being her own person, having her own sense of authority rather than having to rely on social expectations - I don't know obviously how anyone will receive her work, but from my own perspective this book was a joy to read, beautifully written and points to what we long for collectively...at least I do.
FIND MORE HERE:
https://ericalorentz.com/ [https://ericalorentz.com/]
the book: https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/body-as-shadow-jung/98276/?MATCH=1 [https://www.karnacbooks.com/product/body-as-shadow-jung/98276/?MATCH=1]
Mannah
https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/ [https://www.therapeuticastrologer.com/]
youtube version: https://youtu.be/4mkzAyTzDAU [https://youtu.be/4mkzAyTzDAU]
