My psychotherapy dissertation touches on limerence

Im working on my dissertation. ts around the male mid-life transition – In Jungian terms “the middle passage” Mine seems to be going on for years now, I reckon since 1999 when I had my first crisis of meaning after a traumatic work related event.

It seems there are 4 stages we need to transition in order to individuate in the second half of our lives:

Breakdown of the personna
Encounter with the shadow
Encounter with the anima
Crossing the soul’s river

My limerence was meeting my anima. I think limerence in mid life for many of us is meeting our anima/animus.

Here are some quotes from individunification.com/2.83%2…us.html that resonate with me:

“The archetypal soul-image is always contrasexual, and as we experience our Shadow through someone else, we also experience our basic contrasexual components through another. We choose or become attached to someone who represents the qualities of our own psyche.”

“… the (soul-image) of woman becomes a receptacle for these demands, which is why a man, in his love-choice, is strongly tempted to win the woman who best corresponds to his own unconscious femininity – a woman, in short, who can unhesitatingly receive the projection of his soul. Although such a choice is often regarded and felt as altogether ideal, it may turn out that the man has manifestly married his own worst weakness.”

“The relation with the anima is again a test of courage, an ordeal by fire for the spiritual and moral forces of man.”

“Thus the encounter with the soul-image always means that the first half of life with its necessary adaptation to the outside world and the resulting extraverted orientation of consciousness is ended, and that we must begin to take the most important step of our adaptation to the inner world, namely to confront our own contrasexual aspect. ‘The activation of the archetype of the soul-image is therefore an event of fateful importance, for it is the most unmistakable sign that the second half of life has begun.”

This helps me deal with my limerence in whenever feelings around LO are activated, it makes me appreciate there are still unconscious aspects hidden in my shadow yet to reveal themselves.