Lopa Mukherjee
Contributor
Articles by Lopa Mukherjee (14)
The symbolic and the subjective
By Lopa Mukherjee - Jan 15, 2022
antahhkarannacitta, manas, buddhi and ahaṃkāracittamanasbuddhiahaṃkāra
All the world’s a stage: on drama therapy
By Lopa Mukherjee - Jan 15, 2021
This article discusses the many personalities each individual possesses that makes him act as though he were many actors, switching roles seamlessly during the course of the day. When this acting is done consciously and for the purpose of healing, it is called drama therapy. It is a form of expressive arts therapy that draws out repressed emotions to the surface for cleansing purposes. A repressed affect causes pathology in other layers of the being and can be an invisible drag on the person’s well-being. The process of expressing it releases the repressed emotion’s hold on the psyche. Trauma victims enact the scenes of their trauma and socialise the crime to heal their own wounding. Those in the audience who may have suffered a similar fate also find solace. In the safe container created by the therapist the drama can be acted out, repeatedly if needed, with new and positive endings. Many festivals and rituals in pre-modern cultures addressed this need to dramatise, to play-act, to externalise, to transcend one’s ordinary reality.
Archetypal Psychology
By Lopa Mukherjee - Jan 15, 2020
Archetypal Psychology is a field of psychology that was born in the early 1970s, formulated by the psychologist, James Hillman. It treats the soul, or the innermost haloed entity in a person, as the primary object of attention. This new psychology is in contrast to older psycho-analytical methods where the subconscious is treated as the primary source of information. In Archetypal Psychology, fantasising, mythologizing, embodying archetypes, weaving soul-stories, personifying, sensing the aliveness of everything animate and inanimate are ways of healing oneself. Archetypal Psychology considers psychological pathologies as messages coming from the soul that we need to pour into and not get rid of, with superficial cures. This article introduces Archetypal Psychology and gives a glimpse of its refreshing worldview.
Emotional Literacy Training
By Lopa Mukherjee - Jan 15, 2019
This essay adds practical details to the article, ‘An Emotional Literacy Programme’, that was printed in the previous issue. It lists topics that will be covered sequentially and as classroom activities for each topic. Clippings from films and excerpts from books are used to illuminate concepts. Case studies will be analysed and situations will be presented around which participants will model interactions. Role-playing will be used to internalise the training. This is a blueprint for an emotional literacy training programme for any community. It can be modified for specific groups such as nurses, teachers, lawyers or parents. This article being a sequel to the first, will not explain the meanings of concepts that were presented there, but will use the terms as though the reader understands them. Each topic can be taught over several sessions, and each group can decide if they want to dive deeper into some of them.