Robert A. Johnson

Robert A. Johnson (born 1921) is an American Jungian analyst living in San Diego, California.

Life
Johnson's life course may have begun with an automobile accident at 11 years of age, which led to a near-death experience and the loss of a leg. Like Parsifal in the Grail myth, Johnson's youthful spiritual quest led him to encounters with a variety of sages, saints and sinners culminating in his discovery of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Johnson began his analytical training at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland in 1947, the year it opened. After training with Carl Jung, Emma Jung and Jolande Jacobi he completed his analytical training with Fritz Kunkel in Los Angeles and Toni Sussman in London.

In 2002 he received an honorary doctorate in humanities and a lifetime achievement award from Pacifica Graduate Institute.

Johnson also studied with Krishnamurti, with Soto Zen priest Maezumi Roshi, and at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India. For 19 years he divided his time between southern California and India. He was for a time a Benedictine monk in the Episcopal Church (Anglican Communion).

Johnson is a noted lecturer and his books have sold over two million copies in nine languages. His books are reputed not only for their wisdom and insight but also for their retellings of timeless myths and folktales, especially the Grail myth and its archetypical characters Parcifal and the wounded Fisher King. Johnson's term "inner work" has become part of the vocabulary of those who seek the truth about themselves and their life courses.

Unlived life
Johnson has recently coauthored three books with fellow Jungian psychologist Jerry M. Ruhl: Balancing Heaven and Earth, Contentment: A Way to True Happiness, and Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life. This last book examines the question of unlived life - helping people find validation and satisfaction as they age. It is a guide to the psychological tasks of our mature years when we are beckoned to grow beyond the requirements of family and society, to navigate transitions and to secure our own relationship to wholeness. Unlived life includes all those essential aspects of that have not been adequately integrated into a person's life – conscious or unconscious. You can hear the distant drumbeat of unlived life in the mutterings that go on in the back of your head. “Woulda-coulda-shoulda”. Or in second-guessing life choices. Or those late night longings. The unexpected grief that arises seemingly out of nowhere. A sense that you have somehow missed the mark, or failed to do something you were so sure you were supposed to do.

We all carry a vast inventory of abandoned, unrealized or underdeveloped talents. These do not just “go away” through disuse or by ignoring them, believing they are part of a childish fantasy or daydream. Instead they go underground and become troublesome—sometimes tormenting—as we age. The premise behind the theory of unlived life is that each of us must understand our own heritage of unrealized hopes if we are to be at peace with ourselves and others in middle-age and beyond. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Ruhl suggest that our unlived dreams, when brought to awareness, can propel us beyond our disappointments — even if outer circumstances cannot always be visibly altered.

Quotes

 * "If you are an only child, then you will never know the experience of having a brother or sister. If you are a woman then you are not a man, and some of the masculine experience is foreign to you.  If you are married you are not single. If you are a black man you are not a white man.  If you are Christian you are not Muslim.  And so it goes.  For every thing you choose (or that has been chosen for you), something else is unchosen.  This is your unlived life."


 * " When we find ourselves in a midlife depression, suddenly hate our spouse, our jobs, our lives – we can be sure that the unlived life is seeking our attention. When we feel restless, bored, or empty despite an outer life filled with riches, the unlived life is asking for us to engage. To not do this work will leave us depleted and despondent, with a nagging sense of ennui or failure.  As you may have already discovered, doing or acquiring more does not quell your unease or dissatisfaction.  Neither will “meditating on the light” or attempting to rise above the sufferings of earthly existence.  Only awareness of your shadow qualities can help you to find an appropriate place for your unredeemed darkness and thereby create a more satisfying experience.  To not do this work is to remain trapped in the loneliness, anxiety, and dualistic limits of the ego instead of awakening to your higher calling."
 * "We humans are given the most conflicting job description imaginable. We must be civilized human beings, and that requires a whole list of “dos and don’ts,” culturally determined values such as courtesy, politeness, fairness, efficiency, and all the other virtues – these comprise our duty to society.  Family, culture and the pressures of time push us to specialize, to choose this and not that, and eventually we become one-sided beings.  Simultaneously, we are called to live everything that we truly are, to be whole (which means to be hale, healthy and holy) – this is our duty to the higher Self.  This collision of values makes life so confusing and painful.  It is a terrible collision, though few people are fully aware of the contradictions they live out in the course of a week.  We avoid waking up to this inherent conflict because it is too frightening."
 * "The reason for doing inner work is not only to resolve conflict and psychological distress, but also to find within ourselves a deep source of renewal, strength, and wisdom."


 * "The difference in a teacher and a mentor is that a mentor is interested in our soul."


 * "The only hope for healing is to offer a better form of ecstasy, to upgrade so the addict will give up the stupid one."


 * "The goal of inner work is to help clients unblock their bottlenecks and learn how to live in partnership with the unconscious rather than at its mercy."


 * "It's not too difficult to get the skeletons out of the closet with people, but to get the gold out is a different matter. That is therapy. Psychology is the Art of finding the gold of the spirit."

Selected writings

 * Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life 
 * Contentment : A Way to True Happiness
 * Balancing Heaven and Earth : A Memoir of Visions, Dreams and Realizations
 * Lying with the Heavenly Woman : Understanding and Integrating the Feminine Archetypes in Men's Lives
 * Femininity : Lost and Regained
 * Transformation : Understanding the three levels of Masculine Consciousness
 * Ecstasy : Understanding the Psychology of Joy
 * The Fisher King and the Handless Maiden: Understanding the Wounded Feeling Function in Masculine and Feminine Psychology
 * Transformation: Understanding the Three Levels of Masculine Consciousness
 * Owning Your Own Shadow : Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche
 * Inner Work : Using Dreams and Creative Imagination for Personal Growth and Integration
 * Understanding Your Own Shadow
 * We : Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love
 * She : Understanding Feminine Psychology
 * He : Understanding Masculine Psychology