Jungian philosophy views archetypes as images which derive from the unconscious, and which symbolise a universal aspect of human experience. 

The Archetypal Death Parent symbolises harm suffered at the hands of a person or institution who we expect to nurture and protect us.

The Death Parent’s energy is multifaceted. This presentation explores the Death Parent manifest as toxic shame.

Toxic shame is an embodied conviction that we are intrinsically and fundamentally flawed.

When the Death Parent is expressed as toxic shame, it is as if we are caught in Medusa’s gaze: we become paralyzed, frozen, and turned to stone.

When the archetypal Death Parent is internalised as toxic shame, we turn Medusa’s gaze in on ourselves and out on to others. Vicious, self-perpetuating spirals ensue.

This presentation illuminates these shame-fuelled spirals, by drawing on archetypal images, psychodynamics, myth, evolution and lived experience.