Dr. Jung took notes during this disclosure by Mitch. He frequently nodded and expressed dismay as Mitch talked about his painfully fractured relationship with Frank. Dr. Jung suggested that they take a short break and invited Mitch to drink some water provided in an elegant pitcher located on the table beside the Bonsai Plant. Mitch mentioned that he also has a Bonsai plant in his office and worries a bit about his assistant taking care of it while he is in Zurich.
Associations and Concerns
This first session resumed. Dr. Jung asks Mitch to participate in a brief exercise. It concerned the reading of some words to Mitch and asking him to respond by sharing whatever word or phrase comes to his mind. Jung offers a set of words, including such words as “Leader,” “Failure,” “Enemy,” “Success,” “Friend,” “Regret”, “Vacation”, “Stress”, “Overwhelm” and “Re-newal.” After presenting the words, Dr. Jung provided a brief report regarding his impressions of Mitch’s reactions to some of the words on the list. Three words seem to have stood out as being particularly difficult for Mitch. It took longer for Mitch to respond, there were often several different responses to these words, and Mitch seems to exhibit some emotions when answering these three words. They were: (1) “overwhelm”, (2) “friend” and (3) “regret.”
Mitch indicated that all three of these words related to his deteriorating relationship with Frank. The word, “regret,” was particularly stressful for Mitch. He felt a “lump in his throat” as he talked some more about how painful his shifting relationship with Frank has been. Dr. Jung asked Mitch what he “regrated.” Mitch paused for a moment and then said: “I regret many things. I guess most important is my regret about so often getting mad at Frank. I know that I am deeply hurting his feelings. But our business does have to change!!” Dr. Jung speaks softly for several minutes about the powerful impact which regret has in our lives. He mentions that Regret is actually a stronger emotion and motivator than either the fear of loss or hope of success. Dr. Jung made a very powerful statement: “we would rather lose something than regret not even trying to be successful”. Mitch thought that this statement would be worth pondering in coming days.
Dr. Jung closes the session by asking Mitch to do a bit of homework. He was to go on-line to Jung Type Test and complete an inventory that helps to identify personality types. These are the personality types that Dr. Jung’s uncle first identified. While his uncle always identified personality preferences by simply listening to his patients, there are now inventories that can be taken which speed up the process. Dr. Jung mentioned that there is one inventory that is most commonly used (created by a mother and daughter team, Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs-Myers), he prefers the online inventory that he has asked Mitch to complete.
The session ends. Mitch leaves, reflecting on the matter of “regret.” He realizes that he has many other regrets that he didn’t identify in this first session. Several of his regrets concern his wife. Dare he bring these into the session with Dr. Freud, given that Joan is also working with the good doctor?
Session Two
Upon entering Dr. Jung’s office and settling into the comfortable chair, Mitch immediately indicated that there were several other regrets that he wanted to disclose. In several cases, these regrets seemed to contradict one another.
Regrets and Polarities
On the one hand, Mitch regrets that he has pushed hard on moving into the digital era of newspaper publications. On the other hand, he regrets not having moved to digital publication even earlier. Mitch feels like he is “catching up” with other newspaper publishers and, in particular, with those providing news purely in a digital format. He also feels like he is “betraying” his dear friend, Frank, and his initial commitment made 20 years ago with Frank to producing a high-quality print-based newspaper. He was one of the first to produce a newspaper that made extensive use of color graphics—yet now he is behind the times and betraying his friend and their shared commitment to quality.
