ABSTRACT

Finalist in the Australian Career Book Award 2020, supported by the Royal Society of Arts Oceania 

Finding and following an authentic calling challenges us to bridge both the intuitive, soulful and the hard-edged, material dimensions of everyday life. From Career to Calling: A Depth Psychology Guide to Soul-Making Work in Darkening Times opens new avenues for vocational exploration and career inquiry in an imaginative way.

This unique book draws on insights from the field of Jungian and archetypal psychology to reimagine our attitudes and approaches to work, money, vocational guidance and career development. As people find themselves disillusioned with or disenfranchised from capitalist notions of work and career, Suzanne Cremen’s interdisciplinary approach illuminates how a creative, meaningful and influential work-life can emerge from attending to the archetypal basis of experience. Interweaving elements of her own journey, Cremen connects individual experience with the collective in an original way, spotlighting depression in the legal profession, marginalization of the feminine principle in work environments, and how understanding the roots of our cultural complexes can spark personal callings which facilitate collective transformation.

Blending compelling real-life stories with robust scholarly analysis and reflective activities, this book will help practitioners to support individuals to develop a sense of their soul’s calling and offer guidance on creating an authentic vocational life within the constraints of the contemporary era. Additionally, it will be invaluable to those in career transition, re-discovering their purpose at the end of a career, or commencing work-life.

chapter 1|12 pages

Job, career or calling?

chapter 3|10 pages

Vocation as soul’s opus

A symbolic perspective

chapter 6|20 pages

The abduction from career to calling

chapter 7|10 pages

Undercover shamans at work

chapter 9|10 pages

A rough and uncommonly devious footpath

Complexes as pathways to vocation

chapter 10|18 pages

Unfinished business

Callings arising from ancestral and cultural wounds

chapter 11|23 pages

Money and the dark side of vocation

chapter 12|14 pages

Living on the edge between worlds