Dja-Dja Spa

26/03/2026

25/03/2026

The idea that “the best thing for your nervous system is another human, and the worst thing is also another human,” often attributed to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, reflects how deeply social our brains are. Humans rely on co-regulation, meaning our nervous systems are constantly influenced by the people around us. Supportive relationships—through touch, tone of voice, eye contact, and empathy—help calm stress responses, regulate emotions, and create a sense of safety. In this way, healthy human connection becomes one of the most powerful tools for emotional stability and overall well-being.

At the same time, relationships can also be a major source of stress and harm. Negative interactions such as conflict, rejection, neglect, or emotional abuse can dysregulate the nervous system, leading to anxiety, fear, and even long-term psychological trauma. As Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work suggests, our brains are shaped by social experience, meaning harmful relationships can leave lasting effects on how we feel and respond to the world. This makes human connection a double-edged sword—capable of both healing and hurting us at a deep biological level.

19/03/2026

Scientists figured out how to *double* brain waste clearance just by massaging the skin.

The discovery may be the future of Alzheimer's prevention.

Scientists have discovered a non-invasive way to enhance the brain’s natural waste-clearing system, which could open new doors for treating neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) demonstrated in mice that gently stimulating lymphatic vessels beneath the skin of the face and neck significantly boosts cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow—a critical mechanism for flushing out harmful substances from the brain. Using a specially designed mechanical stimulator, the team was able to double CSF outflow and restore drainage levels in aged mice, without drugs or surgery.

This breakthrough offers a potential new approach for safely improving brain health in aging populations.

The researchers also identified previously unknown drainage routes from the brain to superficial lymph nodes through facial lymphatics—routes that remain functional even in older animals. These findings complete the anatomical map of CSF outflow and suggest the feasibility of wearable or clinical devices to enhance brain waste clearance. While more research is needed to determine its long-term effects and application in human patients, the team is optimistic that this gentle mechanical approach could be developed into a therapeutic tool to prevent or slow neurodegenerative disease progression.

paper
Nature. Increased CSF drainage by non-invasive manipulation of cervical lymphatics, June 4, 2025

18/03/2026

12/03/2026

When psychic experience cannot be symbolized, the body often becomes the stage upon which the psyche expresses itself. What cannot yet be spoken, imagined, or consciously held may be carried somatically. In this sense, the body manifests what the psyche cannot yet symbolise.

A true symbol emerges when conscious understanding meets something unknown or unconscious. It allows psychic energy to move and transform. When symbolic life is blocked, however, this transformative process is interrupted. Psychic energy that cannot move through symbol, image, dream, or imagination may instead appear in the body - as tension, illness, fatigue, or unexplained symptoms.

Marion Woodman wrote how the body often carries the weight of psychic realities that have not yet found symbolic expression. Symptoms are not merely pathologies but meaningful communications from the psyche. The body ‘speaks’ when the symbolic function is compromised. In many cases, compulsions, addictions, or physical suffering arise where the psyche longs for symbolic life but has been deprived of it.

Tina Stromsted suggests that the body itself is imaginal - that sensations, gestures, and movements are forms of symbolic language. When individuals reconnect with the body through movement, breath, and awareness, symbolic images often emerge spontaneously. In this way, the body can become the gateway back to symbolic life.

From this perspective, the task is not simply to eliminate symptoms but to listen to them. Symptoms may represent psychic energy seeking transformation. When we engage dreams, images, active imagination, or embodied awareness, the energy held in the body can gradually take symbolic form and become available for psychological development.

The symbolic life is therefore essential to psychic health: through symbols the psyche metabolises experience, allowing the tension between conscious and unconscious to be held creatively rather than somatically. In this way, the symbol transforms psychic energy and releases the body from carrying alone what belongs to the whole psyche.

~ Written by Denise Grobbelaar, , Jungian Analyst

Image credit: Frida Kahlo, The Wounded Deer (1946)

References:
- Stromsted, T. (2025). Soul's body: Active imagination, authentic movement, & embodiment in psychotherapy. Routledge.
- Woodman, M. (1982). Addiction to Perfection: The Still Unravished Bride. Toronto: Inner City Books

06/03/2026

For Jung, a symbol is the best possible expression of something not yet fully known. [1] The symbol is “an unconscious a priori [that] precipitates itself into plastic form.” [2] It is not a sign explaining what we already understand, but an image that carries what consciousness cannot yet hold — psychic energy taking form.

Symbols arise when tension can no longer simply be discharged.

Usually we regulate ourselves. Anger is expressed. Sadness is cried. Anxiety is reasoned through. Conflict resolves when we choose a side.

But sometimes the tension doesn't resolve.

The feeling is too large. The opposites are polarised. Instinct threatens ego-identity. Trauma refuses language. The old structures no longer contain what is happening.

So the psyche does something ancient and precise.

It holds the tension.

Energy gathers — and condenses into image.

A child overwhelmed by loss dreams of a tidal wave engulfing the house — grief too vast for words.

A woman in midlife dreams of descending into a cave — leaving the known world for something dark and necessary.

A man divided between aggression and goodness dreams of a serpent coiled in his living room — instinct waiting to be faced.

The image does not solve the conflict. It contains it.

A symbol is a vessel. It gives shape to what cannot yet be said. It stands between instinct and consciousness, holding opposites long enough for transformation.

The image does not disappear. It becomes a lived symbol rather than literal.

The tidal wave becomes lived grief. The cave becomes a chosen descent. The serpent becomes a conscious encounter with vitality.

Living symbolically means remaining with the image — neither possessed by it nor dismissing it — until something new begins to take form.

~ Written by Nici Partridge (), Jungian Analyst and Psychologist

Image credit: A detail from William Blake's 1810 watercolour, ‘Adam Naming the Beasts’.

References:
[1] Jung, C. G. (1953/1966). Two essays on analytical psychology (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1916/1928)

[2] Jung, C. G. (1960/1969). The structure and dynamics of the psyche (R. F. C. Hull, Trans.). Princeton University Press. (Original work published 1928–1950)