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Abstract

I have developed a concept I call the Symbolic Growth Experience (SGE). This concept refers to those significant moments in life when we create personal meaning by symbolizing our immediate experience in the interest of heightened consciousness and personal growth. The SGE suggests a radical way of apprehending and responding to our experience. As we perceive or create the symbolic dimensions of our experience we become profound and sensitive interpreters of our innermost lives and creative agents in our growth. The SGE is intimately related to the developmental process. At the time an SGE occurs, many complex psychological and environmental forces converge to form a harmonious and meaningful pattern. It is the propitious timing of this Gestalt formation that strongly suggests Carl Jung's concept of "synchronicity." This important concept aids us in understanding the nature of the SGE; the SGE, in turn, extends and enriches the meaning of synchronicity.

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The Symbolic Growth Experience

Abstract

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References