Lyna Tévenaz Jones

Lyna Tévenaz Jones Depth Psychotherapist I Salt Lake City
IFS Level 1 • Psychodynamic • Jungian • Play Therapy
Inner work for lasting change.

05/27/2026

Youth Suicidality and the Crisis of Meaning: The Diagnostic Failure of Superficial Interventions —

We, as a society, are burying an entire generation of young men, by offering superficial protocols to wounds that are existential.

Youth suicidality continues to climb, we continue slapping short-term behavioral compliance for deeper wounds.

It is an utter insult to the depth of human suffering to tell a young man drowning im despair that he "simply needs to reframe his thoughts".

When a young individual is staring down a massive, agonizing abyss of depression, the problem isn't just that his "thoughts are distorted."
The problem is often a profound paralysis of the soul, sinking amidst a profound disconnect from societal and relational container.

We encourage, popularize the prouesses of vulnerability, but we meet that vulnerability with "evidence-based" interventions and sterile worksheets.

And at times, no actual infrastructure to hold that vulnerability when it does appear.

We need to recognize that oftentimes, a young person's despair is a starvation or f meaning.
Yes it can be chemical malfunction AND a longing for meaning.
Treatment ought to involve identity exploration, unconscious weights, the blocks to the path of adulthood our youth faces today, rather than a mere cognitive dial.

We have spend two decades (referring to the peak of youth suicidality around
2009 aggressively marketing awareness and vulnerability to a generation of young men.
But when they drop their armor, get into therapy or outpatient programs what do they actually encounter?
A clinical waiting list. A superficial behavioral checklist, that might make them even more depersonalised, telling them to simply *reframe* their despair.

Too often, their deep suffering is band-aided with short-term behavioral compliance onto an arterial wound of the soul, which is a profound mismatch of depth.

It also internalizes a systemic crisis, telling a suffering young person that the fault lies entirely within their own mechanics, giving them *coping skills*, and when those skills fail them (because they most certainly will when facing the deeper wound of suicidality, what do they feel?

More shame. More hopelessness.
Less will to remain alive.

When a young man’s despair is met with a cognitive dial, he learns that his suffering is just a malfunction in his machinery.
But this isn't a mechanical failure; it is a profound starvation of meaning.

Until our treatment models and clinical trainings match the actual depth of human suffering, we will continue to bury a generation under the weight of our own superficiality.

Yes — insurance models carry their share of responsibility but that will be for another post.



When there is no way out, the way in often begins — Feeling utterly stuck is often a prerequisite before real change occ...
05/20/2026

When there is no way out, the way in often begins —

Feeling utterly stuck is often a prerequisite before real change occurs.

Real growth rarely happens when the ego is comfortably sailing along.
It happens when our standard coping mechanisms fail, creating a crack through which the unconscious can speak.

Dr. von Franz reminds us that Jung believed that real inner growth often begins when we’re stuck in a situation that feels impossible - where no choice feels right and there’s no clear way out.

These situations aren’t accidents; they’re meant to shake up our ego from its usual mode of functioning, which usually thinks it’s in control and can solve everything.

If we keep avoiding the problem or refuse to make a decision, we remain stuck.

But if we’re willing to face the pain honestly and deeply, something greater inside us begins to emerge, what Jung called the Self, our deeper, wiser center.

It’s like being forced to rely on something beyond our usual ways of coping.

The Self, our inner, mysterious nucleus of wholeness, quietly directs our psychic unfolding, much like a seed knows how to become a tree.

From a Jungian perspective, when no choice feels right, it means the conscious mind doesn't have the answer yet.
By staying still in the middle of the discomfort - not collapsing, but not forcing a fake solution either - you create the space for a third completely unexpected path to emerge from your deeper center.

Perhaps the hard changes life often asks of you is an eviction notice from a version of life you have outgrown.

Quote in poster: Marie-Louise von Franz, Archetypal Dimensions of the Psyche.

Why women who have healed themselves from trauma are often particularly vulnerable to burnout.The higher tolerance for h...
05/18/2026

Why women who have healed themselves from trauma are often particularly vulnerable to burnout.

The higher tolerance for hyper functioning can be a huge blind spot on the trauma recovery journey.

When survival has historically depended on hyper-vigilance and high functioning, a woman's baseline for normal is already amped up to a level that would exhaust most people.

While they did the deep work to heal themselves, that massive capacity to endure and perform remains and can get redirected into daily life, career, relationships.

Because they can handle so much, they continue to do so.

They also have a higher baseline of tolerance.

For women who have overcome a tremendous amount of obstacles, healed their childhood trauma, the baseline for what constitute a crisis can be so high that their body don't even bother to signal ordinary exhaustion.

It waits until the tank is entirely empty, when the lights totally, suddenly go off.

Because their nervous system is historically conditioned to thrive under extreme pressure, their internal alarm system doesn't go off at overload, it only goes off at catastrophe.
They miss the subtle, early physical and emotional cues of exhaustion because, compared to past trauma, everyday stress feels entirely manageable.

There is a deep, hard-won pride in being the one who healed herself, who CAN hold it all together, solve the problems, achieve.
Stepping back or admitting overload can unconsciously feel like a regression into helplessness, rather than a conscious choice of self-preservation.

They don't realize they are running a marathon at a sprinting pace until their body forces a complete shutdown, turnimg the traditional definition of resilience on its head.

True resilience in later stages of healing isn't about how much more you can endure- perhaps it is about having the capacity to recognize your human limit and choose to stop before the crash happens.



Today's mother is a different kind of species altogether.Modern mamas have to carry far more today than any generation t...
05/10/2026

Today's mother is a different kind of species altogether.
Modern mamas have to carry far more today than any generation that came before.

Modern motherhood has become psychically nearly impossible to experience with serenity because in our day and age, mothers are pressured to be:
– Available at all times
– Psychologically aware and astute
– Economically successful
– Physically desirable
– Pedagogically competent
– Emotionally regulated
– Internally healed
– Endlessly creative
– A perfect homemaker

What else did I leave out?

Consequently, many mothers live with a constant sense of failure.
The truth is that the human psyche was never meant to carry this much ALONE.
Mothering used to be a collective act.
Give yourself a pat in the back, a respite, and so much compassion today.




We do not heal for ourselves alone. We heal so the wound stops here. We are the first generations to have the vocabulary...
05/06/2026

We do not heal for ourselves alone.
We heal so the wound stops here.

We are the first generations to have the vocabulary for our inner lives.
When we enter the therapeutic space, we aren't just working on our own symptoms...we are a transgenerational bridge between our ancestors and our descendance.

If my great-grandmother (WWI orphan) could have seen the long tail of her silenced trauma, how it eventually crystallized into family patterns or unspoken wounds, she might have realized a few things, had she been given the chance to have access to that knowledge.

The power of naming: In her time, naming a feeling was often equated with wallowing in it. Seeing the modern psychological landscape, she might have realized that naming an emotion doesn't give it power over you; it actually prevents it from leaking out sideways onto the next generation.

Stoicism as adaptation: she viewed resilience as a shield protecting her family.
A glimpse into the future might have shown her that while stoicism helps survive a crisis, it only pushes the pain, the grief into the unconscious and the shadow of the next generation. She might have traded a bit of that toughness for a more visible vulnerability.

Narrative as medicine: the silent coping mechanism of her generation often meant that family traumas were buried.
Had she seen how these ghosts persist when left unaddressed, she might have been more of a storyteller, ensuring that her struggles were understood in her temporal context rather than becoming an inherited burden.

It is bittersweet.
We are doing the work our ancestors likely didn’t even have the vocabulary to begin, turning that silence into a conscious dialogue.

Silence is not empty: it is a carrier of what remains unheard.
In depth psychology, we recognize that what remains unsaid in one generation often becomes a ghost in the next, shaping behaviors and beliefs from the shadows.



Why can a new knowing trigger anxiety, even when you know it is right for you?Alignment with self is not a finish line.I...
05/05/2026

Why can a new knowing trigger anxiety,
even when you know it is right for you?

Alignment with self is not a finish line.
It’s a process of ongoing recalibration.

It is possible to know that something is no longer right for you without yet possessing the capacity to fully disengage. You may also acknowledge a genuine desire without having the immediate ability to implement it. And that gap can cause intense discomfort, guilt, shame...a part of you may begin to loudly shame you for not acting upon what you know.

That dissonance can be perplexing and destabilizing. It suggests that you are currently suspended between two versions of yourself: your old functioning self and a more differentiated self.

When we reorganize our inner world, there is a stage of personal growth that includes a dissonance of alignment—the gap between what we know is right for us and our current capacity to carry out that knowing.

You might hold the expectation that knowing what is aligned for you should bring relief, calm, and inner peace.
Often, however, the opposite is true: that internal tension does not go away.
Because: intellectual insight does NOT mean the nervous system has developed the capacity to act upon it.
Psychic clarity does not guarantee the ability to act accordingly, because the nervous system is primarily wired to gravitate toward what feels safe and retreat from perceived threats.

You may "know," but if your nervous system is still organized around old functioning, it may retreat, hesitate, resist, or dysregulate in the face of new insights...fighting tooth and nail to keep you in the familiar.

Psychic knowing helps us recognize, differentiate, and formulate, but it does not guarantee the capacity to carry out what we need to do.
I like to think of alignment with the self as existing in two registers: psychic insight and the nervous system's capacity to live in that alignment.
This capacity must be built slowly for it to catch up to your intellectual knowledge.

This capacity is rebuilt through:
Repeated experiences of slight relational risks.
Increasing your threshold of tolerance.
Restoring familiarity with new emotional states.

Holding the tension between your new knowing and your old functioning requires walking the middle path - the narrow space between self-betrayal and gradual, integrated change.


"These roles result in powerless responsibility rather than social power. Adolescent women especially are at risk for be...
04/30/2026

"These roles result in powerless responsibility rather than social power.
Adolescent women especially are at risk for believing cultural stereotypes about female beauty as power.
As psychotherapists, we must increasingly become aware of the actual social meanings associated with the power of female appearance and whether or how they bring real satisfaction."
— Polly Young-Eisendrath & Florence Wiedermann, Female Authority: Empowering Women Through Psychotherapy.

What is the organic source of one's power and vitality, when unwrapped from external diktats that flood our minds? Even though women have greater power to choose how to direct their lives, physical appearance is perhaps more tokenized than ever, still the principal token of societal acceptance and a source of monetization on social media.
How do we unpeel the layers of conditioning around female physical appearance while still preserving the soul-rooted importance of beauty and its unique expression?

Social media has partly amplified, displaced, and exploited the earlier, developmental need for idealisation.When you se...
04/22/2026

Social media has partly amplified, displaced, and exploited the earlier, developmental need for idealisation.
When you see a “perfect” woman, mother, or professional, your mind temporarily leans on her.
Of course we know that the perfect facade portrayed online is oftentimes an illusion.
And her calm, her beauty, her organization, her success, her perfect self-regulation, her perfect life…gives you a brief sense that an ideal is possible and this is what it looks like. In turn, part of you may feel a bit more stable and confident just seeing this.
So the relief is real.
But it doesn’t last because that person isn’t actually in a relationship with you so your psyche cannot internalize those attributes.
You can’t truly take in what she has—you can only look at it.
And so, after a while, the feeling often shifts from inspiration to comparison because the lack of relationship does not allow you to integrate and absorb what you're drawn to.
It stays on the surface.

Disclaimer. For educational purposes only—not therapy. Content is general and may not apply to your situation. Trust your judgment. Not intended for abuse, active addiction, or certain mental health conditions.




Breaking the continuity of transgenerational trauma, dysfunctional patterns, or even a chronic habit that no longer fits...
04/20/2026

Breaking the continuity of transgenerational trauma, dysfunctional patterns, or even a chronic habit that no longer fits you often brings about difficulties on its own.
It is often wrapped in loneliness and being misunderstood.
Therapy and inner work often create a distance between you and your loved ones that is rarely discussed. How do you navigate relationships when you are no longer willing to ignore toxic patterns?
Others may remain in the same operating system, while you no longer share the same worldviews.
The internal tension engendered by our own work of consciousness can also be painful, as some of our relationships were established around old versions of self and those unconscious contracts. For the bond itself was often established *before* this work began.
It rested upon certain unspoken assumptions: remaining silent in certain situations, playing specific roles, and tolerating particular dynamics.
When YOU change, you step outside of that unconscious contract.
Consequently, several things may emerge for you.
This brings a sense of solitude and the frustration of finally seeing mechanisms that were once invisible. Perhaps the next stage is resisting the impulse to change the other person and instead adjusting your own internal stance. This requires accepting that some people will never meet you on certain levels—a genuine loss.
It may look like accepting that certain people will remain unable to meet you on certain levels. Letting go of the need to be understood in those specific areas (and this is a genuine loss). Lerning to remain connected without betraying yourself.

Relational maturity means learning to stay connected without betraying yourself, yet without demanding from others what they cannot give. It is the practice of seeing clearly without becoming morally superior, and remaining open without reverting to naivety or excusing their behaviors because you know better so you should be more *compassionate*.

I'm thrilled to present to the San Antonio Society for Psychoanalytic Studies this Friday, 4/17, on the following topic:...
04/13/2026

I'm thrilled to present to the San Antonio Society for Psychoanalytic Studies this Friday, 4/17, on the following topic:

The Mother Wound: A Jungian and Psychoanalytic Approach to De- Idealization and Internal Maternal Repair.

Healing the mother wound means reclaiming and releasing the archetypal Great Mother in our inner world and in our bodies.

The healing often involves shifting the "ideal" from the personal mother (who is human and limited) to the archetypal Great Mother.
The resentment one may rightly feel when the personal mother did not provide enough is often the gap between who she is and who we needed our mama to be, the ultimate, perfect, and only carrier of the Great Mother archetype.
And until we separate our personal Mother from the vast, timeless, and cosmic archetype that is the Great Mother, we remain enchained to a ghost, the ghost of the personal Mother, who she should and could have been.
To achieve psychic sovereignty, one has to face a great disillusionment - aka the painful realization that the "Perfect Mother" you have been waiting for - the one who will finally "see" you or give you the closure you need - does not exist and never did. But the archetype was and is real.

That's when we relinquish the demand for the human mother to perform as a goddess - an impossible task we are bound to fail and bound to be failed by.
The deepest healing work of the Mother Wound is a developmental arc, much deeper than reframes and cognitive gymnastics.
During my presentation, I will explore the arc of transforming the Mother Wound structurally.

- Differentiate clinically between the personal mother, the maternal selfobject, and the maternal archetype. Participants will learn to understand how the unresolved idealization of the personal mother contributes to the persistence of the mother wound.
- Identify the psychic stages involved in healing the mother wound, including de-idealization, withdrawal of archaic projection, and mature mourning, from both a Jungian and Self Psychology perspective.

The presentation will be online.
Message me privately if you are interested in joining the live lecture.



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