In Carl Jung’s book, The Undiscovered Self, he used the phrase, psychic infection to describe all sorts of psychological woes that can overtake us. The phrase stuck out to me because it aptly describes what happens to us when we are run down internally. We get sick psychologically much in the same way our body catches an infection. Think about the symptoms we tend to associate with a bodily infection:  fever, sore throat, weariness, aching and so forth. Now think of those same symptoms from a psychological standpoint, and each one becomes a fairly clear metaphor of what can happen to us psychologically and emotionally.

I could go on and on pushing this metaphor to the limits, but that would get old really fast. Suffice to say, that the phrase, without a lot of editorializing, has merit and might help us understand why sometimes we are psychologically and emotionally run down. We’ve "caught" something and need to rest and take care of our inner life.

OK, let’s push it just a bit more…

I wonder if organizations can get infections. Hmmm…stay tuned.