What Is Psychological Astrology? 5 Ways You Can Use It In Your Everyday Life

Psychological astrology brings psychology and astrology together along their unifying thread: understanding our potentials and challenges and moving, through self-knowledge and practice, through obstacles and into a more joyful and fulfilled life. 

Psychological astrology dictates that every person arrives on this planet with specific proclivities, strengths, and liabilities. It's a way of understanding what our "life school" is this time around: where we're meant to explore and grow, and where we are naturally strongest. An understanding of our own birth charts supports us to live into the complete fullness of our unique selves and to better understand and appreciate the uniqueness and potential of others. 

The psychological part looks at how through our "nurturing," we have developed certain patterns, defenses, and strengths and how to address those adaptations or "complexes" to become more fulfilled and higher functioning. The astrological part is the "nature" aspect that reveals our cosmic DNA and what our divine lesson plan reveals. A psychological astrology reading combines the nature and nurture aspects of development and helps the individual rise to the highest expression of both. It also helps the petitioner understand divine timing in terms of shorter and longer-lasting cycles of challenge and opportunity.

An important note: Psychological astrology is not about prediction and ironclad fate; it is about using our unlimited capacities to learn and grow and make the most out of our inherent assets and challenges.

Let's say I have my sun in Capricorn and my moon in Aries and that my rising sign is Leo. This reinforces that my identity (sun) centers around being a hard worker with great accountability and a love of getting things done; that my needs (moon) include vigorous movement, action, and emotional expression; and that my way of showing up in the world (rising) tends to be loving, theatrical, creative, and generous.*

Each of these signs also has a less skillful side. When less self-aware or under more stress, a Capricorn Sun person can become controlling, forget to rest, and be overly needy of external approval; an Aries Moon can fly off the handle or feel constantly in need of attention around their emotional state; and a Leo rising can hog the spotlight and fail to let others shine. 

A writer friend couldn't decide which educational path to pursue. Should he write novels? Short stories? Creative nonfiction? Articles? Blogs? Poetry? Screenplays? A reading of his birth chart revealed a deeply intuitive nature (Pisces Sun), a love of details (Virgo moon), and a desire to stand for harmony and beauty in the world (Libra rising). With this understanding, he recognized that poetry was the best path for him. He entered an MFA program and wrote a beautiful book of poetry focused on the natural world and its preservation. 

Knowing our most important values is a big part of making decisions responsibly, and knowing the planetary placements in our birth chart can add much to our understanding of those values. 

The placement of the planets at any given time tends to be reflected in the events of the world and in the way people feel and interact. They also interact in meaningful ways with the planets in your birth chart. (This is how horoscopes are created: through an analysis of the relationships between the planets and your Sun sign.) We invite you to see this not as a way of predicting what will happen but as a mythic organizing lens through which to see the whole world and your place in it. 

As we move through a world that can sometimes seem to make no sense, we can turn to psychological astrology to better understand the cosmic energies at play in current events. A look at the current placements of the planets called cycles, or transits, can help us orient ourselves with these energies and to work with them rather than against them.