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Everyone is invited to discuss current films with other curious movie-goers. Each month this self-led group will analyze a film from psychological, mythological and cultural perspectives. No need to reserve a place, and no admission is charged. The film showing starts at 2:00 pm; discussion starts when the film ends and runs to about 5:00.

Share your insights, be enriched by the observations and connections of others, build community. No need to be a member, just come join us and enjoy the show followed by about an hour or so of Jungian-based conversation and discussion.

Spring 2008: A Four Film Series on Feminine Archetypes

Complementing our Fall program on Masculine Archetypes, Jung at the Movies Spring program focuses on the three roles of the Feminine -- Maid, Mother and Crone.

Stealing Beauty: Sunday, January 27, NW Branch Library (2:00-4:45 pm)
After the death of her mother, Lucy travels to Tuscany in search of ‘true’ love and also of her real father. The role of the Maid is superbly depicted by Lucy (Liv Tyler) who meets the complexities and challenges in coming of age. Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci in 1996.

The Upside of Anger: Sunday, February 17, NW Branch Library (2:00-4:45 pm)
This terrific 2005 film portrays how a mother of four daughters copes after her husband runs off with his secretary. Joan Allen is brilliant in her portrayal of a woman who does not abide by standard codes of 'motherly' behavior and strains all around her with that most unacceptable emotion for a woman -- anger. A wry and poignant look into mother/daughter relations, as well as how to stay at arm's length from love.

Antonia's Line: Sunday, March 16, Woodstock Library (2:00-4:45 pm)
A Dutch masterpiece showing a mature woman in the fullness of her own life, pursing her own interests and providing a powerful, grounded source of feminine strength to the community surrounding her - a beautiful, sexy, humorous film. 1995 Academy Winner Best Foreign Film.

The Hours: Sunday, April 20, NW Branch Library (2:00-4:45 pm)
This brilliant film follows the parallel lives of three 20th century women intertwined through the novel Mrs. Dalloway, written by Virginia Woolf. The depictions of Author, Reader, and Character portrayed by Nicole Kidman (who won an Oscar for her performance), Julianne Moore, and Meryl Streep, provide us with complex and multifaceted characters who pay the price for living an authentic life. This great film vividly expresses the trials and determinations of the female path of individuation.

Bull Durham: Sunday, May 18, NW Branch Library (2:00 - 4:45 pm)
Ending our series on a light note, this film brings together an individuated man and woman in a playful coniunctio. Starring Susan Sarandon and Kevin Costner, baseball becomes a metaphor for the game of love and life that brings together the variety of themes that have been explored during this year of films.

NAME: The name, Centerpoint, was chosen from a statement of Dr. Esther Harding. She said that while opposites repel, they also attract; that even in the midst of the conflict, the opposites are held together by a tiny point, the miniscule dot that is the center of the crossing. She said of this dot:

“This is the point that stands firm in spite of the conflict—the essential ‘I’ that cannot bear to choose one side and neglect the opposite on pain of dismemberment. It is the individual core in us that cannot resolve a moral problem by conventional standards. In order to find this central core of Selfness, one has to undertake the arduous and dangerous responsibility of thinking for oneself. It is consciousness that’s important, not thinking as such. By becoming aware of what is your own judgment based on the totality of what you experience of yourself, you take up a position. The point has position—it is the essence of position—it is a standpoint. And the point or dot is the first symbol of the Self.”

And so it is to the discovery of this tiny focal point at the center of one’s being—one’s own standpoint—that Centerpoint is dedicated and from which it took its name.

HISTORY: Centerpoint is presented in a series of courses offered by The Educational Center in St. Louis, Missouri. In the 1970s, Elsom Eldridge and Chandler Brown discovered a natural harmony between CG Jung’s ideas and The Educational Center’s innovative approach to education. Convinced that an understanding of the collective unconscious and the individual psyche enriched lives, they developed a user-friendly format that adapts to individual study and small group interaction. Marie Louise Von Franz, William H. Kennedy, Edward Edinger, and Esther Harding were among the Jungians who contributed to the development of these courses.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Cassette tapes offer a combination of well-researched content, imaginative presentation, and stimulating questions to guide discussion. A comprehensive workbook accompanies the cassettes.

The content of Centerpoint courses captivates, informs, and unravels complex concepts within the context of a learning community. A learning community evokes the dynamic of growth and the energy of kinship. Such a community evolves among individuals who are open to fresh perspectives in themselves and in each other. Myths, fairytales, and other archetypal materials are used in the sessions and participants are encouraged to record their dreams and to write in their journals for their own personal process and benefit.

It is stressed that the groups are leaderless; they are not therapy groups or sensitivity training group. There should be no confrontation or advice giving. The emphasis throughout the Centerpoint program is for participants to find their own personal relation to what is evoked by the content of the sessions. Discussions are subjective and personal, and individuals are encouraged to share personal material only when and if they are comfortable doing so. Much care has been given to providing a framework that is healthy and which allows participants to move, unprodded by others, at their own pace. Centerpoint is divided into separate courses:

. Centerpoint I, II, and III
. Questpoint
. Vantage Point

Click here for Centerpoint Web site

Vantage Point follows the same self-governed structure as Centerpoint and is the newest series of short courses, each distinct and independent of the others. The Threshold is the beginning point. Groups start here and continue through the series of courses in any order. The other course material is also available to any group wanting to continue their study. A brief description of the content in each course follows.

The Threshold (5 sessions) The Threshold is the doorway to discerning the basic understandings that motivate us—the ones we have absorbed and the ones we have chosen as our own. The course looks at bits and pieces: Life and death, psychology and religion, Norse mythology and Russian fairy tales, the Bible and the Upanishads, the Gnostics, and modern physics.

From These All-Uniting Depths (5 sessions) The subject is dreams. The sessions include material about the Gnostic, Jewish, and Jungian perspectives of dreams and the individual’s relationship to them. Participants learn to work with their dreams.

The Nessus Shirt (5 sessions) This course retells the Greek myth of the Nessus Shirt and explores CG Jung’s concepts of Persona and Shadow. Eleanor Bertine examines good and evil and our relation to these forces. The last two sessions suggest resources that promote a closer more creative relationship with the unconscious.

The Third Half of Life (4 sessions) Janus, the god who can see both inwardly and outwardly and from both sides, introduces this course. The sessions look at Jung’s concept of the opposites and their transcendent third. We recommend this course after experiencing more basic VantagePoint courses.

The Gods, Memory, and Me (7 sessions) The first four sessions revisit Greek gods and goddesses, asking who they were, what they meant to the ancients, and how they have evolved as parts of our culture, psychology, philosophies, and religions. In this frame of reference, the Goddess of Memory appears and her vital import becomes known to us.

The Fatal Inherencies (5 sessions) The title refers to the Seven Deadly Sins. It looks at our failings through the eyes of the Greek god Hephaestus, who is the only immortal to live as a human and understand our “sins.” Like Hephaestus, participants come to terms with their weaknesses.

Happily Ever After (6 sessions) Why have fairy tales persisted over the ages? Where do they come from? Why do they bewitch and beguile us? What do fairy tales offer us on our paths toward individuation? This course answers these questions. It equips participants to interpret the symbols and discover the archetypal patterns within fairy tales, and challenges them to write their own tale. Extensive commentaries on Snow White reveal the complexity and dimension in seemingly simple stories.

A Moment In Time (5 sessions) Time is a taskmaster or a window to eternity, depending on your perspective. This course examines twentieth-century assumptions about time as well as Greek and early Christian concepts, the Gnostic’s mythological view, the symbolic movements within the Chinese Book of Changes, and the “Living Now.” Perchance to Dream:

Working Your Own Dreams (5 sessions) Starting from where “These All Uniting Depths” ends, this course provides practical and structured approaches for working with your dreams. Based on actual dreams, participants will study both the classical approaches to dream work—association, amplification, compensation, and personification—and the noninterpretive ones: “when/then,” imaginal, and dream structure.

If you are interested in participating, please contact centerpoint@ofj.org.