Spring 2013 Programming

Lecture and Workshop: Compulsions arise organically in the psyche – often in troubling opposition to our conscious intentions.  They can occur as images, ideas, emotions, or actions.  From a Jungian perspective, compulsions seek to transform us.  Indeed, compulsions are often intensely disturbing precisely because they arise from attitudes that have become dangerously one-sided; and yet they beckon to us from the drive toward wholeness that animates the psyche.  If the content of a compulsion can be understood symbolically, it becomes a portal to transformation.

In both his lecture and workshop, Mr. Stebbins will explore the phenomenology and dynamics of compulsions with the goal of elucidating their transformative potential.
 

…Wherever we are still attached, we are still possessed; and when we are possessed, there is one stronger than us who possesses us….  It is not a matter of indifference whether one calls something a ‘mania’ or a ‘god.’  To serve a mania is detestable and undignified, but to serve a god is full of meaning and promise ….  (C.G. Jung, CW 13, § 55.)

Morgan Stebbins, MDiv, LMSW, is a Jungian Analyst in New York City, where he completed his analytic training at the C.G. Jung Institute.  He is currently Supervising Analyst and faculty member at the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association.  He is also on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Foundation, New York Theological Seminary, and the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, where he trains Buddhist chaplains and Jungian analysts in the skills of deep listening.  His teaching interests focus on integrating depth psychology with the world’s spiritual traditions.  He has just completed a hospital-based research study on the efficacy of dream work in palliative care.

OFJ will offer a screening of the 2002 film My Name Was Sabina Spielrein (in German, with English subtitles). This event will be held at Unity Church of Portland (4525 SE Stark St.); beginning at 7:30 p.m. on Friday March 22nd. Admission will be free for all — members and non-members.

My Name Was Sabina Spielrein is a docudrama which draws extensively upon a recently discovered trove of correspondence between Sabina Spielrein and the founders of depth psychology. An early patient of both Jung and Freud, Ms. Spielrein was a lifelong seeker. In this film, her connections to Jung and Freud are explored in the context of her personal struggles as well as the turbulent history of Europe during the first half of the 20th century. Local Jungian analyst Martha Blake will lead a discussion of this film following the screening.

Martha Blake is a licensed psychologist and senior Jungian analyst. She practices Jungian analysis and psychotherapy in Portland and Salem, Oregon. Martha earned a Diplomate in Analytical Psychology from the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich, Switzerland.

Lecture:  Marrying Mr. Rochester:  Charlotte Brontë and the Transformation of the Seductive Negative Father Complex
 
A negative father complex can undermine our trust of ourselves – as well as the ability to experience ourselves as basically good and competent.  However, creative engagement with this complex allows us to experience its helpful side.  In this lecture, we will explore in depth one way that a negative father complex can manifest and how it can be transformed.  This process will be amplified by considering Charlotte Brontë’s life and her novel Jane Eyre, as well as clinical material, dreams, and Grimm’s tale “The Singing, Springing Lark.”

Workshop:  The Chenoo Who Stayed to Dinner:  Taming the Monstrous Negative Father Complex
 
In this workshop, we will explore Jung’s theory of complexes.  We will consider how a wounded relationship with a father can affect our inner world and our creativity.  After looking at the two primary ways that a father complex can manifest, we will explore the persecutory or monstrous complex in greater depth.  The Algonquin fairytale “Nesoowa and the Chenoo” will structure the our exploration, which will include journaling and reflective exercises.  Excerpts from two films, a dream sequence that spanned several years of analytic work, and additional fairytales will also be considered.

Lisa Marchiano, LCSW, is a clinical social worker and certified Jungian Analyst with a private practice in northwest Philadelphia.  She has been in practice for over ten years and specializes in relationship issues, life transitions, trauma, and dream work.  She has a special interest in fairy tales and is currently writing a book exploring motherhood as an experience of psychological growth.

OFJ members and their guests are invited to our annual meeting.  The keynote speaker for this event will be Portland artist and author Ted Katz speaking on “Individuation and the Creative Process.”  Friday, May 17, 7:00 to 9:30 pm, at the First United Methodist Church, Collins Hall, 1838 SW Jefferson, Portland.  This is also an opportunity to meet the board, honor our volunteers, and find out about next fall’s speakers. Light refreshments will be served.

Through projected images of his paintings and excerpts from his short stories, Dr. Katz will elucidate the process of individuation as it unfolds through the interplay of creative effort and the unconscious.  The Greek poet, Pindar, said, “Learn what you are and be such.”  That challenge leads to a thorny and fascinating adventure.

Ted Katz studied painting at The Art Students’ League in New York, The Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and Harvard University, from which he earned a doctorate.  For ten years, he served as Chief of the Division of Education at The Philadelphia Museum of Art and has directed programs for numerous national arts organizations, including The National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities and The Smithsonian Institution.  The paintings of Ted Katz are represented in university, museum, and private collections in the United States and have been widely exhibited in the U.S. and Europe. He has recently written two collections of short stories, The Studio Within and When the Rice Ripens, concerned with creativity and becoming.

September 27 – 28:  Pacifica Graduate Institute Engaged Humanities and the Creative Life Faculty, Jim Kline, Ph.d 

The Fear of Death and the Longing for Immortality

• Lecture: “Primal Fears Explored with Humanity’s Oldest Story as Our Guide – The Epic of Gilgamesh”
• Workshop: “Insights into the Achievement of True Immortality.”

October 18 – 19:  Jungian analyst, Melanie Starr Costello, Ph.D.  

• Lecture:  “A Luminous Darkness:  Aging and the Spiritual Path”
• Workshop:  “Decline and Ascent:  The Paradoxical Passage to Elderhood”

November 8 – 9:  Clinical Psychologist and Pacifica Graduate Institute Faculty, Glen Slater, Ph.D.  

• Lecture:  “Archetypal Images:  Reflections on James Hillman and Jungian Thought”
• Workshop:  “Archetypal Cinema:  Applying James Hillman’s Psychology to Film”

December 6 – 7:  Jungian analyst and founder of Cameras without Borders, Eberhard Riedel, Ph.D., D.C.S.W.

• Lecture & Workshop: “Psychological Trauma and Listening with the Heart”

Locations and other details for these events will be posted at www.ofj.org in the weeks to come – and will also be included in OFJ’s Fall 2013 brochure, which will be mailed in late August.