Spring 2004

LECTURE: EMOTIONS AND THE ARCHETYPAL IMAGINATION

This lecture will look at the nature of the emotions as they have evolved and continue to develop, from the primal, untransformed depths toward the highest values of human culture. The tendency in recent decades toward deconstruction of values may potentiate a compensatory development as individuals in many walks of life seek a differentiated experience of affects and their symbolic expression, shaped by eternal ideals that appear to be wired into the psyche.  Lecture includes slides to illustrate. 

WORKSHOP: ACTIVE IMAGINATION AND THE LIVING BODY

By using the body to access and express the imagination, individuals may discover experiences that bridge the realms of body and psyche, instinct and spirit, affect and image, memory and emergence. 

This one-day workshop will introduce movement as a form of active imagination. Sometimes called "authentic movement" or "movement in depth"; we focus attention on bodily sensations, images, and feelings, which are then allowed to develop into spontaneous movement. The mover works with eyes closed, in the presence of a witness, whose task it is to hold and contain the experience of the person moving.   Morning and afternoon sessions include lecture, discussion and movement experience, with special attention to the inner experience of the mover, the inner experience of the witness and the dynamics of their relationship.  Participants are invited to bring journals and/or art materials. 

Joan Chodorow, Ph.D. is an analyst and faculty member of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.  Publications include Dance Therapy and Depth Psychology‹The Moving Imagination (Routledge 1991), C. G. Jung on Active Imagination (Princeton University Press, 1997), and the forthcoming Active Imagination:  Healing from Within (TAMU Press).  She lectures and teaches internationally as well as closer to home.

LECTURE

In Western Thought, the hero, the mythic expression of ego-development, expands consciousness by subduing the dragon , i.e. the "chaos" sensed by ego-consciousness in the categories of nature, instinct, mother. In this program we will explore the idea that while Jung initially abided by this traditional fantasy of ego-development, there is a persistent dimension in his work that recognized the implications of consciousness becoming encapsulated in the ego-complex; this obliged Jung to accentuate the actions in the psyche that strive toward a post-ego mythology.

Though nowadays consumed as a fashionable expression of a classic hero myth, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings , exposes the perplexing failure of the hero to effect psychic transformation in the contemporary ‘postmodern’ psyche. This incapacity, ironically present as the hero’s triumph, or, in psychological terms the pinnacle of ego-development, signifies, in Tolkien, a threat to "middle earth", an unprecedented waning of the mythopoeic factor of the psyche. The claim is that the hero, through this deconstruction, presently, leads not, as it once had, into progressive states of originality, but into regressive states of compliance. This is manifest politically as globalization, and in current psychopathology as an "empty" depression, both of which are instinctively felt as a distance from "mother". I take these to be the abiding concern of Jung’s analytical psychology, and Tolkein’s Trilogy; taken together they inform a radical rereading of the developmental psychology and heroic mythology that dominantly impose upon the current practice of psychotherapy.

WORKSHOP

In this workshop we will expose the residency of these themes in the tedium of daily life. Participants will bring stuff that seems the least psychologically deep. These contents are those most under the aegis of the hero, and live, in what Tolkien calls "Mordor". In Jung’s theorization, they would thus attract the most empathy from the psyche. Foreshadowed in this empathic process, is the post-heroic figure needed in each psyche now to live past the ego’s encapsulation of consciousness and in so doing effect the transformations in consciousness necessitated by our postmodern condition.

Mark Kuras, Ph.D., is a Jungian Analyst and Clinical Psychologist. He is a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, and is on the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University . He is Director of Training at the Jungian Psychology Association in New York , review editor at the Journal of Analytical Psychology and a former associate editor of the Jungian Journal of Theory and Practice. His papers have appeared in both journals, as well as in Quadrant. He maintains a private practice in New York City.

Lecture:  Images in a Melancholic Eye

Until the mid-19th century, melancholy was imagined as a sacred affliction from the gods, a madness characteristic of genius and the most difficult and complex temperament.  At the height of the Renaissance, it was imagined in personified form as a majestic female figure; artists and poets looked to her as their Muse.  But, in the twentieth century, melancholy all but disappeared from the professional imagination, to be replaced by the diagnostic categories of depression.  Where did Melancholy go?  How did she lose her voice?  How can we call her into life again, listen to her wisdom, take new creative heart from within her depths?  This lecture/slide presentation will use both spoken word and photographs to re-discover Melancholy as Muse.

Workshop:  Images In a Melancholic Voice

The melancholic mood has a distinctive tone which can be heard as clearly in certain kinds of writing as in music.  Our discussion will continue themes introduced in the lecture, particularly the idea that melancholy, unlike depression, is a creative matrix, seeing to answer these questions:  How can we hear the Muse in our own melancholic moments?  What sort of expression does the Muse give us when we try to express something from a melancholy place in the psyche?  Why is this important for our psychic health?  Participants are asked to bring paper and pen and, if possible, a photograph or snapshot that has personal meaning.

Lyn Cowan, Ph.D. , has been a practicing Jungian analyst since 1980.    Recently re-located to Houston, Texas, from the Twin Cities, she teaches at the C.G. Jung Education Center of Houston and will be Adjdunct Professor at the University of Houston beginning in the fall of 2004.  Dr. Cowan served as Director of Training of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts for six years and is a past president of the Society.  Her books include Tracking the White Rabbit: A Subversive View of Modern Culture and Masochism: A Jungian View, and third book on melancholy is in negotiation for publication.  She has also had four major exhibits of her photographic work, and continues to pursue her lifelong passion for thoroughbred horse racing.

Lecture and Workshop

The religions and myths of many times and cultures tell us that the human soul’s deepest desire is its longing for God.  Even people who feel disillusioned with traditional religions or disenchanted with spiritual teachers still yearn for something transcendent. 

Whenever we long for the transcendent, however, forces from the deep unconscious also swing into play.  Walking a spiritual path not only evokes states of illumination; it challenges us to face the darkness within ourselves. 

In this lecture and workshop, Dr. Wittine will explore spiritual longing and its shadow. Spiritual longing might overwhelm the ego, cover over wounded parts of the personality, perpetuate our inner critic, lead to a split between "higher" and "lower" self-needs, and derail individuation. We might project our longing onto lovers and teachers, onto food, sex, and drugs, or find it hidden in our grandiosity and desire for power. Dr. Wittine concludes that if we internalize our longing rather than externalizing it onto images, people, and things, it will guide us toward a new experience of God, which recognizes the transcendent in all aspects of life.

Bryan Wittine, PhD is a Jungian analyst in private practice in San Francisco and Mill Valley, California.  He is a member of the faculty at the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and an adjunct faculty member of the masters program in depth psychology at Sonoma State University.  He has studied with Buddhist and Sufi teachers for over 30 years and has written and lectured extensively on spirituality, narcissism, and depth psychotherapy.

Workshop: Integrating the Shadow Functions . Just as ego-consciousness is unevenly distributed between different function-attitudes that define our strengths and weaknesses, so too is the unconsciousness of our shadow deployed in weaker and stronger ways. Getting to know the archetypes and psychological types of our shadow helps us to recognize the shadow and make use of its defensive power in a self-enhancing way.  Dr. Beebe will demonstrate in dialogue with the participants how this method of analysis can clarify certain difficult personal interactions, dreams, and forms of self-attack and sabotage. 

Dr. John Beebe, a Jungian analyst and psychiatrist in practice in San Francisco , is the immediate past President of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. His most recent publication is Terror, Violence, and the Impulse to Destroy: Perspectives from Analytical Psychology (Daimon Publishers, 2003).  An internationally recognized clinical teacher of Jungian psychology, he has lectured on psychological types throughout the United States and in Europe , and his writings and ideas on this subject and others have appeared in the Chiron Clinical Series, The Journal of Analytical Psychology , Psychological Perspectives and several books. Dr. Beebe is the author of the book Integrity in Depth , a study of the archetype of moral wholeness, and he is particularly interested in the way an understanding of our typology can foster the development of the capacity to take responsibility for our impact on others. An avid film buff, Dr. Beebe frequently draws upon classic and contemporary American movies to illustrate how the various types of consciousness and unconsciousness interact to produce the stories of our lives that Jung called individuation.