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Narcissism and the Experience of the Divine
February 22, 1991 @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm PST
An authentic religious experience is both an awesome and a potentially fragmenting experience that challenges the very structure of our personality. When accepted, contact with the numinosum may lead to transformation. Such contect may, however, instill terror and activate defense mechanisms. Dr. Corbett will discuss examples of religious experience, the ways they may or may not be healing, and the ways in which our own vulnerabilities and narcissistic defenses prevent us from experiencing their transforming power.
Related Workshop: Psychotherapy as Spiritual Practice
Dr. Lionel Corbett trained in medicine and psychiatry in England and as a Jungian Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. His primary interests are: the religious function of the psyche, especially the way in which personal religious experience is relevant to individual psychology; the development of psychotherapy as a spiritual practice; and the interface of Jungian psychology and contemporary psychoanalytic thought. Dr. Corbett is a professor of depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, in Santa Barbara, California, where he teaches depth psychology. He is the author of numerous professional papers and four books: Psyche and the Sacred; The Religious Function of the Psyche; The Sacred Cauldron: Psychotherapy as a Spiritual Practice, and most recently The Soul in Anguish: Psychotherapeutic Approaches to Suffering. He is the co-editor of: Psyche’s Stories; Jung and Aging; Depth Psychology, Meditations in the Field; and Psychology at the Threshold.
Cathy Rives, M.D. , is a psychiatrist in private practice in Santa Fe, a candidate in the Analyst Training Program of the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, and Clinical Assistant Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico.