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.