May 15-16, 2009: James Hollis

Lecture


Apart from friends, family, and good work, what matters most in our lives?   What values lead us to a freer, larger life, a more considered course?  Together we will examine the crippling role fear management systems play in our choices, why we are called to choose ambiguity over familiarity, why the world is driven by verbs not nouns, how life is most meaningful in the face of mortality, and how genuine spirituality is a journey not an arrival.  A more considered life asks more of us than may be comfortable, but we are rewarded with a more interesting story.


 


Workshop


 



Together we will consider the paradoxes that we encounter in the con-duct of our brief transit on this earth.  Leading a more conscious life brings us to choices which either enlarge or diminish.   Our time together will bring a more considered reflectivity to our daily lives. Each person should bring pad and pen for personal reflection.  Our objectives will be to: 


1. discern how a client’s personal values,philosophy of self and world,  profoundly influences his or her mental health;


2. identify the ubiquity of fear management systems operating  autonomously in clients and our lives; 


3. promote a more considered awareness of the de facto “stories” served  by the client, and move toward a more conscious authorship; 


4. utilize an inherent desire for an enlarging spirituality to reframe the client’s understanding of self and world; and


5. become more thoughtful oneself around these matters so that one is in a better position to meet a client’s depth and complexity. Non-clinicians are welcome and the discussion will be applicable to non-clinical situations, as well.


 


Saturday Workshop Participants, for this event we will break for an


hour and thirty minute lunch.  The workshop will end at 4 PM.


 


JAMES HOLLIS, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center of Houston, the co-founder of Philadelphia Jung Institute, and author of twelve books, the latest being, Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding our Darker Selves. He graduated as an analyst from the Zurich Jung Institute in 1982. His other books include : The Middle Passage: From Misery to Meaning at Mid-Life, Under Saturn’s Shadow: the Wounding and Healing of Men, Swamplands of the Soul: New Life from Dismal Places, and Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life.

What Matters Most: Living a More Considered Life