Lecture: The tension between self and group development can be profoundly creative or sorely destructive. Using examples from the Bible, William James, Ursula LeGuin and analytic and consultive practice, this lecture will consider how individuals may participate in unconscious collective scapegoating processes which undermine self development while creating social injustice and pain and suffering in others.
Workshop: The seminar will explore selected topics of the lecture in greater detail. Dr. Colman is particularly interested in considering examples of the scapegoat processes in our personal, family, and work lives, concentrating on how these experiences have either become integrated or split off from the individual and group psyche. He will also explore methods of praxis and interpretation that have proved useful in aiding those possessed by the scapegoat to return to themselves and the community.
Arthur Colman is a Jungian Analyst and a member of the training faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute, San Francisco. He is a graduate of Harvard and Harvard Medical School and teaches and lectures widely. He has served on the faculty of the School of Architecture at U.C. Berkeley helping to develop modern birth centers. He is currently Clinical Processor at U.C. Medical Center and president of the A.K. Rice Institute, a national organization devoted to the studies of unconscious life in groups and organizations. His books include Pregnancy: The Psychological Experience; Love and Ecstasy; the Group Relations Readers, and most recently The Father: Archetype and Social Role. He is currently at work on a book on Scapegoating.