We all fear “seeing the crab,” for a diagnosis of cancer that has spread is a nightmare come true. Facing the reality of terminal illness is the greatest challenge for families, friends and persons living with metastatic disease. “I had to get to know this cancer, this vile crab, and make it pare of who I am,” says Jungian analyst, Christina Middlebrook.
How do we take in information about ourselves that we abhor? Should we include the knowledge and fear of illness in the picture we paint of our lives? Or should we keep it off the page? What about other traumatic life events? How does one move beyond them?
Christina Middlebrook’s Friday evening lecture will discuss how healing occurs, the New Age tyranny regarding “positive thinking,” and the incumbent misunderstanding of the reality of the psyche, Death, the Mind/Body connection, and the Cancer/War metaphor. She will also address how such expieriences fit Jung’s theoretical framework. Are his ideas more applicable in theory than in reality?