Jungian Seminars - 2010
Seeing with New Eyes
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Nicolaus Copernicus set in motion a major paradigm shift when, in 1543, he published his claim that the planets revolve around the sun – not the earth, as previously believed. There was mighty resistance to such a profound change in our picture of the world. But, once the shift occurred, there’s been no going back. Though it was historians of science who first spoke of a “paradigm shift”, the concept applies equally to those moments in our personal lives when something dawns on us that changes everything: Never again can we unlearn what has been learned, or revert back to old ways of interpreting our experience. Today, many believe that Western society is on the cusp of a major paradigm shift, one that, taking place on the collective level, will nevertheless affect each one of us intimately. Where are we headed? This question may be asked in terms that only physicists and biologists at the highest levels can understand or address. At the same time, each one of us has our part, as we find ourselves seeing things, large and small, with new eyes. Join us to reflect on when we have ‘seen with new eyes,’ what that experience is like, and what profound shifts may already be underway within us.
The Symbol of the Heart
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Modern science tends to view the heart as nothing more than a pump, a mechanism responsible for the circulation of the blood throughout the body. But older systems of thought have assigned to the heart complex functions such as emotion, thought, and will which we now locate exclusively in the brain. And something of this lives on today in powerful symbolism linking the heart with love, compassion, courage, intuition, justice, and spirituality. Jung once used the expression intelligence du coeur (intelligence of the heart) to describe what is required to interpret dreams with genuine insight. What is it about this small but indispensable organ of only six or seven pounds that has so caught the human imagination? Could there be more to understand about the heart than can be encompassed in the metaphor of the pump? Before turning to the symbolic role the heart plays in myth, fairy tales and dreams, this seminar will review new perspectives emerging from medical research. Participants are invited to bring and share their own experiences and dreams where the heart makes itself known.
Life Is an Odyssey
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, composed near the end of the eighth century BCE, tells the story of King Odysseus (Ulysses): After the Greeks’ victory in the Trojan war, an achievement for which Odysseus himself was directly responsible, he begins his journey home to Ithaca. Propelled by longing to be reunited with his wife Penelope and the son whom he has not seen since birth, Odysseus encounters one trial, challenge, and seeming impasse after another – consequences of the hubris with which he has offended the god Poseidon. It requires all his wits, cunning, creativity, and sheer endurance to navigate the fate which has befallen him and to achieve a very different kind of victory - returning full circle to his own family and kingdom. In this seminar we are going to retrace Odysseus’ steps, encountering lotus-eaters, Cyclops, sirens, ghosts, six-headed monsters, whirlpools, and the gods themselves. We will read portions of Homer’s poetic story and also watch clips from “The Odyssey” television mini-series. What might these forces represent within us? What do we know of Odysseus’ long and painful journey in our own lives? When have we encountered the help or the wrath of “the gods” at critical turning points? This odyssey is yet another image of the journey of individuation that we are all making, whether aware of it or not.
Life Is an Odyssey - Part II
Saturday, May 1, 2010
In the Odyssey it took Odysseus longer to get home to Ithaca than he originally planned. And it is also taking us longer to track his journey than we had originally planned. Thus, not wanting to rush our examination, the May seminar will continue to follow Odysseus's odyssey to its conclusion. We set off with Odysseus and his men, met the Cyclops Polyphemus, saw the longing of Penelope, and were set back by the Aeolian winds. In Part II we will encounter Circe, make a side trip to Hades, and try to avoid Scylla and Charybdis, before finally arriving home to mete out justice to the suitors and be reunited with Penelope. Attending Part I is not a prerequisite for continuing on with Part II. There are always more lessons to be learned.
Face to Face Interview
Saturday, June 12, 2010
John Freeman's probing interview with "the world's greatest psychiatrist," Carl Jung, on the BBC program Face to Face provides us with a very rare glimpse into the Swiss psychiatrist's personal viewpoints and sheds insight into a little of his pioneering work. Face to Face was the first program on British television to unmask public figures and show what lies beneath the surface. Harsh lighting and close-up camera angles were employed to capture each flicker of emotion, a method critics referred to as "torture by television." When Carl Jung consented to be interviewed in his home at Kusnacht, the medical community was surprised that this very private figure was suddenly willing to allow an interviewer into his personal space. When the program was first aired in 1959, Jung himself was taken aback at the unexpectedly positive response from the general public. This strong interest in his work inspired Jung to write his final work, Man and His Symbols, his theory of the symbolism of dreams, explained in lay terms so as to be accessible to all who would come seeking answers.
Once Upon a Loss
Saturday, July 10, 2010
If a parent dies when you are a child or an adolescent, people assume that you are young and you'll get over it. It's not like abuse or alcoholism. No one did anything to you. It's part of life. But for many this unspoken attitude makes the deep sense of loss, despair, and lack of self-esteem that follows them around for years all the more shameful and inexplicable. For filmmaker Carolyn Stonewell, it wasn't until midlife when she went into Jungian analysis -- after a series of tragic losses -- that it became clear these losses were connected to a much earlier loss, the death of her mother when she was nineteen. It was then that her analyst suggested that she work with the Grimm Brothers' Cinderella. Once Upon a Loss: A New Look at Cinderella is Carolyn's story and the stories of three other remarkable women who, when young, lost their mothers to death or abandonment - their pain, their isolation, and the ways they sought help. Weaving in and out of these moving stories is a version of the Grimm Brothers' Cinderella, beautifully illustrated by Karen Lisa Friedman and narrated off-screen by Katherine Diamond, an accomplished New York actress. Tying it all together is a completely new interpretation of Cinderella by well- known Swiss Jungian analyst Kathrin Asper who looks at the fairy tale not as a rags-to-riches story but as a metaphor for both recovering from an early wounding experience and an individual's search for self-esteem and identity.
Remembering Jung: Interview Excerpts with Jung's Associates
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Remembering Jung was a series of interviews done with those who knew Jung personally. We are going to view excerpts from three of these interviews - done with Sir Laurens van der Post, Liliane Frey-Rohn, and Gerhard Adler. Each presents another window into the person of C. G. Jung as seen through the eyes of someone who was intimately touched by him.
Sir Laurens van der Post, world renowned author, soldier, and statesman, achieved wide recognition for his efforts to save the vanishing Bushmen of the Kalahari. After World War II and four years in a Japanese prison camp, he traveled to Zurich and found himself seated next to Jung at a dinner party. Immediately a deep contact was made between the two, and a rich and intimate friendship developed.
Born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1901, Liliane Frey-Rohn received her Ph.D. from the University of Zurich in 1933. She met Jung the following year. From then on she analyzed and worked with him in research until his death in 1961. Here she discusses her long relationship with Jung, and some of her psychic experiences of him as mentor to the writing of her book on Freud and Jung; she gives her impressions of Emma Jung and Toni Wolff and the relationships among women around Jung; she defines synchronicity and describes aspects of the mystery of death and rebirth, including her own experiences related to Jung’s death.
Gerhard Adler was born in 1904 and raised in Berlin. When he was only 26 he began analysis with Jung. Later, with Jung’s approval, he decided to become an analyst himself. This interview includes a colorful recollection of his first meeting with Jung. He comments on Jung’s relationship with colleagues and gives a moving reminiscence of his own relationship with Jung’s close associate, Toni Wolff. He expresses his view that Jung’s importance for the future lies more in his deeper work on the nature of the psyche than in his clinical views of the processes of psychotherapy.
“Far, Far Away”
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Have you ever noticed how our dreams seem to take us to places “far, far away” from the familiarity of everyday life? “I was stuck on a remote island …” “I was sitting in an Asian temple …” “I was walking down a very deep underground passageway …” “I was living on another planet …” Our dreams can take us to some of the strangest and most fantastic places. Sometimes they are places we have read about but never visited. At other times they are so unfamiliar we can only guess where we might be.
We often see this same motif reflected in the world’s myths and fairy tales or in films such as The Wizard of Oz and Shrek. The heroine or hero must travel to a distant land to accomplish some great feat or gather some unknown treasure. At other times the journey is not east or west but up or down – the highest peak or the deepest sea. What is the unconscious trying to evoke in us during these nocturnal travels? What could be the value in exploring a land so distant and mysterious? What do the people living in these places have to teach us that we cannot learn at home? These will be some of the questions we will attempt to answer as we travel “far, far away” in myth, fairy tale, and dream.
“It’s a Little Crooked”
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Jungian analyst Marion Woodman has written a book entitled Addiction to Perfection. While her book pays great attention to the role of perfectionism in women living with eating disorders, Marion Woodman addresses how any of us can be addicted to an illusory ideal of perfection. Oftentimes it is by espoused by religious teaching or societal expectations. Sometimes it is passed down from one generation to another within a particular family. This obsession is both insidious and a hard taskmaster.
What is at the center of it? Is it archetypally based? Is it a distorted expression of something actually helpful and necessary? Could the incessant striving for perfection really be a yearning for something entirely different? We will see what Jung may have to offer on this subject. And as time allows, we will observe whether we know anything of this addiction ourselves. Those who attend will learn one thing for sure – where the title for this seminar came from.
“Parting Words and Gestures”
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Perhaps all of us have heard stories of how a person who is close to death, departing for a long journey, or leaving a relationship, community or location, offers a few parting words or gestures to those staying behind. History is full of such “last words.” We ourselves may have received or shared such offerings. What motivates these gestures? From where do they come? Why are they important, both for the speaker and the hearer?
Being so close to that time of year when the dead occupy our thoughts, it seems appropriate to investigate this phenomenon. What was so important that it could not be contained? Is the moment of departure a time for imparting wisdom, re-visiting a poignant, or perhaps simply communicating a “thank you”? We will look to the seminar’s participants for stories they feel comfortable sharing, as well as to “last words” from film and dream.
“Images of Incarnation”
Saturday, December 4
Incarnation is understood as the process or event whereby something of great value is embodied in the flesh. Many of the world's great religions are founded on the belief that their leader or savior took on the characteristics of God. Something essential or eternal was seen to reside in that person, whether by word or deed. And oftentimes part of that religious leader’s calling involved teaching or demonstrating how their followers could likewise experience just such an “incarnation“.
In this seminar we are going to explore several images or examples of incarnation drawn from religious and ethnological practices. We will try to glimpse what this process or event involves. What exactly is it that is being embodied? Is the incarnation a developmental process or a sudden event? Is it reserved for a few special, chosen people, or can it perhaps be an experience anyone can know at some level? As time allows we will consider how our dreams may play a part in this experience of embodiment.
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