"SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER" ESSAY

The following is an essay to be published in the September-October issue of "The Pathfinder":


Shall We Gather at the River?

The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis is preparing for its second Jung in the Heartland Conference, November 10-13, 2011. This year the theme is again “Portals to the Sacred.” [Visit www.cgjungstl.org for conference details.] In this essay, a precursor to the conference, I want to explore the idea of the sacred by relating it to the notion of the “source.” I will first consider the meaning of the term “source” scientifically and psychologically, then show that we eventually come to a limit of understanding that forces us either to shut down our thinking or to take into account the sacred and the numinous. [By “sacred” I mean anything that evokes veneration from us, and by “numinous,” something exhibiting the power of a divinity.]

To consider what the source refers to in a scientific way, let’s turn to the use of analogy. In the evolutionary development of sight, the eye has been conditioned by light and uses light in its functioning. Without light, there would be no sight, and without sight it is difficult even to imagine light, though it would still exist. Eye and sight have a mutually interdependent relationship. This is the more commonly held view of evolutionary theory. I imagine this view might even be acceptable to creationists who could argue that God works in mysterious and marvelous ways. With either explanation, we come to an unanswerable question: though light might be the source, whence the light? Though we cannot answer that question, we would never deny the existence of light. It is a fact.

Continuing our analogy, it is easy to imagine intelligence having a parallel line of development. Might there be something like universal mind that has developed human intelligence with the interplay of the two similar to light and the eye? Though we can accept the light and eye analogy, the leap to universal mind and human intelligence stretches us beyond intellect to imagine something larger than itself. It is at this juncture that some, unwilling to shut down their thinking, arrive at the shores of the sacred and the numinous. And that brings us to psychology.

In the Jungian view we entertain the hypothesis that there is something like “universal mind,” called the collective unconscious in Jungian psychological theory. An individual consciousness arises from the unconscious and owes its existence to it. Individual consciousness is an epiphenomenon of the unconscious; that is to say, it emerges from the substratum of the unconscious and takes on a structure similar to the unconscious.

Of course, in the development of ego consciousness, conditions of time, place, parenting, education, culture, etc., are also factors of influence over that development. These factors give rise to the personal unconscious, those elements of consciousness unique to the personal history of the individual. Even so, the universal characteristics of the collective unconscious play a huge role. Those characteristics consist of patterns of behavior, archetypes (arche = ancient and typos = imprint) common to everyone. Some of those archetypal patterns are mother, father, journey, birth, rebirth, etc. Every human being has a share in these patterns. Every human being is, more or less, shaped by these patterns.

What can happen (and when it does, it usually happens at midlife) is that the mismatch between the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious creates a felt dissonance in ego consciousness. When this dissonance reaches sufficient amplitude that archetypal elements from the collective unconscious break through and begin to impact ego consciousness, the disturbance in the individual’s life cannot be ignored. A more or less crisis situation develops. This condition creates certain symptoms—restlessness, dissatisfaction, perhaps physical ailments, and undifferentiated but very real suffering. Critical questions arise, the most common being, in the words of the Peggy Lee song, “Is this all there is?”

A psychology that denies the existence of the collective unconscious will treat the symptoms. In terms of my analogy it would be like going to an opthamologist who looks only at the condition of the eye even though the problem may be that the person is wearing blinders. A Jungian-oriented therapist, on the other hand, will focus on helping the individual explore his/her symptoms, strive to understand the dissonance by exploring elements of the personal unconscious that are at odds with the collective patterns of the deep unconscious, and work with the individual to build that critical bridge of understanding between ego consciousness and the collective unconscious. Presumably the therapist, having undergone a depth analysis him/herself, will approach this work with deep empathy and compassion and will know that the attention-getters in the process are those sacred and numinous elements that appear. He/she also knows that experiences of the numinosum change ego consciousness.

The techniques of this work vary. They include careful attention to and exploration of emotions and affects; the living conditions of the individual; his/her relationships; dream images, motifs, and patterns; and the life story. Influential elements from the personal unconscious are explored and understood more fully. The individual examines troublesome psychological defense mechanisms that no longer serve for adaptation so that they can be adjusted or jettisoned and replaced with more mature and appropriate mechanisms.

The therapist keeps in mind the notion of entelechy, the idea that each living organism has inbuilt a blueprint of development attended by life forces that are continually at work to further that development. In Jungian Psychology, we call this force “individuation,” the universal urge for a person to become a unique and undivided individual. However, there clearly are also at work in the unconscious antilibidinal forces that hinder development. It is sometimes the situation that only the therapist can be the tip-weight in the work toward individuation, in a win over antilibidinal forces.

With continuing depth work, archetypal patterns emerge, perhaps THE pattern that most fits the individual, one that affords an optimal line of development. At this level of the work, the client experiences a feeling of “coming home,” an understanding of “Who I am and why I am living this life.” Jung aptly called this experience “amor fati,” a love of one’s own fate.

Notice that this work in a depth analysis proceeds from an experiential basis with no reliance upon religion or dogma or belief. The client need not even entertain the hypotheses of the collective unconscious or individuation, though the therapist must. What is required is that the troubled individual must take him/herself seriously; resist discounting symptoms and seeking easy, quick fixes; and have the courage to see him/herself and his/her circumstances realistically. He/she must follow an inner labyrinthian path made up of elements both rational and irrational. The work is difficult and requires no end of patience from both client and therapist. There are, thankfully, sufficient rewards and consolations along the way to make the endeavor worthwhile. A secret, hidden happiness is often a byproduct of the work.

And that brings us back to the sacred and the numinous. The rewards and consolations often have what can only be called a sacred or numinous cast. This individuation journey, in many ways the real task of life, brings us up against what we cannot understand, cannot know, and cannot ignore. The psychologist and the theologian, the therapist and the client, perhaps on very different paths, arrive at the same place, bowing before something greater than themselves, acknowledging both the sacred and the numinous.

Rose F. Holt
August 4, 2011

[Rose F. Holt, M.A., is a Jungian Psychoanalyst in private practice in St. Louis. She serves as advisory analyst to the board of the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis and as a training analyst for the Jung Institute of Chicago. She has taught many courses on the topic of Jungian Psychology.]

The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis is bringing Jean Bolen, Jungian Analyst and author, to St. Louis on July 8 and 9, 2011. Dr. Bolen's topic on Friday evening will be "Trees and Tree People: Saving Ourselves, Saving Our Planet." Her topic for the Saturday workshop will be "Grail, Goddesses, Circles, and the Sacred Feminine." For details about these events, visit www.cgjungstl.org

THE REDBOOK - A PERPLEXING GUIDE How Do We Make Sense of It?

This is a talk I gave at the Jung Institute of Chicago Founder's Day event at Loyola University on March 19, 2011:


THE REDBOOK - A PERPLEXING GUIDE How Do We Make Sense of It?

Jung began his RED BOOK journaling in December of 1913, less than a year before the outbreak of WWI. That war shook the world as none before. And that war marked only the beginning of a trying and turbulent century--terrifying in the horrors it would contain.

We have entered a second century of turbulent times, and we seek in any place we can for help in navigating it. We can find help in this RED BOOK, though, as Ann [Ulanov, the first speaker of the day] said, to take it up is to enter into our own turbulence, into our own chaos and confusion. Swimming along with Jung in this fascinating work, seeing through his eyes, learning from his experiences seems to set up a parallel process in us. We seek not to imitate Jung but to explore our own interior and acquaint ourselves with our own complexities.

Today I want to share some insights I have gained from studying the book, discussing it in a small group over several weeks, attending other programs about the book, and turning Jungʼs ideas and images over and over in my mind. My immersion in the work has indeed jarred my being and plunged me into considerable chaos and confusion. Taking part in this program today is one way of sorting through my feelings and reactions, coming more to terms with a certain level of turbulence I find in myself.
Jung spent his life making sense of the experiences he describes in THE RED BOOK and translating that sense into scholarly, scientific language. Our rational understanding needs to be organized around a scaffolding of logic and reason. However, our experiences and our emotional lives often make a mockery of logic and reason, seeming to be at their very root irrational in nature. Nowhere is this divide more apparent than in our understanding of gods and religions. That is the area of this book and Jungʼs subsequent elaboration of it that I am most keenly interested in.

According to Shamdasani, there are two running themes in the book: One theme is how Jung regains his soul and overcomes the contemporary malaise of spiritual alienation. A second theme is how, by doing his, he enables the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and develops a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmology.

A third theme in the book, and the one I will begin with here, is that of the inherited complex.

So, there are these three interrelated themes I want to talk about:

First, THE RED BOOK can encourage us to recognize and make use of our inherited complexes.

Second, Jung regains his soul and overcomes the contemporary malaise of spiritual alienation. He does this partially through active imagination. Jungʼs process as he recorded it in THE RED BOOK can show us something about the development of personality over a lifetime, what he called individuation.

Third, Jung makes possible the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and develops a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmology. As he does this, he reveals to us the relationship between the god image and the structure of personality.

That THE RED BOOK can encourage us to make use of our inherited complexes came out very clearly to me in a RED BOOK study group in St. Louis last Fall. We ended our last meeting with an active imagination with Dr. Jung, that is, with the spirit of Dr. Jung, in the spirit of Dr. Jung. Ten of us were gathered around a small table, RED BOOKS set aside, a figure of Jung on the table, and the lights dimmed. We asked Dr. Jung to comment on a particular aspect of his work and our study of it. And he did! I will only share his message to me. First, he said with a hearty laugh, “So, you want to understand in a few short months what took me decades to decipher!” I had to admit guilt to that charge. Then he went on to answer my question to him which was about his statements in THE RED BOOK that the dead seek to live their unlived lives through the living.

He said: “I first came upon this notion indirectly when I was doing my work on the association test and complexes. That was early, of course, during the time I still thought the psyche was an object for my study--not vice versa. Later in my confrontation with the unconscious I came to realize that complex theory is but an abstraction of the reality. The reality is that the dead try to live out their unlived lives through the living, and the mechanism for that is the complex. That is why I urge everyone to live as fully as possible, otherwise they pass on a debt that must be paid by someone else. And, of course, if these inherited impulses are not realized consciously, they will be lived unconsciously in oneʼs outer life.”

Jung proved the existence of complexes in the unconscious and popularized the term. We all know about complexes from everyday experience. They are those parts of our personality that surprise us, cause us to behave in unexpected and often troubling ways, and give rise to endless complications in our relationships. Who has not said, “I donʼt know what got into me!”

My question for Dr. Jung arose out of a realization I have dimly felt but more fully understood when I studied THE RED BOOK. My paternal grandmother suffered a depression after the birth of her third son in 1900. She spent the rest of her life, over 45 years, in an asylum for the insane. In some strange way that I have long felt, I have been the benefactor of her unlived life, and Iʼve owed a debt to it.

Although I never met this woman, she has played a profound role in my development. She first appeared in a dream some 20-plus years ago. That dream started my reflections about her and her life. What did she learn in those 45 years? What does she have to teach me? She learned with certitude limits, galling limits, placed on her existence by ignorance, a rule-bound church, and medical care that even for the times was largely quackery. She, that is her spirit, what I call my grandmother complex, rises up in me when she/I feel galling limits, when my consciousness is too confined by outside “authorities,” or when I abdicate my responsibilities by relying too heavily upon outside authority.

What she did not know and had to learn from me is that some authority is actually benevolent and quite helpful. And, if Jung is right, that an archetype lies at the core of a complex, then that archetype is the Great Mother. That archetype has also been too long confined by chafing limits, by a patriarchal collective consciousness.

Jungʼs theory about complexes satisfies my need for intellectual understanding. My personal experience, his statements in THE REDBOOK--and in my active imagination with him--that the dead seek to live unlived parts through us-- reached beyond my intellect and convinced me at another level of my being. Is there scientific proof for such a notion? Of course not. Is it reasonable? No. But then much of reality and life do not accord with reason. My subjective experience convinces me completely.

Turning now to my second them--how Jung regains his soul, overcomes his spiritual alienation, and shows us something about the development of personality over a life-time:

Jung began his experimentation with fantasy, his confrontation with the unconscious, on December 12, 1913, and he began to journal intensely at that time. Five days later he had his “Siegfried Dream,” a dream that held great significance for him. He discusses that significance in THE RED BOOK when he talks about guilt, sacrifice, and the necessity to kill the hero. Decades later he recounts the dream in MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS. Jung came to understand that killing the hero meant deposing the first function--thinking in his case. Philemon first appears in the “Black Books” on January 27, 1914. Jung understood later that Philemon represented superior, objective insight, insight unavailable to a consciousness dominated by one primary function.

Most of us develop one primary function in the first decades of our lives, and that function may serve us well for a long time. That was the case with me. Driven by the Sputnik spirit of my times, I developed--indeed, was strongly encouraged to develop-- my first function, thinking. I can personally attest to the suffering and pain involved when the primary function no longer serves adequately but refuses to go quietly. The primary function is a creation of the personality that can pass out of control of its creator. The same can be said of ego consciousness itself when it is unmoored from the unconscious substratum from which it arose.

If you have read the section of the book about Jungʼs meeting with Izdubar, another important figure for him, you have a sense of Jungʼs coming to understand the limits of scientific, rational knowledge and the need for something more. As with the other figures Jung meets, he learns a great deal from Izdubar. You can read this passage as Jungʼs making conscious his third function, intuition, in his encounter with the giant. Through the rebirth of Izdubar, Jung experienced a renewed god-image. He writes: “The renewed God signifies a renewed attitude, that is, a renewed possibility for intensive life, a recovery of life, because psychologically God always denotes the greatest value, thus the greatest sum of the libido, the greatest intensity of life, the optimum of psychological lifeʼs activity.”

And my third theme--that Jung makes possible the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and develops a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmology. As he does this, he reveals to us the relationship between the god image and the structures of personality.

Understanding the personality and the god-image go together in Jungʼs experience and thought. If THE RED BOOK has one overarching theme, it is this: Jungʼs seeking to understand the secret of the personality, especially his own personality. In MDR, very late in his life, he wrote: “. . . from my eleventh year I have been launched upon a single enterprise which is my ʻmain business.ʻ My life has been permeated and held together by one idea and one goal: namely, to penetrate into the secret of the personality. Everything can be explained from this central point, and all my works relate to this one theme.”

When Jung began his confrontation with the unconscious, he largely withdrew from his outer life, resigning prestigious positions and drastically limiting the field of his activities. That Jung withdrew from his very successful outer life probably seemed like craziness to many. At age 39 he looked like a man who had it all. What he had to reckon with in himself was the Biblical question: “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?” Jung set out on an inner journey in search of his soul. THE RED BOOK is an account of that journey.

Jung was born into a time in history when reason was God. All the old gods had been declared dead. For those of you who study Jung, you know he read and lectured extensively on Nietzsche and his work. Shamdasani has included a wonderful footnote in THE REDBOOK in “Scrutinies,” Footnote #91. “To Nietzscheʼs statement (God is Dead), Jung noted, “. . . it would be more correct to say: ʻHe has discarded our image, and where will we find him again?ʼ”

Shamdasani is citing a paragraph from Jungʼs PSYCHOLOGY AND RELIGION, CW 11. My Volume 11 doesnʼt read that way, so this must be a case where Shamdasani retranslated Jung for THE RED BOOK. His retranslation is more direct and, to my mind, renders more accurately Jungʼs thinking about the problem of God in modernity. God is not dead, but has rejected our image of God. Where will we find God again?

In the exploration of his own personality, his own interiority, Jung doesnʼt simply accept the irrational he encounters in his active imaginations. Over and over we find Jung disagreeing with and arguing with the figures he meets in the unconscious, but also learning from them. He does not abandon his conscious stance but rather comes to his understanding and insights in dialogue with the figures. Much later he will write that coming to terms with the unconscious requires a fight between equals. Consciousness must have its say, and the unconscious must have its say. In his confrontation Jung realized there is much in the unconscious that is not wise and should not be accepted at face value.

Jung shows that the way beyond science is through the symbol. The ability to entertain and explore symbols is key to both development of personality and transformation of psychic libido. Perhaps our ability to create symbols is limited, but our ability to make of ourselves larger vessels for entertaining and understanding symbols seems to be limitless.

Jung depicts his own individuation process and elaborates the concept as a general psychological schema. By reconciling his No.1 and No. 2 personalities, Jung was able to reconcile the spirit of the time with the spirit of the depths. Jungʼs No. 1 personality was a successful man of the world who bought into the values and mores of the day. His No. 2 personality was far more complex, was in touch with other realms, with other times, and with his soul. His No. 1 personality was rational, scientific, rooted in the enlightened times, and dominated by his primary function. His No. 2 personality was irrational, of the ages, utterly incomprehensible to his No. 1 self.

This work of reconciliation between the spirit of the times and the spirt of the depths became the leitmotif of his subsequent scholarly work along with the full elaboration of the individuation process.

What is it about Jungian Psychology and now THE RED BOOK that so many of us find helpful? They offer the possibility for renewal, for living more intensely, for changing difficult and poorly adjusted attitudes. Jung has provided a methodology and map for those of us who seek soul, search for purpose and meaning, yearn to connect with the divine, and suffer the divisions in our own natures.

What can we do to make Jungʼs information in THE RED BOOK and his other writing work for us? If we as individuals suffer a split in our personality, do we know it? And if we do, how to we heal it? To borrow a phrase from another realm: Jung provides us with “actionable intelligence.” He states that to be truly healed and whole, we must develop a religious attitude. But Jung has a nuanced definition for “religion”

In a lengthy letter to a Pastor Tanner dated 12 February 1959, Jung explains his psychological definition for the word “religion.ʼ” First he provides a definition the ancients used: religio derived from relegere or religere, “to ponder, to take account of, to observe (e.g., in prayer).”

Then he gives the definition the Church Fathers used: religio from religare, “to bind, to reconnect,” which speaks to relationship with God. Thirdly, Jung writes of a contrasting conception that was “current in pagan antiquity: the gods are exalted men and embodiments of ever-present powers whose will and whose moods must be complied with. Their numina must be carefully studied, they must be propitiated by sacrifices . . . . Here religion means a watchful, wary, thoughtful, careful, prudent, expedient, and calculating attitude towards the powers that be . . . .

Finally, Jung provides his own thinking about the meaning of “religion:”

“By ʻreligion,ʼ then, I mean a kind of attitude which takes careful and conscientious account of certain numinous feelings, ideas, and events and reflects upon them.” This is the attitude so well exemplified in THE RED BOOK.

Jungʼs notions about the psychological meaning of a religious attitude are more akin to that of the ancients and pagan antiquity than to that of the Church Fathers. However, in his view that ego consciousness can connect with its unconscious substratum and be nourished by it, Jung is closely aligned with the early Christian thinkers. Some individuals and some of modern Christianity have lost the ability to make that vital connection. Jungʼs psychology offers a new way--new "wineskins" as the times require.

It will also help us to remember that when Jung talks about religion and God, he is not referring to a god of dogma or tradition or even of belief.

In a 1952 letter he wrote: “I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted by Him. I would feel it to be the grossest sin if I were to oppose any resistance to this force.” Jungʼs god is up close and personal. In another letter, also from late in his life, he wrote: God “is the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse.”

I have worked with numerous people in analysis for whom the problem of God is not a problem at all. Their God is removed and remote, so transcendent as to be completely invisible, unrelated, and without impact. Their problems are with those troublesome, under-the-surface factors that affect their moods, their relationships, their work, their feelings about others and about themselves. In other words, all those things that upset their subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of their lives for better or worse. Through careful attention to moods, affects, dreams, fantasies, unintended life events, numinous experiences, and invisible influences that are only registered indirectly, sometimes these people have developed a “religious attitude” in the sense Jung means.

Sometimes these people discover or give birth to a god-image in which God becomes up close and personal, around which their consciousness revolves as a planet around the sun. They experience a new zest for life, a renewed attitude. Stated like this, this work toward wholeness looks straightforward and relatively simple. It is anything but! It is challenging, difficult, disorienting, often gut- wrenching. It requires patience, endurance, courage, sacrifice, and honesty. The right way is fraught with wrong turns and blind alleys, and the actual path is not known but must be created by walking it. There are, however, sufficient rewards and consolations along the way to make it worthwhile.

If we take seriously Jungʼs prescriptions for wholeness, that is, for working toward our own individuation, our task is to do what Jung did. If we find we suffer from “loss of soul,” we must go in search of our soul. If we feel the demands of those who have gone before us, we must--to the degree that we can--fulfill those demand. We have to have our own “confrontation with the unconscious” and come to terms with it. As Jung tells us, we cannot achieve wholeness through an imitation of Christ. And as Ann has said, we cannot do any of this by imitating Jung. It has to be our task and our way. From my vantage point, this journey toward wholeness is a lifelong work and a goal which gives an individual life meaning and purpose. The work at reconciliation of consciousness and the unconscious is the prescription for our own turbulent times.

I will end with these words of Coleridge which apply so aptly to Jung:

He looked at his own Soul with a Telescope.
What seemed all irregular,
he saw and showed to be beautiful Constellations;
and he added to the Consciousness hidden worlds within worlds.

Rose F. Holt March 17, 2011 copyright

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED.

The C.G. Jung Society of Saint Louis Presents

Cheryl Lawler, M.S.W., L.C.S.W and Rose Holt, M.A.

Workshop: Sacrifice as a Theme in Psychotherapy”

Sunday, April 3, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
(2 CEUs) First Congregational Church UCC 6501 Wydown, Clayton, MO 63105

Fee: Friends - $30; Others $35; Full-time Students $17.50
Full and Part-time Student Scholarships are available. Call or e-mail to apply. [Contact information is below.]

The Jung Society is offering a third presentation in which two psychoanalysts, one from the psychoanalytic community and one Jungian, will offer their perspectives on the theory and practice of psychotherapy. The subject of this program is the role of sacrifice in the therapeutic process. Cheryl Lawler and Rose Holt will each present their perspectives and thoughts about the human experience of sacrifice.

What is sacrifice and what is sacrificed? Is sacrifice necessary? If so, why? How does sacrifice manifest in unconscious ways that affect conscious functioning in the individual? During this afternoon program, there will be ample time for questions and answers.

Cheryl Lawler is past president, and currently training and supervising analyst as well as faculty member of the St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute. She is practicum supervisor, Washington University School of Social Work, a private practitioner, and author of Intimacy Without Sacrifice: Toward a New Psychoanalytic Theory of Sexual Love.

Rose Holt is a Jungian analyst in private practice in St. Louis. She serves as advisory analyst to the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis and is on the faculty of the Chicago Analyst Training Program. She has taught numerous courses in Analytical Psychology

The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis – (314) 533-6809 – cgjungstl@sbcglobal.net – http://cgjungstl.org

C.G. Jung's THE RED BOOK is an astonishing work. In his autobiographical MEMORIES DREAMS REFLECTIONS, Jung describes his "confrontation with the unconscious." In THE RED BOOK he recorded that confrontation in great detail, first in the actual experiences, then in his reflections about the experiences, and then in the understanding he gleaned. Over a period of sixteen years he illustrated the work with a large number of paintings--artwork that is startingly beautiful and expressive. The book is available from Amazon.com. [If you buy the book through the Jung Institute of Chicago website (www.jungchicago.or)], the Institute will benefit.] A warning: it is huge and weighs 8.5 pounds. Furthermore, it is a most difficult read. I have spent a number of months exploring it and can say it yields up its insights sparingly and only with intense concentration.

A TASTE OF JUNG

The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis is offering a five week course on various facets of Jungian Psychology during October, 2010. The classes will meet Sunday afternoons from 2:30 to 4:30, and each will be taught by a different area Jungian Analyst. I will teach on October 24. Dates are October 3, 10, 17, 24, and 31. Location is the First Congregational Church UCC at 6501 Wydown Boulevard in St. Louis. Details and registration information are on the Society website, www.cgjungstl.org

The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis is sponsoring a writing contest this Fall. Detailed information about the contest are posted on the Society's website, www.cgjungstl.org Deadline for entries is October 15, 2010.

We have examined Jungian concepts of personality types, complex, persona, shadow, anima/animus, personal unconscious, and collective unconscious. Now we will consider how these psychic components interact. First, a brief review:

Personality typology has to do with characteristic ways an individual meets the world—extraverted/ introverted, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/pecerceiving. Complexes are the sore spots in the personal unconscious that can get activated and cause us great discomfort, even grief. Persona refers to our adapted selves, the ways we have learned to get along with family, friends, workers, society in general. Shadow consists of all the traits I refuse to acknowledge because unacceptable or repulsive but which belong to my personality and remain unconscious. Anima or Animus is the unconscious feminine element in a man or, similarly, the unconscious masculine elements in a woman. Personal unconscious refers to unconscious contents that have been repressed, suppressed, or forgotten that could enrich the personality if made conscious. Collective unconscious is that part of psyche that is common to all human kind and is composed of archetypal contents.

These are words that describe typical ways psyche expresses itself. [We will be discussing other psychic elements—archetypes and Self—in the remaining weeks of our course.] Much of great literature can be discussed in terms of these psychological concepts. For example, the protagonist in Crime and Punishment in a young man wholly identified with his thinking function. His unconsciousness toward issues that demand a feeling response allows him to commit a heinous crime without a hint of remorse or understanding of others’ reactions to him. In Robertson Davies’ novel, The Manticore, we journey with David Staunton as he comes to terms with powerful and extremely destructive complexes.

There is an ancient myth, “Inanna’s Descent to the Goddess” that typifies a regularly-occurring psychic situation: when the ego is identified with the persona, then the shadow and the anima or animus are bound together in the unconscious. It is this psychic situation that gets played out in reality in complicated and often tragic love triangles.

In this myth, Inanna has to abandon her queenly garments and descend to the underworld for the funeral of Ereshkigal’s husband and come to terms with a decidedly hostile Ereshkigal. In a psychological translation, we have the ego identified with the persona (Inanna in her finery). Shadow and animus are bound together in the unconscious (Ereshkigal married to Gugalanna). The story revolves around Inanna’s sacrifice--a requirement for the descent; the burial of Ereshkigal’s husband; and the eventual reconciliation of Inanna and Ereshkigal.

When unconscious, shadow and animus are seen only in projection. The shadow is some hated, envied, or otherwise powerful person who draws the ego’s projection. The animus is a male figure who carries the projections of a woman's unrealized masculine potentiality. Often the animus is an idealized figure, but he can just as easily be seen as demonic or oppressive. The common denominator for both shadow and animus projections is energy; the projection carriers for each carry a lot of energy for the ego. Often, once the projections are withdrawn, the ego is left in wonderment when she relates with the real human being who was previously the projection carrier. What was the big deal? A similar situation may exist in a man’s psychology, in which case we speak of anima.

How might we recognize a similar Inanna-Ereshkigal-Husband psychic setup closer to home? When shadow and animus get together (as, say, might be dramatized in a dream), the ego is left in a bereft feeling place. The drama of the dream will show the dynamic, and the ego will awaken in a distressed state.

The parental complexes play a huge role in the overall psychic setup because the way the budding ego develops a really fine persona (and often identifies with it) is by pleasing the parents, the primary authorities for consciousness. Of course, the finer the persona, the more outer worldly success is guaranteed. At midlife when the inner world makes itself felt, as it often does, the battle is engaged. You can see how devastating it is for one to have to sacrifice one's identity with the persona (and often how costly!).

You can also see how difficult it is to own for oneself the qualities one has projected--the distasteful, hateful ones that we have to accept with the attendant humbling and the positive, attractive ones that we have to accept and take responsibility for. I am the one who does these terrible things that I find so unacceptable. I am the one with these potentialities that I have to work like crazy to develop and put to use. Much easier that I let someone be my bad guy and someone do all those marvelous things I so admire.



Rose F. Holt

TALK FOR "THE LEGACIES OF FREUD AND JUNG" PROGRAM

Many people have examined the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, especially people in the Jungian community. For a few years the two of them carried on a voluminous correspondence which was published in 1974 in the Freud/Jung Letters. Though Jung came to have serious doubts about some of Freud’s theories, he never failed to credit Freud for both his ground-breaking contributions and for the debt he (Jung) owed to him. Though they had a collegial relationship, the difference in their status and their ages (Freud was 19 years older than Jung) gave a decided father-son cast to their interactions which exacerbated their personal difficulties.


Dr. Callahan, in a previous lecture, has given us an excellent overview of the relationship between the two men and the reasons their relationship did not endure. [Audio of Dr. Callahan’s presentation is available for purchase at www.cgjungstl.org] I want to talk about Jungian Psychology today, its various schools, and the foundation for it that Jung laid down in the first half of the 20th C. My overall impression is that today’s Jungians hew much more closely to the thinking of the man Jung than today’s Freudians follow Freud’s ideas. I hasten to add that I know very little about the status of Freudian thought in modern psychoanalytic theories. Part of our reason for joining with the Psychoanalytic community for discussion is to help us all understand better our differences and our commonalities.
There are three schools of Jungian or Analytical Psychology that exists today--the Developmental, the Archetypal, and the Classical. I consider myself a classical Jungian analyst, meaning I believe and practice in the ways I understand Jung’s own fundamental ideas. This apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. An image--and Jung was great on the use of image--will help me explain. Using the analogy of horse and rider, I think the developmentalists put undue emphasis on the rider; they tend to emphasize ego consciousness. The archetypalists, on the other hand, emphasize the horse; they give too little credence to ego consciousness. I think Jung had the horse and rider balance about right--ego consciousness and the unconscious are roughly equals--sometimes one takes the lead, sometimes the other--in a back-and-forth relationship.

With that introduction, now I will turn to some basic Jungian contributions that remain the solid foundation for the practice of analytical psychology today. They include: Complex Theory; Personality Typology; An Approach to Understanding and Working with Dreams; the Archetypal Nature of the Collective Unconscious; the Relationship between the Ego and the Unconscious; the Concept of the Self; the Use of Symbol Systems for Exploring the Collective Unconscious; the Concept of Individuation; the concept of Synchronicity; A Psychotherapy for Both Well and Ill Persons.

Lets look at each of these contributions for what they were and why they endure. Early in his psychiatric career, Jung devised the Word Association Test. Basically he used a list of words, asked individuals to give a one-word response to each word, and noted their reactions. He discovered that certain words had unexplained effects on the subject’s responses--long reaction times; multiple-word, emotion, and delayed responses; galvanic skin measurements that indicated reactions occurring in the body. From this work Jung was able to prove that there are unconscious contents, that is, elements that lie beneath the surface of awareness, that have unintended effects on consciousness. Using our image of horse and rider, there are reactions in the “horse” that are both unknown and uncontrolled by the rider.

Expanding his research from patients in the Burgholzi Clinic to so-called normal subjects, Jung soon discovered that everyone has complexes that interfere with conscious intentionality and response. Diedre Bair in her biography of Jung gives an interesting account of a colleague administering the Association Test to the young Jung in which his own complexes were laid bare.

We all have complexes--mother, father, inferiority, abandonment, money, orphan, failure, etc. One useful way of realizing when we have fallen into one of our own is the mnemonic REPP--Regression, Excess Emotionality, Projection, Perseveration. These are the more obvious complex indicators.

Using the Association Test, Jung went on to work with the Zurich police to examine suspects and expose their guilt; their reactions gave them away. Our modern lie detector test has its roots in this early work as does the TAT, the Thematic Apperception Test.

As Jung was working to understand the profound differences between his own ideas and those of others, primarily Freud and Alfred Adler, he began to study and observe personality type and the ways they impact our thinking and our relationships with others, with the world, and with our inner selves.. In 1921 he published Personality Types. That book is as timely today as it was 90 years ago. The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the MBTI, so widely-used now, is based upon it. For several decades the mother-daughter team of Myers-Briggs carried on a lively correspondence with Jung as they expanded and implemented his initial ideas.

Jung parted with Freud, partially over their different understanding of dreams and dream symbolism. In his late-life autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he writes:

“After the parting of the ways with Freud, a period of inner uncertainty began for me. It would be no exaggeration to call it a state of disorientation. . . . I resolved for the present not to bring any theoretical premixes to bear upon (my patients), but to wait and see what they would tell of their own accord. My aim became to leave things to chance. ... patients would spontaneously report their dreams and fantasies to me, and I would merely ask, ‘What occurs to you in connection with that?’ or, ‘How do you mean that, where does that come from, what do you think of it?’ . . . . I avoided all theoretical points of view and simply helped the patients to understand the dream-images by themselves, without application of rules and theories.
Soon I realized that it was right to take the dreams in this way as the basis of interpretation, for that is how dreams are intended. They are the facts from which we must proceed.”

The approach Jung describes here is still the best guide for approaching dream I have found. The dream is like the sentence in a book. That is to say, its meaning is determined by the context that surrounds it, and that context is the life and experiences of the dreamer. The dream compensates and complements the conscious attitude, providing just what is required to move toward a better balance between consciousness and the unconscious.
Jung’s work with patients and his own “confrontation with the unconscious,” as he called it, over time led him to the discovery of contents in the unconscious that were not purely personal, that seemed to transcend time, cultures, and individuals. He discovered collective contents, contents with common symbols and themes, in very disparate peoples. These contents he dubbed “archetypal,” coming from the root words arche and typos, meaning ancient imprint. The meaning of archetypal themes and symbols is derived not only from the personal life of the dreamer but also from a common historical meaning that everyone shares.

Jung further discovered that once his patient worked through the strictly personal--usually of a troubling nature--elements of his/her dreams, archetypal images and themes began to appear. Subtle changes in his patients’ personalities occurred, often with a healing and/or creative effect. He concluded that the unconscious was not only filled with repressed and intolerable contents, but also with contents of an historical, inherited nature that could be invaluable for the conscious, creative life of the dreamer.

The logical next step for Jung was to try to open the lines of communication between the individual and the personal and collective unconscious regions that lay below consciousness. Previously Freud had considered the unconscious to be the trash heap for odious conscious thoughts, feelings, experiences too painful to be consciously realized. Jung discovered it to be much, much more than that.

Jung began formulating his methods--first of all for himself, then for others--for connecting ego consciousness with vitally important unconscious contents hidden in the personal and collective unconscious. He had learned from his study of and collaboration with Freud and from his own experiences how useful dreams could be for bringing unconscious thoughts, feelings, and patterns into conscious awareness for examination and integration. He knew complexes with the affect they carry, when constellated and examined for meaning, can add enormously to self-understanding. From his study of Ignatius Loyola’s spiritual exercises and from his personal experiments with interacting with fantasy figures, he developed the technique of active imagination.

Jung’s methods are about learning to know oneself. Following up on work begun by Freud, he demonstrated how very much of an individual’s totality lay outside of that individual’s awareness. He categorized certain universal unconscious areas--shadow; contrasexual other figures, the animus in a woman, anima in a man; and perhaps the most important, the Self. Similarly he described certain universal symbols and themes that occur in this collective unconscious region of psyche--journey, mother, father, hero, fire, water, sun, moon, stars, etc.

The Self is a uniquely Jungian concept in psychology today. What does Jung mean when he uses the word “Self?” The best way to understand the concept is to circle the ways Jung expressed it:

“The self is the organizing principle in the psyche.” “The child is a symbol of the self.”
“Is there anything more fundamental than the realization, ‘This is what I am’? It (the work in analysis) reveals a unity which nevertheless is--or was--a diversity. No longer the earlier ego with its make-believes and artificial contrivances, but another, ‘objective’ ego, which for this reason is better called the ‘self.’ No longer a mere selection of suitable fictions, but a string of hard facts, which together make up the cross we all have to carry or the fate we ourselves are.” [Vol. 16, Para. 400]
“. . . relationship to the self is at once relationship to others, and no one can be related to the latter until related to him/herself.” [Vo. 16, Para. 446]
“. . . I have observed that the spontaneous manifestations of the self, i.e., the appearance of certain symbols relating thereto, bring with them something of the timelessness of the unconscious which expresses itself in a feeling of eternity or immortality. Such experiences can be extraordinarily impressive.” [Vol. 16, Para. 531]

Our difficulty with understanding precisely what the Self is arises from the fact that it encompasses our ego consciousness. How can we comprehend something from inside it?

In the last decades of his life Jung became immersed in study and explication of various symbol systems that describe the processes unfolding in the collective unconscious. In his study and coming from an impressive dream he had, he stumbled onto alchemy. [A side note here: almost all Jung’s important ideas and researches grew out of his work with his own dreams.] Most moderns dismiss alchemy as the attempt by a few crackpots to turn lead into gold. A simple note that Isaac Newton left thousands of pages of his alchemical scribbling behind should serve to dispel such notions. Newton distilled from his alchemical opus mathematics and physics that still serve us well.

Jung realized that the alchemist in the work and prayer were actually projecting the unconscious background of his/her psyche into the experiments and meditations of the alchemical opus. Through careful study of various alchemical treatises, Jung saw that many of the symbols in the texts also appeared in the dreams and spontaneous fantasies of his patients. From this parallelism Jung concluded that his own discoveries were, in fact, part and parcel of the unfolding of processes in the unconscious over the ages. His contributions were not some aberration but part of the historical record of humankind.

Jung’s notion of individuation, that is, the human process of achieving an undivided wholeness, goes hand-in-hand with his ideas about the Self. Is the Self latent and is discovered through the process of individuation or is the Self a co-creation of the ego and the unconscious? Unanswerable questions to be sure. However, we can readily grasp the idea that our personality development can and does unfold over our entire lifespan. Some of Jung’s ideas and methods are conducive to the ripening of personality.

Still another contribution of Jung’s is the principle of synchronicity. It’s a simple notion but one fraught with extremely wide consequences. Synchronicity describes events that are related but not causally. We have all experienced them, usually dismissing them as coincidence. As with all his researches, Jung started with facts. It is a fact that such events occur regularly. Why and how, he wanted to know? He concluded that there are correspondences between certain psychic states and outer reality that constellate an event. He worked with the Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli to elaborate and explain the principle. The example I like to use is from my own experience. Some 20 years ago, I was walking on a street in a nearby community, thinking about a co-worker I hadn’t seen in 15 years. I turned a corner, and met that man.

I am sure we could spend a great deal of time sharing with each other similar experiences. The main idea I want to convey is that psychic process and physical reality have a much more complex relationship than can be understood rationally. I think this is the reason that psychotherapy based on a strictly rational understanding of one’s circumstances is sometimes not very helpful. Life and the unconscious seem to be irrational at the deepest levels of being while consciousness develops primarily along rational lines.

The last of Jung’s contributions I want to discuss is his methods for psychotherapy which are helpful for people suffering serious psychological distress as well as for those seeking a fuller, more satisfying life. His analytic techniques are oriented toward creating a working alliance between ego consciousness and the unconscious. It is as if we moderns have emancipated our consciousness to such a degree that we have the ability to saw off the limb on which we sit. Jung was intent on showing how understanding and connecting to the “tree” can be conducive to healing, well-being, and personality growth. Returning to our earlier image, Jungian analysis, as it is understood and practiced today, has at root this essential goal: a cooperative, mutually beneficial relationship between horse and rider with both oriented toward the goal of life. What that goal is for the individual is only partially determined by the ego. Psyche or the unconscious seems to have a teleological aspect of its own with which the ego must come to terms.

If we sum all the contributions Jung made, they point to one gigantic leap for humankind--a much broader and deeper understanding of what it means to be a human being.

Boris Matthews and I are offering the three-part online course through the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. See details below. For more information, please contact either Dr. Matthews or me at the addresses listed. To register, please go to www.jungchicago.org.


JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY—THE ESSENTIALS
A Three-Part Online Course
Presented by Rose F. Holt, M.A., and Boris L. Matthews, Ph.D.
May 3, through August 16, 2010.
Thirteen (13) Mondays, 7:30 – 9:00 pm (CDT)

Part One of this course will be an exploration of Jung’s basic psychological theories. Part Two will focus on the applicability of Jungian theory to one’s own life and personality development. Part Three will introduce approaches to understanding and exploring dream symbols and themes.

Part One: Basic Jungian Theory
Four Web Seminars, 7:30 – 9:00 pm, Monday evenings, May 3, 10, 17,
and 24, 2010
Text: Analytical Psychology—Notes on the Seminar Given in 1925, by
C.G. Jung, Edited by William McGuire. Princeton University Press,
1989.

Part Two: Applying Jungian Theory
Five Web Seminars, 7:30 – 9:00 pm, Monday evenings, June 7, 14, 21,
28, and July 12, 2010
Text: Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal
Growth, by Robert Johnson. Harper Collins, 1986.

Part Three: Understanding and Exploring Dream Themes and Symbols
Four Web Seminars, 7:30 – 9:00 pm, Monday evenings, July 26, August 2,
9, and 16, 2010
Text: Dreams: God's Forgotten Language by John Sanford. Harper Collins,
1989.

We will meet in thirteen (13) web-hosted seminars for real-time interaction between presenters and participants. (For our live video conferences, participants will need a computer, a web cam, and a fast internet connection. Participants will also need to call into a central number for audio connection.)

On-line Forum: For all three parts of this course, participants will have access to a website where additional materials will be posted and an ongoing forum available for
discussions.


Cost: $310 (plus $15 for those taking the course for twenty (20) CE credits; participants pay own phone use time)
Class size is limited
Presenters:
Rose F. Holt, M.A., practices Jungian psychoanalysis in St. Louis, MO Boris Matthews, Ph.D., practices Jungian psychoanalysis in Madison, WI.
If you have questions, e-mail Rose Holt at roseholt@aol.com or Boris Matthews at borismatthews@verizon.net

EXPLORING JUNG’S “ANSWER TO JOB”
An Online Course Presented By Rose F. Holt, M.A., and Boris L. Matthews, Ph.D.
November 9th, 2009 through December 14th, 2009

“The book does not pretend to be anything but the voice or question of a single individual who hopes or expects to meet with thoughtfulness in the public.”
~ C.G. Jung

"Answer to Job" is the most controversial of Jung’s works. It is also the one he most valued. We will read and discuss this lengthy essay, supplementing it with information about Jung’s reasons for writing it and the furor it created. Our exploration will cover Jung’s distinction between God and god-image, his working definition of religion, and the importance of the Job story within the framework of Jung’s psychological theories.


Learning Objectives:

(1) Understand link between religious traditions and psychology (2) Explore ways scriptural story can parallel psychological development (3) Understand Jung's motivation for seeking his own "answer"

On-line Discussion Forum:
Course participants have access to a website where additional materials will be posted and an ongoing forum available for discussions.

Real-time Video Conference Discussions:
We will meet in six (6) web-hosted seminars for real-time interaction between presenters and participants. (For our live video conferences participants will need a computer, a web cam, and a fast internet connection. Participants will also need to call into a central number at their own long-distance charge for audio connection.)

Seminar Time and Dates: Mondays, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm CDT November 09, 16, 23, 30, and December 07, 14, 2009
Required Readings: The Portable Jung, Edited by Joseph Campbell, Viking Portable Library Publisher. Supplemental reading materials will be provided.

COURSE FEE
$140* $120 - Students ($20 additional fee – 12 CE credits – call 312.701.0400)

*Price includes access to the website, the web seminar and telephone hook up for the seminar.

For all registrations visit www.jungchicago.org

For more information contact:
RoseHolt@aol.com - 314-726-2032 • borismatthews@verizon.net - 608-217-5184

Rose F. Holt, M.A., practices Jungian psychoanalysis in St. Louis, MO. www.roseholt.blogspot.com Boris L. Matthews, Ph.D., practices Jungian psychoanalysis in Madison, WI. www.borismatthews.com

INVISIBLE REALITY

Jung [C.G. Jung, 1875 – 1961, Swiss Psychiatrist, Founder of Analytical Psychology] writes, “What is real is that which has real effects.” In our rigid three-dimensional conscious constructs, we tend to define reality as that which is concrete and tangible, excluding anything of a spiritual nature. Yet, the spiritual has real effects. Even a cursory self-reflection will confirm the validity of Jung’s statement. The spiritual is real.

As a way of honoring and focusing on many aspects of the spiritual, the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis is hosting a conference, Jung in the Heartland: Portals to the Sacred, from November 19-22 at Toddhall Retreat and Conference Center in Columbia, Illinois, just 45 minutes from the St. Louis airport. The program is open to everyone, and features an outstanding faculty of world-renowned analysts and authors. [For information, please visit www.cgjungstl.org]

When I was growing up, it was the custom in our small Catholic community to pray the rosary as part of a funeral wake. The effect on my young self was extreme boredom mixed with wonderment that adults behaved this way. However, in thinking about this ritual as an adult, I can see the real effects of rote recitation and meditation on the mysteries of the rosary—the joyful, the sorrowful, and the glorious. What human life hasn’t been touched by joy, sorrow, and glory? What resonances are set up in the depths of the souls of the living? What evokes the sacredness of life like those intoned prayers, drawing mourners into an unconscious unity of spirit? Who knows what the effects were on those people around me? On me? Surely it had at least as much impact as an invisible wind rustling through trees.

The psychological impact of formal prayer is that it tends to align consciousness with semi-conscious, established patterns that have served humankind well for a very long time. For a consciousness mired in some less-than-healthy unconscious pattern, prayer can be a way of getting “unstuck.” The mysteries of the rosary are built on New Testament stories which recount the life story of one of the most developed personalities in human history, someone fully individuated, i.e., who completely realized both the human and the spiritual dimensions of existence.

For another example of invisible effects, consider gazing on a full moon. Even thinking about the image of a full moon right now conjures up emotion, memory, awe, and mystery. I rarely look at a full moon without wondering about peoples over millennia who saw this same sight, who relied on it to mark the passage of time, to know when to move or to harvest crops; who began to associate it with the cycle of a woman’s life and the mysterious absence of the cycle with an impending birth, to predict the movements of the tides, even eventually to know when to celebrate the Paschal Mystery itself. What knowledge the spirit of the moon has imparted to humanity over the ages! What knowledge does the spiritual world hold, awaiting a consciousness sufficiently capacious to apprehend it?

If you haven’t seen the movie, “Moonstruck,” I urge you to rent and watch it. It will awaken some spiritual awareness without ever touching on anything religious or dogmatic. I would argue that we are all a bit moonstruck and it would do us well to recognize and celebrate it.

Whenever anything intangible and haunting is evoked in us, whether it be in seeing the flag, in hearing a moving poem, in playing and replaying a song in our minds, in being visited by the memory of a deceased loved one, or in a thousand other ways in which a current experience ties us back to an old memory trace, we experience the movement of spirit.

A favorite poem of mine is “elegy” by W.S. Merwyn:

who would i tell it to

That simple sentence, absent capitalization or punctuation, always evokes such depth of emotion in me that I know it brings me into solidarity with every other human being who has grieved in ways beyond language or explanation. Why is it that the Gerard Manley Hopkins’ opening line, “Margaret, are you grieving over goldenglove unleaving,” pops into my mind frequently and at odd times? I can only conclude that there is some unseen but very real force at work in my being. It is a force of some power, and it is arresting.

Of course, in our romance-besotted modern life, no one among us would deny the effects of love or its life-changing, life-enhancing power. Yet, few of us would identify love as a spirit, but in the truest sense of the word, it is spiritual. And in the sense that Jung defines “real,” it is real. “What I did for Love” is more than a lovely song; it is a testament to the power of love.

Jung was interested in the psychology of the human person and in the ways reality, seen and unseen, can call forth richness of experience and wholeness of personality. Whether we approach the spiritual through a formal religion or through a religious, reverent attitude toward the people and the world within and around us matters little. What is important, from a psychological point of view, is that we not neglect all of experience.

To live in a reality that consists only of things, one that must be explained by cause and effect is to live in a carved-out, desiccated existence. To live in a world of things is to see and understand people and ourselves only as objects to be manipulated and managed. To live in a strict cause-and-effect universe is to miss perhaps the largest parts of existence, the parts that respond to mythic patterns, the forces that, rather than pushing us from the past, are pulling us into the future.

It is a basic tenet of Analytical (Jungian) Psychology that we as conscious moderns have a responsibility to understand the spiritual forces that move us as best we can, learn to cooperate with those that are benevolent, and resist those that are not. External authority, while important for civil living, can also lead us very much in undesirable directions if it is not reconciled with the individual spirits that inhabit all of us.

A careful reflection about spiritual forces leads me to conclude that there are a myriad of invisible agencies that have very real effects and that are shaping our lives, our relationships, and our actions in unknown and sometimes undesirable ways. What our individual and collective futures become is, in no small part, of our own choosing and attitude toward the real.

Rose F. Holt
July 27, 2009

Rose F. Holt, M.A., is a diploma graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and is in private practice in St. Louis. She teaches in the Analyst Training Program of the Chicago Institute and for the C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis. She also serves as advisory analyst for the St. Louis Society. Rose’s blog on topics about Jungian Psychology is at www.roseholt.blogspot.com

During his "confrontation with the unconscious" and later, Jung wrote and painted in his "Red Book." After long negotiations with the Jung heirs and much work to copy, translate, and footnote, the Philemon Foundation is publishing this seminal work. There is a very solid and balanced article about Jung, his work, the book, and the process of its release to the public in the "New York Times." Here is the link to the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?em

"Only what is really oneself has the power to heal." C.G. Jung, VOL. 7, Para. 258

"The Entombment" Artist: Mercedes McVey

"During the assimilation of the unconscious the personality passes through many transformations." C.G. Jung, VOL. 8, Para. 423

The C.G. Jung Society of St. Louis is hosting a major conference at our first "Jung in the Heartland" event, November 19-22, 2009. The theme of the conference is "Portals to the Sacred" with major presentations by Carl Greer, Sylvia Perera, James Hollis, and Lionel Corbett. The conference setting is Toddhall Retreat Center in Columbia, IL, just 45 minutes from the St. Louis, MO, international airport.

For detailed information about this event, visit the Jung Society of St. Louis website at www.cgjungstl.org. The website has links for online registration and for downloading event information.

This conference promises to be an opportunity for learning, reflection, meeting like-minded people, and intensifying participants' own journeys toward wholeness. Our sponsoring society believes it will indeed provide a portal to the source.

For the last session of a course on dreams, I offered some questions for reflection and discussion. Here are the questions and some possible responses to them. If any Reader wishes to comment on a question or a response, please click on the "comments" icon and do so.


SOME QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION


1. Why do you think dreams are important? Dreams are an important way unconscious contents reach consciousness. Even a cursory self-reflection reveals that our attitudes and behaviors are influenced by unconscious ideas, assumptions, dynamics, feelings, memories, and imaginings. Dreams are a way we may be able to better understand these influences and deal with them more effectively—eliminating some, exaggerating others, developing and implementing those that are helpful.

2. Where do you agree with Jung’s ideas? Where do you disagree? For the most part, I agree with Jung’s ideas and theories, especially the ones we have touched on in our study together. Jung was, (as are we), confined in his milieu so that some of his notions appear to us as archaic or misogynistic.

3. Why do you think the concept of the unconscious is difficult for some? People for whom the unconscious becomes a reality HAVE to come to terms with it. For many others, a quiescent unconscious puts no demands on them, hence they have no need to deal with it, even believe in its existence. Some would argue they are the lucky ones.

4. Why do you think the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious is important? Or unimportant? The relationship is important, even vital, for someone for whom the unconscious has become a disturbing influence in his/her life. Usually the unconscious makes its disturbing presence felt through compulsions, depression, overwhelming life events—any issue for which ego consciousness alone cannot muster an adequate, adaptive response. As long as ego consciousness functions well, a relationship with the unconscious is unimportant, perhaps undesirable.

5. What is your understanding of archetypes? Archetypes are patterns of behavior. A simple example is the bird building its nest. Presumably, it is adhering to some instinctive imprint that informs its behavior. How do archetypes fit into one’s approach to the dream? When archetypal themes begin to appear in dreams, it marks an important milestone in the development of the personality. The layer of insulation between consciousness and the unconscious, i.e., the personal unconscious, has become sufficiently permeable that elements from the unconscious begin to show themselves to ego consciousness. The personal unconscious consists of one’s own history—forgotten or repressed contents, undeveloped and undesirable personality traits sometimes apparent to others but not to oneself, deeds we do not want to acknowledge. The deeper unconscious, which Jung calls the collective unconscious, is the repository of all humankind and is teeming with creative energies and patterns seeking realization and incarnation in a responsive and responsible individual consciousness.

6. What are important considerations to keep in mind when considering a dream? The most important and the most difficult consideration is that the dream is bringing NEW information to consciousness. Our natural tendency is to immediately place the information into existing categories where nothing new can enter in. Our consciousness, by its very construction is a Procrustean bed. [The notion of the Immaculate Conception, understood symbolically, is that in a sufficiently cleansed consciousness, something new has a chance for insemination and eventual birth—the saving thing.]

7. Why do dreams convince when no amount of logical argument can? I don’t know, but I do know this is a true statement.

8. Why are dreams so discounted in modern life? Our collective consciousness is all about keeping itself intact and turning the individual to its service. Dreams, by emphasizing individual development and fostering an anything-but-the-herd mentality, are naturally unwelcome to the collective.

9. Is there a resurgence of interest in dreams? Perhaps. I would be interested in other's opinion about this question.


10. There is no account of Jesus’ ever sharing a dream in the N.T. Why might that be? A real puzzle. Maybe Jesus’ statement, “I and the Father are one,” is an indication that his relationship with the unconscious was so well formed that he and it had no need for the corrections and compensations that dreams bring. Or it could be the case that Jesus lived in a multidimensional reality in which he did not distinguish waking consciousness from any other state of being. If the latter case is true, his final victory would be that of achieving a state which in itself is eternal.

11. What might the unconscious be seeking from a cooperating ego consciousness? Ah, the Big Question! Truly a mystery akin to that of the fate of the Son of Man. Did he know all before the Passion or did he live it in blind obedience to the unknown—as we must do?


12. Why does contact with deep layers of the psyche (the unconscious) have a healing effect? I don’t know, but I do know that is a true statement.



Rose F. Holt
April 30, 2009

ON THE TOPIC OF DREAMS


“It is always as if we were observing through a slit so that we only see a particular moment; all the rest is dark and we are not aware of it at that moment. The area of the unconscious is enormous and always continuous, while the area of consciousness is a restricted field of momentary vision.” [Jung, Analytical Psychology: its theory and Practice, p. 8]

“Man (sic) as we realize if we reflect for a moment, never perceives anything fully or comprehends anything completely,” [Jung, Man and His Symbols, p. 21]

Introduction

I start with the two Jung quotes above because we need to understand that our ego consciousness is extremely limited. Any event of our lives has details and information associated with it that go unnoticed by us but that may be extremely important. It is often the case that these unnoted but important elements are brought to our attention in a subsequent dream. This is one valuable way dreams can inform our ego consciousness.

The more we can expand our consciousness, the less likely we are to fall victim to unconscious forces that can make a mess of our lives. As we shall see in this course, dreams are a natural way that unconscious contents make themselves known. By taking notice of and exploring our dreams, we can considerably increase the scope of our conscious understanding. Since you are taking this course, you probably are already convinced of the value of dreams.

Some Assumptions

Following are some working hypotheses that we will hold as we take up our topic:

1. Every dream is an attempt to help us heal and move us toward wholeness.

2. Every dream is a comment on our life situation.

3. Threads from any dream can and do lead into many, many areas of our lives.

4. Through patient attention to our dreams, we can make contact with and enter into a meaningful dialogue with the unconscious. [By unconscious, I simply mean the source of those factors that influence and impact our lives in unknown ways.]

5. The unconscious is Janus-faced; i.e., it turns to us the face we turn to it.

6. Every dream is given to us for the purpose of healing past hurts, enlarging our perspective, and/or integrating portions of our personality.

7. The dream brings new information to compensate or complement our waking attitudes.

8. Our life energy, or libido, is personified in dreams, as if the psyche or the unconscious wants to draw us into a living relationship.

9. Relationships with inner figures can be as important, enriching, and rewarding as relationships with people in our outer lives.

10. Our inner and outer lives are in some way mirrors of each other. Dream work can provide for a more harmonious balance between the two.

11. The psyche has a teleological aspect, i.e., it is working towards a goal or purpose. Further, it seeks our participation and cooperation.


It seems to me that the unconscious both conceals and reveals itself. It both yearns to be seen, yet is reluctant. In analysis, a secured-symbolizing field is certainly necessary for the analysand. Such a field is also necessary for the unconscious. [Goodheart describes therapeutic containers as the “safe and secured spheres or circles in which ‘heavy’ things can safely happen.” This is the sense in which I use the phrase, “secured-symbolizing field.”] I doubt that our course will provide such a field. However, it can open us to the possibilities for creating that kind of sacred space for ourselves.

Symbols and Symbolic Meaning

Since dreams speak in the language of symbols, this is a good place to interject a few notions about symbols. Jung, in Man and His Symbols, pp. 20-27, writes:

A symbol “implies something vague, unknown or hidden from us.” . . . . “Thus a word or an image is symbolic when it implies something more than its obvious and immediate meaning. It has a wider ‘unconscious’ aspect that is never precisely defined or fully explained. Nor can one hope to define or explain it. As the mind explores the symbol, it is led to ideas that lie beyond the grasp of reason.”

“Because there are innumerable things beyond the range of human understanding, we constantly use symbolic terms to represent concepts that we cannot define or fully comprehend.”

“Thus every experience contains an indefinite number of unknown factors, not to speak of the fact that every concrete object is always unknown in certain respects, because we cannot know the ultimate nature of matter itself.”

“As a general rule, the unconscious aspect of any event is revealed to us in dreams, where it appears not as a rational thought but as a symbolic image.”

And Paul Tillich, in Dynamics of Faith, pp. 41-43, writes:

“Symbols . . . point beyond themselves to something else.” Symbols “participate in the reality of that to which they point” Symbols cannot “be replaced for reasons of expediency or convention. . .”

A symbol “opens up levels of reality which are otherwise closed to us.” And a symbol “also unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality.”

“Symbols cannot be produced intentionally. . .” Symbols “cannot function without being accepted by the unconscious dimensions of our being.” Symbols grow and they die.

What is a symbol to one person may or may not be to another. The meaning a symbol takes on is determined not in itself, but rather it is determined by the capacity of the interpreting mind. This understanding is extremely important when we are working with dream symbols.

Working with dreams is one way of increasing our capacity for understanding symbols. Symbols behave like water in that they fill up whatever container they find themselves in. Together, we will be working to increase our capacity, our ability for containing symbolic meaning.

Interpretation

All of us interpret. We assign meaning to ideas, events, and experiences. Most of us are, more or less, in the dark, i.e., unconscious of the process by which we arrive at meaning. Since the fundamental purpose of working with dreams is to render somewhat conscious that which is largely unconscious in our lives, an exploration of the process by which we interpret is in order.

As Scholes tells us, there is a significant difference “between the states of consciousness involved in receiving a text and producing one. Specifically, the text we produce is ours in a deeper and more essential way than any text we receive from outside. When we read we do not possess the text we read in any permanent way. But when we make an interpretation we do add to our store of knowledge—and what we add is not the text itself but our own interpretation of it. In literary interpretation we possess only what we create.” [Robert Scholes, Semiotics and Interpretation, p. 4]

Translating this understanding to working with dreams, it is of little value to have someone tell us their interpretation of our dream. It can be of enormous value when we arrive at an interpretation of our own dream or dream symbol. When we interpret our own dream, we add a piece of our own nature to our conscious personality.

There are, of course, universal symbols that crop up in our dreams all the time. Aid from someone else in amplifying such symbols can be helpful because their meaning is inexhaustible. However, the unique message for the dreamer is still highly personal.

You might take note that in interpreting for another, we are actually interpreting for ourselves. It is for this reason that many dream groups use the constant caveat, “If this were my dream, . . .”

One of the great delights in working with our dreams is that every dream presents us with new information that is uniquely our own. In our waking realities, much of what we are exposed to is not new. It is repetitive news, translated works, repeated stories, a fresh learning of existent knowledge—often interesting, to be sure, but not truly new. Of course, one reason dreams can be off-putting, even frightening, is that we by nature are wary and careful of what is strange, different, unknown. The danger in any work with dreams is that our ego consciousness will naturally try to fit the new content into an existing and often inadequate framework of understanding, in which case, the value of the content will be either lost or distorted.

Adding to Our Conscious Understanding
There are several possible ways in which we can add an outside content to our consciousness and assign meaning to it:

1. We can adapt something from an outside source and accept it at face value. We do this when we accept dogma as our truth or when we follow the laws of the land because we hold an assumption that our doing so is for the common good. A good deal of early childhood education holds with this way as a methodology even though there is ample evidence that children learn not what they are taught but rather what they see modeled in the behavior of significant others. Rejection or acceptance of dogma or law can be flip sides of the same coin. In either case, it is the dogma or the law that determines the individual’s behavior because the dogma or the law has taken up residence in consciousness.

2. We can achieve a modicum of distance from an idea, an event, or an experience, put it through some kind of consciousness-sorting process and accept/reject some or all, more or less thoughtfully. In this process, our own consciousness is the final arbiter of meaning and value. A potential problem with this process is that whatever is put through a particular state of consciousness, is at least to some degree, shaped and determined by that state, so that meaning and value can arise more from the consciousness than from the content itself. If the content is odious or contrary to the state of consciousness, considerable refraction of the content may take place so that it loses its value for adding something new/different to the existing consciousness. One way of illustrating this process is to consider two extremes of consciousness for approaching a written text:



Author is Authority --------------------------------- Reader is Authority

LAW ---------------------------------------------------------ANARCHY

Meaning/value determined by author –---- Meaning/value determined by reader


All of us approach any text somewhere along this continuum, and our approach is by no means a trivial choice. For the fundamentalist Christian, a Biblical text is understood literally, and its meaning and value is determined by the author whom he/she believes to be God. For a reader on the other end of the continuum who finds meaning and value in translating Biblical story as a way of understanding patterns of behavior in his/her own life, the reader determines for him/herself meaning and value. Another example of interpretation along this continuum is the varying ways people view the U.S. Constitution—meaning and value fixed by the framers or meaning and value determined by the application of the document’s principles to changing circumstances.

3. We can seek a larger context in the outer world for both our consciousness and an idea/event/experience so that our consciousness is not alone or is not the final arbiter for judgment of meaning and value. This is, of course, a tricky business because it demands a great deal of trust and faith. We are willing to yield to a higher authority (i.e., someone who can author) because we believe the higher authority has information, experience, or judgment that we lack. Sometimes the issue (idea/event/experience) is so troubling that we are relieved, even happy, to give it over to someone else. People may come into therapy with the happy expectation that the therapist will tell him/her what to do. Personal responsibility for the state of one’s own consciousness can be a heavy burden. I think we are seeing some abdication of personal responsibility and authority among the general population as we collectively try to deal with this phenomenon of terrorism. There are, of course, collective issues that must be dealt with by collective decision and action, and this too is a matter for important discernment.

4. We can seek a larger context in the inner world for both our consciousness and an idea/event/experience. If you accept one of the basic tenets of Jungian Theory, i.e., that the ego and ego consciousness are one part in a larger entity, the Self, there is existent in the inner world a context that can be extremely helpful in the discernment of meaning and value. Whether the Self is a help or a hindrance depends entirely upon the relationship between the ego and the Self—as is the case in any other interdependent relationship. If the ego is at odds with the Self and is pursuing meaning and value contrary to the intentionality of the Self, it may happen that the Self will hasten the destruction of an unhealthy facet of ego consciousness. [Assigning intentionality to the Self may be anthropomorphism. A more accurate way of stating the situation might be to say, "It is as if the intention of the Self is counter to that of the ego." We are probably on firm ground in our statement, however, since frequently the Self personifies itself in dreams.]

Let’s take a specific example to illustrate the possibility outlined in No. 4 above. This example also shows one of the archetypal patterns of human behavior portrayed in the Bible In the Spring of 2001, Pakistani official traveled to Kandahar, Afghanistan, on a mission to save the two 1,700 year-old statues of Buddha that the Taliban were threatening to destroy in their religious fervor. Mullah Omar, “Commander of the Faithful” and head of the Taliban, told the official this dream: A mountain was falling down on him (Omar). Before it hit him, Allah appeared and asked Omar why he had done nothing to get rid of false idols.” (Robert Marquand, “The Christian Science Monitor,” csmonitor.com, October 10, 2001) Omar, a person known to take guidance from his dreams, proceeded with the destruction of the ancient Buddha carvings.

There is a close parallel between Omar’s dream and that of King Nebuchadnezzar as told in the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel. At the peak of his power, Nebuchadnezzar, full of his own might and glory, had a warning dream: “I saw a tree of great height at the center of the world. It was large and strong, with its top touching the heavens, and it could be seen to the ends of the earth. Its leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, providing food for all. Under it the wild beasts found shade, in its branches the birds of the air nested; all men ate of it. In the vision I saw while in bed, a holy sentinel came down from heaven, and cried out: ‘Cut down the tree and lop off its branches. But leave in the earth its stump and roots, fettered with iron and bronze, in the grass of the field. Let him be bathed with the dew of heaven; his lot be to eat, among beasts, the grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from the human; let him be given the sense of a beast, till seven years pass over him.” (New American Bible, Daniel 4:7-14)
A year passes. Nebuchadnezzar has gone on in his arrogant way as before and then “was cast out from among men, he ate grass like an ox, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, and his nails like the claws of a bird.” (NAB, Daniel 4: 30)

Had Mullah Omar been willing to look inward at the “false idols” within his own consciousness, he might have interpreted the dream as a correction of his behavior. Events of the past few years would have unfolded very differently. Had he known the archetypal story of Nebuchadnezzar, Omar might have interpreted his dream as an invitation to self-reflection and self-criticism. It could have helped him with his mental hygiene. However, he interpreted the dream as a confirmation of his ego plan, and thus you could say the Self acted to destroy an unyielding and contrary ego structure. As he was warned in the dream, so it came to pass—a mountain fell on him.

If we accept the premise that the ego is the exponent for the Self in the world, a solid working alliance between them is essential, for the only way the Self can manifest or incarnate is through the conduit of a more or less willing ego consciousness. In the cases of Nebuchadnezzar and Mullah Omar, we could say that the ego became so inflated with its own view and importance that it could no longer accept critical input from the Self.



WORKING WITH DREAMS

The best approach I have found for working with dreams is the one Jung describes in MDR:

“After the parting of the ways with Freud, a period of inner uncertainty began for me. … I felt it necessary to develop a new attitude toward my patients. I resolved for the present not to bring any theoretical premises to bear upon them, but to wait and see what they would tell of their own accord. My aim became to leave things to chance. The result was that the patients would spontaneously report their dreams and fantasies to me, and I would merely ask, ‘What occurs to you in connection with that?’ or, ‘How do you mean that, where does that come from, what do you think about it?’ The interpretations seemed to follow of their own accord from the patients’ replies and associations. I avoided all theoretical points of view and simply helped the patients to understand the dream-images by themselves, without application of rules and theories. Soon I realized that it was right to take the dreams in this way as the basis of interpretation, for that is how dreams are intended. They are the facts from which we must proceed.” [Pp. 170-71]

In approaching dreams in this manner, I think we are more able to honor and enter into the state of the dreamer, keeping in mind our earlier discussion of symbolic understanding. Over time, what begins to happen is that alchemical and archetypal processes come into play. The dreamer’s, and the analyst’s, conscious and unconscious psychological structures dissolve and reform in new, often subtle, ways that can go unnoticed for some time. Jung called this alchemical process solve et coagula.

The archetypal factor at work is the numinosum. Jung describes the numinosum as “a dynamic agency or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will …. The numinosum is either a quality belonging to a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence that causes a peculiar alteration of consciousness.”

The numinosum appears at the moment when the dreamer begins to glimpse the luminosity of the dream or dream image or dream symbol. The numinosum both, “… seizes and controls the human subject, who is always rather its victim than its creator” and exerts effects that are “anything but unambiguous.”

“Often it (the numinosum) drives with unexampled passion and remorseless logic towards its goal and draws the subject under its spell, from which despite the most desperate resistance he is unable, and finally no longer even willing to break free, because the experience brings with it a depth and fullness of meaning that was unthinkable before.”

Working with dreams in the manner described above eventually and almost inevitably brings the dreamer to an attitude that can only be called religious in the sense that Jung uses the term: “We might say, then, that the term ‘religion’ designates that attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum.”

Through careful, meticulous association and amplification of dream images and motifs, the dreamer (with the help of the analyst/therapist) will begin to trace the personal to its archetypal roots in the objective psyche where he/she will find the source of renewal.

In some mysterious way, the healing function of the dream engages when the personal meets the archetypal. An emphasis on the archetypal without due regard for the personal can actually hinder any healing. Once when I was working hard to connect the personal and archetypal, trying to force connections, an analyst I much regarded said, “Don’t worry about the archetypal. It will show itself when it is ready.” How very right she was!

I want to share a sequence of dreams where the personal and the archetypal are so intertwined that no interpretation on my part was necessary.

S was a woman in her mid-30’s who had gone through a painful divorce, and after several years alone, had remarried. She was eager to have a child as she felt her biological clock might run out on her. She had this dream:

I discovered that my mother and her two sisters had been secretly keeping my grandmother (their mother) alive for years. However, when I was face to face with my grandmother, I saw that her eyes were brown instead of the vivid blue they were when was alive. I said, “No, this is not Grandma. Her eyes were blue.” At that moment I touched her arm. Her eyes turned blue, and I knew it was she.

Shortly after this dream, S discovered she was pregnant. The night before the child was born, she dreamed that her grandmother came through the front door of her house. Later she told me that when she awoke she knew the dream was announcing the birth. Sure enough, on that day she went into labor.

Some four months went by, and S brought a new and puzzling dream:

My grandmother comes to my house. She tells me she is bored and needs a new craft.

I asked her what she made of this Grand Mother dream. She looked very startled. Later she told me that on the way home she bought a pregnancy test. She discovered, much to her surprise, that she was again pregnant.

On the day S’s second child was born, her sister called to tell her that she had had a dream about their grandmother in which the grandmother had assured her that S and her little family would be just fine. As S told me later, she (S) immediately wondered if the sister were herself pregnant. The sister was but didn’t know it yet.
Some years go by. S brings this dream, which she had the night before she was to have a hysterectomy:

My grandmother comes to tell me her work is done. The scene shifts. There is to be an elaborate funeral for her in a huge theater. All my grandmother’s progeny are ushered into the place. The funeral service is more beautiful and moving than I can possibly describe. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

These dreams were all deeply moving and held great meaning for S. She felt very much supported and loved by this grandmother who, when she was a young child, had been so loving and gracious to her. The dreams helped her realize that this loving and supportive Great Mother continued her presence in S’s life.

Rose F. Holt
January 14, 2009

C.G. JUNG


JUNGIAN PSYCHOLOGY – A DEEPER LOOK
An Online Course
Presented by Rose F. Holt, M.A., and Boris L. Matthews, Ph.D.
From January 26, 2009, through March 20, 2009


This course will cover fundamentals topics of Jungian Psychology—archetypes and myths, dreams and dream interpretation, persona, shadow, complex, typology, anima/animus, Self, and individuation. It is designed for people who have some knowledge of the subject but would like a more structured and comprehensive overview.

Online Discussion Forum: A portion of the website for this course will be devoted to a forum discussion on which participants may post reflections, questions, and responses to others’ posts.

Seminar Web Events: We will hold four online web seminar events as part of this course. Times: Mondays, 7:30 to 9:00 pm, on February 2, 16; March 2 and 16, 2009. Seminar participants will need a high-speed internet connection (DSL or cable), a webcam (to participate in the on-line discussions by video), and long distance phone service (for the audio portion of the on-line discussions).

Learning Objectives: Participants will gain greater understanding of
•The archetypal / mythic roots of human experience
•The relationship between waking (ego) consciousness and other structures of the psyche (shadow, anima / animus, Self)
•The role of the feeling-toned complex in the psyche
•Fundamentals of psychological type
•Individuation

Required Text: Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C. G. Jung. Other course readings will be posted on the course website.

Fees: $170
$195 for CE credits.

CE’s: 16 CE credits available


For additional information contact

RoseHolt@aol.com
314-726-2032

borismatthews@verizon.net
608-217-5184

The Chicago Jung Institute website has been down for a few weeks. Because of the delay in registrations the down time caused, Boris Matthews and I have changed the dates for our Short Course on Dreams. Following is more detail about the course:

A SHORT COURSE ON DREAMS
An Online Course
Presented by Rose F. Holt, M.A., and Boris L. Matthews, Ph.D.
From January 22, through March 05, 2009

Dreams have been important sources of information for individuals and groups in all times and all ages. Though often misunderstood, even dismissed, dreams have powerful and lasting effects on individuals. In this short course we will explore (1) the function of dreams, (2) ways of working with dreams, (3) some universal and helpful dream symbols, and (4) the value of dreams for furthering individual development.

Course participant will have access to a website where an ongoing forum will be available for discussions and where additional course resources may be posted from time to time. Additionally, a part of the course will be four (4) web-hosted seminars for real-time interaction between presenters and participants. Seminar time and dates: Thursday, 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm CDT, January 22; February 05, 19; March 05, 2009. Participants may join the seminar through webcam and phone or through phone only. Detailed information for seminar participant will be provided to participants when they register.

Learning Objectives:
*to understand the value of dreams
*to develop strategies for approaching the dream
*to develop an understanding of dream symbolism
*to see how dreams can facilitate individual development

Cost: $155 [plus $20 for those taking the course for eight (8) CEU credits.]
Class size is limited

Texts:
C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols, Chapter 1

In these two texts, Jung gives us his most mature exposition of his understanding of dreams—their symbolism and their meaning.


If you are interested in registering or in having more information, please feel free to call me (314) 726-2032 or e-mail me, www.roseholt@aol.com. You may also sign on to the Chicago Institute website, www.jungchicago.org to register.

The Jung Institute of Chicago has decided to go to a weekend format
for its analyst training program. Because the institute website has
been down for some time, this change in format has not been broadly
announced. The Institute will probably slip the February 1, 2009,
application deadline into March or April.

Part of the rationale for shifting from a weekly academic program to a
one-weekend-each-month program is to allow people from far-flung
places to have access to training. If you or anyone you know is
interested in training to be an analyst, please take note of this
important change.


The Chicago training program is demanding and rigorous and has, thus,
an excellent reputation. To apply, one needs a clinical degree, to be
a licensed clinician in the state in which he/she works, and to have
undergone 100 hours of personal analysis.


Boris Matthews (www.borismatthews.com) will become Training Director of
the ATP in the Fall of 2009. He can answer any questions you may have
about the program and this major change in format. Boris' e-mail address is: borismatthews@verizon.net


In addition to the Analyst Training Program, the Chicago group also
offers a two-year Clinical Training Program. The next window for
applying to the CTP will be in 2010 when another group will be
admitted.