Jungian Odyssey May 2021
** Postponed to 2022 **

Ursula Wirtz, Dr. phil.
Yearning to be Known: Individuation and the Broken Wings of Eros
From JO 2008: Intimacy: Venturing the Uncertainties of the Heart, at Hotel Blüemlisalp, Beatenberg
My lecture is guided by the image of a kaleidoscope, where poetic, philosophical, psychological, and mythopoetic elements emerge and ultimately converge to form a whole. In this way, we will explore the essential nature of Eros and how its betrayal impacts our archetypal longing to be seen and understood. How does the absence or abuse of Eros influence our I-Thou relationships—also within the analytic consulting room? How does its repudiation shape the transformative journey of individuation? How might we mend the broken wings of Eros, the soul?

Judith A. Savage, MSW
Trust and Betrayal Under Jung’s Shadow: The Story of Four Women in an Odyssey of Flesh and Blood
From JO 2010: Trust and Betrayal: Dawnings of Consciousness, at Hotel Rotschuo in Gersau
Revisiting my earlier paper, I will journey deeper into the stories of four women whose histories were obscured by the force of Jung’s shadow: Hélène Preiswerk, Frank Miller, Sabina Spielrein, and Antonia Wolff. Each woman’s encounter with Jung revealed lives lost in his projections, disguised as proofs to his theories, or encased in his secret guilt. This lecture aims to restore their true visage in the history of Analytical Psychology.

Peter Ammann, Dr. phil.
Listening to the Ancestors—Listening to the Unconscious: On the Archetypal Roots of Jungian Psychology
From JO 2013: Echoes of Silence: Listening to Soul, Self, Other, at Kartause Ittingen in Thurgau
The aim of my lecture is to trace back some major concepts of Jung’s psychology to their primordial indigenous roots, in particular their African ones. Jung’s concepts are not artificially or purely intellectually conceived constructions but correspond to ways we experience our psyche. They have a natural basis in how humans, unconsciously or consciously, are and were experiencing their psychic life in our as well as in other cultures since immemorial times.

Bernard Sartorius, lic. theol.
White Psychotherapy: Symptoms of a Collective Psychology
From JO 2006: Jungian Psychology Today: Traditions & Innovations and The Quest for Vision in a Troubled World: Exploring the Healing Dimensions of Religious Experience, at Haus Dorothea in Flüeli-Ranft
Sometimes we harbor the illusion that our psychological considerations about the human psyche contain a high degree of objectivity—without realizing that our view is colored and often distorted by the lens of the culture we belong to. In this lecture we will try to spot some of the collective projections upon the soul that arise from “White” culture (European and North American).

Ann Chia-Yi Li, MA
The Courage to Stand Alone: Individual Identity in Chinese Culture
From JO 2018: The Labyrinth of Identity: Unveiling Our Unlived Lives, at Huus Hotel Gstaad in Saanen-Gstaad
Considering the roots of Chinese culture in Daoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, we will ponder some differences between Chinese and Western ideas about identity. Can the concept of individuation speak to those who grow up in Chinese culture? Is individuation possible when one’s belonging and identity are so vitally rooted in the collective? Or, what special challenges might the journey entail?

Lucienne Marguerat, lic. phil.
Shameful Hush: Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence
From JO 2013: Echoes of Silence: Listening to Soul, Self, Other, at Kartause Ittingen in Thurgau
“Verdingkinder” or “contract children” were children in Switzerland who were forcibly removed or willingly relinquished by their own families to work as indentured servants, often as farm hands. This practice, which amounted to organized child labor, endured for 80 years until the early 1980’s. For most of these children the experience was brutally abusive and traumatizing. A veil of silence enshrouded the individuals who perpetrated or otherwise witnessed the suffering. A closer look shows how collective values, social structures, life conditions, and mindsets can produce and harbor the “banality of evil.” (See the 2011 film, The Foster Boy | Der Verdingbub, set in 1955, directed by Markus Imboden.)

Diane Cousineau Brutsche, PhD
Thresholds in the Evening of Life
From JO 2015: On the Brink: Stepping into the Unforeseen, at Hotel Seeblick in Emmetten
Commenting on the typical psychological needs that correspond respectively to the first and second half of life, Jung talks about a “psychology of the morning and of the afternoon of life.” Deep inner transformations are demanded to face the threshold and to enter creatively into the new phase of life. Another kind of shift imposes itself upon the psyche when one reaches the “evening of life.” One finds oneself once more on the brink as the psyche encounters new challenges.

John Hill, MA
Broken Landscapes, Broken Dreams: Providing a Healing Context
From JO 2006: Jungian Psychology Today: Traditions & Innovations and The Quest for Vision in a Troubled World: Exploring the Healing Dimensions of Religious Experience, at Haus Dorothea in Flüeli-Ranft
• I start with three narratives of my clients that not only reveal broken lives but also reflect broken nations and broken cultures. Such ruptures prevent accessing nourishing qualities from one’s environment. Through dreams and an active imagination based on psychodrama, the three people here concerned could begin to build a healing narrative that not only had personal significance but one implying healing for their nation and culture. Finally I will elaborate on the self-transcending quality of archetypal images that may yield new visions of a post-national and post-secular cosmopolitan culture, embracing spiritual and cultural diversity.