No audio or video recording or transcription of any ISAP course is permitted.
All times are Zurich, Switzerland time. Everybody is welcome to our public lectures and open seminars.
Zoom events - please note that on-site attendees will be given priority and consequently Zoom attendees may have limited or no interaction possibilities with the event presenter.
Attendance Fees (on-site or via Zoom):
It is no coincidence that Jung chose psychiatry as his specialty upon completion of his medical studies; at this time he began his research on symbol formation and the collective unconscious. More than twenty-five years later, in his seminar, ’Introduction to Jungian Psychology: Notes of the Seminar on Analytical Psychology Given in 1925,’ Jung describes his decision thus, “I told nobody that I intended to work out the unconscious phenomena of the psychoses, but that was my determination. I wanted to catch the intruders of the mind.”
This lecture intends to clarify some of the common misconceptions about and between mythic consciousness and religious consciousness. In the lecture the differences are identified and their current relevance to analytic practice is explored.
We shall be exploring the enduring fascination and numinous power of this primordial image over time and across cultures.
Understood as an image that represents much more than its mere concrete form, the symbol opens a window onto the very roots of the world. It can be experienced as a revelation, but also used as a translation key. If becoming possessed by a symbol imprisons us, then entering into dialogue with it liberates energy. Thus, the symbolic equation is to depth psychology what the mathematical equation is to the natural sciences. It allows powerful analysis and forges deeply attuned solutions. To adopt a symbolic attitude is a truly vivifying experience.
We will look at the role symbols play in transforming emotions into thought — both physically and culturally — and how the use of symbols in a Jungian approach parallels this process, giving us access to new perspectives on our life path.
Jung defines the symbol as ‘’the essence and image of psychic energy”. We will explore what might sound abstract and examine what the elusiveness of symbolic images calls upon in us. We will look into the reasons why symbols can represent a powerful impulse toward a meaningful change in our lives — provided we are open to them. Examples of artistic creations will illustrate how artists make use of the evocative power of symbols.
In this course we will explore four fundamental and essential areas of Jungian theory with regard to symbols:
• Symbolic Consciousness
• Symbolic Reality
• The Reality of Symbols
• Transformation through Symbols
This lecture tells the story of an unbeliever whose dreams became religious. Harald Pager (1923–1985) was born in German Sudetenland and served as a tank soldier in the German army in WWII when it invaded Russia. After the war he became a graphic designer and in 1955 emigrated to South Africa where he dedicated his life to documenting the rock art of the Bushpeople. This enormous documentation he considered “the great task of his life”. But many dreams he wrote down during that time in his Diary and Night-time Notes tell another story: his “real task” points to a religious quest.
We suffer disappointments and disruptions in life which disturb the continuity we count on, thrusting us into loss, change, and the unknown against our will. We will explore how mourning emotional vicissitudes and ruptures in life allows us to live in the present with renewed vitality and a more integrated sense of self on the journey to individuation.
This lecture will go over some of the most important concepts, such as soul, the relativity of time and space, and the unio mystica, as presented by Jung in his Zofingia lectures. Even though these concepts were presented by Jung between 1896 and 1899, we will see how they remained important and useful throughout his personal and professional life.
Alchemy tells stories of changings of substances, which are analogous to psychic contents. A close look at alchemical images reveals how important the material world can be for soul-making. These dream-like images resonate with both the psyche and the body and move them toward a greater integrity of a personality. In pictures or in words, alchemical descriptions have their own vocabulary, grammar, and style. These stories involve navigating both the collective ‘roads’ of culture and the ‘off-road’ unconscious nature of a person. To read: Hillman, J. (2009) Alchemical Psychology: Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman, Vol. 5, Spring Publications.
Dual-aspect monism is a metaphysical framework that provides a deeper understanding of the relationship of the mental and the physical. In particular, it emphasizes the challenging role of the concept of meaning as a fundamental feature of reality. The dual-aspect Pauli-Jung conjecture achieves a systematic account of the place of consciousness within an expanded concept of reality that includes psychophysically neutral archetypes and the unus mundus. A number of recent studies applying dual-aspect thinking to synchronistic and related exceptional experiences will also be discussed.
** This course has been cancelled. **
On synthesizing Neumann’s various writings, a cohesive archetypal developmental relational theory emerges. This lecture presents Neumann’s theory of the different archetypal stages of psychological development from birth throughout life, to culminate in the advanced stages of the individuation process. The process, centered with the establishment of the ego-Self axis during early life and the primal relationship, plays a central role in later psychic health. The lecture will also suggest possible therapeutic applications of this theory to child and adult analysis.
Through the lens of creation myths and operations of the alchemical opus, we will review the most fundamental biochemistry and physiology of our nervous system. Participants will be amazed to see how various myths about the origins of human life actually reflect, in their imagery and symbolism, the chemical processes and properties required for life in our cells. In other words, our most basic psychological functions are subject to the same laws as our most basic biochemistry and physiology. Like creation myths, alchemy — a metaphor for psychological healing — also mirrors our body chemistry.
Four ISAP analysts each present a fairy tale interpretation. Part 2: "Snow-White and Rose-Red", which can be downloaded here.
Families have a past — an uncle who emigrated, a great- grandfather who fought in a war or an aunt who killed herself. Ancestors who did extraordinary things can be influential on their descendents. Stories are told in the family that influence one’s values and one’s psyche. In the lecture I will talk about these ghosts of the past and how one can deal with them.
Four ISAP analysts each present a fairy tale interpretation. Part 3: "The Self-playing Gusla", from Russian Fairy Tales, ed. A. Afanas'ev
After an introduction and overview of the history of developmental psychological concepts, we will delve into the concepts of significant pioneers. Students are expected to contribute actively, with presentations or/and papers.
This course requires extra work between sessions.
Jung‘s fascination with alchemical symbolism and the unconscious provides us with the tools to understand our own psychological processes. A path is opened to transform the dark night of the soul into a meaningful, enlightening experience. In order to accomplish this, the ego must undergo its own death and rebirth.
We are going to look at complexes from the point of view of dissociation, as Jung originally did. His doctoral dissertation and early work with Bleuler, Janet, Myers, and Flournoy all confirm this. Where do authentic movement and active imagination come from, if not from complexes? What implication does viewing complexes as the acting out of a dissociated state have for our work with trauma victims, our work with dreams? Complexes are absolutely central to all of Analytical Psychology.
Canadian artist and author Emily Carr was open to a variety of religions during her search for a way to express the spirit of the wild West Coast. Leaving her Anglican and Presbyterian Christian roots, she explored theosophy, the writings of Walt Whitman, and the beliefs of some of the West Coast First Nations through her extensive travels and deep friendship with a Coast Salish woman. Before failing health forced her to abandon her easel, Emily Carr was able to do what none of the famous ‘Group of Seven’ men had achieved: to capture the wild West Coast spirit in her paintings.
This lecture will involve an in-depth discussion of Jung’s late essay “A Psychological View of Conscience” (CW 10) written in 1958. The purpose of this discussion is to come to a better understanding of Jung’s view on conscience, the role of ethics in individuation, and how to differentiate the inner voice of God (Vox Dei) from other internalized voices.
The participants are expected to have read the text in order to partake in the discussion.
Synergies between Jungian psychology, systems dynamics, Gaia theory, dual-aspect monism, deep ecology and Iain McGilchrist’s neurological, philosophical and scientific insights can help us to counter the existential threat of the Anthropocene. The transition from development to individuation in our personal psychology translates into an urgently needed metanoia away from our collective ecocidal hubris. The resulting consilience lays the foundations of a radically different worldview with which to address global heating, the sixth mass extinction, and other unprecedented challenges of our time.
** This course has been cancelled due to personal circumstances. **
Our Zeitgeist is confronted with unprecedented population explosion and globalization, characterized by multiple intersections of perspectives and value systems. This evolution can only constitute true growth when we can reconcile the compounding challenges to our ecosystem, beginning with the individual. Ecopsychology is dedicated to this need. Two classical Chinese elders — Kong Qiu (Confucius) and Chuang Tzu — proffer complementary attitudes and approaches. Jung’s Analytical Psychology offers a method.
Not only people have complexes; the collective can also be said to have complexes, both positive and negative, conscious and unconscious. I will extend the concepts presented in the lecture “The Theory of Complexes” (07 43) as they apply to a collective. You are encouraged to think about your own culture and reflect on to what extent your past history may have been influenced by a cultural complex.
Attendance at the lecture 07 43 is highly recommended.
This course is a post-Jungian reading of the animus and its lived experience in culture. It presents the contra-sexual animus as not just an inner archetypal figure, but also one that is in dynamic relation with the environment. In close ties with culture, the animus occupies a liminal realm — a subjective inner world as well as an outer, social. Inner and outer worlds are conceived as not two separate realms, but fluid, interactive spaces in which the phenomenology of the animus may be discerned. Reading: Sengupta, S. (2023) Animus, Psyche, Culture: A Jungian Revision, Routledge, U.K.
Jung’s history with India spanned several decades of the early 1900s and includes his study of Indian texts, meetings and correspondence with Indians, his journey to India in 1937–38, lectures in East-West forums and close links with Oriental scholars from whom he gained insights and directions about India. This history places Jung in a unique position, as one who transcended geographical and cultural boundaries in formulating concepts about the unconscious. It reveals his encounter with ’the other’ in a cultural context, significant for doing psychological work today in decolonized and multicultural worlds.
As an analyst one becomes a projection figure. We symbolize figures from the past, wishes, dreams, as well as complexes and delicate issues. How does one recognize the transferences and countertransferences? What are the dangers?
This lecture will examine classical Freudian, neo-Freudian, Object Relations and Inter-Subjective approaches to the transference and counter-transference phenomena in the analytic situation.
Attendance at this lecture is a prerequisite for attending my seminar 02 65.
Therapien leben von der Beziehungsqualität zum Therapeuten. Doch wie erkennen wir die Übertragungen und unsere Gegenübertragung? Wie kann man sie in die therapeutische Reflexion einbringen? Welches sind die Gefahren?
Carl Jung, as a young psychiatrist at the Burghölzli Psychiatric Clinic, published a paper ’On Manic Mood Disorder’ in 1903. It provided a vivid clinical description of mania and referred to the feeling tone and the primacy of emotion, rather than the primacy of the intellect in shaping behaviour. This idea anticipates Jung’s complex theory.
This lecture will explore the historical background to the diagnosis of Manic Depressive Psychosis, later reformulated as Bipolar Disorder. The clinical aspects of this major psychiatric condition and its current treatment will be outlined alongside examining the condition’s links with creativity.
** This course has been cancelled. **
This introduction presents Jungian analyst Hal Stone’s theory on voice dialogue. Voice dialogue is a technique which aims at giving a voice to the many selves inside us. Voice dialogue makes it possible to express parts of ourselves, our various points of view, opinions and desires in an experimental and playful way.
After a review of the theory and method of voice dialogue, we will look closely at the question of how it can be of value in Jungian analysis.
In this lecture I will present the core ideas in education and present an archetypical view on childhood and the schoolyears.
This lecture will interpret the Grimm Brother’s fairy tale “Godfather Death” in the context of the analytic relationship of transference and counter-transference, with amplifications from alchemy, mythology and other fairy tales.
This lecture provides an introduction to C.G. Jung’s letters to the artist and analysand Hedy Wyss, a unique testimony to his sparkling spirit; it was first published in 2023. Here we see the compassionate and deeply human side of Jung. He writes neither scientifically nor cautiously, but quite spontaneously. He mentions his suffering from various physical ailments. At the same time he struggles to maintain the integrity of the analytical relationship and the veracity of love. See: C.G. Jung: Letters to Hedy Wyss 1936 – 1956. Edited and with a Commentary by Andreas Schweizer, Daimon, 2023.
Jung encourages us to make of our life something creative. We will explore what that might look like. What would be asked of us? What are the hallmarks and examples of such a life? How can creativity in life be nurtured?
We will consider the evolving relevance of Jung’s contrasexual formulation. In particular, we will address the challenge of marrying Jung’s initial discovery of the gendered soul to the flowering of plurality in contemporary presentations of sexuality and gender. Using an energic model for understanding the subtle workings of anima and animus, we can better work with clinical presentations as well as deal with interpersonal and intrapsychic dynamics in daily life.
Goss, P. (2010) Men, Women and Relationships: A Post- Jungian Approach, Hove, Routledge.
A lecture with discussion about the legacy of Jung’s work for the contemporary world. A question to be considered is: what are the fundamental values of Jungian psychology? The lecture will propose three areas for consideration. Discussion will follow.