Public Semester Program
Spring 2026

In his famous “Stages of Life” essay, Jung postulates the emergence of ego from fusion with the unconscious at birth to their union at death. He contrasts the first half of life, in which outer developmental goals are to be achieved, with the second, in which adaptation to the inner world is more important. I will pay special attention to the challenges of the mid-life transition when the centre of the psyche begins this shift from the ego towards the Self, and conclude by elaborating the potential for scaling this model up to understand some dynamics of the collective.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

Jung viewed psychic energy as inherently transformative, stating as early as 1921, that “Fantasy as imaginative activity is identical with the flow of psychic energy” (CW 6, 1921, p. 722). This lecture will explore this underlying process which we have come to identify as the activity of the Self.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

This is a very basic lecture on Jungian theory. What is a complex? What is the ego complex? What is an archetype? What is the relation between an archetype and a complex? What is the relation between an archetype and the Self? And why do we care about all this? What does this have to do with working as a Jungian analyst?

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

According to Analytical Psychology, in the Western psyche, the ego is the centre of consciousness and the Self is the unifying centre of the whole psyche. However, Jung mentioned consciousness without an ego in the psyche of the East. We will examine the concepts of the ego and the Self through the lens of a non-Western psyche.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

We will explore key achievements, stages, and processes in the lifelong encounter between the ego and Self. What does Jung mean by postulating two centers of authority within? How do they relate to one another? When are they in tension? We will examine the role that differentiation, integration, and discernment play in the ego-Self interaction in our journey toward individuation.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

What drives and what guides us in the analyst’s chair? How do we know when to act and when to wait? How do we choose the moment to speak and the moment to hold silence? And when might a tearful description of a spontaneous image or an outburst driven by frustration be precisely the right medicine?

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

We will carefully look at paintings made by analysands and study the question how Ego and Self are represented on them and what they reveal about the relationship between the two.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

Wisdom is framed as part of the individuation process, a journey towards integrating the demands of the Ego with the call from the Self.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

This lecture offers an introduction to mysticism, with examples from Christianity and other world religions. Evelyn Underhill’s classical definition of mysticism implies a “surrender... to ultimate Reality... from an instinct of love” (Mysticism, 1911).
Jung wrote his major work Mysterium Coniunctionis about the alchemical union, the “central mystical experience of enlightenment ... aptly symbolized by Light in most of the numerous forms of mysticism” (CW XI, §828). What does this mean for the relevance of mysticism to Jungian psychology?

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

This lecture describes the essential step in psychotherapy of entering into a direct inner and initiatory experience with the psyche as a living, self-existing entity within oneself. This humbling process transforms the individual into a more self-aware and differentiated human being, and can shape a new kind of therapist. I will present the therapeutic process of a severely traumatised woman, interweaving her material with the unfolding of the visions in the Red Book.

Facing the dark feminine is part of a soul retrieval process. We will explore the stories that illustrate the shadow world as a pathway to soul recovery and transformation.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

The concept of animism was activated by contemporary ethnologists: they show us that people worldwide have a certain worldview: all is animated, even stones and brooks and the like. They all belong to the same community. This way of thinking is surprisingly quite compatible with many concepts of C.G. Jung: the archetypes, the transcendent function, but, above all, the attitude towards these entities. In the lecture I will present an overview of these parallels.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

Crossroads are places where we can or must make life-changing decisions; they can be crucial situations of conflict in which we do not know which path to take. Crossroad dreams might appear when we, confronted with such a divide, are hesitant, afraid or even desperate to make a choice. Such dreams can be signposts on the path of individuation, leading us to find our true identity. One well-known example is Jung’s dream in which he had to kill Siegfried and consequently renounce pursuing his ambitious academic career as a university professor in favor of his own individuation process.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

What is human dignity? How can it be defined? What role does dignity play in therapy? The focus is on M. Chochinov’s Dignity-Centered Therapy.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)

What is it about the Bushpeople (San) that touches something deep in us? With this question in mind, we set off to South Africa, Botswana and Namibia. Their extraordinary rock paintings lead us back into the world of our ancestors, the hunters and gatherers; they conjure up the early man in us, which – externally at least – has long been repressed and destroyed. Yet our journey also takes us to the Bushpeople who are still alive today. They share with us their myths and invite us to take part in their healing dance. In so doing, the Bushpeople restore our links with a way of life we have lost.

(priority is given to questions from the live audience)