Student Semester Program
Autumn 2020

The lecture intends to point out how C. G. Jung developed key conceptual ideas as proposed in CW VII and CW VIII in differentiation from Freud and within the context of his time and of history of ideas.

The symbol is one of the most important basics in Analytical Psychology of C.G. Jung. In addition to dreams and active imagination, it allows direct access to the unconscious.

The transference relationship in analysis is chiefly non verbal, even though we spend the majority of our analytic hours talking. In this course we will be looking at ways to be more aware of the messages from our bodies and our imagination to understand the depth of communication between people.

It is Carl Jung’s great contribution to discover and focus on the creative potential of our complexes. He demonstrated in the WAE that gaps in consciousness provide the invisible bridge where inner and outer reality can dialogue.
Examples from the arts, neuroscience, everyday life and clinical practice will help us deepen consciousness of what might emerge from the gap: a wound as well as an opening.

This course will be broadcast live on Zoom from the presenter's home. Please see our page on Zoom Lectures for details on how to attend. All attendees for this event must be on Zoom, including ISAP students. This event is NOT at ISAP.

This lecture will focus on the clinical contributions of C.G. Jung. It will give an overview of what Jung himself wrote about the importance of the therapeutic relationship, highlight his early contributions to the field of psychotherapy and link this to case studies from the clinical practice of today.

Psychotherapy for one individual is different from that for another — its personal dimension is obvious. However, Zen master Shin’ichi Hisamatsu’s question to C. G. Jung whether psychotherapy could liberate people from suffering once and for all is on a different level. We therefore explore the less obvious impersonal dimension in psychotherapy. The dialogue is in Awakening and Insight – Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy. Edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Shoji Muramoto.

The English woman mystic Julian of Norwich is known for her saying: “All shall be well ...” In this lecture we will look at Julian’s visions in detail. Julian felt that her initial reaction to these “Showings” was too unforgivable even to confess.

This is a guided walking tour of Basel that creates a parallel between C.G. Jung’s interest in alchemy and Basel as a center of alchemy in the 15th and 16th century. Besides visiting two buildings where Jung studied as well as a brief tour around the Basel Cathedral, we will venture down to Kleinhüningen to see the parish where Jung grew up and the church where his father worked. The tour ends at Totengässlein at the Pharmaceutical Museum. Costs for train tickets, museum tickets and lunch are responsibility of the participants. Further information will be provided upon request and/or registration. Registration with [email protected] mandatory. Please wear good walking shoes!

I. Symbol: from revelation to interpretation key – a vivifying experience
II. Neurosis: Jung’s seminal neurosis theory as revealing a program
III. Projection: dynamic manifestation of unconscious motives
IV. Amplification: a basic method for psychological interpretation

Each animal species is an undisguised expression of basic life patterns, a unique manifestation of the world soul. Connecting with animals and their ecology as much as with their symbolic role in our dreams and in human culture may contribute to healing our dissociation from inner and outer nature. We will explore:

• drama of predator and prey as renewal through darkness (wolf etc.)
• hunting as a basic life pattern (deer etc.)
• animal phobia as a call to change (snake, spider etc.)

With reference to Jung’s understanding of dreams, specific dreams will be addressed.
We will work on one or two case studies with selected dreams from my practice to demonstrate both the developmental and individuation progress in analytic work.

This lecture explores why Jungians interpret myths and fairy tales and creates a relationship to personal myth. Is personal myth the consequence of your ongoing individuation process? We will take a glimpse at the greater pictures and patterns in universal and individual stories.

The house is an important symbol in dreams, drawings and art.
In the first part we look at houses in drawings by children and adults and artists. How do they affect us? What can we learn about the creator of the image? In the second part, participants can create their personal presentation of a house. Material provided.

What do literature and other art forms express and reflect about the artist and context? What value or meaning can such expressions offer us? What should we really look for? C.G. Jung, in two lectures comprising Chapter IV of CW 15, elicits key considerations in the interplay between psychology and art, the role of art vis-à-vis artist, archetypal implications, and treasures rendered. It will be helpful but not essential to read in advance “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry” and “Psychology and Literature”.

** This course has been cancelled. **

In contrast to the religious problem of psychology, which tends to elevate research findings and “objective” observation to the level of blind dogma, here we’ll consider the psychological problem of religion: an unconscious and unpsychological mythic, narrative and emotional assault on what is essentially human, as disclosed to us by our own self-conscious experiences. The human alienation from our being in the world as human is expressed in religious wars, large and small, intrapsychic, interpersonal and geopolitical, which we suffer, and by which we are confounded.

The survival of the soul was a major question and interest for Jung throughout his entire life. We will explore why.

An illustrated interpretation of a Hindu boy’s initiation path, the Sacred Thread is a symbol of the invisible tie that links humans with the transcendent. In India, women and men are considered to be mature only when they are consciously related to the beyond.
Participants are encouraged to read my book on the Sacred Thread.

Analytical Psychology started with the study of complexes probably because of the strong physical reaction when a complex constellates. It appears and robs consciousness from the ego. Other psychological schools have described this same reaction in similar terms. We will look first at what is a complex, and then how this compares with similar concepts.

This seminar will examine similarities and differences between Jung and Freud as their psychologies developed from their initial encounters to their split and beyond.

** This course has been cancelled and replaced by course 10 80. **

We shall be looking at the development of the inner core of the psyche as it unfolds in Jung’s Red Book from the viewpoint of psychiatry, in particular the transformation of the ego and other inner figures. Jung’s insights into these processes is greatly needed in today’s world.

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 soul into a meaningful, enlightening experience. In order to accomplish this, the ego must undergo its own death and rebirth.

Drawing, writing, sharing and reflecting we will map the patterns and elements of our personal myths. The outcome may become the springboard for deeper self-exploration.

Exploring the analytic encounter as a co-created dance of “two people playing together” (Winnicott, 1971), engaging in the experience of psyches in dialogue uncovering and bringing to birth possibilities not yet conscious or formulated. The prospective functions of joining in the dance, generative enactment, active imagination, and transference and counter-transference will be examined for their healing and creative potential.

** This course has been cancelled. **

Based on passages of Proust’s In Search for the Lost Time, and Jung’s illuminating insights on memory and imagination, I will be addressing the significant value of listening to memory and its prospective meaning and purpose.

** This course has been cancelled. **

Jung sees the sexual instinct as one of the drives, but it did not cease to make us creative, happy, anxious, depressive, etc. A relation is established with Jungian notions and clinical practice.

Longing played a crucial role for Jung: “Yearning is the way of life. If you do not acknowledge your yearning, then [...] you do not live your life” (Red Book, p. 249/250). The lecture will explore the etymology of longing, its symbolism in writings by mystics, and Jung’s writings on longing.

This course will take place on Zoom ONLY. All students must be on Zoom. This event is NOT at ISAP.