Jung described the act of creation in terms of an autonomous psychic complex, noting that this intense and often dangerous dynamic occurs spontaneously and “quite regardless of the one who is its vehicle”.  This training session will highlight the creative process of Jean Michel Basquiat who died of a heroin overdose at 27 and will focus on one Basquiat painting.  This image also will be illuminated in terms of its close echo in the dream of a patient who entered analysis at the same age. The crucial clinical differentiation between artistic enterprise and pathology will be stressed.

Participants will be asked to read CG Jung, “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry,” CW 15, IV, 65-83, and to write a short synopsis of its most salient points to submit beforehand and discuss with the group. Participants are also invited to present case material relevant to the text.

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The speaker intends to give an overall account of her clinical work with children, followed by vignettes from her practice. The aim is to introduce, through individual examples, general themes that arise in working with children and families today. Topics will include the importance of not impinging; relating through a 'third thing' (sandtray, art etc); children who cannot play; parents' projections onto their child. Questions and discussion will be welcomed.

Suggested Reading:

Alvarez, A. (2012). The Thinking Heart. Hove: Routledge

Gerhardt, S. (2010). Why Love Matters. Hove: Routledge

Holmes, J. (2011). The Search for the Secure Base. Hove & New York: Routledge

Hughes, D.A. (2006). Building the Bonds of Attachment. Lanham, Maryland: Aronson

Stern, D. (2000). The Interpersonal World of the Infant. Milton Keynes: Basic Books

Winnicott, D.W. (2005). Playing and Reality. Abingdon: Routledge Classics

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Stephen invites the attending candidates to bring case material (particularly from dreams) that they could share to explore working with mythological images and narratives as amplifications of client material.  Also to bring anything that has emerged from attending the lectures that relates to analytic practice. The intention is to have a discussion that remains grounded in the praxis of analysis.

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What is Psychiatry today? Where is the patient? In the midst of a changing era, how do we orientate ourselves in the world of madness? The presenter will bring her own experience as a psychiatrist to encourage reflections on these issues amongst the participants.

Jung C.G.,CW3, 1907 “The feeling-tone complex and its general effects on the psyche” §§77-106  

Jung C.G., CW9ii, (1959), “The structure and dynamics of the Self”, §§ 347-421,

Jung C.G., CW16, (1945), “Medicine and Psychotherapy”, §§192-211

Emanuele Severino, “The structure of Western History”, (1972) in “The essence of Nihilism”, Verso, 2016: 1-32

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Psychotherapy and analysis are as varied as are human individuals. I treat every patient as individually as possible because the solution is always an individual one” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, p131)

Nobody can meddle with fire or poison without being affected in some vulnerable spot; for the true physician does not stand outside his work but is always in the thick of it. (Psychology and Alchemy, 1944, Collected Works Vol. 12. Para 181)

This case discussion will provide an opportunity for participants to present clinical material and reflect upon experiences within analytic practice, especially those in which suicidal states of mind arise. Themes emerging from clinical material presented in the session, along with participants interests, will determine our dialogues, but we may consider; Transferential dynamics, the Interactive Field, Boundaries, Psychopathology,and Power dynamics, and case management in the broader context.

Wolfgang Giegerich, What Are the Factors that Heal? Dusk Owl Books, 2020

Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, Power in the Helping Professions, Spring Publications2020

Hillman James, Suicide and the Soul, Spring Publications 2020

Donald Campbell, Working in the Dark. Understanding the pre-suicide state of mind, Routledge. 2017

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This seminar will continue the themes discussed with reference to Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter. Using the Grimms’ tale Allerleihrauh (sometimes called Thousand Furs) as a starting point of focus, the seminar leader will bring clinical material as well as examples from Jung bearing on the necessity to separate from the family or society of origin in order to enter onto the path of individuation. This is the universal process of the rite of passage. In clinical practice, many of our clients rail against the unfairness and injustice meted out to them by life; the therapist’s task could be said to enable them to turn fate into destiny.

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In this seminar the presenter will discuss the complicated interplay of these issues and how they may cause the patient to feel suicidal.  The aim will be to bring in Jean Knox and Donald Kalsched’s writing and cases as well as fairy-tale material from Donald Kalsched’s book The Inner World of Trauma.  The presenter will discuss some of her own cases using the drawings of the patients concerned.

Jung, C,G, Collected Works, Vol. 18 The Tavistock Lectures, §1-415

Kalsched D., The Inner World of Trauma, Routledge(1996), Part II

Kalsched D., Trauma and the Soul, Routledge (2013), pp. 282-315

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A closed seminar for IGAP candidates. This is an opportunity to explore the topic of depression not as an illness but as a potentially transformative dimension in the destiny of an individual.  Following an introduction, candidates are invited to bring examples from their work for group discussion.

Whilst acknowledging the suffering of depression biologically or socially, we will consider and prioritise the meaning of the experience. Jung’s references to depression are fragmentary; rather he favoured symbolic language – for example, the dark night of the soul or the alchemical nigredo. He always asked “how, out of this present psyche, a bridge can be built into its own future”.  We are challenged to consider whether depression (formerly called melancholy) is perhaps a divine or initiatory gift.

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The presenter will explore the interactive field, an arena that includes the objective properties of the collective unconscious and the combined subjective properties of the analyst and the analysand.

This shared space Marie-Louise von Franz delineates as the place of synchronistic or field thinking. Therapy may begin as an apparently empty space but within the safety of the boundaried retort it develops into a space inhabited by archetypal images, symbolic experiences and synchronistic events that interweave with the transference and the countertransference. Dreams that include the analyst, synchronistic happenings that dovetail with the work, enchantment, sleepiness and intuitive reflections are some of the subjects we will look at.

Reading:

Jung, C.G., 1946. The psychology of the transference. Collected Works, Vol.16.

Stein, Murray, The interactive Field In Analysis, Volume One, Chiron Publications (1995).

von Franz, Marie-Louise.1980. On Divination and Synchronicity. Toronto: Inner City Books.

von Franz, Marie-Louise.1974. Number and Time. Evanston,III,: Northwestern University Press.

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Details available from the office

Further information and venues are provided on registration.