The aim of the seminar is to elaborate on the notion of individuation in our engagement with daily life and in the course of our lives.  The notion of ‘our’ life to be individuated presents us with a problem, as to become who we truly are, it does not necessarily mean that we become what we think or want to.  Even though the latter might be an expression of the truth, it only offers a temporal approximation at different times in our life.  When we try to decide and choose our way forwards the road becomes elusive.  With our conception or images of individuation always receding or changing, we are filled with doubts and more un-answered questions.  This, being in doubt and lost for answers, opens us up to an exchange with this experience in our life that it can bring its fulfilment.  The end, the telos, of the endless searching is the realisation of the endlessness of it in this case.  We are then left with finding our way as we go, finding a way that appears clear only when we look back on it.  Jung, defined the personality as‘having put its terrors… (of waking up to consciousness)...behind,’ and after the person having ‘voluntarily sacrificed himself to his vocation.’  In the seminar we will examine individuation from different perspectives, which might appear elusive or negating of what we might know of it.

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Dr Karvounis is a practising Jungian Analyst, Cognitive Analytic Therapist and Consultant Psychiatrist. He also teaches and supervises.He presents theoretical and research papers to national and international conferences. In his past NHS job, he was the Clinical Director of a psychotherapy Day Hospital and has led clinical teams providing Mentalization Therapy for people with personality disorders and of a Community Complex Care. He has led the development of psychotherapy services in both in-patient and community settings in a North London Borough.

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Jung,C.G., Collected Works, Vol. 9i, Conscious, unconscious and individuation, §§ 489-524

Jung, C.G., Collected Works, Vol. 8, The transcendent function, §§ 131-193

Jung, C.G., Collected Works, Vol. 14, The Conjunction, §§ 654-792

Jung, C.G., Collected Works, Vol. 17, The development of personality, §§284-323

Giegerich, W., Collected English Papers, Vol. 1, The present as dimension of the Soul, Chapter 5, New Orleans, Louisiana: Spring Journal, Inc. (2005)

Giegerich, W., Collected English Papers, Vol. 1, Jung’s thought of the Self in the light of its underlying experience, Chapter 8, New Orleans, Louisiana: SpringJournal, Inc. (2005)

Hillman, J., Uniform Edition, Vol. 5, Concerning the Stone: Alchemical images of the Goal, Chapter 8, Spring Publications, Inc. Putman, Conn, (2010)

Layard John, Maze-dances and the Ritual of the Labyrinth in Malekula (Folk-Lore Society June 1936)

Artress L., Walking a Sacred Path,Riverhead Books (2006)

Ayrton M., The Maze Maker,(1967)

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