Complexes and Complexity: The Multiplicity of the Psyche

A daylong Zoom Seminar led by Katherine Olivetti, MA, MSSW

Contact hours: 4 CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.

“Complexes are in truth the living units of the unconscious psyche…”C.G. Jung, (CW 8 ¶210)

Jung’s theory of complexes was prescient. His ideas about the structure of the psyche prefigured today’s breakthroughs in neuroscience in that early in the twentieth century he proposed the human psyche as a non-unitary entity essentially composed of a multitude of smaller components that he called complexes.

Jung theorized that the complexes are multi layered, and that an individual begins life with the archetypes existing a priori. Early experience, both personal and cultural, begins to shape the complexes in an individual way. In that the core layer of the complex is the archetype, it has a bivalent expression, both a positive and negative. Most adults are aware of aspects of themselves, or aspects of their complexes, that they try to suppress or avoid. Ultimately these are the parts of the self that become the “trouble-makers” of the psyche. Special attention will be paid to developing therapeutic processes that invite all aspects of psyche into the development of wholeness and individuation.

In this workshop, Katherine Olivetti will discuss Jung’s complex theory, and connect it to more recent depth psychological literature. Through lecture, discussion, and experience participants will have the opportunity to learn how to work with a complex, their own or a client’s, how to understand the part the complex plays in the overall defensive structure, how the movement of complexes is related to dissociation and trauma, and how healing occurs. Participants are asked to bring a notebook for written exercises.

Tuition
Members/Students, $90
General Public, $100

Learning Objectives

Explain the basics of a Jungian theory of complexes.
Discuss how complexes compose the defensive structure of the psyche.
Explain the relationship between the formation of the complex, trauma, and dissociation.
Identify the activation of a complex personally and in others.
Apply techniques to help professionals and clients hold a space from which to understand more deeply the complex that is activated.
Demonstrate how to work with dream material that sheds insight on complexes and the way they interfere with individuation.

Katherine Olivetti, MA, MSSW, is a Jungian analyst who maintains a private practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. Originally from New York, she received her professional degrees from Columbia University and completed her analytic training at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, later becoming its president. In addition to training as a Jungian analyst, Olivetti trained at the Philadelphia Child Guidance Center in family therapy. She has taught at many Jungian centers and training institutes, both in the United States and Europe, and also was on the clinical faculty of the Yale School of Medicine, at their Child Study Center. After relocating to California, she became a member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco and became the Editor-in-Chief of Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche. In addition to her clinical work, Olivetti conducts an ongoing international editing group, writes, and edits professional/psychological works. Her book Dream Work: 10 Lessons for Understanding Dreams (2016) is available on Amazon. Olivetti maintains a website and blog at www.katherineolivetti.com

Contact hours: Four CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.

The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by New York State Education Department’s State Board of Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0350.

The C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychoanalysts. #P-0015.

C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed creative arts therapists, #CAT-0068.