Understanding Jung: The Basic Concepts, Part 1
5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:00–7:40 pm
Beginning October 1
Instructor:Maxson J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP
We will explore together the elements of Jungian psychology, including: archetype, collective unconscious, persona, shadow, anima and animus, self, consciousness, symbol, spirit, mother complex, father complex, typology, individuation, and inner marriage. We will also explore Jung's method of interpreting dreams, myths and fairy tales.
There will be fairy tales and other readings assigned for each class. There will be lively discussion with plenty of time for questions and each class is likely to be fun.
Click here for details and all readings
These two semesters will be accessible for people who do not have a background in Jungian theory. The readings and the discussion should also make the class interesting for students who have already taken other courses. If you wish to take part 2 without taking part 1 first, please email the instructor at maxmcdowell@jungny.com.
Psycho-Analyzing Art
5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:30–8:10 pm
Beginning October 1
Instructor:Sylvester Wojtkowski, PhD
Sold out. We regret that this class cannot accept any more students.
"Leonardo has denied the unhappiness of his erotic life and has triumphed over it in his art, by representing the wishes of the boy, infatuated with his mother, as fulfilled in this blissful union of the male and female natures."
Sigmund Freud, SE IX, pp. 117-18
"While beauty is the aesthetic of maternal preoccupation, the organization of the ideal elements that composed the formal sense of the interaction between mother and infant, and ugliness is the disruption of the maternal order, meaning and balance, the Sublime is the paternal dimension of aesthetic experience, characterized by power, formlessness, obscurity and immensity."
George Hagman, The Artist's Mind, 2010, p. 12
Since Sigmund Freud's essay on Leonardo da Vinci, psychoanalysis has interpreted artists and their art. Freud himself was an avid collector of antiquities; while Jung had carved in stone and wood, and painted numerous pictures in the Red Book. He also ventured into the interpretive territory with essays "On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry" (1922), "Psychology and Literature" (1930); and analyzed the oeuvre of Picasso and Joyce. However, both forefathers of the field approached the subject with superiority, as if psychoanalysts understood more about creative endeavors than the artists themselves. In addition they often treated artistic production as if it were neurotic or even psychotic material of their patients.
Subsequent generations of psychoanalysts either followed in their footsteps elaborating their methods, or re-examined their positions based on the development of new psychoanalytic perspectives. Most contemporary psychoanalysts tend to see artistic creation as a re-creation of formal interactions of the infant-mother dyad. In this course we will critically look at how psychoanalysts have interpreted creative processes over time.
Note: This course is held at 420 East 51st Street, Suite C.
Dream Interpretation: Learning to Understand Your Dreams
5 consecutive Mondays, 12:30–1:30 pm
Beginning October 6
Instructor:Jane Selinske, EdD
An inner journey is undertaken when one listens to and reflects on his or her dreams. Dreams speak through image and symbol and are structured like dramas waiting to be experienced and interpreted. We will learn Jung's Map of the Psyche and will use this map to understand how dreams can be better understood. This class will be didactic and experiential and will provide participants with a variety of skills to interpret their dreams through a Jungian lens. If you generally do not remember your dreams, attending a class is one way to activate your psyche to recall your dreams. The class is designed for both those who are new to and those who have experience with Jungian Dream Interpretation.
Thinking like the (Higher) Self Thinks
5 consecutive Mondays, 7:00–8:40 pm
Beginning October 6
Instructor:David Rottman, MA
C.G. Jung introduced to us the idea that the Self communicates to us not only in dreams and fantasies but also in the outer events of our lives. His view is that "messages" from the Self are also vitally alive and present in our jobs, in our relationships, and in what we say and do. In this class, we will explore how the "thinking" of the Self is different from, and often opposed to, the ways we think with our conscious minds. Our goal will be to outline how we can learn to harmonize our conscious thinking with the goals, images and "calls to action" that come to us from the Self, and thus achieve a more fulfilling way of living.
The Consequences of Ignoring the Feminine:Â Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Jesus
2 consecutive Thursdays, 6:00–8:30 pm
Dates October 23 and 30 only
Instructor:Rise Kaufmann, PhD
The transition in early human history from the worship of The Great Mother to the masculinization of the sacred has carried a heavy price. Since that time, The Feminine has gotten progressively more marginalized and demonized in Western culture. As a result, much of the lives of individual women and the richness of The Feminine Principle have been overlooked and wasted.
This presentation will examine that process through the accounts in The Original Testament and The New Testament as they describe this development through the lives of the major Biblical figures of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Jesus. It will articulate the crucial (usually misunderstood) roles of Eve, Lilith, Sarah, Rebecca and Mary. A major focus will be the role of the Feminine in "Tikun Olam" (Hebrew: "repair of the World").
Most of the female Biblical figures function as changers of the world, disrupters of the masculine status quo, as bringers of what needs to be brought to pass, requiring the insight and courage to defy even God. This crucial aspect of the Feminine has earned it the characterization of "temptress," "trouble-making trickster," unstable, unreliable, weak, etc. The positive dimension of the feminine growing edge of the human psyche remains for us to explore and benefit from. These ideas will be examined through a close reading of the Biblical accounts.
Fall II: Classes begin the week of November 5, 2014.
Understanding Jung: The Basic Concepts, Part 2
5 Wednesdays, 6:00–7:40 pm
Beginning November 5 (excluding November 26)
Instructor:Maxson J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP
See the Part 1 description (above) of this course . If you wish to take Part 2 without taking Part 1 first, please email the instructor at maxmcdowell@jungny.com.
Click here for details and all readings
Learning from Artists
5 Wednesdays, 6:30–8:10 pm
Beginning November 5 (excluding November 26)
Instructor:Sylvester Wojtkowski, PhD
Sold out. We regret that this class cannot accept any more students.
"Analytical psychology, when not ignoring art, has assumed towards it a generally dismissive attitude of patient and ill-disguised superiority. … Analytical psychology has often colluded with dominant ideology in devaluing the cognitive power of images.... Progress has been deemed to lie in going beyond images, leaving them behind to arrive at concepts. Reducing artistic output to symptoms of unconscious processes, exercising itself on works of art as ‘in corpore vile,' analytical psychology has belittled them by constraining them to fit the categories it employs, instead of exposing to transformation its own categories and its own language."
Francesco Donfrancesco, Italian Jungian Psychoanalyst, Cambridge 2001
In this companion course, we will reverse our view and look at psychic creativity and psycho-logy through artistic spectacles. We will analyze how modern artists themselves understood creative processes. We will attempt to envision what artists' perspectives can teach us about the psyche. In particular, we will examine the process of artistic inspiration through the artist-model genre. We will look at the Vuillard Suite by Picasso, and at several films that have examined the artist-model subject, such as Jacques Rivette's La Belle Noiseuse (1991), Victor Erice's El Sol del Membrillo (1992), and Fernando Trueba's El Artista y la Modelo (2012). Furthermore, our reflections will be enriched by examining how contemporary filmmakers portrayed artistic process; i.e., we will watch documentaries on Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Anselm Kiefer, Andy Goldsworthy, and Crumb.
Note: This course is held at 420 East 51st Street, Suite C.
Beyond Words: Self-Discovery through Journaling in Images
5 Thursdays, 6:30–8:10 pm
Beginning November 6 (excluding November 27)
Instructor:Barbara Barry
Many individuals who strive for a greater self-knowledge keep journals. Most often these journals are recorded in the written language. However, Jung was particularly attuned to the place images play in the life of the psych telling us that "the psyche consists of essentially images…full of meaning and purpose." He began his own amazing journal, The Red Book, with words but began adding images as well to deepen his exploration process.
This class is instructive and experiential. Participants will learn techniques for eliciting images and learn how to give them visual expression using a simple painting approach in journal form. They will also learn ways to break through creative blocks and work in a spontaneous manner. No art experience or skill is necessary, only the desire to explore how a journal beyond words can enrich one's life.
Fee for materials: add $40 to tuition fee.
Poetry's Mystery II: Creativity and the Unconscious
5 consecutive Mondays, 6:30–8:10 pm
Beginning November 10
Instructor:Fanny Brewster, PhD
The Creative Urge lives and grows like a tree in the earth from which it draws its nourishment.
C.G. Jung: The Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry
In the Spring, we explored and expressed our creative selves, through the reading and writing of Poetry. The conversational ground was rich and we found avenues to deepen the understanding of ourselves both as writers and individuals engaged with Jung's thoughts regarding creativity and Psyche.
This Fall, we continue our creative expression with Poetry as the focus. We will explore the writing of various published poets. Jung's work regarding the Imaginal guides our dialogue and provides exciting possibilities for exploration of the interior Self. The class is open to writers of all levels. New and returning writers are welcome.
Return of the Family/Collective
5 consecutive Tuesdays, 7:00–8:40 pm
Beginning November 11
Instructor:Harry W. Fogarty, PhD
We shall focus on the motif of the "Return of the Family/Collective" as it manifests in the treatment field. Recent dramatic and cinematic productions such as Fun Home, Appropriate, Clybourne Park, Philomena, and Southern Comfort (2001 documentary), as well as more familiar older works such as All My Sons and Nacht und Nebel, awaken again the presence of the family drama in us all, and in all treatments; in particular, the presence of what was "absent" and exiled and deemed inauthentic. As noted in Jung's The Psychology of the Transference, we work in an interactive field, so while attending to the "return of the (dead) family/collective" in the patient's narratives and behaviors, we shall also alert ourselves to our own experiences of the historically absent as present in us all.
Note: This course is held at 7 West 96th St., #1E.
FACULTY
Fanny Brewster, PhD, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York. She holds a doctorate in Clinical Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, is a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, and is a New York State Certified School Psychologist.[Class description]
Barbara Barry is an artist and teacher in New York City. She is the creator of Art for Self-Discovery (www.artforselfdiscovery.com) an art program for adults and children and is on the teaching staff at the South Street Seaport Museum and Symphony Space at 95th. Her new book, Painting Your Way Out of a Corner: The Art of Getting Unstuck, is a guide to personal transformation through the practice of journal keeping and image-making. [Class description]
Harry W. Fogarty, PhD, is a Lecturer in Psychiatry and Religion at Union Theological Seminary and a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City.[Class description]
Rise Kaufmann, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and was in private practice for forty years in New York and New Jersey. She was formerly on the staff of Cornell University Medical Center-New York Hospital, and she was a professor at the City University of New York. Her particular interests are the interface between psychology and the physical sciences, and the role of the Feminine in the Bible.[Class description]
Maxson J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City. Former President of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, he is also a faculty member.[Class description]
David Rottman, MA, is President and Chairman of the Board of the C.G. Jung Foundation, and a member of the Jung Foundation's Continuing Education faculty. He has a Master's degree in Applied Psychology from New York University. He has been a member of the Analytical Psychology Club since 1974 and is the author of the recently published book, The Career as a Path to the Soul.[Class description]
Sylvester Wojtkowski, PhD, is a Jungian analyst and clinical psychologist in private practice in New York City. He received his doctorate from the New School for Social Research.[Class description]