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

Note: This program was originally presented in the 2023 Summer Study program.

This seminar explores the fragility of self in the ‘As-If’ Personality, the popularly termed imposter syndrome. This person lives on illusions and is both the mirror and the mask, presenting in artifice. Known for a slickly contrived persona/ego image, behind it the ‘as-if’ person withdraws into fantasy. Inside is alienation and self-isolation, loneliness. The issues affect intimacy with oneself and others due to the difficulty being present. The areas include not belonging, sexual addiction, aging, the cultural influence of social media, the role of the father and mother, body image and split selves. All these are promoted by the culture of social media where reality and illusion are often blurred. The complex aspects are explored through composite clinical examples, dreams and a fairytale as we seek to ground this elusive personality type. The purpose of exploring the ‘as-if’ and imposter personality is to find what can be replenishing and regenerative to the person and culture.

Learning Objectives:
The program is designed so that participants will be able to:

1. Identify aspects of the ‘as-if’ personality according to the schema of Jungian analytical psychology.
2. Summarize Jungian therapeutic/analytical work with this personality type
3. Outline analytical defenses like psychic retreat, false self, and ‘as-if’ for expanding the personality.

Susan E. Schwartz, PhD, trained in Zurich, Switzerland as a Jungian analyst, is also a clinical psychologist and member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology. She presents to numerous Jungian conferences and teaching programs in the USA and worldwide. She has articles in several journals and chapters in books on Jungian analytical psychology. Her current book published by Routledge is translated into several languages and into Ukrainian this April. It is entitled The Absent Father Effect on Daughters, Father Desire, Father Wounds. Another book will be published by Routledge in 2023 entitled, The Imposter Syndrome and The ‘As-If’ Personality in Analytical Psychology: The Fragility of Self. Her Jungian analytical practice is in Paradise Valley, Arizona.