Continuing Education Courses Spring 2006

Spring I: Classes begin week of February 27, 2006


Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Part 1: 5 consecutive Mondays, 6:30 – 8:10pm. Beginning February 27, 2006

Part 2: 5 consecutive Mondays, 6:30 – 8:10pm. Beginning April 17, 2006

Instructor: Morgan Stebbins, M.Div., C.S.W.

C.G. Jung pioneered many concepts that we as a culture are only now beginning to understand and apply. Perhaps the most influential and inspiring is that of the archetype. In this two-part class, we will build on basic Jungian concepts and explore the development of the idea of the archetype from pre-Jungian sources through post-Jungian possibilities, using material from ancient and modern sources, including film and other media. We will look at how the archetypal image shows up in various images from advertising to dreams, from television to myth. Specifically, in each course we will explore four archetypes that Jung thought central to our self-understanding as well as to our understanding of our age.

Part 1 will look at the archetypes of the Mother, the Spirit, the Child, and the Trickster.
Part 2 will examine the archetypes of the Father, Aion, Anima, and Coniunctio.

Delving into these will give us the opportunity to see how archetypal images are connected to personal complexes as well as to collective events such as science and politics. Perhaps more importantly, we will attempt to re-train ourselves to look at the progressive meaning of an image rather than using the reductive, personalistic approach that defines and limits our culture in the present day.


Eros of Power

5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:40 p.m.
Beginning March 1, 2006

Instructor: Sylvester Wojtkowski, Ph.D.

Recorded history represents, above all else, a chronicle of the human lust for power. Power and eros, for good or ill, have always been the dominant factors that determine relationships between peoples and individuals. This course will focus on various aspects of power dynamics as they manifest in the world at large, within family relationships and within the individual psyche, while attempting to understand their erotic appeal in male and female psychology, as well. We will examine the fascination with violence and violent images in popular culture, using mythological amplifications and ideas of Jung and his followers.


Freedom, Individuation, and the Greater Good: Intersections of the Personal and the Political

5 consecutive Wednesdays, 7:00 – 8:40 p.m.
Beginning March 1, 2006

Instructor: Gary Trosclair, LCSW, DMA

“As the individual is not just a single separate being, but, by his very existence, presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationship, not to isolation.” C.G. Jung, CW Vol. 6. Par. 758

Individuation requires the freedom to turn inward, away from the influence of the collective, in order to be authentic and whole. This archetypal intent is so powerful that it may override all other aspects of development, affecting not only individuals, but collective movements as well. One aspect of individuation that may be affected by the need for autonomy is the relation to community.

Sometimes wholeness requires us to turn outward again after introversion, to participate in community, or even to serve it, as did the heroes and heroines of mythology, who return to the collective to share the boon they discovered on their inward journey. This outward movement requires a differentiation of autonomy: being free of the unconscious effects of the collective, yet finely tuned to the involvement that our individuation asks of us. This course will explore the complex psychological interface between freedom and community–local, political, and environmental–and the role of psychotherapy in navigating it.


Dream Analysis: Jung’s Royal Road to the Unconscious

5 consecutive Thursdays, 6:00 – 7:40 p.m.
Beginning March 2, 2006

Instructor: Maxon J. McDowell, Ph.D., C.S.W.

Jung observed that “in each of us there is another whom we do not know. He speaks to us in dreams and tells us how differently he sees us from the way we see ourselves.” The source of our dreams seems to look at us objectively. It offers corrections when we are off-center. It suggests action we might take and its likely outcome. Dream analysis requires not only a structure of logic but also symbolic thought. We will explore both aspects in this class. Dream analysis is a complicated skill that can only be learned slowly: this class will be appropriate for all, whether or not you have taken other classes on the subject. We will not analyze participants’ own dreams: participants will be asked to bring dreams (with permission) from friends or family.


Riding the Wild Hyphen: A Jungian Meditation on the “Middle Way”

5 consecutive Thursdays, 7:00 – 8:40 p.m.
Beginning March 2, 2006

Instructor: Petah Digby-Lewis, MHP, RN, MAASP

To experience life fully, with depth and grace, is to experience a selfhood that is liberated from the narrow confines of the conscious ego. This is an insight that Buddhism and Jungian psychology share. The goal of this experiential course, within a small-group context, is to practice a mindfulness meditation technique that teaches us to hold on to opposites and the tensions that arise between them. By charting a path between extremes, we embark on the “Middle Way,” the path of empty stillness (“Rigpa”). This in-between state is the “hyphen,” an ideal state, which can lead us to expand our Self-knowledge, as well as to engage more meaningfully with our inner life.

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Spring II: Classes begin week of April 17, 2006


Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Part 2: 5 consecutive Mondays, 6:30 – 8:10 p.m.
Beginning April 17, 2006

Instructor: Morgan Stebbins, MDiv, C.S.W.

C.G. Jung pioneered many concepts that we as a culture are only now beginning to understand and apply. Perhaps the most influential and inspiring is that of the archetype. In this two-part class, we will build on basic Jungian concepts and explore the development of the idea of the archetype from pre-Jungian sources through post-Jungian possibilities, using material from ancient and modern sources, including film and other media. We will look at how the archetypal image shows up in various images from advertising to dreams, from television to myth. Specifically, in each course we will explore four archetypes that Jung thought central to our self-understanding as well as to our understanding of our age.

Part 2 will examine the archetypes of the Father, Aion, Anima, and Coniunctio.
Part 1 (Spring 1, beginning February 27, 2006), covers the archetypes of the Mother, the Spirit, the Child, and the Trickster.

Delving into these will give us the opportunity to see how archetypal images are connected to personal complexes as well as to collective events such as science and politics. Perhaps more importantly, we will attempt to re-train ourselves to look at the progressive meaning of an image rather than using the reductive, personalistic approach that defines and limits our culture in the present day.


Mediatrix: Jung, and the Effect of Technology on the Human Psyche

5 consecutive Mondays, 7:00 – 8:40 p.m.
Beginning April 17, 2006

Instructor: Royce Froehlich, LCSW, MA, MDiv

“Technology is the psychology of our time” (W. Giegerich).

Jung’s 1949 letter to the Swiss Polytechnic Institute (ETH), “The Effect of Technology on the Human Psyche” (CW18) will serve as a touchstone for thinking about technology in light of analytical psychology. Through the mediatrix (muse/guiding-figure/interpreter of the Zeitgeist) and Trix (the trickster- mediating archetypal energy) we will explore, via Jung, avenues of creativity, potential, awareness, and disaster made possible by technologies. Classes will be augmented with multi-media support.


The Archetypal Feminine in Early Christianity

5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:40 p.m.
Beginning April 19, 2006

Instructor: Elizabeth Stevenson, M.T.S.

Dan Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code, has sparked worldwide interest and debate and soon will be a movie. We will examine the role of Mary Magdelen and the Knights Templar as well as the problems that the Church has had with ancient secret knowledge. It is strongly suggested that you read The Da Vinci Code if you have not already done so.


Active Imagination using Paints

5 consecutive Thursdays, 6:00 – 7:40 p.m.
Beginning April 20, 2006.

Instructor: Maxson J. McDowell, Ph.D., L.M.S.W.

Active imagination helps us to talk with the unconscious: it requires a confrontation between two distinct agents in the psyche. The unconscious produces images; consciousness responds to these images with feeling and tries to understand their meaning. Painting allows us to express vivid, unconscious images. We will read Jung and von Franz on active imagination and then work with paints and explore the resulting images. If you have never used paints since grade school, so much the better!
Note: Fee for materials: add $10 to tuition fee.


C.G. Jung and the Mandala

5 consecutive Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:10 p.m.
Beginning April 20, 2006.

Instructor: John M. Lundquist, MLS, Ph.D.

The mandala is one of the most famous, powerful, and evocative of religious symbols. C.G. Jung discovered the mandala as a student of Asian and world religions, as a commentator on important texts dealing with Asian religions, and in the dreams and drawings of his patients. He wrote: “I knew that in finding the mandala as an expression of the self I had attained what was for me the ultimate,” and, ”It became increasingly plain to me that the mandala is the center. It is the exponent of all paths. It is the path to the center, to individuation.” In this course, we will examine C.G. Jung’s writings on the mandala, especially from Psychology and Alchemy, The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and his Commentary to the translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower. The instructor will bring examples of Tibetan mandalas from his own collection to class for illustration of how mandalas function in one of the best-known of the many religions in which they are found.


Power of Eros

5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:40 p.m.
Beginning April 26, 2006 (Note the later start date).

Instructor: Sylvester Wojtkowski, Ph.D.

Almighty Zeus himself was no match for the slings and arrows of Cupid. Powerful personages, be they gods, heroes, CEOs or presidents, seem particularly susceptible, perhaps more so than ordinary mortals, to the seductive allure of Eros. We will consider the meaning of erotic images and Eros’ transcendent function, as we explore the role of the erotic in the psychic libido, as well as the dynamics of opposites in psychic reality.

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FACULTY

Petah Digby-Lewis, MHP, RN, MASSP, is an advanced candidate in psychoanalytic training at the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. She is a certified somatic psychotherapist and student of Eastern religion. [class description]

Royce Froehlich, LCSW, MA, MDiv, is an analyst-in-training at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and a doctoral candidate in Communications at the European Graduate School. A former audio engineer at ABC Radio, he is in private practice in New York City.
[class description]

John M. Lundquist, M.L.S., Ph.D., is the Susan and Douglas Dillon Chief Librarian of the Asian and Middle Eastern Division of the New York Public Library. He has taught at Pace University and the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Institution. [class description]

Maxson J. McDowell, Ph.D., C.S.W., is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Manhattan. He is President of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology and a faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York.
[ Class description: Session 1; Session 2 ]

Morgan Stebbins, M.Div., C.S.W., is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City and a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. He has led seminars at the University of California, Berkeley, and Columbia University.
[ Class description: Session 1; Session 2 ]

Elizabeth Stevenson, M.T.S., is a Jungian analyst trained at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. She has a private practice in New York and Vermont. [class description]

Gary Trosclair, LCSW, DMA, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in Manhattan and Westchester County, New York. He serves on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York. [class description]

Sylvester Wojtkowski, Ph.D., 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 and is a longtime faculty member of the C. G. Jung Foundation.
[Class description: Session 1; Session 2 ]