Favorite Childhood Fairy Tales
5 consecutive Mondays, 7:00 – 8:40 pm.
Beginning February 23, 2009
Instructor:Jane Selinske, EdD, LCSW, LP
The fairy tale is a creative story loved by both children and adults. Jung believed that, in addition to dream analysis, fairy tales and myths have the potential to reveal personal and archetypal behavior. Similar to an initial dream in Jungian analysis, one’s favorite childhood fairy tale is often the source of rich connections with a person’s life drama. This class will explore examples of the connection between favorite childhood fairy tales and the way the fairy tale parallels individual lives.
Invisible Partners: Fairy Tales of the Anima and Animus
5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:10 pm.
Beginning February 25, 2009
(Excluding March 11, 2009)
Instructor:Maxson J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP
When a woman has a crush on a man she is partly fascinated by her own unconscious masculine potential (animus). A man may likewise be fascinated by his own unconscious feminine potential (anima). This fascination may draw a couple into relationship but the animus and anima tend to remain unconscious. As long as each is unconscious, each tends to be destructive. With a struggle, we can become more conscious of our own animus or anima. Consciousness leads to an inner relationship (with the animus or anima) which is the source of creativity. That inner relationship also makes it easier to have relationships in the outer world. We will read five fairy tales about the animus (anima), and analyze them together. We will see that apparently simple fairy tales may contain astute psychological insight. You can expect to gain some new consciousness of your own relationship to the contrasexual archetype. Analysis of fairy tales will also give you practice in symbolic thought, which is necessary for analyzing dreams.
In preparation for this course you may read on the web some fairy tales analyzed by the instructor. Details available when you register.
Childhood and Education
5 consecutive Wednesdays, 7:00 – 8:40 pm.
Beginning February 25, 2009
This course will be held at 420 East 51st Street, Suite C,
New York, NY 10022
Instructor:Sylvester Wojtkowski, PhD
We have to be careful that the school does not destroy the natural functioning of the psyche.
— C. G. Jung, Children’s Dreams, p. 133.
During this course we will explore Jung’s view of education and its relevance for contemporary life. Jung’s guidance on the subject is elegantly paradoxical. On one hand he believes that there is no development of personality, on the other that education is necessary to develop and civilize our primitive nature. The “child” for Jung is not just a young human being but a symbol of anything new and promising in the human psyche (both of children and adults). Jung tends to privilege the psychological education of the teachers over teaching of children. We will examine Jung’s narrative of his own childhood and his writings on the archetype of the child and education.
The Living Mask
5 consecutive Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:10 pm.
Beginning February 26, 2009
Instructor:Barbara Barry
This course combines didactic and experiential processes that are based on Jungian theoretical notions — the persona, the ego, and the unconscious, and their relationship to one another. We will consider the face, its various manifestations, and the psychological implications of the many faces we show in the world. We will explore the archetypal image of the mask and the face from various perspectives: mask making, the ritual use of masks, the role of Dionysus. Lecture, slide presentation, discussion, and actual mask making will be the activities of the class.
Note: Fee for materials: add $30 to tuition fee.
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Spring II: Classes begin the week of April 13, 2009
I grieve for you my Brother
Jung’s Answer to Job:
Finding Meaning in Trauma and Suffering
5 consecutive Mondays 6:30 – 8:10 pm.
Beginning April 13, 2009
Instructor:Heide Kolb, MA, LCSW, NCPsyA
In this course we will explore one of Jung’s most influential, albeit controversial, works, his Answer to Job. Often regarded as the essence of the Jungian myth, we will engage some of its central themes, such as the role of human consciousness in the face of terror and trauma and the reality of the “divine drama” in the unconscious autonomous psyche. We will look at the spiritual dimension in Jung’s work which offers a depth-psychological examination of the Judeo-Christian myth and a new paradigm for inner development and transformation. Current events and selected works from literature and film will help us ground our explorations and approximate our role in the great drama of the objective psyche.
Active Imagination Using Paints
5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:30 – 8:10 pm.
Beginning April 15, 2009
Instructor:Maxson J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP
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.
Childhood and Fate
5 consecutive Wednesdays, 7:00 – 8:40 pm.
Beginning April 15, 2009
This course will be held at 420 East 51st Street, Suite C,
New York, NY 10022
Instructor:Sylvester Wojtkowski, PhD
The children already live in the tomorrow,
only they are not aware of it.
— C. G. Jung, Children’s Dreams, p. 50.
Our dominant cultural narrative favors genetic endowment, good upbringing and education in creating a good responsible adult citizen. The reductive psychoanalytic view tends to see childhood as an original source of conflicts, inhibitions and interpersonal difficulties of later years. Jung while acknowledging the power of parental figures in influencing children’s lives, credits children’s predispositions as major forces in shaping their individual destinies. Jung’s view amounts to radical re-visioning of the common perspective. Instead of interpreting the story of adult life backwards into childhood, it strives to read the child’s life forward. It is as if the final form of life was already there and has expressed itself from the beginning. We will critically explore Jung’s perspective and its implications for our lives.
Cosmos and Soul in the Western Tradition
5 consecutive Thursdays, 6:30 – 8:10 pm
Beginning April 16, 2009
Instructor:Timothy Gus Kiley
When we look up at the surrounding night sky and contemplate the universe we are compelled to ask the big question: who are we and how do we fit into the grand scheme of things? This seminar will explore changing conceptions of the self and of the cosmos, from Plato’s classical microcosm/macrocosm analogy, to Dante’s poetic vision of the soul’s journey through the medieval universe, to modern views of the self set against the backdrop of modern scientific cosmology. Particular attention will be paid to how self-understanding and an understanding of the cosmos have been intimately connected and, moreover, how self-transformation has been conceived in relation to realities larger and greater than the self. Slide-illustrated lectures and discussion.
Jung and Folk Tales: Familiar Dilemmas/Unfamiliar Resources
5 consecutive Thursdays, 7:00 – 8:40 pm.
Beginning April 16, 2009
This course will be held at 7 West 96th Street, #1E,
New York, NY 10025
Instructor:Harry W. Fogarty, PhD.
Often we find a resource for our personal concerns in “folk wisdom” and folk tales. In this course, we will apply a Jungian perspective to some less well known folk tales. As we consider some of our contemporary challenges, we shall reach beyond the more personal content to the wider implications and suggestive psychic mappings offered through non-Western folk tales. Death and deadness, barrenness and rebirth, the heroic quest, justice: we shall wrestle with the psychic reality of these issues through the less familiar lens of the tales offered to us by other cultures.
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FACULTY
Barbara Barry, is a visual artist, teacher and the creator of “Art for Self-Discovery” studio programs which emphasize the value of discovering one’s own process as opposed to learning techniques to reach a desired result. She works with children, adults and those with special needs. [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]
Timothy Gus Kiley, received a master’s degree in religion from Harvard University, where he studied world mythology and Hinduism. Formerly associate publisher of Parabola Magazine, he is currently general manager of Zone Books. [class description]
Heide Kolb, MA, LCSW, NCPsyA, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City and a faculty member of Blanton-Peale Institute, the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and the C.G. Jung Foundation. [class description]
Maxon J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City. He is a faculty member of the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and the C.G. Jung Foundation. [Session I class description]; [Session II class description]
Jane Selinske, EdD, LCSW, LP, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New Jersey, a certified teacher and trainer of Mandala Assessment, and a Board Certified Music Therapist. [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. [Session I class description]; [Session II class description]
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