The Art of Psyche: Active Imagination and Art

5 consecutive Wednesdays, 6:00 – 7:30 pm Eastern Time, USA via Zoom.
Beginning April 10, 2024

Instructor: Maria Taveras, LCSW

7.5 CE contact hours for licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists.

We will explore the intimate relation between the art of psyche, active imagination and art. Our main focus will be on the role of active imagination in the psychic origin of artistic creation. Jung defines active imagination as a technique for evoking images from the unconscious and then actively engaging those images. By creating a series of dreams, visions, and spontaneous images during course we will have the opportunity to observe the creative process in motion, in visual forms of the collective unconscious psychologically speaking in terms of the symbolic, compensatory, amplification, and unconscious complexes. We will read what Jung (as well as others like Marie-Louise von Franz) have written about active imagination. We will view images that Jung actively evoked from his unconscious and then painted in his famous Red Book – an important example of “Outsider Art.” In experiential exercises, we will have an opportunity to create our own art from images that emerge from the unconscious in our own active imaginations. As a group, we will have an opportunity to show, share, and discuss together the art that we have all actively imagined.

Learning Objectives:

On completion of this class, you will be able to:

  1. Discuss the difference between Jung’s technique of active imagination and Freud’s technique of free association.
  2. Describe Jung’s technique of active imagination – how actively to evoke and engage images from the unconscious.
  3. Describe how to use Jung’s technique of active imagination to create art from images that emerge from their own unconscious.
  4. Explain how active imagination is actually “interactive imagination” – a technique that induces an altered state of consciousness in order to enable the ego and the images that emerge from the unconscious to interact creatively.
  5. Use these concepts to directly embody the relation between art and psyche and to discuss the uniquely personal experience of the creative process.

FACULTY

Mary Apikos taught at Parsons School of Design NYC for 17 years. She taught inter-disciplinary courses about aspects of design culture that fell through the cracks to people who fell through the cracks. She is ABD in Cultural Anthropology from CUNY Graduate Center and has worked as an ethnographic textile conservator at the Museum of the American Indian, George Heye Foundation NYC and in private practice where she specialized in the care of sacred materials. In 2022 Mary completed a one-year remote applied arts program at the Centre for Applied Jungian Studies in South Africa and is on staff at The London Arts Based Research Centre. She is a working artist and currently resides in Chicago. Her work can be seen on her website maryapikos.com

 Maxson J. McDowell, PhD, LMSW, LP, is a senior Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City.  Former President of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, he is also a longtime faculty member. He has taught courses in dream interpretation online and in person for over 25 years.  He has published numerous papers on dream interpretation, Jungian psychology, narcissistic injury, systems theory and autism.

David Rottman, MA, is past President of the C.G. Jung Foundation and is a member of the Jung Foundation’s Continuing Education Faculty. He is the author of The Career as a Path to the Soul. He was the editor and publisher for The Way of the Image by Yoram Kaufmann. He has a private practice in New York City.

Maria Taveras, LCSW, is a Jungian analyst in private practice in New York City.  She is also an award-winning creator of Dream Art.  She creates art from images in her own dreams and is the recipient of two Gradiva Awards from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis for her Dream Art.  Her Dream Art has been exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Berkeley, London, Montreal, and Cape Town.

Program Information

PROGRAM COSTS

$150 per single-day program registration. There are no scholarships available for this program.

YOU DO NOT NEED A PAYPAL ACCOUNT. HERE IS HOW TO PAY WITH CREDIT CARD: On the Paypal login page, look below login fields for a boxed link that reads PAY WITH DEBIT OR CREDITCARD.

LOCATION

These are online courses, given through the program Zoom. Please download the Zoom program in advance of the first class session at Zoom.us

PAY ONLINE: YOU DO NOT NEED A PAYPAL ACCOUNT.
HERE IS HOW TO PAY WITH A CREDIT CARD:
On the Paypal login page, look below login fields for a boxed link
that reads PAY WITH DEBIT OR CREDIT CARD.

TUITION

All 5-week courses are $175 for the general public and $150 for members.

REGISTRATION

The full fee must be paid at the time of registration.
Please register through the payment buttons on this website.

$175 General Public


$150 Members

IMPORTANT NOTES:

When you pay you must also email your current email address and telephone number to the Foundation at cgjungny@aol.com.  The Foundation will send you an email message and you must reply to confirm receipt. If you are taking this course for 7.5 CE contact hours for licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists, please specify which license you hold and give your NYS license number.

 Class size is limited. Early registration is strongly recommended. Refunds for continuing education courses, less $15 for administrative services, will be made up to seven days before the first session. There will be no refunds issued after classes have begun. No exceptions will be made. Programs are subject to change without notice.

For more information, call or write:

Office of the Executive Director
The C.G. Jung Foundation of New York
28 East 39th Street
New York, New York 10016
Telephone: (212) 697-6430
Email: cgjungny@aol.com
Web address: www.cgjungny.org
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