THE LIVING SYMBOL: FOUNDATIONS OF ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Event Details
Are you intrigued by Carl Jung’s groundbreaking approach to the human psyche? Curious about what makes Analytical Psychology distinctive and its relevance today? Join us for our The Living Symbol: The
Event Details
Are you intrigued by Carl Jung’s groundbreaking approach to the human psyche? Curious about what makes Analytical Psychology distinctive and its relevance today?
Join us for our The Living Symbol: The Foundations of Analytical Psychology, an engaging seminar series designed to introduce you to some essential ideas of Jungian thought.
Course Highlights
Meet Jung: The Man Behind the Theories
Delve into the life and times of Carl Jung. Understand the personal experiences and historical context that shaped his pioneering work in depth psychology.
Explore the Jungian Approach to the Psyche
Discover more about Jung’s perspective, including the archetypal, dream analysis, the importance of the symbolic function, alchemy and the journey of individuation.
Engage with Contemporary Perspectives
Learn how Jung’s ideas continue to inspire and evolve within modern psychotherapy, as contemporary Jungians adapt his legacy to meet today’s therapeutic needs.
Course Details:
Format:
A series of 10 seminars led by distinguished lecturers from various Jungian schools, offering diverse insights into the theory and practice of Analytical Psychology.
Contributors:
We are proud to feature a stellar lineup of speakers, including:
Katerina Sarafidou, George Bright, Richard Jenkins, Dr. Dale Mathers, Andy White, Brenda Crowther, Prof. Roderick Main, Dr. Sarah Hall, Heba Zaphiriou-Zarifi, and Dr. Orsolya Lukács.
Who is it for?
- Practicing therapists and counsellors seeking to enrich their theoretical foundations
- Individuals considering training as Jungian analysts
- Anyone drawn to the symbolic, imaginative, and transformative world of Jungian psychology
Please Note:
This is an introductory course offering a broad overview of some key Jungian and post-Jungian concepts. It does not confer a qualification for psychotherapy practice or training.
Fees:
£375, payable in full upon registration or in 3 x monthly instalments of £125. (For monthly instalments, please contact our Operations Manager, Jacqueline, at office@jungiananalysts.org.uk)
Full details of the programme and speakers are below:
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Tuesday 13th October – Week 1
Jung’s psychology as a distinct discipline of psychotherapy
Speaker: Katerina Sarafidou
This seminar aims to introduce the historical and philosophical foundations of analytical psychology and psychoanalysis as a way of providing a contextual understanding of key concepts, texts and clinical practices, and the critical framework through which they emerged. It will trace Jung’s psychology as it departs from Freudian psychoanalysis from 1913 onwards and the wider implications in terms of the psychotherapeutic aims and methods.
Katerina Sarafidou is the Jungian Head of Research and former Jungian Director of the MSc Psychodynamics of Human Development run by Birkbeck College and the British Psychotherapy Foundation. She is an honorary member of the British Jungian Analytic Association and is carrying out academic research at the Warburg Institute on Jungian theory and German aesthetics. She is one of the three founders of The Circle of Analytical Psychology, which offers a 2-year course of study on Jung’s Liber Novus. She is running a long-standing public reading group focusing on the systematic reading of Jung’s primary texts.
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Tuesday 20th October – Week 2
N.B. This seminar will start at 7.40pm
The Red Book: the numinous beginning
Speaker: George Bright
From 1913 to the early 1930’s Jung devised a unique technique to research the terrain of human nature, psychology and cosmology. The Red Book: LIber Novus is his primary record of his researches and the foundation of what he subsequently elaborated as analytic psychology. In this talk I aim to explain where The Red Book came from and why it matters in the contemporary world.
George Bright is an analytical psychologist who has worked in private practice in West London for thirty-five years. He is a member of the Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts and a supervising and training Analyst of The Society of Analytical Psychology, London. In 2016 he co-founded, with two colleagues, The Circle of Analytical Psychology to develop ways of studying C.G. Jung’s The Red Book/ Liber Novus in small, committed groups over a six-term period. He is also a guest lecturer in AJA’s Jungian Analytic Training for Qualified Psychotherapists (JATQP) training.
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Tuesday 27th October – Week 3
From Complex to Archetype (pre/post 1913 Jung)
Speaker: Richard Jenkins
These two terms have entered everyday language but are inextricably linked with Analytical Psychology. What do they mean and are they still central to practice today? Noting the range of contemporary interpretations, this talk will consider the origins and originality of Jung’s discoveries. Looking back at Jung’s formative experiments in the laboratory and on himself, it aims to shed light on the relevance of his radical insights for psychology today.
Richard Jenkins is a Jungian Analyst, Psychodynamic Psychotherapist and member of AJA, and frequent teacher on a variety of Jungian and Psychodynamic courses. He is a co-founder in 2014 of Southbank Counselling and practices in London. He has degrees in Law, Theology and a Masters in contemporary Theology. Before training as an analyst, he spent more than 20 years in social policy and activism, working in central government and NGOs to support community organisations.
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Tuesday 3rd November – Week 4
Dreams: the language of images
Speaker: Dr Dale Mathers
Freud said dreams are the Royal Road to the Unconscious, Jung said they are the Key to the Inner World: they agreed on the value of exploring dreams as a way to understand ourselves. This evening, we’ll look at the similarities and differences in their approaches, at new ideas from neuroscience which connect dreams to empathy, and how we might work with our own dreams and the dreams of our clients.
Dr Dale Mathers is a retired Member of AJA, a former psychiatrist and ran the student counselling service at the LSE. He has led dream workshops and social dreaming events around the world. His next book ‘Dreams: the basics,’ will be published by Routledge in the summer of 2024.
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Tuesday 10th November – Week 5
Myth and fairy tales
Speaker: Andy White
In forming his theory of the psyche, Jung realised myths are stories which help people to understand common psychological patterns. They are manifestations of our deepest dreams and fantasies, expressing unconscious ideas in an accessible form. Myths, he said, are public dreams, just as dreams are private myths. In this talk, Andy will explore how myths and fairy tales provide a language for understanding inner conflicts, growth, and transformation, helping us to recognise and integrate aspects of ourselves which might otherwise remain unconscious
Andy White is a Jungian analyst and existential psychotherapist. He was born and raised in Africa and his first language is Swahili. What started out as a love of African stories gradually became a fascination for tales from around the world. He has two books published, ‘Going Mad to Stay Sane’, which examines the relevance of the story of King Midas to the phenomena of self-destructiveness and ‘Abundant Delicious’, which is a reinterpretation of the story of Oedipus. He also has a blog, ‘The Wisdom of Fairytales’, a series of essays connecting ancient tales to modern situations: https://andywhiteblog.com/
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Tuesday 17th November – Week 6
Alchemy: symbolic transformation
Speaker: Brenda Crowther
This lecture begins with an alchemical dream, to show how this experience relates to the alchemy of everyday life. Jung was the first psychologist of the 20th century to take alchemy seriously and to try to unearth the meaning of its supposedly arcane symbols. This enormous research, supported by his co-worker Marie-Louise von Franz, was exceptional. After this, alchemy moved into the mainstream of analytical psychology. We will look at three or four stages of the alchemical process and see how it weaves into our lives.
Brenda Crowther is a Jungian Analyst, trained in Zurich at the Research and Training Centre for Depth Psychology according to C G Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz and in London at the Guild of Analytical Psychology. She is a senior analyst and member of AJA, IAAP and UKCP and a training analyst for the Jung Institute in Zurich. Brenda lives in South-West France, where she has an international practice. She gives conferences and workshops in many countries.
Originally trained in London in Fine Art and Art History, Brenda worked at Brighton University in the art department for many years, and as a practicing artist. After an MA in French Philosophy, she began her Jungian training. She has written many articles, and for about 8 years she edited Harvest Journal.
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Tuesday 24th November – Week 7
Synchronicity: The world as symbol
Speaker: Dr. Roderick Main
Jung’s concept of synchronicity—meaningful coincidence; the acausal connection of psychic and physical events through meaning—has the radical implication that archetypal meaning can express itself not only intrapsychically in dreams, fantasies, and imaginative productions but also externally in the world in bodily symptoms as well as, more radically, in the animate and inanimate environments beyond the body. This implies that the outer world, like the inner world, can be read symbolically, which has profound consequences both for psychotherapy and for engagement with the many social, cultural, political, and ecological crises besetting our collective lives.
Roderick Main, PhD, works in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, where he is a Professor and the Director of the Centre for Myth Studies. His books include The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (2004), Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience (2007), and Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, and Metaphysics in the Work of C. G. Jung (2022).
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Tuesday 1st December – Week 8
Working with Images: from picture to symbol via imagination
Speaker Dr. Sarah Hall
In Jung’s psychological theory, symbols and images are crucial for understanding the unconscious, and the process of individuation. Jung viewed symbols as rich expressions of the unconscious, often manifesting in dreams, myths, and art, offering insights into the archetypes and deeper aspects of the psyche.
Jung also highlighted the distinction between signs and symbols, an essential differentiation for understanding the unconscious, with symbols represent something unknown or unconscious, carrying a deeper, often mysterious meaning that transcends ordinary understanding. By projecting symbols onto the world around us, we gain insights into our unconscious mind and its workings, helping us navigate the complexities of our psyche. Treating symbols as gateways to deeper psychological truths allows us to harness their transformative power and this will be an experiential seminar, where you will work live with symbols that you create and bring to the seminar.
Dr Sarah Hall is a Jungian Analyst and an Art Psychotherapist (accredited by IAAP, BPC, UKCP and HCPC), with a Private Practice in Cornwall. She is the current Chair of Training for the Association of Jungian Analysts in London and, for 17 years, worked part time as Clinical Lead in Dual-Diagnosis at Chy rehab in Cornwall. Sarah has taught on Jungian and Art Therapy trainings in the UK and has presented a number of papers in the UK, and internationally, on Jungian dream research and addiction. As a professional artist, and former lecturer at Glasgow School of Art, she has also been involved in researching the therapeutic impact of creativity by working in prisons, long stay hospitals and institutions. Her Doctoral research, undertaken in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex, involved a Jungian interpretation of drug-dreams in patients in recovery from addiction, which she is currently developing into a book, with the working title: ‘Dreamcovery: a Jungian approach to addiction and recovery’.
N.B. This seminar will not be recorded for copyright reasons.
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Tuesday 8th December – Week 9
The Collective Symbol of our Time
Speaker: Heba Zaphiriou-Zarifi
For Jung, symbols emerge when “the way” enters death and the process of individuation is impeded. Then the salvatory symbol emerges in “coincidentia oppositorum” to paradoxically reconcile what otherwise is disconnected. The interplay and synthesis of opposites such as light and darkness, transcendent and chthonic unite in the creation of the “new god”. Rather than discussing what symbols are, Heba will invite participants to reflect on the phenomena engaging enough to hold symbolic significance; experience being the starting point of symbol formation. The path is that of sacrifice, restoring the inferior and the repressed. Individuation requires renouncement of the “visible success”, the longing for power, including power over one’s fellow human beings. Dogmas do not wish for renewal and the new emerging symbol is at risk of murder before it can even be embodied in the collective. This begs the question: is there a collective symbol of our time and, if so, whence will it emerge and what purpose will it serve?
Heba Zaphiriou-Zarifi (GAP-UKCP-IAAP) is a Jungian Analytical Psychologist and Body-psychotherapist, training analyst and supervisor. A graduate of BodySoul Rhythms® Leadership Training at the Marion Woodman Foundation, she founded The Central London Authentic Movement Group, leading individual and group work in Embodied Active Imagination. Heba is a frequent speaker at conferences sponsored by the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP), including The Jungian Odyssey, and at the C.G. Jung Club-London where she played the role of ‘Soul’ in a dramatisation of Jung’s Seven Sermons to the Dead. She has recently inaugurated the ‘Stand By The Mother’ ongoing lecture series. Heba regularly publishes scholarly articles in academic journals and Jungian books that draw upon her early training in philosophy in France and is herself a contributor to the psychology of the Feminine and its relevance to the times in which we live.
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Tuesday 15th December – Week 10
AI and the psyche: the new ‘Other’
Speaker: Dr Orsolya Lukács
In this talk, we will examine how artificial intelligence is experienced as the psychological Other, and how archetypal motifs of creation, projection, ambivalence, and the search for meaning are present in our relationship with artificial intelligence. Drawing on Jasanoff’s (2015) concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, Orsolya proposes the term psychosociotechnical imaginaries to include the unconscious and archetypal dimensions that underlie and inform our relationship with technology. We will explore the process of Othering, and the ways in which humanity externalises aspects of its own psyche into technological forms; the mythologem of creation as a recurrent expression of the tension between human aspiration and anxiety, creativity and destruction; and the polarity inherent in this dynamic, which not only fuels imaginative and technological innovation but also raises moral and ethical questions about consciousness, agency, and responsibility.
Dr Orsolya Lukács is a Lecturer of Psychoanalytic Studies in Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Essex. Her primary academic interests lie in the connections between analytical psychology and physics, the historical and scientific contexts surrounding Jungian theories, theories related to the perception of time, the influence of creativity and intuition in scientific breakthroughs, the role of talking therapies in driving societal change, and the intricate relationship between mind and body. She is also intrigued by research in artificial intelligence and theories of the mind, as well as investigations into virtual realities and the concept of the Self. Her most recent publication, a chapter titled, ‘Jung, Ecopsychology, and Climate Change’ is published in the edited book, “The Second Handbook of Jungian Psychology” by Routledge.
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