"Discovering Psychotherapy in 'A Dangerous Method'" An Internet Seminar Available through Asheville Jung Center

Date: Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Time: 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. EST with 30 minutes of open discussion to follow 
Cost: ONLINE registration only through Asheville Jung Center

Please note: Jung Cleveland is not handling or accepting registrations for this event. Contact Asheville Jung Center.

Event Location: Online web series, see Asheville Jung Center 

Event Summary: 

On August 17^th, 1904 a 17-year old Russian girl by the name of Sabina Spielrein was admitted to the famous Burghölzhi Psychiatric Clinic in Zurich, Switzerland into the care of a young fledgling psychiatrist by the name of Carl Gustav Jung. Fresh from reading about the newest methods of psychiatric treatment published by Sigmund Freud, a method later to be called psychoanalysis, Jung applied these new ideas to his treatment of Miss Spielrein’ hysteria. In two years, her disturbing symptoms subsided and Jung, impressed with this new technique and wanting to impress his new mentor, Jung used the Spielrein case to impress Freud while showing him the positive results of his method.

Thus began a relationship between three people whose influence on Jung’s work would be immense in pointing the way forward to something new, even as he was separating from the old. Based on John Kerr’s well-researched work called A Most Dangerous Method published in 1993, the play titled The Talking Cure by Christopher Hampton was published and performed in London in 2002 and focused on the relationships of Freud, Spielrein, Jung and Otto Gross. Hampton adapted the screenplay for the film eventually called A Dangerous Method starring Viggo Mortensen as Freud, Michael Fassbender as Jung and Keira Knightley as Spielrein.

As Jung crossed the sacred boundaries of medicine with his client Spielrein, he descended into his own madness even as she emerged from hers to go on to medical school and become a psychoanalyst in her own right, always harboring a deep love for Jung. Though her relationship with Jung freed her from the patriarchal shackles into which she was born, her work was never seriously recognized and she moved back to her home town in Russia, married and had children. There, her psychoanalytic work focused on children. Years later, she would be executed by the Nazi’s marching through Russia along with all her family.

The nine years of the relationship between Jung, Spielrein and Freud shaped all their careers and fatefully led to the breakup of Freud and Jung and left a gulf between Jung and Sabina. In February 2012, we will present a televised seminar and discussion of the film A Dangerous Method by David Cronenberg while reflecting on the works from which the film drew, Kerr’s A Most Dangerous Method, whose title is based on a statement of caution by William James when reading about Freud’s new method of psychoanalysis and the play by David Hampton, The Talking Cure.

Don’t miss this extraordinary experience. Internet slots are limited. Visit ashevillejungcenter.org for more information and to register.

"Jung & Spirituality" An Internet Seminar Available through Asheville Jung Center

Date: Thursday, December 1, 2011
Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST
Cost: ONLINE registration only through Asheville Jung Center

Please note: Jung Cleveland is not handling or accepting registrations for this event. Contact Asheville Jung Center.

Event Location: Online web series, see Asheville Jung Center 

Event Summary: 

As shown with great clarity in his autobiography,Memories, Dreams, Reflections, C. G. Jung had a lifelong interest in the spiritual life, as expressed not only in established religious traditions but also in a wide variety of other forms, including the great Western heresies, Gnosticism and alchemy. During his active life as a psychologist, he wrote extensively about many of the world religions, and especially in later years about his own background religious tradition, Christianity. What is most interesting about his work, however, is not his fascinating interpretations of the religious ideas and practices of others, but his discovery and detailed description of a native psychological tendency in everyone toward finding a spiritual basis for life, the so-called “religious instinct.”. His practice of psychoanalysis was bent toward achieving a spiritually sound attitude for the individual, especially in the second half of life when issues of meaning, generativity and personal wholeness become critically important. “The winner is the one who dies with the most toys” is a slogan for the young of mind and body; “To die with meaning, gratitude and a sense of psychic wholeness” is for those whose souls cry out for more than material comfort and success. For Jung, the goal of psychotherapy is not only adjustment and adaptation to the demands of social life and cultural values; it is a profound spiritual development that encompasses the whole person and demands intensive introspective efforts and concrete expressions in life.

In this seminar, Dr. Stein will discuss Jung’s spiritual journey from psychiatrist and laboratory researcher through his midlife exploration of the “spirit of the depths” to his late writings on culture, religion, alchemy and spiritual development.  We will further explore how spirituality arises concretely in analytical work with dreams and the use of active imagination.

Approaching spirituality from a psychological perspective does not contradict traditional religious practices and beliefs. It offers a richer appropriation of religious images and doctrines on a personal level, and for many it provides a way back to religious thought and belief that have lost their meaning in modernity.
In this seminar, the issue will be the relation of psyche and spirit.

Don’t miss this extraordinary experience. Internet slots are limited. Visit ashevillejungcenter.org for more information and to register.

"Transformation of the Black Swan: Nina's Magnum Opus" An Internet Seminar Available through Asheville Jung Center

Date: Friday, August 26, 2011
Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST
Cost: ONLINE registration only through Asheville Jung Center

Please note: Jung Cleveland is not handling or accepting registrations for this event. Contact Asheville Jung Center.

Event Location: Online web series, see Asheville Jung Center 

Event Summary: The use of film and literature as a means to understand and amplify unconscious material has been connected to the work of Carl Jung from the inception of his ideas. Darren Aronofsky’s film, The Black Swan, is a wonderful example of how art can reflect both the unconscious processes of the individual as well as those of the collective. The Black Swan has captured the imagination of people around the world. Nominated for nine academy awards and winning in the category of best actress for Natalie Portman, the film will be a jumping off point for the exploration of Jung’s own magnum opus, the Red Book. In this seminar we will explore the archetypal elements of the film beginning with the origins of Aronofsky’s ideas for the film, including the archetype of the double or “the other” and the archetype of the shadow. We will also explore the mythological backdrop of the film, particularly the story and ballet of Swan Lake. Finally we will draw comparisons between Jung’s confrontation with the unconscious culminating in the Red Book and that of the film’s protagonist, Nina, a young ballerina given the opportunity to play the swan queen in Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake. Pressured by the ballet company director to embrace an aspect of her nature which will allow her to play both the white and black swans, Nina descends into a frightening and exhilarating realm of suspicion, betrayal, lust and passion as she confronts her unlived life, both to escape the tyranny of her mother as well in fulfillment of her destiny.

"The Creation of Symbolic Meaning on the Path to Individuation" An Internet Seminar Series Available through Asheville Jung Center

Date: Friday, June 24, 2011
Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST
Cost: ONLINE registration only through Asheville Jung Center

Please note: Jung Cleveland is not handling or accepting registrations for this event. Contact Asheville Jung Center.

Event Location: Online web series, see Asheville Jung Center 

Event Summary: In this 3 hour live seminar, Dr. Murray Stein will look at how we create symbolic meaning within our lives. C. G. Jung wrote extensively on symbols and symbolic process, beginning importantly with the work that heralded his break with Freud, Symbole und Wandlungen der Libido (Symbols and Transformations of Libido). The Red Book, which followed shortly afterwards, is itself a symbolic work in many respects, not only for its content of narrative and the painted images but for the meaning it held for Jung personally. The field of analytical psychology has been, as a consequence of Jung’s regard for the symbolic, known for its interpretation of symbols as they appear in cultural materials such as myths, fairy tales and religious doctrines and rituals, and also on a personal level in dreams, active imagination, projection and transference (or countertransference).  The subject of this seminar will be what symbols and the symbolic process mean and how they function in the development of culture and the individual.  Special consideration will be given to the  importance of the transcendent function in psychic life and especially in the interpersonal field of psychotherapy. In addition, there will be discussion on the differences that arose earlier between Zurich and London concerning the appearance and meaning of symbols and where this issue stands today in the respective schools and their relations.

"Caring for the Soul: An Introduction to Jungian Psychotherapy for Patients and Therapists" An Internet Seminar Series Available through Asheville Jung Center

Date: Thursday, March 31, 2011
Time: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST
Cost: ONLINE registration only through Asheville Jung Center

Please note: Jung Cleveland is not handling or accepting registrations for this event. Contact Asheville Jung Center.

Event Location: Online web series, see Asheville Jung Center

Event Summary: In this 3 hour live seminar, Dr. Murray Stein will examine in depth the fundamental core of Jungian psychotherapy. This will be not only an excellent introduction to those just entering the field, but also a provocative review of core Jungian elements. We will look at the heart of Jungian Psychotherapy and its central elements.