Activating Archetypes, Becoming More Human: Using Active Imagination (a.i.) to Combat Destabilization from Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)

A.I., artificial intelligence, although an exceptional tool, has the potential to deeply harm reality testing, creativity, and the soul. Archetypal forces driving the use of A.I.—need for wisdom, guidance, creating, accessing full potential—can be life-enriching when brought to consciousness. Active imagination (a.i.) provides symbolic links to the archetypes, evolving consciousness, reenchanting life, increasing capability, and gleaning wisdom. Through the integration of archetypal material, people can form an individuated consciousness that both differentiates realities and facilitates a fuller participation in life. C.G. Jung’s and other Jungians’ work on a.i.—active imagination— demonstrates means to form a personal relationship to transpersonal realities, the archetypes, and cosmos.

The soul, according to C.G. Jung and James Hillman, is the organ of experience, the capacity for subtle knowledge from the collective psyche to enter, imagination, and means to glean images from our life. Marion Woodman argues the soul is the divine aspect of one’s self, embodied while alive and experienced through the senses.

The process and integration of the material from a.i. requires the soul and develops the soul in consciousness. Somatic work of images in the body, along with the lived psychical experiences, are critical for discernment of what is real and the psychological consequences of A.I. and a.i. The very psyche harmed by thoughtless engagement with A.I. can be evolved by a.i.

Learning Objectives
This course is intended to help you:

1. Better discern A.I. videos from real videos, more consciously tool A.I. information—such as ChatGPT or search answers.
2. Understand the place of these tools.
3. Learn to use active imagination to access archetypal forces consciously.
4. Learn the depth psychology/Jungian knowledge of the soul and its place in the personal psyche.
5. Gain tools to facilitate creating their own individuated consciousness that better engages with the unconscious.
6. Have a better understanding of archetypes and their role in our psyches.

Instructor

Dr. Vanessa Jankowski, LCSW, holds a PhD and MA from Pacifica Graduate Institute and Master’s from the University of Chicago. Her unique perspective of practitioner and scholar informs her work as a psychotherapist and workshop leader, along with her works in academia. As co-founder of the Center for Change & Healing, she provides therapy, workshops, and consultation. Her publications in the areas of depth psychology, typology, and education focus on practical application of Jungian theories. With a
specific interest in the areas of psyche and matter, she demonstrates the advantages to having awareness of the archetypes in people’s everyday life.