This episode is the opening lecture of a weekend given by Polly Young-Eisendrath. It contains a 1-hour lecture followed by an hour of Q&A. From the seminar description:
We all sense a connection with the source that underlies our existence, whether or not we recognize it as such and we all wish to identify with something larger than ourselves. Some feel this as a spiritual yearning, while others wish for fame or celebrity or the knowledge of a larger truth. The spiritual isolation and materialism (both economic and philosophical) of our times make it difficult to find trustworthy methods from institutional religions, non-traditional approaches, psychology, or philosophy for seeking knowledge of this source. However, our desire to help others (and ourselves) and our willingness to love deeply and authentically can offer the common ground through which we can find this knowledge, but it requires a dedicated understanding of our own suffering and its transformation.
Instead of seeking such insight into our subjective lives, we Americans embrace popular myths of biological salvation and pharmaceutical soothing. It?s not just that we seek instant solutions to complex problems, rather we have lost our taste for the adventure of human life, replacing it with ideals of economic and biological ?security? and hopes for absolute control of our diet and health.
This program offers a critique of this contemporary myth of biological salvation and presents accounts from psychoanalysis (Jungian and otherwise) and Buddhism of how embracing our limitations can open the path to transformation and lasting contentment.
Of all the archetypal affects in us, shame is the most toxic and the most human of all the emotions. Lewis Stewart, who reassessed Jung’s thoughts about affects, believes that contempt and shame are two sides of the same bipolar emotional dynamic whether one is on the giving or receiving end. Both are the response to alienation and rejection. Extreme contempt exudes a deprecating superiority. Extreme shame obliterates a sense of self-worth and authenticity. Clinical examples will illustrate how this bipolar dynamic operates in all of us.
Anita Greene, PhD, Jungian Analyst (IAAP) and Rubenfeld Synergist, is a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute of New York and teaches at the C.G. Jung Institute of Boston. She has a private practice in Amherst.
This episode is part one of the series Terror, Evil, and Loss of the Self. In this seminar, Brenda Donahue discusses how survivors of childhood deprivation or physical and sexual abuse routinely describe themselves as freaks, existing outside of normal human relations because they feel evil or bad. This is because the child victim takes the evil of the abuser into him/herself in order to preserve the primary attachment to the parents. This sense of badness or evil becomes a staple of the personality structure, and many survivors spend their lives refusing to be absolved of blame. This course presents basic concepts from analytical psychology and shows how they can be useful in the treatment of post-traumatic stress syndrome. It was recorded in 1994.
Brenda Donahue, RN, LCSW is a Jungian analyst in private practice in the western suburbs of Chicago and author of C. G. Jung’s Complex Dynamics and the Clinical Relationship: One Map for Mystery.
The views and opinions expressed in the podcast and blog posts are those of the respected speakers or authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago.
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