Description
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Topics: Active Imagination, CG Jung, Shadow, Society and Culture.
Persona and Shadow in Political Life
Jung’s understanding of the Shadow helps us to make sense of the emotional dimensions of public life. As a child grows, the ego constructed by family, culture, and historical period requires that some parts of the psyche be suppressed, or “amputated,” cut off from consciousness. In many cases, neutral or even positive potentials are cast off along with such impulses as rage, lust, and greed. A child whose family does not encourage musical ability may find her musical interest consigned to shadow; a girl may have ambition contaminated with the “negative” potentials just as a boy may have his tender feelings cut off. These parts of the self instead form the shadow, where the shame or neglect of familial disapproval contaminates all the qualities contained there. Cut off from conscious awareness, these parts of the personality become constellated in projections, often onto those considered “other.”
In this course, you will consider how Shadow projections complicate and contaminate public life, particularly in relation to issues of race and the environment. Shadow projections have burdened minorities with distorted cultural perceptions, and fearful projections onto the natural world have distanced us from a sense of kinship with other creatures and from the healing that nature can offer.
Learning Objectives:
1) Have a better understanding of the archetypes of Persona and Shadow
2) Gain insight into how these operate in public life
3) Gain insight into your own encounters with Shadow
4) Understand some approaches to healing the alienation caused by Shadow projections
Suggested Reading:
• C.G. Jung, Man and His Symbols
• Rinda West, Out of the Shadow: Ecopsychology, Story, and Encounters with the Land
Speakers
Catharine Jones, past president of the C.G. Jung Institute and past director of training, serves on the faculty of the Analyst Training Program as well as the Clinical Training Program at the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. She has lectured nationally and internationally. She is interested in Jung’s concept of Complex Theory, as the interface of psyche/soma, and the implications for clinical work, as seen with dream work and a sensorimotor focus . Especially, the post Jungian work in archetype, attachment theory, and neurobiology and the relationship between image and analytical psychological theory. Ms. Jones is interested in the expanding field of analytical psychology and the promising implications for the growth of work of cultural complexes, specifically racism, as utilized in group work. Of clinical interest is the field of trauma and healing from trauma. She works with individuals and couples and groups. Ms. Jones, is also an affiliate member of Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts; she has held chair of Ethics Committee and a Review Committee, as well as served on exams.
Rinda West, PhD earned her PhD at the University of Leeds (England) in English literature. She has taught at the University of Chicago, Oakton Community College, and Canterbury Christ Church University in England. Her book, Out of the Shadow, explores paths to healing the rift between humans and nature in Western culture. She is currently a landscape designer in Chicago, specializing in native plants and family-friendly gardens.
© 2011 Catharine Jones & Rinda West
℗ 2011 CG Jung Institute of Chicago