Martz, Stephen

Stephen Martz, DMin

My analytic interests are broad.  I have great appreciation for the classical Jungian tradition, with its abiding interest in dreams and other expressions and activations of the unconscious.  At the same time, my original training in self psychology and psychoanalysis provided me with a strong developmental foundation that focuses my work more broadly than the customary Jungian emphasis on mid-life.  I confess continuing fondness for contemporary psychoanalysis, and my years of teaching aspiring therapists at Loyola’s Institute of Pastoral Studies have provided me some appreciation for the Existential and Gestalt traditions.  I even use a bit of the cognitive-behavioral therapies, especially ACT, from time to time.

My work is primarily with adult individuals and an occasional couple — I am also trained in marriage and family therapy.  My case load usually includes 20-somethings through 80-somethings.  Easily the largest part of my practice is with clinicians and clergy.  Because I am an Episcopal priest and spent 20 years in parish ministry, I have a good deal of experience working at the intersection of psychology and spirituality; it is fair to say religion and spirituality is my strongest clinical interest.  I especially enjoy working with unconventional spiritualities.  I’ve never been completely comfortably in the institutional church, but I am drawn deeply into its inner truths, especially those understood by its mystics and expressed in its rituals.

I have many other clinical interests as well.  Some of these include:

•  Illness, grief, death, and dying.  This has been an area of extensive clinical and pastoral experience, beginning in the mid-1980s, when I co-founded the AIDS Pastoral Care Network, and extending to the present.

•  Relationships and sexuality, including LGBT concerns.  These have been an important focus throughout my career.

•  Retirement and aging.  I’ve been struck by the number of persons I’ve worked with around issues of retirement and aging during the past decade or so and I find this particularly rewarding.

•  Sandtray.  I have a large sandtray collection and enjoy working with persons interested in this form of work.

All of these are guided by my abiding interest, as I phrase it on my website, in “what happens to the heart” in its intrapsychic and interpersonal spaces.  I seek to create a space in which those who work with me can bring their whole heart, with all its beauty and ugliness.  Especially in a time when we are so divided, inwardly and outwardly, I find it important that there be spaces where statements are eschewed and all that is human is accepted and understood, as together we seek to discern where the Self is leading.

Although I no longer am actively involved in the Institute – like Jung, I’ve become ambivalent at best about institutions — I served as its president from 2015 to 2018, directed its two-year training program (2010-2012), taught in all its programs, spent many years on its Board and various committees, and always wish it well.

Contact
steve@jungiananalysischicago.org
630.476.6425

Main Office 
Glen Ellyn, IL

Education
DIPLOMATE ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY: C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago. (2007)
CERTIFICATE OF TRAINING IN MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPY: University of Chicago, Center for Family Health. (1999)
DOCTOR OF MINISTRY IN PASTORAL PSYCHOTHERAPY: Chicago Theological Seminary. (1995)
CERTFICATE IN SELF PSYCHOLOGY: Center for Religion and Psychotherapy. (1989)
MASTER OF DIVINITY: Catholic Theological Union. (1989)
B.A. IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, summa cum laude: University of Maryland. (1976)

Professional Organizations
C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago
International Association for Analytical Psychology

Age Groups
Adults

Treatment Types
Individuals
Couples

Specialty Areas
Spirituality and religious concerns
Sexuality, including LGBT
Illness, grief, death, and dying
Retirement and aging
Sandtray