Audio recordings of some of the past lectures presented at gatherings of The C.G. Jung Society of North Texas are available to download, free of charge, to enhance your knowledge of Jung and Depth Psychology. The C.G. Jung Society of North Texas is a nonprofit (501c3) organization. Your memberships and donations enable us to continue providing programs such as these. Thank you for your support.
Archetypal Presences—The Forms Roiling Beneath the Surface of Our Lives February 12, 2021 James Hollis, Ph.D. The role of the ego is to observe, respect, and dialogue with those intra-psychic "others" while holding fast to the maintenance of conscious life. This presentation explores the forms beneath the surface of our lives and why our dialogue with them lifts us out of the mere surface features of our brief journeys on this planet.
Jungian Arts Based Research—A new Epistomology November 13, 2020 Susan Rowland, Ph.D. ABR is the rediscovery and discovery of forms of knowing and new knowledge through art practice. ABR is not art therapy, even though it uses some of the same methods of experiential creative work. Rather, ABR is a successor to alchemy as a way of knowing and being that sees no split between art and science.
Jung, Jesus and Love March 12, 2021 Dean Schlecht, M.Div. Approaching the topic of love from three perspectives: the works of Carl Jung, the teachings of Jesus, and contemporary research in Attachment Theory. Despite their radical differences in method and language, they all point to a similar reality and come to the same conclusion - the essence of existence, life, and meaning is love.
Beauty and the Beast—Jung and the Sacred Feminine April 9, 2021 Linda Sprague, MA. Beauty and the Beast, a story written in 1740, is a metaphor for the anima-animus tangle. A beautiful, kind, and pure of heart maiden melts the negative anima complex that has held a young prince captive for most of his life. Thanks to Carl Jung, we have come to understand that each of us is both the maiden and the spellbound beast.
The Racial Complex—A Conversation on Racism, Shadow and the Personal Unconscious October 9, 2020 Fanny Brewster, Ph.D. It appears that gently is our best way to enter through a Jungian psychology door, crossing the threshold to discuss racial complexes. As our collective engages and struggles with issues of mortality, violence, and racial relations, we are all affected in the most profound ways. Talking with one another, the hallmark of depth psychology has always been a path to considerations of healing and wholeness. It can also teach us more about compassion as we begin to understand the human narrative of those we consider "Other."
Reframing our Sense of Self and World in Plague Time September 11, 2020 James Hollis, PhD. It appears that gently is our best way to enter through a Jungian psychology door, crossing the threshold to discuss racial complexes. As our collective engages and struggles with issues of mortality, violence, and racial relations, we are all affected in the most profound ways. Talking with one another, the hallmark of depth psychology has always been a path to considerations of healing and wholeness. It can also teach us more about compassion as we begin to understand the human narrative of those we consider "Other."
February 7, 2020 James Hollis, PhD.The word "sin" came originally from an archery term that meant "missing the target" and implied more human limitation than malevolence. This lecture explores these most human experiences - pride, envy, gluttony, lust, anger, greed, sloth - through the lens of analytic psychology and explores their causes, mechanisms, self-defeating consequences, and their continuing, contemporary challenges to us.
November 8, 2019 Virginia Angel, JD, MA, LPC, IAAP. Over the last three decades of his life, Jung focused much of his energy on the study of alchemy. In alchemy, he found a metaphor for the processes of psychoanalysis and of individuation. This lecture survey's a brief history of Western alchemy and explores the rich symbology and psychological meaning of the typical stages of the alchemical process.
October 11, 2019 Suzanne Hales, LPC, LMFT, Ed.D., IAAP. Addressing the loss of soul in healing relationships, Suzanne Hales, a Swiss-trained Jungian analyst, and storyteller explore the oft-overlooked needs of those called to heal in the current logos-dominated culture in which we live. By inviting Eros back into the fundamental relationship, Suzanne proposes a world where healers can allow themselves to experience healing, as well as "the other," supporting the Jungian idea of relationship as temenos or divine container to both participants.
September 13, 2019 Dean Schlecht, M.Div. Jung felt compelled to face the inherent contradiction between the belief most of us have of a benign, loving God and the pervasive fact of the suffering and evil we see around us. Schlecht discusses two books Jung wrote that explore the nature of God, suffering, and our relationship with ultimate reality. The Seven Sermons to the Dead, written in 1916, and Answer to Job, a book Jung felt compelled to write toward the end of his career. Jung's reflections on God and suffering are not only a fundamental key to understanding his perspective but also an invaluable resource for broadening our perspectives.
April 12, 2019 Jennifer Leigh Selig, Ph.D., uses Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement as a case study to explore the opposite but intertwined effects of hope and despair and their relationship to our ability to act in times of crisis. Dr. King's complicated history with hope and despair is worth mining for its inspiration and wisdom today. The lecture ends by offering the symbol of the mandorla to frame Jung's "tension of the opposites."
March 8, 2019 J. Pittman McGehee, D.Div. This lecture addresses the developmental stages of the ego. Further, it describes the ego/Self axis, the construction/deconstruction of the ego. Dr. McGehee's lecture also gives an overview of the structure and dynamics of the psyche and the process of individuation.
In-Between Times: Something Gone, Something Not Yet February 1, 2019 James Hollis, Ph.D."Wandering between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born..." (Mathew Arnold, 1885). As individuals, we often find ourselves in in-between times, somewhere between a world we knew and a world that has not yet emerged. These times are hours of crisis, disorientation, loss, and enormous anxiety. Similarly, cultures, eras, civilizations go through in-between times. Ours is such a moment in history. In this lecture, Dr. Hollis reflects on what we may do to recover a sense of personal autonomy when our road map whirls from our grasp and leaves us confounded.
Living in a Clock-Bound World November 9, 2018 Marilyn Hammond, PhD. This practical (not theoretical) talk deals with the everyday stress of being on a schedule, needing to get things done, multitasking, and never forgetting that "time is money." Jung had his own concerns with time. In 1916 at the age of 41, writing as someone named Basilides, Jung composed The Seven Sermons to the Dead, which show his earlier interest in time and timelessness that later was enriched by his relationship with Wolfgang Pauli, a pioneer of quantum mechanics. Background for the information about Jung is the 2014 book, Time and Timelessness: temporality in the theory of Carl Jung, by Angeliki Yiassemides, Ph.D., a Jungian scholar living in Cyprus.
The Red Book as Poetic Epic September 14, 2018 Dennis Patrick Slattery, PhD. This lecture reveals how Dante's Divine Comedy was an inspiration for Jung in creating The Red Book. Jung's recorded journey into his own unconscious through a series of active imaginations, as well as his challenging search for "a new God-image," is explored through analogies with Dante's 14th-century epic poem.
Embracing the Dark Mysteries of the Black Madonna April 13, 2018 Jacquelyn Kelley, LCSW, CST-T. Jackie's lecture traces the history of the dark sacred feminine as she appears in numerous images originating in the 11th and 12th centuries. Such images are at the center of sacred sites, and many miracles have been attributed to the Black Madonna.
Finding Our Way Back Home March 10, 2018 Jonathan Young, Ph.D., discusses Hansel & Gretel to demonstrate how this timeless tale provides guidance for our own missions in life. Enchanting stories offer assistance in periods of personal uncertainty and provide us with a mythic vision to enlarge our sense of place and purpose.
Consciousness: a Jungian Perspective October 13, 2017 Dean Schlecht, M.Div., Contemporary empirical explorations of consciousness, as exemplified by Carl Jung, are of fundamental importance for understanding the nature of reality and our place in it. A clear-eyed grounding in the empirically verifiable manifestations of consciousness and a willingness to be committed to truth and love above all else are prerequisites for being fully alive.
Transcending Polarization May 12, 2017 Bert Parlee, Ph.D., speaks to us about how the "shadow," as a core element of what Jung called the unconscious, has been working for hand in glove with the benign elements of eros and telos. While evolution continues to move us forward, there are nonetheless punctuated eruptions of shadow forces, resulting in dramatic social upheavals that fundamentally disrupt our civil society. We must address these forces to bring cultural polarization back into balance and avoid acting out our shadow dynamics in destructive ways.
C.G. Jung on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola April 7, 2017 Marilyn Hammond, Ph.D. In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung says that his "first conscious trauma" was at the age of three or four, playing in sand on the road in front of the house, when he saw a Jesuit priest coming down the road. Terrified, young Jung ran into the house, hid in the attic, and stayed indoors for days. Sixty years later, Jung gave lectures on the 400-year-old Spiritual Exercises developed by Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits (The Society of Jesus), for Jung found agreement between his "active imagination" and Ignatius's use of the imagination with gospel stories for personal discernment and transformation.
Masterpiece of Wholeness: Animus/Anima April 8, 2017 Marilyn Hammond, Ph.D. Dr. Jung said understanding the contrasexual (characteristics of the opposite gender) in one's own psyche is the masterpiece in personality transformation. He termed the integration of the Shadow the apprentice piece for the development of the psyche, and then the integration of the Animus and Anima would be the masterpiece that we would have to work on for the rest of our lives.
Anima Mundi in the Iconograpic Symbolism of the Book of Kells, Seen Through the Prism of Jung's Red Book March 10, 2017 Donna Cozort, Ph.D., IAAP. The tenets of Western Christianity, which were closing in on the more fluid feminine values of the old Celtic world, served the monks who created The Book of Kells as an unwitting vessel for characters and images from their Druid and Celtic ancestry. This linked them, in turn, with the anima mundi, or world soul—the shared unconscious terrain of the earliest humans. We will look at representative illustrations from that book in light of the mandalas created by C.G. Jung in his own interior journey recorded in The Red Book.
The Orphan: Alone Yet at One with Oneself in the World November 11, 2016 Audrey Punnett, Ph.D., RPT-S, CST-T. Based on Dr. Punnett's book, The Orphan: A Journey Towards Wholeness, the lecture will focus on the experience of being alone and being at one with oneself in the world. The journey towards wholeness is accomplished by paying attention to the archetypal images that come to us through dreaming, practicing active imagination, and making time for imagining.
Symbolism of the Tarot: Archetypes and Synchronicity October 14, 2016 Linda Sprague, MA. Jung said, "Synchronicity is an ever-present reality for those who have eyes to see." Tarot imagery offers concrete symbology that relates meaningfully to one's conscious awareness but is not explained in simple cause and effect language. Any card chosen is a gateway to understanding one's own current unconscious material. This lecture will engage the audience with the archetypal content of Tarot imagery.
City as Soul May 13, 2016 Ronald Schenk, Ph.D., LCSW, IAAP. The notion of anima mundi, which Jung borrowed from alchemy, posits a life force belonging to the world itself. Expanding this notion, we would say every place, thing, event, and relational grouping has its own life apart from human involvement. Cities themselves, then, would be seen as each ensouled in a particular way. This lecture explores the life of the "city in itself," examining how cities carry life and death, sickness and health, memory, and future vision for the collective psyche.
The Redemption of What Truly Matters: the Paradox of Suffering April 8, 2016 Carol Tripp Smith, LPC, IAAP."The development of consciousness is the burden, the suffering, and the blessing of mankind," says C. G. Jung. While we don't generally think of it as a blessing, we all encounter suffering as inherent to being alive. This lecture explores the experience of suffering through a story, poetry, philosophy, and an overall Jungian lens. The overarching theme will be an invitation to embrace our brokenness rather than attempt to avoid suffering in ways that invite inevitable disappointment.
Spectral Visitors: the Mystery of Dreams and Their Use in the Conduct of Life February 5, 2016 James Hollis, Ph.D., IAAP. Dr. Hollis discusses why we dream and what meaning our dreams might provide us. He talks about how did Freud view dreams and how Jung differed from Freud about a dream. The ways in which we might begin to remember our dreams and work to integrate their messages to us are shared with us in this lecture by Dr. Hollis.
Being Called to a "Cohearant" Life November 13, 2015 Dennis Slattery, Ph.D., IAAP, explains that we are all called, perhaps more than once, to work, a service, a vocation, a major shift in focus that is the bedrock of living a coherent life. This calling is to a mythic consciousness, a patterned life of value. The call is not always heard or heeded.
Shadow Dancing May 8, 2015 Dean Schlecht, M.Div, LMFT, tells us that an authentic, vital life will only emerge through the intentional embrace of inner darkness. This presentation explores the relationship among love, truth, and healing; the poisonous power of judgmental thinking; the impact of moral injury and pathological secrets; disorganized attachment and its relationship to the darkest expressions of the Shadow; and engaging the Shadow by welcoming shame and fear. The essential mantra is, "I want my truth, and I accept its cost."
Sounds of Psyche March 13, 2015 Jennifer Gordon, PhD, IAAP, reflects on the ways music connects us to our inner depths, grounding her reflections on dreams, the analytic relationship, and her own experience as a musician. According to C. G. Jung, music represents the movement, development, and transformation of motifs in the collective unconscious.
The Personal Myth in Times of Cultural Turbulence February 6, 2015 James Hollis,PhD, IAAP. Dr. Hollis asks, as did Jung, "What is my myth?" and offers approaches to discovering our myth within our cultural context. He challenges us to a more thoughtful engagement with our own personal myth and journey.
Discovering One's Path to Transformation November 14, 2014 Kate Burns, LPC, IAAP, discusses the challenges and situations inherent in a “call” to foundational change and the course along which one may expect to travel during a dramatic change in one’s relationship to life.
