• May 4, 2013 from 3:00am to 10:00am
  • Location: THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF SAN FRANCISCO
  • Latest Activity: Jun 25, 2021

This is a workshop about the imagination and how Jung’s radical treatment of it changes things both personally and collectively in issues of knowing and being. It centers on The Red Book and includes practical creative work with active imagination and amplification. Yet we will also examine the different ways Jungian scholars have construed the powerful images of The Red Book in disciplinary frameworks such as “psychology,” “theology,” “anthropology,” “art,” “personal myth,” “modernism” and “postmodernism.” We will include some comparisons with contemporary images of desert and wasteland in the poetry of T.S. Eliot and W.B. Yeats. In particular we will debate what is at stake in connecting The Red Book to Jung’s whole legacy (The Collected Works, the institution of analysis, etc.), especially in such radical conclusions as The Red Book as “historical source” or,The Red Book as “postmodern fake.” What is at stake for Jung and Jungians when “conclusions” and “definitions” are drawn from this recently published bestselling text?

The event will end with imaginal work on The Red Book as provocateur of a collective myth for our time. Throughout the day short lectures will be interspersed with working in small groups. Here we will be experimenting with moving beyond habitual experiences of working creatively alone (as in reading a book or painting, etc.) or in therapeutic role in a clinical setting. By changing the dynamics to a small group of equals (who may or may not have met before), we explore creativity in a new way. This course invokes the imagination differently, in ways that sustain our individuality and capacity to grow collectively. You may wish to sign up for this course as an already constituted small group or to come singly and embark on an adventure of discovery of self through the “others.”

I also invite people to bring with them any prior images or previous work with The Red Book. We will begin by sharing our own imaginative experiences of the text and any artwork (drawing, writing, etc.) would be very enriching. On the other hand, we also begin with dramatic readings of the book; this course will also be welcoming to those who have not yet managed to turn the first page! 


INSTRUCTOR: Susan Rowland, Ph.D.

PANELISTS: Tom Kirsch, M.D.; Jean Kirsch, M.D.; Susan Thackrey, Ph.D.

6 Continuing Education Credits for MD, PhD, MFT, LCSW, & RN

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