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Trauma and the Soul: Psychoanalytic Approaches to the Inner World—An Interview with Donald Kalsched

Posted by Bonnie Bright on May 24, 2017 at 12:30pm

9142462477?profile=originalWe are all more or less traumatized, affirms Donald Kalsched, a Jungian analyst and trauma specialist who wrote Trauma and the Soul. Kalsched avows that reality confronts us with “things that break our hearts,” noting that there’s also a huge amount of unacknowledged terror in all of us.

Nightmares can be an effort by the psyche to help us integrate some of disowned material from our childhood. In what Kalsched has termed the “self-care system,” a system of defense which is made up of both protective and persecutory inner objects, individuals who have been abused or neglected may be tyrannized by archetypal figures in their dreams.

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The work of C.G. Jung adds so much to our understanding in this arena, Kalsched asserts, because Jung believed there is a spiritual dimension to life, that we all have a religious instinct that senses and hungers for that connection to spirit….

Read the detailed summary article or listen to the full audio interview with Donald Kalsched here

Dr. Kalsched is presenting at the upcoming "Response at the Radical Edge" conference at Pacifica in June, 2017, and will be teaching a certificate program for clinicians starting in November. 

Tags: Donald Kalsched, Jung, Pacifica, dreams, nightmares, trauma
Posted by Bonnie Bright

ABOUT THE HOSTS/PRESENTERS
BONNIE BRIGHT, Ph.D.,(Founder of Depth Psychology Alliance), is a Transpersonal Soul-Centered Coach certified via Alef Trust/Middlesex University, and a certified Archetypal Pattern Analyst®, and has trained extensively in Holotropic Breathwork™ and the Enneagram. She has trained with African elder, Malidoma Some'; with Transpersonal Pioneer Stan Grof; and with Jungian analyst, Jerome Bernstein, among others.Her dissertation focused on a symbolic look at Colony Collapse Disorder and what the mass vanishing of honeybees means to us both personally and as a collective. Bonnie’s path to soul began with a spontaneous mystical experience in 2006, and she continues her quest for awakening each day with a sense of joy, freedom, and gratitude at the magic afoot in the world.

JAMES R. NEWELL, Ph.D., MTS, (Director of Depth Psychology Alliance) earned his Ph.D. in History and Critical Theories of Religion from Vanderbilt University (2007), and holds a master's degree in pastoral counseling and theology from the Vanderbilt University Divinity School (2001). James is also the director of the Depth Psychology Academy, offering college-level courses in Jungian and depth psychology. James has spent much of his working life as a professional musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist with interests in jazz, blues, folk, world, and devotional music. Since his youth, James has worked with a variety of blues greats including John Lee Hooker, James Cotton, Jr. Wells, Hubert Sumlin, Big Joe Turner, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and others.