The C.G. Jung Society of Queensland

President’s Letter

Body and Mind

The Robert Bosnak dream workshop in April is likely to be our main event this year (unless other facilitators of international repute come our way in the second half of the year).

Bosnak's work has a particular significance, difficult or perhaps impossible to appreciate, until you experience it yourself. But I will not let that prevent me from trying to describe the nature of this exciting dreamwork.

Bosnak calls his method Embodied Dream Imagery. His aim is to bring the client back into the experience of the dream. In a group situation, the facilitator with the help of other participants, 'holds' the dreamer in the safety of the group and quietly and gently ask the dreamer many questions about the dream. Pacing is varied and often slowed almost to a halt as the dreamer re-experiences a particular aspect of the dream, not so much in vivid detail, as through the bodily feelings and experiences that come with this way of exploring dreams.                                                                                                     

Questions might include: "Where are you when you see the child (a dream figure)? Are you standing as you watch the child? Sitting? Is it warm? Cold? Smells? What is behind you? Around you? Are you aware of sensations? Where is the child? How far away? What else do you notice?"

The questions and the group safety help the dreamer become immersed in the dream experience. A significant development may take place through 'transiting', a shifting of perspective by the dreamer who, with the facilitator's help, moves to experience the dream from the perspective of another dream figure, for example, the child in the above example. If this takes place successfully, the dreamer's new perspective of that figure can be very different from the dreamer's original perspective of it. Typically, this new perspective appears through or along with shifting energetic sensations in the body.

I can give an example from my own experience (several months with an online international dream group plus some individual sessions with Brisbane dreamworker, Anne Di Lauro). In my dream, I am with a female partner who seems severe and makes me anxious and ill-at-ease. In the dreamwork, I transit into my partner in the dream: I "become" the woman. I move into her way of understanding the dream. I suddenly discover that this dream woman's attitude towards Frank is one of love deeply rooted in her being. I feel this deeply in my body (a warm feeling that begins at my heart area, grows and spreads throughout my torso) at the same time as I mentally understand her perspective. In my own way of understanding what happened, it seems that, at first, I could only see the dream figure's persona. When I transited, I could feel something of her essence, a very different experience and one that stayed with me long after the dreamwork was over. The experience is a physical one. This is embodied dreamwork.

C.G. Jung Society of Queensland, 74 Camp St., Toowong, Q 4066. Tel: 3371 1285

Web site: cgjungqld.tripod.com

Thinking in embodied dreamwork is closely aligned with or immersed in body feeling. As thinking changes, so does the body sense. As body awareness changes, so does thinking. Or perhaps as one holds both body senses and thoughts, including their seeming contradictions, a transformation occurs.

A majority of therapies, including many Jungian processes, take one into the simultaneous experience of mind and body. Gestalt therapy works with body sensations and thoughts. Process Oriented work gets clients to listen to what the body is saying as well as to what the mind wants. Breathwork starts with the physicality of breath and flows into experiences of the mental or spiritual. Deep Imagery work, my own therapeutic field of choice, often starts with mental imagery and ends with a transformative shift in body energy.

Therapists who profess to work only with the physical aspect of our nature, for example, physiotherapists, often enable changes in thinking or trigger spiritual experiences. I discussed this with one physiotherapist I know. We talked about how in my work, the client starts with imagery and frequently ends in a bodily energy shift. In her work, the client starts with physical manipulation of the body and ends sometimes with unexpected imagery experiences. It is as if both our therapies are converging towards a similar experience for the client.

I often refer to Thomas Moore's experience, recounted in his book, "Care of the Soul". He describes how he received a massage from a couple (both working on him at the same time) treating a pain in his lower left side. The gentle massage begins. His mind drifts to imaginary places. Suddenly, several tigers appear right in front of him in vivid colour. He senses their power, their strength. The physical experience then and the memory of it afterwards bring him comfort and strength. He says: "It was not their meaning but their presence that was important." This is a good description of the convergence of the mind and body in the therapeutic experience.

The search for meaning is too often a search for a logical understanding that will satisfy the mind alone, a mental process. This is how we operate mostly in day-to-day life: as if mental logic is the most important thing, that by which every other experience is measured. But, for Moore, the therapeutic effect involves relinquishing logic in favour of experience.

This is what Jung means by asserting that the thinking process is the dominant function of the psyche in our western culture. All our experience must be graded by our thought. Feeling, sensing and intuition all must be filtered through thinking and must fit to thinking's standards. The closer one is to external social roles, the more this applies. And vice versa the more one moves closer to the depth of one's own being, the less thinking dominates.

If one considers Bosnak's work and other depth therapies such as those already mentioned, one sees that the thinking process and the brain as its agent assume more of a peer role in the healing process. Thinking melds into body experience. They converge. Thinking at that level is as much a body experience as it is a mental one.

I remember discussing with another therapist this blurring of thinking and body experience. "Why is it that the physiotherapist and I have clients who end up with very similar experiences?" I wondered. She said: "In the end, there may be no difference between the mind and the body. After all, the separation of mind and body is only a theory. And theory is not reality."

Bosnak's workshop will be a wonderful opportunity to see for yourself how embodied therapy can work, how the mental joins in a cooperative venture with feeling, sensing and intuition in the service of therapeutic healing work.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Best Wishes,

Frank Coughlan, President                                         fcoughla@bigpond.net.au

Upcoming events at the Jung Society

April 2005

Listening to the Archetypal Heroes within

A Workshop conducted by Don Siebert

Thursday April 7, 2005

7:30 – 9:30 pm

St. Mary’s House, Cn Merivale and Peel Sts, South Brisbane

 Members and concession: $5; non-members $10

The image of one's life, pictured as a journey, goes back in history for thousands of years, both in myth and in literature.

Archetypes are typical patterns common to all human beings that lie in our unconscious world; these patterns take on a particularity in the events and experiences of our individual lives.

Just as the Persona is an archetype for the conscious roles we take on in our life: such as a parent or a teacher, so too Archetypes provide the unconscious models that guide some of our behaviour.

This is an experiential workshop designed to help participants access ten inner guides or archetypes. An initial questionnaire will help to clarify which archetypes resonate in your life experience now.

Opportunities will be provided for some input, but mainly for personal reflection, sharing and group work.

Donald Siebert....
* has taught in Secondary Schools throughout Australia for 16 years, the last six as Deputy
Headmaster.
* has post-graduate degrees both in Jungian Psychology and Theology.
* has worked professionally in Tertiary and Adult Education for 22 years
* for 20 years has conducted Myers-Briggs Personality Type Workshops for over 10,000 adults.
* from 1989 to 1996, in partnership with Leo Power, their firm, Personality Type Workshops has
conducted formal Accreditation Training Programmes for potential Myers-Briggs presenters.
* has been both National and Queensland Region President of the Australian Association for
Psychological Type.

Reminder:

If you wish to continue receiving the benefits of membership of the Jung Society in 2005 – reduced entry fee to events, use of the library, and this newsletter - it is time to renew your membership.
WEEKEND WORKSHOP ON EMBODIED DREAM IMAGERY

 with Robert Bosnak (Jungian analyst)

Friday night 8 April to Sunday afternoon 10 April, 2005

Friday night 7:30 pm to 9:30 pm (Registration from 7 pm),

Rosicrucian Centre, 156 Norman Avenue,  Norman Park

Saturday 9 April and Sunday 10 April, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm,

Theosophical Society meeting room, 355 Wickham Terrace

Members $220; Non-members $250; Concession (full time student or pension): $190

Refreshments will be provided. Please bring lunch to share.

For further information, please telephone Anne on 07-3511 0167.

To reserve your place, please send your details, together with your payment (cheque made out to the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland), to: C.G. Jung Society of Queensland, 74 Camp St., Toowong, Qld 4066.

May 2005

Goorie Ways of Working in the World

A presentation by Debra Bennet-McLean

Thursday May 5, 2005, 7:30-9:30 pm

St. Mary’s House, Cn Merivale and Peel Sts, South Brisbane

Members and concession: $5; non-members $10

Debra will present a Goorie perspective on ways of working creatively to bring about more just and sustainable relationships and communities.

Debra Bennet McLean is a descendant of the Kullali of South West Queensland, Wakka Wakka and Gubbi Gubbi Peoples of South East Queensland.

She has twenty seven years of successful community and cultural development experience and a passion for all forms of art and cultural expression which informs her work in diverse administrative roles within the arts, cultural and adult education arenas.

Her earlier teaching and counselling experience and her work as a curator, artist, community researcher, facilitator and educator have enabled her to connect with diverse communities locally, nationally and internationally.

These roles reflect her passion for the building of communities through arts and cultural practices and culturally appropriate processes and her desire to highlight the broader contributions of Indigenous people to Australian society and support the aspirations and professional development of Indigenous communities.

June 2005

The Healing Journey : Supporting the Inner Healer

A Presentation and Workshop by Mark Pearson and Helen Wilson

Thursday June 2, 2005, 7:30-9:30 pm

St. Mary’s House, Cn Merivale and Peel Sts, South Brisbane

Members and concession: $5; non-members $10

There will be discussion on Grof’s ideas and methods of supporting the inner healing mechanisms in the psyche, with links to the ideas of Jung, Kalff (sandplay), Perls (Gestalt Psychology) and Axline (Play Therapy). The way this approach is used today in Expressive Therapies will be illustrated through slides of mandala artwork, sandplay pictures and symbol work creations.

Workshop – Saturday 4th June, 2005

Members: $70; Non-members: $85; concession $60
9:30 am – 4:30 pm. Place to be announced.
 
 Participants will be invited to explore practical ways of refining awareness of the indications from the inner healing and guiding mechanisms of the psyche. Activities will include expressing personal and transpersonal awareness through symbol work, artwork and body awareness mapping.

Mark Pearson has been conducting training courses in Expressive Therapies around Australia since 1989. For five years Mark held a senior staff position at the Living Water Centre, Blue Mountains, NSW, as lecturer in Emotional Release Counselling for Children, Breathwork Therapy, Dreamwork and Sandplay, then directed courses at The Portiuncula Centre, in Toowoomba for eight years. He has completed further studies in Transpersonal Psychology with Dr Stanislav Grof, and holds a Masters in Education, majoring in behaviour management.

Mark now works as a psychotherapy and counselling trainer in - Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney and Singapore - through the Expressive Therapies Institute, and for the Australian Council for Educational Research in Melbourne. He regularly conducts programs for various welfare agencies and education departments around Australia. He is the co-author (with Patricia Nolan) of Emotional First-Aid For Children (1991) and Emotional Release For Children (1995). He is also the author of Emotional Healing & Self-Esteem - Inner-Life Skills for Children and Adolescents (1998) and for adults: From Healing To Awakening (1991) and The Healing Journey (1997).

Helen Wilson has completed all three levels of training in Emotional Release Counselling and Transpersonal Studies and holds the Post-Graduate Diploma. She has a Certificate in ERC with Children, a Certificate in Sandplay Therapy, and a degree in Human Resource Management. Helen is a trainer in Expressive Therapies and for over a decade conducted a counselling practice in Brisbane. She is the founder of the Turnaround Centre, and is now a director of the Expressive Therapies Institute, through which she and Mark offer personal and professional development programs around Australia. In 1998 Helen completed further studies in Transpersonal Psychology and Holotropic Breathwork, and has completed Master of Counselling studies through UNE. Helen and Mark have a recent book out from ACER Press: Sandplay and Symbol Work - Emotional Healing & Personal Development.

Coming in July

Yaro Starak    on The Enneagram and Awareness
Andrew Samuels in Brisbane

Eight Jung Society members attended Andrew Samuels’ two-day professional development seminar in Brisbane on 15-16 March entitled “Psyche in Dialogue: how the Relationship between Culture and Soul is Central to Contemporary Clinical Work in Psychotherapy and Counselling”. Professor Samuels trained as a Jungian analyst and is Professor of Analytical Psychology at the University of Essex. His books include “Jung and the Post-Jungians”, “The Plural Psyche”, “The Political Psyche” and “Politics on the Couch”.

In these challenging two days, Andrew led us to become aware of and explore our role as psychotherapists in relation to the world. In particular he sacralised the therapeutic container by musing metaphorically on a series of images from the alchemical treatise “Rosarium Philosophorum”. Alchemists were the psychotherapists of their day.

It is hard to summarise the content of the seminar in a short space, but I shall try to do so, knowing I cannot do it justice.

Andrew awakened us to the role of our own stress and illness in relation to our work as therapists – why therapists have to get ill in order to heal. He awakened us to the role of Eros in the therapeutic relationship. There is a universal ban on sexual relations with clients because there is a universal desire, and we need to be aware of it. He explored attitudes to men in psychotherapy and spoke in praise of gender confusion. “We are all caught in unconscious thraldom to gender certitude.” Our profession has colluded in regarding gender identity as problematic. Anima refers not to the “feminine” side in men but to aspects of manhood that they have not yet discovered. He made a plea for the positive paternal erotic.

He expounded upon four kinds of spirituality – social (working in a group towards a goal), craft (work), democratic (fundamental equality) and profane (popular culture, sexuality). Finally he led us to explore our inner politician and the role of political problems in psychological diseases. Again, our profession has colluded in political oppression, for example the scapegoating of lone parents. Islam has the potential to be more than the Shadow of the West. It has something to teach us: God has made us different that we get to know one another. Our profession tends only to reflect upon political matters. Action is also required. Quoting the poet Jerzy Ficowsky, Andrew reflected “I want to be on time, even though I am too late”.

Anne Di Lauro

Possible new Intake of Trainee Jungian Analysts

Report of meeting held at the Gold Coast on Saturday February 26 2005

ANZSJA is in the process of planning another intake of people wishing to train as Jungian Analysts. They are hoping for that to happen in 2006 but at this stage nothing is definite. A group of potential trainee Jungian Analysts is being formed in this area. The task of the group is to take responsibility for their own learning in preparation for applying to train as analysts. Leon Petchkovsky made a number of points:

1. Last intake there were 200 applications and only 14 selected; others were suitable but the training involves a lot of work for existing analysts and that was all they could manage. However in the last few years the number of analysts in Australia and New Zealand has more than doubled and there are now 45 members of ANZSJA.

2. There is some talk of there being regional groups set up. Our area would be Northern Rivers and it would be required to host a seminar from time to time and to attend seminars around Australia and New Zealand about four times per year. The other part of the training would be by distance learning.  By far the major part of the training is over 300 hours of analysis and, in Leon’s words, that is the only way one can really learn Jungian psychology – it cannot really be taught.

3. The senior analysts would be involved but the second generation analysts would probably be more active as mentors to the trainees.

4. Leon’s interest is in organising good basic clinical training sessions as group supervision opportunities for participants working as psychotherapists and counsellors.

5. Trainees move from stage to stage in the training process as they feel ready for it and their supervisors etc. approve their process but it will probably take at least six years to complete the training.

Anyone wanting to join the group of potential analysts in training should send an e-mail to Paul Dixon at paulandpen@optusnet.com.au putting “Jungian Training” in the subject line.

Janeil Smith

Bulletin Board

The Bulletin Board briefly lists upcoming events that might be of interest to members. For fuller information, please contact the persons named.

Workshops with Yaro Starak

Current series for men “Walk your Talk” finishes March 23. For information concerning this and future workshops, contact Yaro on: Mobile   0408 786 966;  Phone  (07) 3847 1966 or 3366 4726

                        Email    staraki@optusnet.com.au

David Tacey in Brisbane

A mini-conference will be held at Indooroopilly Uniting Church on Friday evening, 15 April (7.30 – 9.00pm) and Saturday, 16 April (9.30am – 4.30pm). Professor Tacey will address the issue of spirituality and the future of religion in Australia. Conference details are available by telephoning Rev Bob Griffiths on 07 3844 3557, or see www.ucaqld.com.au

Imagery and Creativity

            A one-day workshop with Frank Coughlan and Pam Bouma

            Saturday May 7 2005, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm

            Theosophical Society meeting room, 355 Wickham Terrace, Brisbane

            $95 ($80 if booked and paid for by April 29) includes workshop and art materials.

            Contact Pam on 3420 5169 or Frank (after 23/1) on 3356 1127.

Paint your Dream

A one-day workshop with Pamela Bouma-Brims and Anne Di Lauro

using art therapy and the Embodied Dream Imagery method of dreamwork.

Saturday June 11, 2004. 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. Location to be announced.

$85 ($75 if booked and paid for by June 3) includes workshop and art materials.

Information and reservations: Pam (3420 5169) or Anne (3511 0167).

Mining Jung’s Bank of Clinical Intuitions

CGJI / ANZSJA Professional development seminar series.

27-28 August 2005. (Regional Organizers: Leon Petchkovsky and Patrick Burnett )

Details next newsletter.