President’s Letter

Documentary: ‘After Maeve’

Dear Reader,

Many of you will know that Jan Cattoni, a documentary film-maker friend of my partner Robyn, has documented our life journey since the death of our daughter Maeve. That documentary is now complete and will be broadcast on SBS and on the main Irish TV channel, RTE, sometime in the coming months.[1]

About two and a half years ago, in the painful haze that was the immediate aftermath of Maeve’s death at age ten, I wrote to you, from a Jungian perspective, about my experience. I wrote about the experience of her sudden accidental death as a Persephone and Demeter experience. I wrote about Maeve’s dream, told to Robyn during their last time together, a dream about our family in a railway station, about Maeve going on a separate journey, about, in her words, “going home”. In the next letter, I wrote that in the same dream, Maeve had been waiting for her imaginary cat companions, Nut and Net and about how we realised that these were the names of Egyptian archetypal mother and warrior deities[2] whose roles included accompanying the souls of the dead on the journey into the next world.

InIn this symbolic way and in retrospect, the dream pointed clearly to the event ththat would follow it, her death, though of course, not in a way that could have eenabled us to predict the event in advance.

I cannot emphasise enough how this dream message brought us solace in our grief. How? As a Jungian, to consider the elements of the dream mentioned above is to somehow sense that the great mother would carefully transport Maeve’s soul to whatever would be its destination. In the dream, Maeve was waiting for her companions, Nut and Net, before she would go on the train “to home”. Presumably, the waiting period ended and the deities arrived next day at the time she died.

In addition to Maeve’s dream, Jungian themes have permeated the journey of our lives in the two and a half years since her death. The documentary-making itself was a Jungian process of healing. Although Jan is not overly familiar with Jung from a theoretical point of view, her approach to film-making is entirely Jungian. From the outset, she described the documentary as self-creating. All we had to do was hold it and let it evolve without force, giving it form in the gentlest way possible. Jan’s interviews in the first six months were not question and answer sessions but more opportunities for us to speak freely about our inner experience. The documentary, in part, uses imagery from Maeve’s fantasy world, as developed by Robyn in a children’s novel and by Jan on the screen, to express something of Maeve’s nature and of our relationship to her, both when alive and now after her death. It expresses too something about changes in our inner world, necessary adjustments to our new circumstances.

We continued to meet every month or two with Maeve’s friends, also known as the Bumbletown Council. Robyn, with my help, facilitated these days of fun, games as well as creative reflection on the death of their friend. A team of young editors for Robyn’s novel formed. They followed critically The Marvellous Adventures of Patsi Zipping, a character based on Maeve, who spends much time on Planet Creature. A website full of creativity has emerged providing an outlet for further artistic and creative ventures.[3]

You might say that our lives since the death have been permeated by processes of active imagination.

 I had a dream recently, around the time the completed documentary was handed over to SBS. Robyn and I are at a city harbour, slightly reminiscent of Sydney but with the feeling of Brisbane. We stand high up above the river on a deck from which we can view the wide river mouth. I see four little sailing boats, part of a youth sailing club at the end of a Sunday morning sailing event in the river. They should be returning to the boathouse but they make a sudden decision to move away out into the wide river. They are four but I know that they are also a unity. They move as one. A storm arises, exhilarating and not too threatening if we take the right steps. I cannot see very clearly but I become aware that the four boats have become one, now a single boat, a lifeboat returning safely to this shore of the river.

Robyn suggested that the four could be the four of our family including Maeve[4]. We take a different course moving out, through the documentary, into the vulnerability of the mid-river, visible to all. Perhaps the storm has to do with the energy of feedback, some positive and some negative, that we will receive from our friends and from the public who view the documentary. The “life”boat speaks for itself as an outcome.[5]

Best Regards,

Frank Coughlan

Upcoming events at the Jung Society

April 2006

The Making of a Documentary: After Maeve

Robyn Brady and Frank Coughlan

Thursday April 6, 2006

7:30 – 9:30 pm

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

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

Robyn Brady and Frank Coughlan show excerpts and talk about the process of being the subject of a documentary about their lives during the two years after the death of their daughter Maeve. She was killed in a road accident in November 2003. From a Jungian point of view, their experience shows how imagery and creativity played such an important role in their journey of healing. The documentary was produced by Big Island Pictures and funded primarily by SBS and by the Irish broadcaster, RTE. See www.planetcreature.com for more about the creativity projects surrounding Maeve's death.

Frank Coughlan is President of the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland. He holds a Social Work degree from Trinity College, Dublin, has worked in Irish Child Protection Services and as a supervisor of counsellors at Kids Help Line in Australia. He is in private practice in Brisbane specialising in imagery as a therapeutic process.

Robyn Brady is a Paediatric Emergency Consultant at the Mater Children’s hospital in Brisbane. She is also a writer currently completing a fantasy novel, The Flying Cat Ambulance Brigade and The Marvellous Adventures of Patsi Zipping, for children and young teenagers. Robyn is a long-time collector of lullabies and  has a particular interest in their social and cultural meaning in societies around the world.

May 2006

Carl Jung and the Great Themes of Spirituality

A presentation by Patrick Oliver

Thursday May 4, 2006

7:30 – 9:30 pm

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

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

"The destruction of the God-image is followed by the annulment of the human personality."                            (Aion, Collected Works 9ii, p.109)

Jung’s professional life begins in the corridors of the Burgholzli Mental Institute in Zurich Switzerland in 1900. The scope of his life’s work is breathtaking, yet the underlying theme of all his writing and investigations is that the human being needs to be connected in conscious awareness to her or his spiritual nature, and that the soul dies when not in a living connection with the numinous. To live apart from this awareness is to lay open the way into neurosis and eventual destruction.

In this presentation, Patrick Oliver will look at the great themes that run through the world’s spiritualities, and how Jung’s writings can throw light upon these perennial truths. Seven of these themes will be examined, together with some “signs of maturing” that can help to highlight how these themes and Jung’s writings flow together.

Patrick Oliver works freelance in spirituality. He conducts retreats and workshops around South-East Queensland and beyond, and works full-time in spiritual direction. He is also a sessional lecturer in spirituality at Australian Catholic University at Banyo. He received a Master of Arts in Studies in Religion from University of Queensland in 1994, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Griffith University in 1999. He is a past President of the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland. Patrick’s books are The Track Back: the Spirit in Australian Creation (1993) published by St Paul Publications; Drinking Deeply: Learning to Listen to the Song of Your Soul (1999), Getting Out of the Way: the Essence of Spirituality Put Simply (2002), and A God to Fall Into: Seven Echoes of the Great Adventure of Living in the Heart of God (2005), all of which are self-published.

May 13 Seminar

The Shaman Archetype: Certain Uses and Abuses

John Merchant, Jungian Analyst

When: Saturday 13 May, 10 am to 4 pm

Where: Rosicrucian Centre, 156 Norman Avenue, Norman Park

Cost:  $75; Members and concession: $60

Information: 3511 0167

To reserve your place, please return the form on page 11 of this newsletter

"… the shamanistic techniques in themselves often cause the medicine-man a good deal of discomfort, if not actual pain. At all events, the 'making of a medicine-man' involves, in many parts of the world, so much agony of body and soul that permanent psychic injuries may result. His 'approximation to the saviour' is an obvious consequence of this, in confirmation of the mythological truth that the wounded wounder is the agent of healing, and that the sufferer takes away suffering."

CG Jung (1956/1990) "On the psychology of the trickster-figure" in Archetypes of the collective unconscious, CW 9i, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p. 256.

Shamanism seems to be a cross-cultural magico-religious phenomenon to do with native healers who in altered states of consciousness communicate with a transpersonal realm through spirit journeys to upper or lower worlds thereby gaining information for the healing benefit of their socio-cultural others.

What is intriguing about the call to this shamanic vocation is the pre-initiatory illness of substantial personal derangement from which shamans exact a healing. The subsequent "mastery of the spirits" becomes the basis of their healing enterprise.

Jung regarded shamanism in a number of ways but primarily that it reflected an archaic archetypal pattern to do with individuation. Other Jungians have concentrated on the "wounded-healer" aspect of the shamanic initiation. Groesbeck has gone so far as to say that the only true Jungians are of a shamanic style. Interest in shamanism continues into our own era through the contemporary neo-shamanic movement often centred around Native North and South American spiritualities.

This presentation will particularly look at Siberian shamanism which has occupied a place of particular fascination for the West for over two hundred years and which is usually regarded as the locus classicus of shamanism. It will address the following issues:

- what has the study of shamanism revealed about the process of personal transformation and the healing enterprise? What we can learn for our own benefit from the shamanic experience of the birth/death/rebirth cycle and the transformation of states of derangement into psychic health?

- why does shamanism exert such a fascinating appeal to the Western mind?

- from a cross-cultural perspective, shamanism has all the hallmarks of an archetype. Does shamanism actually reflect an archetypal pattern in the way such things are currently understood in post-Jungian discourse?

- what may be the developmental experiences which underpin the constellation of a shamanic pattern in a person's life?

John Merchant FACE FCollP MAPS MANZSJA

John's career began in welfare work running residential programs for troubled youth with drug and alcohol problems whilst lecturing part-time in Psychology. On returning from fieldwork in the USA with the GROW movement (an Australian based community self-help movement for those recovering from mental illness), he moved into secondary education with a primary focus in student welfare and administration. John subsequently undertook Jungian analyst training through the ANZSJA-CG Jung Institute and he is currently in private practice as a Jungian Analyst and consultant psychologist. For a number of years he has run adult education courses in Jungian psychology through the Centre for Continuing Education, University of Sydney. His doctoral studies have been in the area of shamanism.

June 2006

That Wicked Apple and Other Thoughts

A presentation by Mignon Halford

Thursday June 1, 2006, 7:30-9:30 pm

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

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

NOTE: THIS TALK  WAS ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR MARCH.

The talk will be based on the Research Dissertation and images completed by Mignon Halford for the Master of Analytical Psychology course at the University of Western Sydney. In December 2004, Mignon decided to take an apple into a job interview to use as a prop. The interview was for a position of Child and Family Community Nutritionist/Dietician.  The ‘thought’ to take an apple into the interview appeared in her mind unannounced, without a clear stratagem or intent to gain employment.  Her Dissertation titled That Wicked Apple examines her thoughts and actions tin bringing in the apple; the role the Master in AP had in broadening the imaginative mind; what a Jungian sensibility may have to offer in a Public Health setting; the history of the apple, it’s appearance in myths, stories and folklore and its role in seduction rather than just being a list of components that are good for you. As Mignon reached the completion of the Dissertation, she realised that most importantly the Masters in AP had enabled her to publicly declare the value she places on her inner life. As she had commented to another student ‘I have been wanting to do this course since childhood.’

Mignon Halford B.Sc. Honours, Post. Grad. Dip Nutri & Diet, M. Anal. Psych is a Dietician and Nutritionist specialising in Paediatrics. She started her undergraduate studies at UNSW then completed her Dietetic training at the University of Sydney.  She has worked clinically in a number of health systems in NSW for several decades. More recently she completed her Masters in Analytical Psychology at the University of Western Sydney.  Her efforts in this course earned her a place on the Dean’s merit list for 2003.  Mignon also has an interest in the art and science of Astrology and has given adult education classes in Astrology. Creative work is also an interest; especially in the way creativity benefits the mind to explore thinking and feelings.  She graduated from the School of Colour and Design in Sydney in 1986 and has assisted her designer husband in preparing notes and images for teaching purposes. Images have featured in her University work at Western Sydney. Mignon has been a member of a number Jungian Societies since the 80’s, starting with the Sydney Jung Society and more recently the C.G. Jung Society of Queensland. Mignon is influenced by the work of Dr Craig San Roque, a Jungian Analyst and lecturer at UWS and his Sugarman cultural project.  In the future, Mignon will be exploring ways to expand thinking in the way our culture thinks and feels about food.

Introduction to Carl Gustav Jung’s Inner World

A reading and discussion group led by Marie Makinson

This course is aimed to develop a deeper understanding of Jung’s thought through the study of his original material and considering its relevance to contemporary Australian society. The course will consist of readings and facilitated discussion. Photocopies of relevant texts from Jung’s Collected Works will be distributed for reading before each meeting.

The following topics will be covered:

The structure of the psyche

Persona and shadow

Anima and Animus

Ego and Self

Individuation

Synchronicity

The facilitator will be Marie Makinson, a Jungian analyst living in Northern New South Wales, who completed training as a Jungian analyst with the Guild of Analytical Psychology and Spirituality in London.

For information, please phone Marie Sinclair on 3371-1285. To reserve your place in the course, please return the form on p. 11 of this newsletter with your payment to C.G. Jung Society of Queensland, 74 Camp St., Toowong, Qld 4060.

Jung and Hypnosis

Our speaker in March was Eric Miles who explored the common ground between two apparently diverse therapeutic approaches. Here is his summary of the talk..

The presentation focused mainly on the theories and practices of two men: Carl Jung (1875-1961) and Milton Erickson (1901-1980).  Despite their differences in age and culture, each became a psychiatrist and practised psychotherapy in original and inspiring ways. Early in Jung's career, which would be about 100 years ago, he used hypnosis in treating patients but soon gave it up because he did not want to impose his will on people and they were not getting long-term benefits. Hypnotherapists of more recent times claim that what Jung demonstrated with his disappointing results was not the failure of hypnosis as such but his traditional, directive methods in using hypnosis. If this is correct, as seems likely, what developments have taken place in therapeutic hypnosis that make current methods much more effective?

Before turning to Erickson and his innovative ideas, the speaker gave a brief outline of hypnosis from the time of Mesmer to the present day. He also referred to the use of hypnosis as entertainment, explaining that participants are required to concede control to the hypnotist. But hypnosis-as-fun brings in a controversial question: how can hypnosis ever be taken seriously as a basis for therapy? There are many misconceptions about the professional practice of hypnotherapy and some of these were addressed. A client in therapy definitely does not give up control but retains it throughout every session. In fact, since all hypnosis is now considered to be self-hypnosis which a therapist skilfully facilitates, the client or patient remains capable of ending the hypnotic trance at any time.

Erickson pioneered an inter-active, exploratory, non-directive approach to clinical hypnosis, a simple but revolutionary shift away from traditional techniques. This was called the "utilization" approach, incorporating the client's own style and belief system both in inducing the trance and in enabling clients to access their own unconscious potentials and abilities. He believed that people had more resources than they ever realised. Erickson often used simple stories with or without formal hypnosis. One story was that as a school-boy he took an unknown, riderless horse back to the owner by mounting it, urging it along the road and letting it turn in to what proved to be the correct farm. When the surprised farmer asked how he knew to bring the horse there, Erickson replied, "I didn't know but the horse knew. I just kept it moving." This seems a good metaphor for his attitude to therapy.

As for the common ground between Jungian and hypnotic therapies, at a basic level it's been there all the time. Both modalities focus on the great potential resources of the unconscious though they access them in different ways. Further commonality appears in their general approaches to therapy, e.g., the very experienced and well educated Erickson believed that preconceptions about clients hampered him, so he strove to have no particular theory about problems. In a somewhat similar vein Jung said, “Learn your theories as well as you can but put them aside when you touch the miracle of the living soul.”

Eric Miles

It is time to renew your membership for 2006 !!

If you have not already done so, please fill out the membership renewal form inserted in this newsletter and mail it with your payment

Or hand it in at the next meeting.

S o l i t u d e

In his book Solitude (Harper Collins, 1997), the eminent psychiatrist Anthony Storr explores the role of solitude in human lives and at the same time attempts to correct the bias in modern psychiatric thinking that asserts that intimate relationship is essential to psychic health.

He points out that this thinking is a comparatively recent phenomenon, influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud, whose theory of sexo-psychic maturity linked psychological health with a satisfying sexual life.  Psychological, sociological and anthropological theorists agree that attachments, intimate, family and community, have an important place in the hierarchy of human needs. Yet, says Storr, we also need solitude. Creative, spiritual and imaginative activities mostly take place when we are alone. He believes that theories of child development should give more place to developing the capacity to be alone so that the child can develop her imaginative capacity and even have exper