LITERATURE + LECTURES

The Jung Center of Houston presents Footbinding: Archetypal Feminine Power in China and the West.  Chinese analyst Shirley Ma (pictured) explores the vivid archetypal roots of the ancient practice of footbinding, and its contemporary psychological parallels, in this lecture and workshop. LECTURE: Friday, September 17, 7:30 - 9 pm. WORKSHOP: Saturday, September 18,  10 am - 4 pm (1.5 hour lunch).

During the thousand years that footbinding was practiced in China, the young girl's mother bound her feet - an excruciating practice that debilitated her, restricted her movement, and grotesquely deformed her. This practice was carried out by the mother but for the father—it ensured that his daughter would be a valuable, marriageable, physically beautiful bride.

She was confined, quite literally, by the strictures of an extremely patriarchal society. Though the practice was abolished in the early twentieth century, modern women continue to have their "feet" bound psychologically. Many mold themselves and restrain their true natures in order to earn their father's love and become the kind of obedient, malleable, and decorative "girls" their mothers and society want them to be.

In this lecture and workshop, we will explore the traditional Chinese practice of footbinding and find startling modern parallels, both in Chinese culture and in the West. Friday evening will focus on the history of this practice and the continuing psychological implications in contemporary China. On Saturday, we will explore how the metaphor of footbinding offers us insight into our own experiences of confinement and debilitation by family and social expectation. Case studies, dreams, art, poetry, and personal imagery created in the process of healing and transformation will be presented for discussion.

Shirley Ma holds the distinction of being the first Chinese Jungian analyst to graduate from the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland (1984-1989). She is currently in private practice in Toronto and is on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute and the International School of Analytical Psychology, both in Switzerland.

Her education includes an MS in urban and regional planning, a PhD in therapeutic counseling, and a diploma in traditional Chinese Medicine. She is the author of Footbinding: A Jungian Engagement with Chinese Culture and Psychology.