LITERATURE + LECTURES

The Jung Center of Houston presents Redemption, Forgiveness, and Healing. Renowned analyst and author Michael Conforti(pictured) offers a practical, interdisciplinary look at how we can transform the powerful inner forces that keep us bound in complexes and archetypal possessions.

LECTURE: The Complex and Redemption: An Archetypal Perspective on Healing, Forgiveness, and the Unforgiving
Friday, February 25
7:30 - 9 pm
$15 ($10 Jung Center members)
1.5 CE hours

How can we break the spell of the complexes and archetypal possessions we all experience at critical periods throughout our lives? In fairy tales, legends, and spiritual stories, we often find the protagonist under a curse or spell. One may be turned into a bird, be taken over by demons, or, as we find in Beauty and the Beast and the myth of Narcissus, the curse is an inability to love and be deeply touched by another human being. While these stories provide excellent examples of the workings of possessions, they also offer intimations about possible avenues to redemption. Redemption, the breaking of these spells, occurs through magic, differentiation, prayer, and always through a significant amount of inner work.

WORKSHOP: The Complex, Redemption and the Objective Psyche
Saturday, February 26
10 am - 4 pm
$90 ($80 Jung Center members)
4.5 CE hours

In this seminar, we will take a trans-disciplinary look at the workings of the complex, its relationship to archetypes, its effects on the personality, and the ways for understanding and integrating its directives and mandates. Underpinning both the archetype and the complex is what Jung described as the "objective psyche," whose language and movements generally run contrary to that of the ego. In one respect, the objective psyche's relationship to something transcendent to the ego points to its spiritual essence, yet its often disturbing and at times damaging effects on the personal and collective psyche point to our need to work more closely with it. Our discussion will include examples from dreams, clinical material, literature and film.

Michael Conforti, PhD, Jungian analyst, is founder and director of the Assisi Institute. Awarded the Vision Award by the Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, he serves as a Senior Fellow of the James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland.

He is the author of numerous journal articles, as well as the books Threshold Experiences: The Archetype of Beginnings and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature and Psyche.