JOP24-25 The Archetypal Psyche

Section 8: The Archetypal Psyche 

Class Dates: January 6, 13, 27, February 3,  2025

Instructor: Robin Eve Greenberg, MFT

Robin Greenberg is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, and an associate editor for Jung Journal; Culture and Psyche. Robin has written and lectured on a variety of subjects related to the art of psychotherapy, Jewish mysticism, creativity, and opening to the imagination. She maintains a private practice in Kensington, CA.

Description: 

This section of classes will focus on the archetypal ground of the psyche as the prima material for the individuating personality in the clinical setting.

Jung conceived the archetypes as universal patterns embedded in the collective unconscious. As a dynamic invisible presence---both in culture and individuals-the archetypes, as such, carry meanings on the wings of symbol and affect. We will consider how to work with archetypal material in the context of the therapeutic relationship, and explore how mythologems, dreams, behaviors, images, synchronicities, complexes, ideas, and the body carry meaningful messages from the archetypal depths in service of the Self and in the process of individuation.

The term (archetype) is not meant to denote an inherited idea, but rather an inherited mode of psychic functioning ...it is a pattern of behavior ... the picture changes at once when looked at from the inside, that is, from within the realm of the subjective psyche. Here the archetype presents itself as numinous, that is, it appears as an experience of fundamental importance. Whenever it clothes itself   in the appropriate symbols, which is not always the case, it puts the individual into a state of possessedness, the consequences of which may be incalculable.

• C. G. Jung, Introduction to Esther Harding (1955), pp. ix f. in Women's Mysteries.

Each class will include discussing the reading, didactic material, and participants' case material. Breakout room sessions will give our class an opportunity to dive more intimately into case material.  Class is asked to choose a patient to use in application of the material; one student volunteer will be asked to present a case.