Recent Discoveries in Early Childhood Trauma and the Renewal of Jungian Psychology with Donald Kalsched

Recent Discoveries in Early Childhood Trauma and the Renewal of Jungian Psychology with Donald Kalsched

In 1936, C. G. Jung traveled to America and gave a ground-breaking series of lectures at Bailey Island on the subject of “Dream Symbols of the Individuation Process” which was based on the dreams of the nuclear physicist Wolfgang Pauli. In 1944, he reworked this material into Psychology and Alchemy, which became Volume 12 of the Collected Works. 

Over the intervening 90 years, much has been discovered in the area of early developmental theory and the companion disciplines of attachment theory, affective neuroscience, early infant studies, and body-centered healing methods for early trauma. These new discoveries present us with a dissociative system of defensive powers (as in the Blake image above) that complicates the healing process by resisting the patient’s experience of vulnerable feelings.

The role of these archetypal defenses in early trauma work provides a challenge to conventional Jungian thought, and begs to be integrated into a renewed, and more relevant Analytical Psychology. Exploring these integrative links will be our goal in this intensive day-long seminar. Donald Kalsched will show how discoveries in these new disciplines carry implications for the way we do therapy, for the way we work with dreams, and, in general, for how we understand the symbolic process and its role in what Jung called “individuation.”

Requirements: Participants are required to be in (or retired from) some form of psychotherapeutic practice or to be active students preparing for licensure in one of the mental health disciplines. Please indicate this background when you fill out the contact sheet under ‘registration’ on the Web Site.

Details: Bailey Island is accessible on Route 24 south of Brunswick, Maine in the town of Harpswell and the Library is on the East side of Rt 24 shortly after crossing the bridge onto the island. Parking for the day is available at the Library although car-pooling is suggested. Coffee, pastries, and a light lunch will be provided. Full refunds before August 7th. A list of area accommodations will be e-mailed to those who sign up. Early registration is recommended. Registrants will receive a Certificate of Attendance for CEUs.

Donald Kalsched, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist and Jungian Psychoanalyst with a private practice in Brunswick, Maine. He is a member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and of the C. G. Jung Institute of New England. He is the author of two major books; The Inner World of Trauma (Routledge, 1996) and Trauma and the Soul (Routledge, 2013) both of which have been translated into many languages. He lectures nationally and internationally on the subject of trauma and its treatment and contributes regularly to the clinical and theoretical literature in Analytical Psychology.