2019 Schedule

1/11/2019-Revisiting Dreams-Tim Swisher, MHR, LIMHP, Certified Jungian Psychotherapist

Dreams are a part of psychodynamic and depth therapy and research into what dreams are all about is on the increase. Much of this research confirms what Jung and Freud discovered over a century ago-dreams are a helpful way of understanding aspects of ourselves that lay outside our normal conscious awareness.

During this presentation Tim will share some of this new research and will take the group through a patience series of dreams to show the evolution of an emerging change process and how to help clients understand the meaning of their dreams.

Objectives:

1.Participants will be able to identify one of the new research findings.

2.Participants will be able to understand different types of dreams.

3.Participants will be able to recognize importance of association and amplification of dream images.

4. Participants will learn the importance of “staying with the image” when working with dreams.

3/8/19-Why We Need Psychological/Emotional Containment in These Times-Tim Swisher, MHR, LIMHP, Certified Jungian Psychotherapist-Tim will offer a description of emotional containment and how our philosophy about what life is has a direct impact on our unconscious feelings and therefore our lives.

4/12/19-How to Re-imagine Loneliness-Tim Swisher, MHR, LIMHP, Certified Jungian Psychotherapist. During this discussion on loneliness we will revisit Jung’s writings and place those in current context. Some studies indicate that most Americans would describe themselves as lonely.

WHEN: Friday, May 17, 2019

WHERE: Thompson Alumni Center, 6705 Dodge St, Omaha, NE 68182

TIME: 9:30 AM-3:30 PM

CEU-5 for LMHP/LCSW

COST: $125.00

LUNCH: Included in fee

Parking is free in Thompson Learning Center lot

Register/Pay by May 15

5/17/19-Psychotherapy as a Skilled Practice and The Interpretive Process in Psychotherapy-Art and Technique

The Omaha Friends of Jung have been providing education for mental health professionals for 12 years often through videoconferencing.

This spring the Omaha Friends of Jung are pleased to present Warren Colman PhD, Jungian Psychoanalyst and Mark Winborn, PhD, Jungian Psychoanalyst in a live interactive video conference.

Registration: Please go to omahafriendsofjung.com, click Payment/Donations. Your payment will be your registration.

Warren Colman will present on Psychotherapy as a Skilled Practice

Mark Winborn will present on The Interpretive Process in Psychotherapy-Art and Technique

Warren Colman-Psychotherapy as a Skilled Practice

While psychotherapy is related to both science and art, I regard it as primarily a craft activity requiring the development of skillful practice. Theories provide heuristic devices that help guide the practitioner in their craft but, as with any craft, the psychotherapist’s knowledge arises not from theory, but from the sustained intercourse between practice and reflective thinking.

In this talk I will consider the kind of skilled practice that psychotherapy is rather more than the particular skills (or ‘competencies’) that it involves. Drawing on the Greek concept of techne, I suggest that the value (and future) of psychotherapy lies in the development and fostering of a form of skillful practice associated with spiritual discipline and ‘the good life’.

Warren Colman is a Training and Supervising Analyst for the Society of Analytical Psychology and former Editor in Chief of the Journal of Analytical Psychology. He teaches, lectures and supervises internationally, especially in Eastern Europe. He has published over 40 papers on a variety of topics and his book, Act and Image: The Emergence of Symbolic Imagination, was published in 2016.

1. Participants will understand the distinction between scientific knowledge, craft knowledge and practical wisdom and their role in the practice of psychotherapy.

2. Participants will understand the practice of psychotherapy in relation to other analogous skilled practices such as music, meditation and craftsmanship.

3. Participants will learn the importance of disciplined, structured practice in making space for moments of spontaneity and freedom.

4. Participants will reflect upon the implicit ethical intention of psychotherapy and the role of love in its practice.

Mark Winborn-The Interpretive Process in Psychotherapy-Art and Technique

Interpretation is fundamental to the process of psychotherapy. It is the medium by which our art form is transmitted.If the therapeutic process is thought of as our canvas then our interpretations are the paints with which the depth therapist participates with the patient in the creation of the painting.What one chooses to say in psychotherapy, why one chooses it, how one says it, when one says it; these are the building blocks of the interpretive process and the focus of my book Interpretation in Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique. It is an important tool to develop proficiency with, but is difficult to use effectively if we don’t develop fluency with it.

The Interpretive Process in Psychotherapy is an exploration of the process, including the history of analytic technique, the role of language in psychotherapy, the poetics and metaphor of interpretation, and the relationship between interpretation and the therapeutic attitude. In addition, the steps involved with the creation of clear, meaningful, and transformative interpretations will be outlined. Blending the deep understanding of archetype, symbol, and metaphor from the Jungian tradition with competency in psychoanalytic interpretative technique creates a powerful therapeutic amalgam.

Seminar Objectives: Some of the specific objectives will be:

1.Differentiate between interpretive and non-interpretive interventions in psychotherapy.

2.Examine the origins of the interpretive process within the psychoanalytic world.

3.Differentiate various levels of interpretation.

4.Examine particular uses of language in interpretation.

5.Create effective, transformative interpretations.

Recommended Readings:

Winborn, Mark (2018). Interpretation in Jungian Analysis: Art and Technique. London: Routledge.

Summary of Interpretation Handout – Winborn.pdf

6/14/19-Interview with psychoanalyst Neville Symington and reading and discussion of his paper, “Healing the Mind-What is the Healers Task?”

http://www.ajppsychotherapy.com/pdf/22_1/NevilleSymington_HealersTask.pdf

“The analyst’s act of freedom as agent of therapeutic change”

https://counsellingfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/01-The-British-School-Of-Psychoanalysis-1986.PDF.PdfCompressor-978512-3.pdf

This is from his web site:

I am a psycho-analyst with a special interest in the clinical understanding of psychosis. I have developed a view that there is an underlying pattern that generates all the different forms of mental illness described in the psychiatric text-books.

I believe that we clinicians at the moment are largely failing to heal the deeper level of disturbance because we have not got the right lenses with which to see what is in need of healing.

I believe also that our underlying philosophy of mind is seriously at fault and that this blinds us to disturbances both in ourselves and in our patients.

The relationship between Psycho-Analysis and Religion requires special attention and the linking area is in the phenomenon of Narcissism which is a focus of concern both for clinicians and those concerned with a religious solution to emotional problems.

7/12/19-Arborist Jack Phillips-How to Plant a Cosmic Tree: creativity and contemplation in recovering nature.

Please register as seating is limited. timswisher@aol.com or call 402-390-6044 ext 4

I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else and that our dignity and our chances are one.

— Mary Oliver

The sense of alienation that many people feel has roots in the growing distance between modern humans and nature. In other words, we have lost touch with our wilder selves. This personal conviction is supported by the growing field of ecopsychology and the development of new ecotherapies. However, my colleagues and I have found that very simple and not-too-challenging nature-based experiences can be powerful and life-changing for everyone.

Objectives:

It is rare for my groups to meet indoors. Nonetheless, this session will be active and participatory within the time and space allowed. Participants will learn:

1.how simple acts of creativity such as making ephemeral art and composing spontaneous poems can change quality of attention.

2.how learning to walk with quiet intention can help us hear the the wild yet deeply familiar voices around us.

3.how planting native plants can create an experience of liberating the primal creativity of earth and of ourselves.

4.how remembering early encounters with nature can help us recover a natural sense of wonder.

5.simple mindfulness in nature exercises can be used by anyone to relieve stress and cultivate a sense of well-being as a creature of the earth.

Participants will need to bring writing materials and implements, and a hard surface such as a large-format book, clip board, or drawing pad to accommodate an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. All other supplies will be provided.

Jack Phillips is a retreat leader, naturalist, nature writer, registered arboricultural consultant, and principal of The Naturalist School. After a career as a humanities professor that took him to the Middle East and North Africa, Jack devoted himself to the study of native North American ecosystems, nature education, and helping people from all walks re-connect with the natural world.

Jack is the author of Soul of a Tree: Conversations on the Nature of Tree Care with Alex Shigo and Bur Oak Manifesto: Seeking Nature and Planting Trees in the Great Plains and editor of Treasures of the Great Plains: an Ecological Perspective with Paul Johnsgard and Tom Lynch. He is also wrote A Pocket Guide to Sauntering, a resource for walking in the Emersonian-Thoreauvian way. Jack Phillips holds an B.A. from University of Nebraska-Omaha in Philosophy and Religion and a M.M. from Creighton University in Theology and Counseling, as well as graduate studies at the American School of Oriental Research/Lahav Research Project, Israel.

The Naturalist School is a learning community, a school of thought, and a way of walking wildly in the way of poets, writers, naturalists, philosophers, and scientists in the walking tradition. The Naturalist School teaches people to become better naturalists, nature writers, wild philosophers, ecological activists, poets and planters through consilience of science and the humanities. We meet in small groups in native woodlands, savannas, wetlands, and prairies. For more information visit www.thenaturalistschool.org.

8/9/19-Psyche and Cosmos-Stanislov Grof and Richard Tarnas-an introductory video.

Stanislav Grof, MD is a clinical psychiatrist with over 60 years of experience in researching non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic substances and by experiential psychotherapy. He’s one of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology, and the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA).

He was formerly Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Scholar-In-Residence at the Esalen Institute.

Stan currently teaches at the Department of Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), and through Grof Transpersonal Training (GTT). He writes and gives lectures, seminars and workshops worldwide.

Richard Tarnas, PhD is the founding director of the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. He teaches courses in archetypal studies, depth psychology, philosophy, cultural history and religious evolution. Formerly the director of programs and education at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, he is a graduate of Harvard University (AB, 1972) and Saybrook Institute (PhD, 1976).

He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a history of the Western world view from the ancient Greek to the postmodern that is widely used in universities. His second book, Cosmos and Psyche: Intimations of a New World View, received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network and is the basis for the upcoming documentary film, Changing of the Gods. He is a past president of the International Transpersonal Association and served for many years on the Board of Governors for the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

Astrology holds a unique place in our culture. It’s one of the oldest integrated systems of knowledge in the world — with 5,000+ years of history — and has been championed by some of history’s greatest scholars and philosophers from Ancient Egypt to the Roman Empire to the Renaissance and beyond.

And yet, astrology is almost universally rejected by scientists and intellectuals as a gateway to magical thinking, devoid of predictive value.

If astrology is pure fantasy, why would it endure for millennia?

And if it’s grounded in predictable planetary patterns, why does science not connect the dots between the cause and its effects?

According to Rick Tarnas, a Harvard-trained philosopher and former “skeptic,” archetypal astrology explores the connection between planetary patterns in the solar system and archetypal patterns in human experience and holds remarkable predictive value for the essence of each period in history.

When he shared his findings with Stan Grof, the eminent founder of transpersonal psychology and one of the foremost thinkers of our day, they came to see that each of us is born as an individual expression of the archetypal energies that are saturating the collective at the time.

Archetypal astrology is the bridge that connects your individual psyche to the cosmos…

It not only provides predictive information about your life, it gives you a better understanding of the character of the era we’re living in… and enables you to reconcile the two.

As you begin to view challenges in your life through this lens, you begin to see your experience as unfolding in the larger context of an “ensouled universe” — a depth of intelligent, sacred presence that permeates all that is. And rather than feel victimized or disoriented, you become empowered to meet these challenges consciously and with confidence.

In short, archetypal astrology allows us to perceive a sacred and synchronistic universe, as opposed to the cold, soulless void that much of science regards as the ultimate truth.

Over the course of Rick and Stan’s 30 years of collaboration, the evidence of archetypal astrology’s role in understanding the depths of one’s personal psyche and the collective psyche became so convincing that, despite professional risks and intellectual ridicule, these two pioneers simply had to share the truth of their journey.

And now, for the first time, Stan and Rick are distilling their mind-expanding explorations into a cohesive, online course — highlighted by video sessions — in which you’ll expand your understanding of yourself and the nature of the cosmos.

9/13/19-A video with Ken Wilber-What is Life? Participants in the OFOJ often refer to Ken Wilber is our discussion but we have Two_ways_to_get_an_Integral_Theory_Ken_Wilbers_me.pdf had a program about Wilber. The time has come. This is information about him from Wikipedia.

Reading: Two_ways_to_get_an_Integral_Theory_Ken_Wilbers_me.pdf

Wilber was born in 1949 in Oklahoma City. In 1967 he enrolled as a pre-med student at Duke University.[3] He became inspired, like many of his generation, by Eastern literature, particularly the Tao Te Ching. He left Duke and enrolled at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, but after a few years dropped out of university to devote all his time to studying his own curriculum and writing books.[4]

Wilber stated in 2011 that he has long suffered from chronic fatigue syndrome, possibly caused by RNase enzyme deficiency disease.[5]

[6]

In 1973 Wilber completed his first book, The Spectrum of Consciousness,[7] in which he sought to integrate knowledge from disparate fields. After rejections by more than twenty publishers it was finally accepted in 1977 by Quest Books, and he spent a year giving lectures and workshops before going back to writing. He also helped to launch the journal ReVision in 1978.[8]

In 1982 New Science Library published his anthology The Holographic Paradigm and Other Paradoxes,[9] a collection of essays and interviews, including one by David Bohm. The essays, including one of his own, looked at how holography and the holographic paradigm relate to the fields of consciousness, mysticism, and science.

In 1983 Wilber married Terry “Treya” Killam who was shortly thereafter diagnosed with breast cancer. From 1984 until 1987, Wilber gave up most of his writing to care for her. Killam died in January 1989; their joint experience was recorded in the 1991 book Grace and Grit.

In 1987 Wilber moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he worked on his Kosmos trilogy and oversaw the work of the Integral Institute. Wilber now lives in Denver, Colorado.[citation needed]

10/11/19-Yeshim Oz presents: Gender and Sexuality: Challenging Binary Views

Readings:(Celenza) Erotic Revelations….pdf

G&S Glossary.PDF

Objectives:

1.To examine and challenge definitions and categories that are traditionally used to understand sexuality and gender

2. To develop a position of curiosity and comfort with “not knowing” with regards of questions of gender and sexuality

Bio: Yeshim Oz, MS, LIMHP is in private practice for counseling and psychotherapy for 10 years. She also offers psychoanalysis since she is about to complete her training at the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute where she co-teaches Gender & Sexuality and Deepening Treatmentcourses. She has contributed with a chapter on private practice to an upcoming book, “The Administraive Challenges of (Play) Therapy”, edited by Allan M. Gonsher.

11/8/19-Video Conference with Jungian Analyst Dennis Merritt, PhD. A Jungian Ecopsychological Response to Environmental Crises

Fee: $45.00 members and $55.00 non-members-to register and pay go to omahafriendsofjung.com

Carl Jung coined the terms “new age” and “age of Aquarius” in 1940 for the paradigm shift he saw coming in the West. Jungian ecopsychology is an excellent framework for the new paradigm necessary for addressing the environmental crises that are part of the Anthropocene Era—the new era named after the dominating effects of one species—us. Ecopsychology, the study of the human relationship with the environment, calls for the deepest possible analysis of our dysfunctional relationship with nature, and Jung’s archetypal approach and analysis of religious systems offer just that, plus ways of connecting deeply to the land via our dreams.

Objectives:

1.Describe Jung’s concept of a paradigm shift based on his analysis of the Book of Revelation and how that relates to our environmental crisis.

2.Describe how Jung’s sense of the numinous in dreams with regard to animals, weather phenomena, and landscapes can be worked with like an indigenous person would to connect us deeply to the land.

3.Analyze the layers of the collective unconscious in relation to our dysfunctional relationship with nature.

Live videoconference with Dennis Merritt, PhD Jungian Analyst and Ecopsychologist. More details coming.

Dennis Merritt, PhD, has an MA in Humanistic Psychology from Sonoma State-CA, a PhD in insect pathology (microbial control of insect pests) from UC-Berkeley, and is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute- Zurich. He practices as a Jungian analyst and ecopsychologist in Madison and Milwaukee, WI. Dr. Merritt grew up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin where he developed a deep connection with the land, hence the title of his four-volume Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe: Jung, Hermes, and Ecopsychology. He emphasizes the ecopsychological dimensions of Jungian theory and practice and how dreams and the I Ching can be used to connect more deeply to the natural world. He wrote the chapter “Ecopsychology: Psyche and Nature” in Rethinking Nature: Challenging Disciplinary Boundaries (Routledge 2017). His blog has articles on Jung and climate change and Hunger Games from a Jungian, political, and environmental perspective.

12/13/19-OFOJ Holiday Party-details TBA.