Gertrude Stein’s famously oblique statement refer to the absence of place, goal or however one might interpret “there there” is generally regarded as an expression of an early modernist attitude. This sense of abstraction and its emptiness parallels most experimental art of the late 19th early 20th century. This emptiness typified the growing secularization and abstractness of modernity. Stein’s statement portrayed not only her own period, but was prescient in describing ours. We live now in a period of technological abstraction never before equaled.
Are we lost? C.G. Jung’s goal, in an entirely different field around the same time as Gertrude Stein, was to restore “meaning for modern man.” James Hillman’s Archetypal Psychology built upon and differentiated itself from Jung’s. In Re-Visioning Psychology, Hillman proposed perspectives of caring for the psyche. He called this process and its goal soul-making and claimed it rested upon not concepts or scientific methods but a “poetic basis of mind.”
This workshop will explore selected myths as well as fairytales to further differentiate, and deepen notions touched upon in the lecture. The goal will be to gather throughout the day a sense of how working mythically enables greater imaginative access to the psyche, its nature, behaviors, situations and inevitable, as well as essential, difficulties. Please bring a book of Grimm’s Tales, if you have one, a notebook and an eagerness to explore.
Learning Objectives:Describe a situation in which a mythic understanding of a literal event makes a significant difference:
- List 3 mythic-themes that could appear in an individual’s life
- Define what determines a tragic versus a comedic outcome, as seen in Shakespeare’s plays.
- Detail an example of how Archetypal Psychology’s “deliteralizing” differs from taking something (an event or text or behavior) literally.
Presenter Bio:
Patricia Berry, Ph.D. is a Jungian analyst trained in Zurich, Switzerland. She is the author of Echo’s Subtle Body: A Contribution to Archetypal Psychology and editor of Fathers and Mothers. Recent publications include “Image in Motion,” “Psychopoetics and Jung,” “A Little Light” “Rules of Thumb.” She lectures internationally and has served as president of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and of the New England Society of Jungian Analysts. She was James Hillman’s companion and wife for 21 years (1968–1991).
