Untitled Document

A non-profit organisation, which aims to provide a contact for people
interested in the psychological insights of Carl Gustav Jung.

Through monthly meetings, workshops, other activities and our library,
we seek to help people to understand their own inner journey
and the world today - from a Jungian perspective.

We normally meet at 8pm
on the first Friday of each month
at MacKillop House Conference Centre,
50 Archibald Street, Lyneham (See map)

Special announcement: You can now read the full text, and hear the audio,
of Robert Tulip's July presentation "Commentary on Carl Jung's Answer to Job".

Coming Meetings:

Friday 1st February 2019

Dr Kirstin Robertson-Gillam PhD, RMT, CMPACFA, CMAMTA:

"When Words Fail - Music Therapy is the Answer!"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

When Words Fail is a music-based psychotherapeutic approach that gives clients the opportunity for non-verbal expression, using symbolism, imagery and visualisation with music, visual arts, movement and drama. Deep emotional expression within the symbolism of rhythm and drumming, song expression, music improvisation, art mandalas, working with collage, verse in song and in poetry, are enjoyable and creative forms of expression to accompany existing therapeutic practices when dealing with physical and psychological trauma.

Kirstin’s presentation included how psychological theories underpin her work along with current neuroscientific research and case studies videos.

Dr Kirstin Robertson-Gillam is passionate about empowering people to achieve their potential. She has a private practice specializing in communication disorders and issues of trauma, dementia, Parkinson’s Disease, and general and EAP counselling. She developed her unique psychotherapeutic approach using imagery and visualisation, mindfulness meditation, visual arts, music making and singing from her own research. She underpins her work with psychological theories and current research.

Kirstin completed a psychology major in her BA along with ethnomusicology and musicology majors at the University of New England. She then studied a Master of Counselling at Western Sydney University followed by research in a Masters degree which focused on reducing depression in severe dementia with a choir therapy and reminiscence program. Her PhD is focused on reducing depression in mid-later life with a community choir therapy program.

You can contact Kirstin:
P: (0411) 533 466
E: kirstenrg@bigpond.com
W: www.kirstinrg.com

Valerie Albrecht is a Western Eastern Health Practitioner, Speech Pathologist, Yoga Practitioner, Author Biographer with Aboriginal People, and Story Healer. She currently lives in Canberra.

Friday, March 2019

Padma Menon:

"Indian Dance, the Agama Traditions and Direct Experience as Knowledge"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

Indian dance traditions have been framed theoretically by the text Natya Sastra (estimated between 1^st century BCE and 3^rd century CE) which sets out the purpose and the practice of dance as a pathway to moksha or accessing the Brahman or expanded consciousness spaces.

In this talk, Padma Menon will draw on her experience of studying dance under a traditional teacher who was a tenth generation dancer in a lineage of priests ordained to perform dance as part of temple rituals. She will reflect on the ways in which dance practice was a contemplative tradition where knowledge through direct experience under structured experiential frameworks was valued.

The text, like other texts on embodied practices like the Yoga Sashtra, is thus a signpost, and the practice was the space of insight and transformation. While Natya Sastra’s position as the fifth Veda and the breaking of dance lineages in modern times has tended to align dance with the more intellectual and philosophical Vedanta traditions, there is much in the practice that points to more symbolic, ritual and archetypal interpretations (the Agama approaches).

Padma will include reflections on Carl Jung’s experiments as detailed in the Red Book, where he also delved into deliberate invoking of archetypes through personal practice. In times where intellectual knowing becomes the only recognised form of knowledge, Jung’s work and traditions such as Indian dance remind us there are experiences which could be embraced in richer ways through other means of ‘knowing’.

Padma Menon has over 30 years of international experience as a dancer, choreographer, teacher and facilitator. She has performed in hundreds of venues all over the world and created numerous contemporary and traditional Indian dance productions for high profile festivals and venues internationally.

Padma enjoyed a successful career in India performing professionally as a soloist since the age of nine. In her early twenties she founded one of Australia’s first professional multicultural dance companies and established a national and international reputation for cross-cultural work. She has worked in Europe in the renowned Korzo Production House as house choreographer and her work has been showcased in international festivals such as Cadance and the Holland Dance Festival.

The centre she founded in India in 2006 was part of the arts activism movement in India, working closely with human rights and social justice organisations to raise awareness of issues such as women’s rights. Padma spent fifteen years studying and performing in three classical Indian dance theatre styles—Bharatha Natyam, Kuchipudi and Mohini Attam. Padma also holds post graduate qualifications in Choreography specialising in Laban Movement Analysis from the Netherlands. She has also studied contemporary western dance, yoga and the Indian martial art form of Kalaripayattu.

www.movingarchetypes.com.au

Friday, April 2019

Suzanna:

"Watch this space ..."

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

(Details pending ... )

Friday, May 2019

Jennifer Hume:

"Embodying Imagination"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

Jennifer Hume

Friday, June 2019

Eve Warren:

"My Journey as an Author ...

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

"(Watch this space for details ...

Friday 5th July 2019

Dr David Russell

"Shadow Work in Psychotherapy and the Art of Dying"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

I began preparing the material for this talk because the topic has been on my mind for some time. I find that most published writings on the shadow leave me most unsatisfied. And on the matter of dying, well, it appears to be one of those occasions when our tendency is to avert the eyes. Nothing to see here!

Jung’s notion of the shadow was that it is an archetypal force. So, my intention is to develop some potential richness around its archetypal basis.

Psychodynamic psychology is called psycho-dynamic precisely because it emphasis the dynamic or energy aspect of the archetype. It’s an archetypal force not a neutral structure. It is a force that is constituted as a pre-existing framework ready for action in the world. Thus we can talk of a primordial predisposition. Babies don’t come into life as a blank page. Every baby has a prescribed beginning that is then continuously shaped by experience.

The archetypal shadow

Perhaps the most difficult to grasp of all the so-called Jungian archetypes is the ‘shadow’. We humans are drawn toward the ‘light’ and toward the ‘dark’. The light is a top-of-the-mountain experience. The dark, in contrast, is a moist, misty valley. One see clearly from on the mountain peak, the view is stunning and the air is pure. One only sees the very immediate in the dark valley. Often the mist is so full-on that all that can be seen is the thick mist itself. It’s so easy to feel lost. The expected path is barely visible if at all. Dying, as a key aspect of an archetypal force, is a move toward the ‘dark’.

Out culture is very light orientated in that we crave for understanding, insight, enlightenment. But because the archetypal force lies on the dynamic spectrum, the more we move toward the light the more our daily living accentuated the dark.

Ars moriendi, the classical literature on the art of dying needs to be revisited and Jung’s shadow work is proposed as a useful vehicle for this task.

David Russell is a past president of the Sydney Jung Society. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies and research in psychology at the University of Sydney. Here he was introduced to the writings of Sigmund Freud (unusual for a Department of Psychology) and developed an ongoing enthusiasm for the history and philosophy of psychology.

After a few years in private practice he moved into an academic career, which culminated in the establishment of the Master of Analytical Psychology degree at the University of Western Sydney. David has currently returned to private practice in Sydney CBD.

SPECIAL EVENT

Saturday 6th July 2019

Dr David Russell - Workshop:

"Making the Insights of Carl Jung's 'archetypal forces' Useful in Therpeutic Work"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 10am - 4pm)

Cost $50 for Jung Soc. members, $60 for non-members.

The focus of the workshop will be Jung’s notion of ‘soul’. How soul manifests, demands attention, and desires deep satisfaction. Archetypal forces make manifest soul matters; the matter of soul.

A number of archetypal forces will be referred to with the dominant one being the move toward the ‘light’ (understanding, explanation) and the move toward the ‘dark’ (soul-making, dying).

This workshop is open to all.

While the therapeutic relationship will be central to the material presented any relationship including the one we have with ourselves will be addressed.

The format of the workshop will be a mixture of presentation and discussion with personal experience being at the heat of all that is done.

Six hours of Professional Development Points will be available to psychologists, therapists and counsellors.

David Russell is a past president of the Sydney Jung Society. He completed his undergraduate and postgraduate studies and research in psychology at the University of Sydney. Here he was introduced to the writings of Sigmund Freud (unusual for a Department of Psychology) and developed an ongoing enthusiasm for the history and philosophy of psychology.

After a few years in private practice he moved into an academic career, which culminated in the establishment of the Master of Analytical Psychology degree at the University of Western Sydney. David has currently returned to private practice in Sydney CBD.

Friday, August 2019

Robert Tulip

"Modern man in Search of a Soul"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

Robert Tulip has Bachelors and Masters Honours Degrees in philosophy from Macquarie University. After thirty years working for the federal government, he is now returning to focus on these intellectual interests, especially the philosophical problems of psychology and religion.

Friday, September 2019

Terry Curtin

"Jung and Meister Eckhart"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

.. only in Meister Eckhart did I feel the breath of life...” Memories p87. Who was Meister Eckhart and how did he influence Carl Jung?

Terry Curtin, BA(Psychology), B Theology, MA(Theology), Diploma of Transpersonal Counselling, with a background in scholastic theology and Jungian counselling, will reflect on how a 13thC Dominican theologian/mystic had such a profound impact on Carl Jung.

Friday, October 2019

Dorothea Wojnar:

"Carl Jung's Alchemy"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

Friday, November 2019

Dorothea Wojnar

"Story Telling"

(at the MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham 8-10 pm)

Dorothea is a psychotherapist and she is currently training as a Jungian analyst with the C. G .Jung Institute of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Jungian Analysts. Dorothea has extensive experience as a group leader and therapist across a range of people and issues, working in both a public health facility as well as in private practice.

We normally meet at 8pm on the first Friday of each month
at MacKillop House, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham, ACT.