Recent Programs

September 7-8, 2007

Henry Straw, Ph.D.

Friday Evening Lecture
The Wisdom of Babylon

The first eleven chapters of Genesis contain primordial myths, stories of origins. These stories were borrowed, with significant changes, from the myths of Babylon. The myths of ancient Babylon reveal profound ideas about the nature of the world. Dr. Straw will examine these ideas in the Friday evening lecture.

The Babylonian story of the flood shares a common theme with the creation epic of Marduk and Tiamat. In both stories, there is a cosmogonic conflict. God, like Father Apsu and Mother Tiamat, is disturbed by the noise and activity of His children. These stories point to a thematic tension between the activity of the world of things and the primordial unity from which they emerge.

Dr. Straw will discuss these stories and their metaphysical ideas. The myths of Babylon may provide a map of human experience and an insight into the nature and accessibility of religious experience.

Saturday Workshop
The Experience of God

The problem of the one and the many, as framed in Babylonian myth, raises questions about the idea of God. Is the being of God inclusive of all beings? Dr. Straw will explore theological possibilities embodied in Babylonian myths and suggest new ways of thinking about God. We will look at the metaphysical ideas of Nietzsche, Heidegger, Ib'n Araby, and the Zohar, and at the Kabbala, which represents an important development in Western thought that recovers the lost wisdom of Babylon. The title suggests that God is in our experience and that God is the depth of experience.

Henry F. Straw, Ph.D. is a United Methodist minister and a graduate of the Perkins School of Theology at SMU. He is a diplomate of the Jung Institute of Zurich. Dr. Straw has a private practice in Houston.

October 5-6, 2007

Donna Cozort, Ph.D.

Friday Evening Lecture
The Symbolic Attitude: Image, Metaphor, and Meaning in Dreams and Analysis

Metaphor-making is defined by Ellen Siegelman as the imaginative act of comparing dissimilar things on the basis of some principle that unites them to construct a new reality. According to Jung, archetypal content “expresses itself, first and foremost, in metaphors” (Jung. CW 9i, par. 267).

Dr. Cozort will lead us into the world of image, metaphor, and myth, a place of reverie, imagination, and dreams. Following metaphor from our earliest experience (primary process), we will see how it forms the basis of meaning, communication, and thus language (secondary process).

Following the metaphor reveals how it bridges the gap from the conscious to the unconscious world and thus to our dreams. We will reflect on the metaphor in the symbolic language of dreams, looking at dream examples to see in detail how they compensate and inform our conscious life. We will identify complexes and personal myths, showing their relation to typology and projection and to the overall individuation process. Finally we will discuss how the musical metaphor of the therapeutic encounter can bring healing and renewed life.

Saturday Workshop
Creative Reflections of Metaphor

The Saturday workshop will be an experiential group focused on metaphors found in our poems, songs, stories, personal myths, and dreams. Participants are invited to bring and share meaningful or awakening experiences based on dreams or other unconscious content. Creative reflections of experiences, such as drawings or music, will be encouraged as they enhance appreciation and understanding of the metaphor and its meaning in our lives.

Donna Cozort is a clinical psychologist and Zurich-trained Jungian Analyst in private practice in Dallas. She is an active member of the Dallas Institute of Jungian Analysts and the Inter-Regional Society  of Jungian Analysts and is the former Training Coordinator for the Texas Seminar. Dr. Cozort has lectured and led groups focused on symbolic manifestations of the psyche both at home and abroad, and has recently completed and submitted for publication Out of the Whirlwind: A Woman’s Journey Towards Meeting the Divine Within, a true story reflecting the healing power of the archetype of Job.

November 9-10, 2007

Mary Kroncke, MS, LPC

Friday Evening Lecture
The I Ching and the Awakening of the Self

In her presentation, Mary Kronke will examine the I Ching, asking:

These topics and more… considered on Friday night.

Recommended text
I Ching, Complete Translation with Concordance
Translated by Stephen Karcher (on sale at fall programs)

Saturday Workshop
Experiencing the I Ching

Everyone welcome! The experts, the beginners, and the curious. Bring your I Ching text if you have one, and bring a question of personal importance. Come a bit early if you can, take your coffee and roll, and we’ll begin to work right away. Mary Kroncke will act as Shaman, assisting in throwing the coins and locating your hexagram. Participants will then ponder the answers through journaling and drawing with crayons. Finally, we’ll share our insights with each other.

Since coming to Dallas in 1990 after a three year residency at the Jung Institute, Zurich, Mary Kroncke, MS, LPC, completed a three-year hospital internship at Charter Behavioral Health and has served on the boards of the Jung Society of North Texas and the Isthmus Society. She recently completed the 21-Day Process at Oneness University in Chennai, India, which enables her to integrate spiritual issues into her therapuetic practice. 

February 9-10, 2007

James Hollis, Ph.D.

The Wounding and Healing of Men
Friday Evening Lecture, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Women have courageously examined their roles and the limitations placed upon their souls. Men similarly need to examine the presuppositions and limitations that govern their lives.

This program will explore the range of male definitions, the often unconscious relationship to mother and father, and the role that fear plays in men’s lives. Only a frank discussion of these secrets breaks the conspiracy of silence that estranges men not only from women but even more from themselves. (This program is as much for women as it is for men).

Why Good People Do Bad Things
Saturday Workshop, 9:30 a.m. - noon

For each of us there are energies, motives, agendas that operate outside our conscious control and sometimes contrary to our professed values. These energies, which Jung collectively identified as the Shadow, might best be defined not as evil, but as that which makes us uncomfortable with ourselves.

Such energies represent an enormous invitation for greater consciousness and for living more ethically. Their integration brings us toward wholeness. The program will define and illustrate the many ways in which the Shadow operates in personal and social life and will address the question of how we may come to know that which is by definition unconscious in us.

A series of exercises and questions will increase awareness of the Shadow. Please bring a notebook and pen for journaling.

James Hollis, Ph.D., is a Zurich-trained Jungian Analyst, Executive Director of the Jung Educational Center of Houston (www.junghouston.org) and author of twelve books, most recently Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding our Darker Selves.

March 9-10, 2007

Deldon Ann McNeely, Ph.D.

Individuation and the Soul
Friday Evening Lecture, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

In a time when science and positivism dominated the intellectual climate, Jung courageously insisted on espousing the reality of the psyche. The lecture will explore what that insistence means for us after a century of development of Jung’s thought.
How has the culture responded to Jung’s message? Where do we go from here to carry his intention forward, both for the well-being of our society and for our own individual soul work? Have psychology and the other sciences contributed to or detracted from Jung’s concept of soul? Can we apply our notions of individuation to other cultures? Dr. McNeely will open these issues for reflection and discussion.

Individuation and the Soul Workshop
Saturday Workshop, 9:30 a.m. - noon

The Saturday workshop will continue a discussion of the ideas presented in the lecture within a seminar-styled framework. Participants will have an opportunity to reflect on and explore their own experiences of soul work.

Deldon Anne McNeely is a diplomate in clinical psychology with a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. She studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich and graduated from the Interregional Society of Jungian Analysts. She is a faculty member of the New Orleans Seminar in Jungian Psychology, is a patron to the Baton Rouge Jung Society, and participates in training psychotherapists at the Center for Individual and Social Therapies (known as ZIST) in Penzberg, Germany.

Her publications include three books: Touching: Body Therapy and Depth Psychology; Animus Aeternus: Images of the Inner Masculine; and Mercury Rising: Women, Evil, and the Trickster Gods.

April 13-14, 2007

Ann Kennedy, M.A.

Where Does God Dwell: Insight into the People of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Gnostic Gospels
Friday Evening Lecture, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Two thousand years ago, the collective psyche underwent a profound upheaval. This great drama of early Christian times played itself out largely as a confrontation between two major protagonists, Rome and Judea, resulting in the death and rebirth of the functioning God-image. Where did God dwell? Spiritual leaders sought an answer.

One group seeking God’s guidance was the Essenes, the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They separated themselves from what they considered the corrupt Jerusalem priesthood and moved into the desert. There they lived a monastic life awaiting the Messiah, in daily expectation of the end of the world. We will examine how they collectively manifested the emerging archetype of the Messiah that would have its expression in the life of Christ.

Another group, of special interest to Jung, consisted of multiple sects referred to as the Gnostics, whose gospels are collected in the Nag Hammadi library. Jung knew theirs was the only tradition associated with Christianity that saw the human psyche as the container of the divine encounter. At the heart of Gnosticism lies the experience of the inward self.

Inner Knowing: A Gnostic Experience
Saturday Workshop, 9:30 a.m. - noon

Our Saturday space will become a Gnostic community set in ancient times when men and women knew that they derived from the same divine substance as the gods. We will recreate a time when revelation and spiritual connection were seldom doubted. Through our participation, they will be alive again.

Singing Tibetan bowls and powerful primal music will open us to a dimension of greater meaning where we can make personal discoveries and receive spiritual insights. We may share these with one another in our closing Gnostic meeting.

Ann Kennedy, M.A., a licensed, nationally board certified mental health counselor, was Director of the Jung Center in Orlando, Florida for ten years before moving to Austin last year. She teaches various Jung-related classes. She began her own study and training at the C.G. Jung Educational Center in Houston in 1969 and has learned from many psycho-spiritual leaders of today.

May 11-12, 2007

Marga Speicher, Ph.D.

Through the Lens of Folklore: Being Trapped and Being Free
Friday Evening Lecture, 7:30 - 9:30 p.m.

Folktales have been told over the millennia and across the globe, capturing hearts and imagination in all generations. These symbolic stories reveal archetypal aspects of human existence.

They depict harshness and humor, beauty and grace, hard work and magic. They tell of life’s bounty and cruelty, of helpful spirits and tricky monsters. They show how humans have moved through life encountering obstacles, facing monsters, coming through troubles with help from the realm of nature and of the spirit. When we approach these stories with an open heart, we can draw some of the wisdom of humanity from their depths.

The story of Rumpelstiltskin tells of a young girl’s desperate situation: To save her life, she promises her child to a gnome (Rumpelstilskin) who rescues her. We will explore how the girl becomes trapped, how she is rescued, and how she regains her child and her life. We will seek to understand where we encounter similar dilemmas in our lives and how we can grow to regain autonomy. Rumpelstiltskin is the gnome who helps and
hinders, whose power we must appreciate and overcome, and who will enslave us unless we passionately seek knowledge and thereby reclaim our vitality

Seeking Inner Freedom: What Can Help?
Saturday Workshop, 9:30 a.m. - noon

The search for inner freedom is a lifelong process that calls  us to differentiate ourselves from the impact of early life, from societal influences, and from the pull of archetypal energies.

Learning with and from the miller’s daughter and her antagonist Rumpelstiltskin, we will explore ways of encountering damaging complexes: ways of experiencing them, of naming them, of separating from them as well as ways of knowing and using the creative energies hidden in them. We will discuss and write as we explore images and experiences that present themselves in the story and in life. Please bring a notepad and pen.

Marga Speicher, Ph.D.is a Jungian Psychoanalyst in San Antonio. A lover of literature and folklore, she teaches and leads workshops across the US on symbolic understanding of images in dreams, stories, and experiences of everyday life, seeing such images as opening doors to the core of our humanity, individually and culturally. Her lectures on symbols in Rumpelstiltskin, Cinderella, and The Thousand and One Nights have been released on CD and audiotape. In 2001, she presented the Harvest XVIII lectures in Richmond, VA: Folklore: Psyche’s Treasure Chest.