From the trauma of culturally condoned hate, including systemic racism and its historical underpinnings, to under-recognized forms of trauma in childhood, to modern-day traumas of a global pandemic with its panoramic dance of death, we are living a cacophony of traumatic events — and collectively seized by history in the making. Informed by depth-oriented, Jungian and psychoanalytic perspectives, we will explore understanding trauma with patience, justice-seeking, peacemaking, curiosity, imagination, and the body. We will consider the archetype of the wounded healer and spiritual attunement in supporting the emergence of untold stories, meaning-making, and new understanding. We will explore how the capacity within each of us to grieve, forgive, make reparation, and live creatively can contribute, collectively, to transforming contemporary trauma. From micro-agonies of everyday life to manifestations of evil in power — trauma can catalyze growth and transformation. Even as we are seized by the disruptive darkness of these times, it is possible to churn our experiences into something new; to compost a creative will toward renewal and restoration, both individually and collectively.
ROBIN EVE GREENBERG, MFT, is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, and an associate editor for Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. Robin has written and lectured on a variety of subjects related to the art of psychotherapy, creativity and opening to the imagination. She maintains a private practice in Kensington and San Francisco, CA.
BEGUM MAITRA, MRCPsych, MD, is an analyst in private practice in London, England. Her interest in cultural difference, and imagined “universals,� began with her origins in India, and her long experience as a psychiatrist. Her writing and lectures explore ways of thinking about sameness and difference, particularly considerations of race and gender. She published a book/film Culture and Madness.
HELEN MARLO, PhD, is an analyst member of the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco; Professor and Chair of the Department of Clinical Psycholog y at Notre Dame de Namur University; and Reviews Editor for Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche. She is a psychologist in private practice in San Mateo, CA and author of the co-edited book, The Spiritual Psyche in Psychotherapy.
SUSAN WILLIAMS, MFT, is a London trained Jungian personal/ supervisory analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She has a practice in Berkeley, CA where she sees adults, adolescents and children. She has published and taught on topics including the numinous, truth, expanded states of consciousness, psychedelic enhanced psychotherapy, aliveness and deadness and autistic states of mind.