JUNG'S SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION
Presented by: Cynthia Swartz, MM, MD
Saturday, May 22, 2021, 9:30 am-11:30am eastern
(a ZOOM Online Presentation)
JUNG'S SYMBOLS OF TRANSFORMATION
Jung’s Symbols of Transformation is a whirlwind of interconnected imagery and psychic facts urgently pressing the reality of their purposeful dynamism on the reader. Jung himself says he wrote the original version in a “white heat”, and the intensity of the creative psychic energy driving Jung to be its mouthpiece is palpable. Essential to understanding current world events and of individual suffering is Jung’s discovery of the unconscious as a creative dynamism that cannot fully be explained in a causal, reductive way. In this volume he shows thru historical and clinical examples the much broader and deeper understanding of the collective dynamic psyche. In this talk I will highlight those aspects of the book where he specifically argues against the incomplete understanding of the unconscious in personalistic and causal terms, highlight some practical clinical insights that Jung gives, and attempt to further elucidate the theme of the Hero archetype – the central theme of this volume – in its various stages of development through examples of current-day material.
Cynthia Swartz, MM, MD is a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist in private practice and also is a psychiatric consultant in rural health clinics in northern Vermont. Prior to going to medical school she attended the Analyst Training Program at the C.G. Jung Institute-Boston, and has continued her independent study of Jungian psychology. She holds a Master’s degree in Organ Performance from Indiana University School of Music and currently studies and teaches violin and plays in local orchestras.
Marduk fighting Tiamat (Assyrian cylinder seal), Ninth-century B.C.