In this 5 class course, David Rottman discusses the key role of understanding the images underlying anxiety, in each of the developmental stages of our lives. His earthy examples bring Jung’s ideas to life and a meaningful context to our life situations.
In youth, anxiety centers around developing a strong ego. In middle age, anxiety is related to developing self-knowledge and learning about the requirements of our individual nature. In old age, anxiety revolves around the issue of making meaning of the trajectory of our lives and our place in the human journey.
Regardless of our age, all of us are also feeling the unprecedented pressures of the modern world. Old cultural images of divinity no longer move us, prior norms of order and safety no longer hold us. At the same time, we feel pulled toward something vague we can’t define. Of course, we’re anxious! As in our personal lives, our cultural anxiety is pointing to where new life lies, where new images are gradually emerging from the unconscious.
The common theme across the lectures is the central role of the image in the psyche. Anxiety is an emotion and underneath all emotions are images. The presence of a personal guiding image can help make us who we are and keep us centered; its absence can break us.
David helps us lower the heat under anxiety by looking for what image is hidden in the flame. Once we find it, the burn of anxiety can turn into a healthy lust for our own precious life.
David is a kind and highly-skilled mentor of mentors. Join him for a journey through anxiety, down to image, and back up to a new vision of your path.