Summer Study Online Program 2025: Relationship – Attachment, Autonomy and Intimacy

Intimacy: Development, Challenges, Individuation

Monday, July 14 | Julie Bondanza

For two personalities to meet is like mixing two different chemical substances: if there is any combination at all, both are transformed.
C.G. Jung, CW 16, Problems of Modern Psychology, ¶163

Emotion is the chief source of all becoming-conscious. There can be no transforming of darkness into light or of apathy into movement without emotion.
C.G. Jung, Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype, CW 9i, ¶179

In this workshop, we will explore through a Jungian perspective how intimacy develops. We will discuss the role of projection, especially in the context of the influence of the contrasexual (the archetypes of anima and animus) and how projection, while a necessary component in psychological development, also creates challenges. Shadow also plays a significant role in the growth of intimacy, as does personal history and, ultimately, love.

Individuation is the desired outcome if the individuals explore the challenges that come from the unconscious and from each other.

We will also discuss the clinical model that Jung uses to describe the relationship between analyst and analysand, which is useful in working with intimate partners.

Participants will be able to:

• TBA

Archetypal Imperatives:
Attachment, Mentalization, Relationship, and Individuation

Tuesday, July 15 | John Michael Hayes

In this workshop we will explore the emergence of mentalization – the capacity to make meaning out of the ambiguities of our internal world and our experience of other – from infancy through adulthood. This core relational capacity develops or is derailed in the context of primary relational experience, and has profound relevance for adult relational life and disturbances of personality.

The core teachings of attachment theorists (John Bowlby, Mary Ainsworth, and Mary Main), infant observation psychologists (Donald Stern and Beatrice Beebe), and developmental psychoanalysis (Peter Fonagy) will be re-visioned in Jungian idiom with particular reference to the clinical and theoretical work of Mara Sidoli and Jean Knox.

Clinical examples will be given of effective mentalization and failure to mentalize, and ways of facilitating this capacity in adulthood. We will demonstrate that mentalizing is the necessary foundation for that symbolic understanding of psyche needed for individuation.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe and define the four attachments styles identified by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and Main.
• Identify metallization and three modes of failure to mentalize in psychotherapy narratives.
• Describe how mentalization is essential for the symbolic understanding of psyche essential to individuation.

An Archetypal Exploration of Love and Narcissism

Wednesday, July 16 | Susan E. Schwartz

The narcissistic response to life propels the Jungian process of individuation. However, the internal splits and fractured selves set up distance between who one is and who one wants to be. Emphasized is the concept of the shadow, dissociation and the intimacy compromised in the singularity of narcissism. This person is characterized by feelings of fraudulence and vulnerability bounded by a wall of impenetrability, a form of self-deception, leaving feelings of being an imposter. Reality is fraught with anguish, panic, absence and void although the person exudes an appealing but always elusive facade. Life can no longer be avoided with compulsions, perfectionism and ego-drive.

A dream series and close look at the Narcissus and Echo myth clarify both the obstacles and pathways towards alignment with Self. The growth towards maturity involves exploring the reality of the psyche, something difficult for this personality type.

Participants will be able to:

• Define narcissism from the perspective of Jungian analytical psychology.
• Explore narcissistic relationships through the mythological portrayals of Narcissus and Echo.
• Forge self-knowledge and emotional transformation with a narcissist in clinical treatment and their dreams.

Attachment Repair and Autonomy: A Relational Approach to Trauma Work

Thursday, July 17 | Paula Howie

“We suffer very much from the fact that we consist of mind and have lost the body.”
C.G. Jung, 1934

Years of experience working with clients who have suffered trauma have shown that a holistic approach addressing the connection between mind and body is highly beneficial. Trauma influences several facets of a person's life, including attachment, interpersonal relationships, and the capacity to function both intimately and autonomously. Several professionals have devised effective interventions, such as those by Mate (2022) and Tinnin and Gantt (2013). Trauma impacts psychological, physical, and emotional well-being (van der Kolk, 2014; Kalsched, 2013). Directly addressing trauma through methods like debriefing or exposure therapy may lead to re-experiencing the event. Alternatively, not addressing the trauma can result in persistent symptoms associated with the traumatic experience, often described as memory shrapnel (Howie, 2017).

This workshop introduces theories of attachment, body autonomy, and the innovative Body Narrative approach. Designed to address trauma-related issues, this method explores how attachment styles form during development and trauma. According to Peter Levine (2015), vital memories are often stored in the body beyond conscious access. Surrounded by stories that shape our communication, thinking, and memories, psychotherapy helps clients understand and heal their life stories and bodily expressions. Vignettes reinforce and shape these stories, which are stored in our bodies until released (Marr, 2020; Gendlin, 1996).

During this session, we will investigate elements of relational narratives and utilize art interventions to delve deeper into our personal and embodied vignettes.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe three effects of trauma on the individual’s psyche.
• Describe the importance of early attachment in the persons’ life cycle.
• Describe two aspects of a relational attachment-informed approach to trauma treatment.

Dream Interpretation: Deepening Relationship by Listening to the Inner Other

Friday July 18 | Maxson J. McDowell

"The unconscious is the unknown at any given moment, so it is not surprising that dreams add to the conscious psychological situation of the moment all those aspects which are essential for a totally different point of view. It is evident that this function of dreams amounts to a psychological adjustment, a compensation absolutely necessary for properly balanced action."     C.G. Jung, CW 8, ¶469

When you form a deeper relationship to the unconscious, this also helps you to relate better to other people, since you become less compelled to project your own assumptions onto them. If you can withdraw your projections, you can see other people more realistically and perhaps appreciate them more for who they actually are. When you listen deeply to a dream you are listening to an inner "other" who, knowing you better than you know yourself, is trying to tell you something that is important and also is unknown to you, either in content or as to its degree.

Together we will listen deeply to several dreams, each time testing our interpretation with an experiment. This technique will help you to learn significant aspects of dream interpretation which, in turn, may help you to listen and relate more consciously to the people in your life, both personally and professionally.

Participants will be able to:

• Distinguish between associations, explanations, and amplifications to a dream image.
• Recognize the dream's setting and its importance.
• Describe the relationship between a dream and the dreamer's psychological progress.
• Practice using both logic and imagination in dream analysis.
• Describe the value of ‘tolerating the anxiety’ of not interpreting prematurely.
• Recognize the need to attend to the details of each image, because each detail is meaningful.
• Recognize that active listening includes allowing the dream to tell us what it chooses, not what we want to hear.