The Trauma of Exile Through a Jungian Lens

This presentation will discuss how the trauma of political exile splits and shapes the psyche of displaced individuals, making their lives psychologically conflictual and experienced incongruous. The thesis explores how Jungian theory can assist displaced persons in fashioning a new mythic center that grounds the uncentered, culturally diverse self-states that develop from the acculturation experience. It will discuss how Jungian analysis is uniquely suited to working with the exile complex and the phenomenon of Othering through the amplification of a fairy tale, the presenter’s own dreamwork, the process of active imagination, and the resultant transcendent function of the symbol—ultimately bringing meaning to the trauma of exile.

Group discussion and personal applications of these Jungian concepts will be further explored and encouraged in the Saturday workshop.