Speakers
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Jane Selinske
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Julie Bondanza
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Monika Wikman
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Katharine Bainbridge
Summer Study Online Program 2026: Death And Immortality
Summer Study Online Program 2026
Stages of Life: C. G. Jung’s Exploration and Understanding of Death
Monday, July 20
12:00 noon – 3:30 pm ET
“Death is not a meaningless end, the mere vanishing into nothingness-it is an accomplishment, a ripe fruit on the tree of life.” C. G. Jung, CW, Vol.18, par. 1706
C.G. Jung has been recognized as the first to emphasize the psychological transition in midlife to the second half of life. In the second half of life a shift occurs from external ego development to the internal concern for meaning, purpose and spiritual value. For those in the second half of life, the approach of Death becomes a conscious awareness and at times a preoccupation.
Throughout Jung’s life he embraced the myth of an afterlife. His near-death experience after his heart attack confirmed his belief in an afterlife and transformed his previous attitude toward the last seventeen years of his life. Jung’s work now embraced his conversion experience and he was free to write about esoteric topics such as flying saucers, astrology, parapsychology, alchemy and death.
Jung believed that it was important clinically to form a position about immortality since clients in the second half of life would face their own death and needed to begin the internal work to get ready for their departure. Jung grappled with how to do this and came to the hypothesis we can do so with the hints sent to us from the unconscious, particularly in dreams and active imagination. The goal was to mine the unconscious and listen to the inner voice attentively. According to Jung, Death in the light of eternity is a wedding, a mysterium coniunctionis (MDR, p. 314).
This workshop will explore the history of Jung’s interest in death and the afterlife, the influence from his family lineage and spiritualism, the dreams that preceded his major writings on death and the afterlife and his personal experiences around death will be noted. The workshop will be experiential and didactic and will include discussion along with a space to explore personal questions and experiences around death and immorality.
Instructor:
Jane Selinske, EdD, LCSW, NCPsyA-LP, MT-BC
Dreams, Death and Intimate Encounters with the Eternal
Tuesday, July 21
12:00 noon – 3:30 pm ET
Jung’s psychology is an incarnational psychology: it is about the soul coming into life and the soul leaving life, and it is in this round of life, death and rebirth that we each find ourselves.
What do dreams have to say about this threshold between the land of the living and the land of the dead? How do we open ourselves to establish this bridge in our own psyche and in our daily lives? This seminar explores the psyche at the threshold between life and death, where dreams, imagination, and the subtle body open into encounters with the eternal. Drawing on my clinical research with dreams of the dying at UCSD Medical Center, Marie Lousie von Franz’s work on Death and Dreams, alchemy, and accounts of near-death and psychoid experience, we will explore how the psyche prepares for death—and how it continues to relate across the boundary.
Dreams arising near death, dreams while tending the dying, and dreams following loss of loved ones will be held in the symbolizing field where we listen together for the resonance and openings to the eternal world these dreams bring to life. Participants will be introduced to alchemical perspectives on death as transformation, including motifs of burning, dissolution, and the formation of the subtle or “diamond” body. We will also explore the role of the imaginal faculty as a bridge between worlds, guided by Jung’s insight from The Red Book: “Prayer increases the light of the star; it throws a bridge across death.”
The bridge between the land of the living and the land of the dead, and the development of the Subtle body will be the focus. The star is a living symbol for the imagination and each person’s connection to the imagination. The seminar includes guided meditation and active imagination practices, allowing participants to enter into direct, embodied relationship with dream images, inner figures, and also the presence of those who have died. Through these practices, we will explore how conscious participation in the imaginal field can deepen our capacity to accompany the dying, metabolize loss, and experience continuity of soul beyond physical death.
This course is intended for clinicians, depth-oriented practitioners, and also those simply drawn to the mystery of death as a living psychological and spiritual process.
Instructor:
Monika Wikman, PhD
To Die Before We Die: Death and the Deep Imagination
Wednesday, July 22
12:00 noon – 3:30 pm ET
Death comes in many guises—an ending, a silence, a release, a return. It walks beside us in shadow and dream, in grief and in sudden joy. Across the worlds of myth, depth psychology, and contemplative wisdom, death is not simply a fact—it is a presence, a power, a sacred threshold. In this program, we will enter into dialogue with death—not to solve its mystery, but to bow to it, speak with it, and let it change us. Drawing from Jungian thought, Buddhist philosophy, and ancient myth, we will explore death as both a personal experience and a collective archetype. Together we will ask: What must die so that something true may live? This program is for those who feel death stirring in their dreams, their losses, their questions. Therapists, artists, wanderers, and witnesses are welcome.
Instructor:
Katharine Bainbridge, MFT, MA
Death and Immortality in Life
Thursday, July 23
12:00 noon – 3:30 pm ET
“When we obtain a complete realization of the self, there comes with it a feeling of immortality. . . It is the goal of individuation to reach the sense of the continuation of one’s life through the ages. It gives one the feeling of eternity on earth.” C.G. Jung, Introduction to Jungian Psychology. Notes on the Seminar in Analytical Psychology Given in 1925, p. 154
Life is an energic process which has a teleology, a striving toward a goal. In young people, Jung says, the goal is upward, in a word, Life. After midlife, the goal is downward, a movement toward Death. In fact, these opposites exist and interact with each other throughout life. Death in life is a refusal of where life takes us. A refusal of what life offers at any age is sad and regrettable. Immortality in life includes the idea of meaning, of legacy, of creativity.
In this session we will explore examples of life refusal and the struggles toward immortality. This exploration will include both archetypal examples as well as dreams and life examples of both the drive toward death and the drive for immortality
During this session, we will investigate elements of relational narratives and utilize art interventions to delve deeper into our personal and embodied vignettes.
Instructor:
Julie Bondanza, PhD
Death in C.G. Jung’s Black Books
Friday July 24
12:00 noon – 3:30 pm ET
Community with the dead is what both you and the dead need….
Let us build the bond of community so that living and dead images will become one and the past will live in the present. C.G. Jung, BB5, 256
Death has entered—and there is no one left to grieve. C.G. Jung, Red Book, 266
Are there also cases of death in Hell for those who have never thought about death? C.G. Jung, RB, 266
Therefore I behold death, since it teaches me how to live. C.G. Jung, RB, 275
Yet, it seems to me certain that the process of becoming conscious goes on after death. C.G. Jung, 2/12/1958
Jung’s active imagination of Black Books began as a search for the soul. Most of the material was written during the WWI and bears the imprint of its horrific context. Jung entered mundus imaginalis and traversed landscapes of his inner world. Initially he travelled alone, and later in the company of his soul and a gnostic magus Philemon. In his exploration Jung’s I encountered various figures, interactions with whom affected him deeply. In this presentation we will focus on his encounters with the Dead. After the death of a poor, migrant Swiss worker, Jung’s I encountered Death itself. He was visited by the procession of dead anabaptists on the pilgrimage to and from Jerusalem. Their visitation crossed over from the world of the dead to the world of the living causing disturbances in Jung’s household. To appease them he delivered Seven Sermons to the Dead. In other imaginal adventure, he was confronted by the three dead—souls from Ancient Egyptian and Greek underworld—who demanded that he builds the temple for the community of the living and the dead, as both life and death are aspects of the soul.
In his extensive scientific work and psychiatric analytic practice Jung dealt with human suffering and probed the mysteries of the psyche, that inevitably led to reflections of death and beyond that he framed in symbolic language. In the recent publication of Jung’s Life and Work, the protocols of the complete interviews with Aniela Jaffé, whose edited version forms the well-known Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Jung recounts personal experiences with the dead, reincarnation, afterlife, and does so concretely without symbolic interpretation.
In our uncertain times, engaging Jung’s reflections on this dark subject can offer some orientation in our own wrestling with the angel death.
Instructor:
Sylvester Wojtkowski, PhD
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Brief Overview
For over 64 years, the C.G. Jung Foundation of New York has been conducting educational programs for both professionals and the general public. It is the publisher of online Quadrant: The Journal of the C.G. Jung Foundation and runs a book service offering a wide selection of books by and about C.G. Jung and the field of analytical psychology.
The Foundation’s Summer Study Program is a unique opportunity to meet people online from all over the United States and the world who share a common interest in Jung and his ideas. Past summer participants hailed from such diverse locations as Brazil, Iceland, Switzerland, The Czech Republic, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Venezuela, and the Pacific Northwest. Our intensive program has been carefully designed to be informative and stimulating for professionals in the field and the general public. We encourage participants from a wide range of backgrounds to attend our summer program.
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Number of hours credit
3.5 CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists per day and 17.5 CE contact hours for the entire 5-session program.
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