The Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA) again offers its invitational conference on October 23-24, 2026. This tradition continues every other fall. This year’s theme considers the cacophony of voices in the culture—many muted, ignored, diminished, or misunderstood. Some voices lack an audience or are silenced by the limits imposed by psychological and cultural conditions and constraints. Other voices are loud and intrusive. Invariably, there is a power dynamic at work. The topic invites us to investigate these dynamisms and to be curious about what is being expressed or needs to be expressed in the individual and collective psyche.
Schedule
Friday, October 23, 2026
A “voice” calls to us, “Where are you?” Do we answer the inner summons to step forward to allow our Self to be seen? Do we hide from that calling or do we respond “Hineni! Here I am!” This presentation explores the courage of those who respond to the unknown calling.
2:15 pm – 3:15 pm | Silencing Sophia: The Patriarchal Wound in the God-Image and the Wisdom that Speaks Anyway – Christina Becker, MBA
Under the patriarchal image of the God Image, the feminine voice of wisdom has never been entirely silenced. Driven out of official theology and out of the patriarchal worldview, she exists subversively. We will explore the unexpected places where the voices and wisdom of Sophia are found.
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm | Under the Cacophony Lies the Image: Diving Below Concept – Katharine Bainbridge, MA, MFT.
Beneath the noise of our time, the psyche continues to speak in images. Drawing on Jungian psychology, dreams, culture, and the presenter’s own photography, this presentation explores what becomes possible when we descend beneath certainty and ideology into the symbolic imagination, where the image can once again become a guide in these uncertain times.
4:30 pm – 5:30 pm | Body as Shadow: Jung’s Mythopoetic Imagination – Erica Lorentz, MEd
Why was the embodied soul banished to the cultural unconscious? The neuroscience of Iain McGilchrist and history show us the ascendence of scientific rationalism and the loss of soul. Western mental health is a colonization model. Jung honored each individual soul. Case vignettes will illustrate how our Jungian approach values this soul regardless of cultural orientation.
5:30 pm – 7:00 pm | Dinner on your own
7:00 pm – 8:00 pm | What Was I Made For?: Shadow, Desire and Re-membering in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie – Connie Romero, MEd, Laura Tuley, PhD, Tim Pilgrim, MA, Carly Solome, PhD, & Carolyn Bates, PhD (Moderator)
Barbie, as both iconic doll and watershed film, invites an exploration of the shadow she generates and the creativity she unleashes.Four Jungians explore the evolution of the feminine in film, our shifting views of the female body in collective consciousness, the role of play in Individuation, and the haunting question posed by the film, “What was I Made for?”
Saturday, October 24, 2026
The vitality of the Feminine is lurking beneath the chaos of our current times. In this short lecture on the myth of Amor and Psyche, I will explore the dynamics of projection that prevent us–both women and men–from seeing and being the truth of who we really are.
2:15 pm – 3:15 pm | Her Voice in Fire: Sexual Violence and the Archetypal Imagination of Women’s Rage – Randi Nathenson, MSSA, LISW-S
This presentation engages with “feminine rage” as a response to sexual violence, examining how gender and race shape whose rage is permitted and whose becomes threatening. This rage draws on archetypal energy, insisting on expression, refusing to stay silent. This refusal finds form in the revenge fantasy, a catalyst for individuation, giving voice to unacknowledged violation.
3:30 pm – 4:30 pm | Lilith and Breaking of the Vessels: Anselm Kiefer Explores a Myth of Patriarchy – Mary Wells Barron, MA, MIM, MBA
Anselm Kiefer ’s art is a glimpse into the world’s soul through history, myth, and place. Destruction and Creation are the leitmotif of his work, in which the image of Lilith is imbedded. She erupted into view in the horror of September 11, 2001, and continues to inform the darkness of our time. An Age in which patriarchal political power attempts to annihilate the Anima Mundi.
4:30 pm – 5:30 pm | Mirroring Extortions and Pathological Idealizations: The Clinical Shadow of the Matriarchy and Patriarchy – Gus Cwik, PsyD
This presentation explores subjugating forms of the alchemical third—dynamics that arrest rather than transform analysis. Using images from The Lost Plates of the Rosarium and ideas from Jung, Kohut, Guggenbühl-Craig, Benjamin, and Ogden, it examines mirror-hunger, sadomasochistic supplication, clinical impasse, and their wider cultural and political expressions in contemporary life.