A Study Tour to Vienna

Do we need to relive trauma to master it, or can we let go of the traumas and complexes and move on? Why do certain memories leave our consciousness and go into recess somewhere while others tend to obsess us and use up precious energy and time? Why is it that even people who suffer from dementia or Alzheimer’s can still remember music from their childhoods or past? And what about those who don’t remember their dreams? Is this denial or is there a physiological component at work? Most therapists, including Freud and Jung, believed that healing results only when we tap into the power of our unconscious and understand the question of what memory brings — positive and negative.

When we think of Vienna, we may conjure up images of Mozart, a Strauss waltz, apple strudel, or beautiful Lipizzaner Stallions. And of course, Vienna is also associated with Sigmund Freud and the beginning of the psychoanalytic movement. But we should also remember its darker side—how quickly the people of Vienna welcomed and worked alongside the Nazis, eventually causing Freud and his family to flee to London.

We invite you to join us on a fascinating study tour to Vienna, hear stimulating presentations, and engage in dialogue and discussion with thoughtful and outstanding analysts and authors. We will explore Jung’s own remembrances in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, his visits to Freud in Vienna, the power of memory in Jung’s psychology, and remembering and forgetting in old age and grapple with the question of what memory does bring and what in our psyche does forgetting serve.

In short, we will explore the nuances and meaning of an issue that we face on both personal and collective levels—the tipping point between the blessings and burdens of remembering and forgetting. In addition, accompanied by superb guides, we will visit some of the historical and fascinating sites of the city, including the home of Sigmund Freud, Charlottenburg and Schönbrunn Palaces, and leading museums among other important places.