Jung and the LGBTQA Family (with a little help from Jungian Arts-Based Research)

The psychology of C. G. Jung includes ideas such as the anima as the feminine of every man and the animus as the masculine of every woman. While remaining valuable contributions to understanding the human condition, these notions are given contexts in normative and outdated assumptions. In fact, some of Jung’s own language around these generic concepts is biased and rooted in a society that no longer exists. On the other hand, Jung was a conservative with revolutionary ideas. Within his work can be found a vision of gender and sexuality that is fluid, not bound by historic conventions, and in touch with the transformative numinous. As well as re-examining how we read Jung, and how Jung liberates his own work from his own social limitations, we will also look at the new practice of Jungian Arts-Based Research as a way of seeing further into the intimate and essential creation of gender and relationships. JABR will be shown to be a practice of psychological, social, and transformational therapy for the collective culture.

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will learn to critically evaluate Jungian ideas in several key contexts including the psychology itself, and Jung’s own understanding of history.
2. Participants will be able to connect different ideas about gender and sexuality (from those portrayed by Jung) to his psychology in various new and exciting ways.
3. Participants will gain an understanding of how creativity works inside Jung’s writing as well as is theorized by it.
4. Participants will understand enough about Jungian Arts-Based Research to be able to have a go at it themselves, especially in using Jungian methods such as active imagination in creative practice.