THE VERA VON DER HEYDT PUBLIC LECTURE SERIES: Descent into the Underworld

Lecture - Descent into the Underworld: The Transformative Power of Retrieving Soul

In the ninth Vera von der Heydt lecture, we are delighted to invite Ursula Wirtz, PhD to talk about her approach to working with trauma, as detailed in her most recent book Trauma and Beyond (Routledge, 2021). Ursula invites us to follow her as she elucidates an approach to integrating lost and dismembered fragments of the psyche, working with destruction in the service of creation. Ursula shares many insights into the clinical, archetypal and spiritual dimensions of trauma as she reflects on the soul’s yearning for transformation and the quest for meaning. Her approach to trauma therapy is rooted in her forty years of clinical experience with traumatised people where she has witnessed light in darkness and hope in despair. Ursula invites us to look at the relationship between ‘possibility’ (the only word written on the last page of the Red Book) and reality in the processes of emergence and change. Illuminating the archetypal pattern of dying and becoming, she shows how the personal, mythological and spiritual aspects of the psyche provide the potential for transforming and transcending the suffering embedded in trauma. There will be a Q&A session following the lecture.

This lecture is also being presented alongside a workshop.