Recent election campaigns reveal how religion and politics can become dangerously merged and cast menacing projections onto the opposites. We will explore Jung’s writings on totalitarianism and on the origins of cult politics in Germany as a backdrop to the World Wars.

What are the social conditions that give rise to extreme moments in history where societies rupture and coalesce around charismatic figures? How do these figures exploit spirituality and transform it into an ideology of power and oppression? What do moments like this say about the collective psyche and its similarity to the individual one?

Steven Minuk is a Toronto-based Jungian analyst and psychotherapist. Inspired by popular culture and its roots in ancient mystery and thought, he looks at contemporary music, painting and literature to exemplify universal human themes. He was previously a lecturer in English at the University of Toronto and currently teaches in the OAJA training program with an emphasis on Jung’s fundamental essays and the Red Book.

In this seminar we will explore excerpts from Darren Aronofsky’s 2010 Black Swan and discuss some of the compelling psychological themes presented in the movie that delve into the darker reaches of Shadow:
Shadow and Achievement (Perfection Complex),
Shadow and Family (Mother Complex)
Shadow and the Body (the disowned body)

It is recommended that participants watch Black Swan before attending the seminar. Black Swan is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Apple iTunes, Vudu, Microsoft Store, Max, Google Play Movies, HBO Max Amazon Channel, YouTube, AMC on Demand, and Amazon Video.

Elisabeth Pomès is a bilingual psychotherapist and Jungian Psychoanalyst in private practice in Toronto, Ontario. In 2000, her interest in the works of the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung led her to enter the Analyst Training Program offered in Toronto by the C.G. Jung Foundation. She graduated in January 2009 as a certified Jungian Psychoanalyst. Elisabeth is passionate about movies and likes to share her passion by offering workshops on Jungian themes expressed through meaningful movies.

This presentation will weave together interpersonal and Jungian analytic perspectives, informed by indigenous Andean shamanism, and contemporary scientific understanding of time in an exploration of a more expansive, vision of the world. It will provide different perspectives on experiences central to contemporary depth psychology – i.e., the subjective experience of time and trauma. The presenter will draw on her experience as a psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst as well as her immersion in Andean shamanistic practice.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe Andean medicine and its relevance to psychoanalytic practice
2. Discuss similarities and differences in the ways atemporal states are understood in Jung’s concept of the unconscious and objective psyche, Andean shamanism, quantum theory and clinical application.
3. Explain the relevance in understanding atemporal dimensions in working with implicit states in the analytic process.
4. Conceptualizing the psychoanalytic process from a broader perspective that includes Jungian psychology, fractal dynamics, and shamanism.

Deborah Bryon is a licensed psychologist and senior Jungian Analyst in private practice, and a member International Association of Jungian Analysts (IAAP) and Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts (IRSJA). She is the author of three books Lessons of the Inca shamans, Part I: Piercing the Veil (Pine Winds Press, 2012) and Lessons of the Inca Shamans, Part II: Beyond the Veil (Pine Winds Press, 2014), and Time and Trauma in Analytical Psychology and Psychotherapy: The Wisdom of Andean shamanism (Routledge, 2024).

Her more recent publications include “Implicit states of connectivity in the clinical practice of Jungian psychoanalysis and Andean shamanism” (Journal of Analytical Psychology, 2023), “Are Psychedelics Really Necessary?” in Psychedelics and Individuation (eds. Les Stein and Lionel Corbett, 2023), “Bastard children of the avant-garde: artistic expression in the cubist and abstract expressionist movements and the psychoanalytic process” (Journal of Analytical Psychology, May 2022), and “Processing trauma in psychoanalysis in real time and in dreams: The convergence of past, present, and future during covid 19” (Journal of Analytic Psychology, July 2021).

Emily Dickinson once said that a poem is not a poem unless it is properly “haunted.” This brings to mind Jung’s concept of the creative spirit as an autonomous complex and Federico Garcia Lorca’s belief in “duende”, a primal creative force that the ego must make room for to allow unadulterated creative expression to manifest as true art.

This workshop will make space for the idea that words are alive. As James Hillman understood them, they are messengers, angels, that facilitate communication, interaction between the human world and that of the divine.

What is it that makes a poem move us? Words are not just the purview of logos. A good poem takes us into the realm of eros and into a glimpse of the transcendent.

What to bring:

A favourite poem or example of word (lyrics, prayer etc.) that inspires you – as in elevates you into the company of spirit and soul.

A notebook: This workshop is about facilitating creativity by making room for it. We’ll have quiet, reflective time to express what’s in our hearts or on our minds, perhaps connecting to that more autonomous creative spirit and giving it a welcoming voice.

Sharing what may come up for you is, of course, optional but time will be saved for sharing.

Terilynn Graham Freedman is a trauma-informed Jungian analyst in private practice in London, Ontario. She has been a contributing member with the Ontario Association of Jungian Analysts for many years, including on the Board. She is also an examiner, supervisor and seminar instructor for the OAJA Analyst Training Program.

In addition to 20 years in practice as a Jungian analyst, Terilynn has approx. 10 years of experience in crisis mental health and currently also conducts trauma assessments for refugee claimants in Ontario. With a background education in cultural and symbolic anthropology her interest in international expressions of archetypal energy continues to intrigue her. Other major interests include poetry and mosaic art.

This presentation will review how some of Jung’s ideas (mis)represented Native cultures. The notion of the “primitive,” participation mystique, dreams, and animals will be explored. 13 psychic paradigms, dominion and reciprocity, will point to important differences between Indigenous and Western cosmologies and may offer a path away from our current trend toward self-destruction.

Jeanne Lacourt
Jeanne A. Lacourt, M.S., L.P.C., N.C.C., Ph.D., is a Professor of American Indian Studies at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota, a faculty member of the Minnesota Seminar in Jungian Studies, and a Jungian Analyst in private practice. She has authored a book on traditional Indian Education, edited a book on racial issues in the United States, and her articles in Spring Journal focus on the intersections of Indigenous and Jungian Studies. She is most intrigued with the theme of human- animal transformation in Indigenous origin stories. Her home community is with the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.