5th biennial Andrew Samuels Lecture.
This unique and innovative conference is the first to openly celebrate the fact that Humanistic Psychotherapy and Jungian Analysis have many features in common. For example, the idea that all elements in a dream are part of the dreamer’s personality or psyche is found in Fritz Perls and also in Jung. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and Jung’s ideas about individuation have similarities. One could go on and on about it.
As far as therapy work is concerned, common features include trust that the patient/client knows at depth what is needed from the therapy, a recognition that the therapist is in the process as a person, and that therapy needs to struggle to maintain a distance from the conformist and materialist values that are present in contemporary society. Both traditions have pioneered the exploration of a variety of collective approaches to psychology, ranging from the transpersonal and spiritual to the socio-political.
Yet both traditions have had to revise and develop the seminal insights of their founders, and problems of mourning – for Jung, Rogers, Berne, Perls, Maslow, Reich and others – are freely acknowledged still to be there.
Many practitioners have or have had had a foot in both camps and, in selecting the speakers, CAP has tried to include as many of these as possible. So there will be external dialogue between the traditions and internal dialogues within the speakers. And, of course, we hope that there will be similar dialogues taking place amongst the participants. We do not for one moment think that there are no differences – even sharp differences – of perspective between these two invaluable therapeutic heritages.
Speakers:
Deirdre Johnson:
Models of the ‘Self’: gendered, non-gendered and trans-gendered
The idea of the importance of balancing and synthesising opposite tendencies in the psyche is crucial to Jungian and other Humanistic Psychology approaches. Possibly no aspect of this is so troubling as that involving notions of gender and sexual orientation, yet the idea remains crucial in the field of intimate relationships. I will therefore be drawing on this theme to show both how valuable it is in human relationships and how crucial it is that we update our models of the Self in both Jungian and Humanistic psychologies.
Deirdre Johnson qualified with the Association of Jungian Analysts (IAAP) after a previous qualification in Psychosynthesis psychotherapy. She has been the keynote speaker at conferences both in the UK and internationally, and her book on relationships: ‘Love: Bondage or Liberation?’ is published by Karnac
To listen to Deirdre Johnson’s talk, please click here
Helena Hargaden:
In my talk I will be reflecting on the influence of Buber on humanistic psychotherapy,
making links with my own journey through humanistic psychotherapy and
Jungian analysis.
Helena Hargaden (DPsych, MSc., Training and Supervisory Transactional Analyst) is a Psychotherapist, Writer, Consultant and Supervisor. In collaboration with others she developed relational perspectives of TA and has been widely published and translated into a number of other languages. She lives on the South Coast where she has a clinical practice and can be contacted on helenahargaden27@hotmail.com.
To listen to Helena Hargaden’s talk, please click here
Birgit Heuer
To Be or Not To Be: On Body, Being and Jungian Analysis
This presentation addresses the question of communalities and divergence between the humanistic psychotherapies and Jungian analysis through the theme of body and being. My dual training as a humanistic body-psychotherapist and a Jungian analyst has facilitated a specific approach to the body. Jungian analysis has engaged with the body chiefly in two ways: As somatic expression of psychic reality (symbolic) and as dance/movement (creative/expressive). In this presentation, I am suggesting a different approach informed by humanistic bodytherapy: body as the experience of embodied being. Embodied being is an concept from biodynamic bodytherapy and its focus is in-depth authentic somatic experience.
From a Jungian-analytic point of view, this particular aspect represents largely uncharted territory. In this context, the manifold aspects of being will be explored, from tracing it via developmental theory to providing space for being experience. In addition, the capacity to be is seen as a vital ingredient in spirituality: Where the numinous becomes reality, it is essentially experienced through being capacity. To illustrate and deepen this aspect, I shall outline my doctoral research on the theme of sanatology – a clinical theory of health and healing – which provides an epistemological home for both being and spiritual experience. In addition, sanatology will be offered as a clinical outlook able to contain both analytic and humanistic approaches, as well as framing their differences.
Birgit Heuer is a Jungian Analyst with a previous training in body-oriented psychotherapy. She has been in private practice for the past thirty-three years. She has served on the BAP training committee and worked as clinical supervisor at Kingston University. She has lectured and published on the body and analysis as well as on clinical paradigm and is currently writing a doctoral thesis on sanatology.
To listen to Birgit Heuer’s talk, please click here
Brian Thorne:
‘Brian and Andrew on the two Carls’
My interview with Andrew is marked by its splendid spontaneity. We established instant rapport and I was able to do justice, I think, to my indebtedness and to both Jung and Rogers. For me they were both courageous men – Jung in his single-minded exploration of the unconscious and Rogers in his commitment to risk-taking in relationship. They also had much in common and this also comes out in our exchanges. Towards the end of our conversation we reflect on the current state of therapy in Britain and Andrew reveals how much he is currently influenced by the person-centred approach. All in all, this interview was for me an exhilarating experience. I hope it will be for viewers at the conference.
Brian Thorne is Co-founder and Professional Fellow at The Norwich Centre for Personal, Professional and Spiritual Development, Emeritus Professor of Counselling at the University of East Anglia, and a Lay Canon of Norwich Cathedral. Thorne is an internationally recognised figure in the field of person-centred therapy, and was a close colleague of Carl Rogers.
He is the author of many books and co-author, with Professor Dave Mearns, of the best-selling ‘Person Centred Counselling in Action’ (Sage, 4th edition 2013)
The Two Carls: Brian Thorne in Conversation with Andrew Samuels
John Rowan:
The main link I see is individuation, which seems to me much the same as self-actualization.
Now in 1980 I declared myself actualized. Does that me that I was also individuated?
Is either of these achievements real, or even possible?
I think these are interesting questions. I often ask what is the purpose of therapy.
It seems to me that we often pussyfoot round this important question, as if such
questions were in bad taste. But if Jung is right that the purpose of therapy is
individuation, why should we not bravely face this question?
Dr John Rowan has delivered workshops in 25 countries, and written about 20 books. He is a Fellow of the BPS, of BACP and of UKCP. He is married and lives in Chingford.
To listen to John Rowan’s talk, please click here
Steven Smith
The Psychotherapeutic Process of Change: exploring the integrative links between Carl Jung’s ‘enantiodromia’, Eric Berne’s ‘physis’ and Arnold Beisser’s ‘paradoxical nature of change’.
In contrast to the rise of ‘the relational turn’ within the field of psychotherapy, I will be critically evaluating the more ontological or essential aspects of humanness that can potentially contribute to the client’s process of change, growth and healing.
Steven B Smith is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist. Steven holds several academic and clinical qualifications including: BA (Hons) Applied Social Sciences [Coventry Lanchester Polytechnic, 1982]; BA (Hons) Christian Theology & World Faiths [Leeds University, 1986]; Diploma & MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy [The Metanoia Institute & Middlesex University, 2002]; Certificate in Integrative and Transpersonal Supervision [The Psychosynthesis Education Trust, 2005]; MA in Jungian & Post-Jungian Studies [Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, Essex University, 2008]. He is currently studying for his doctorate in transpersonal psychology with Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU). Steven is a senior lecturer in Integrative Psychotherapy with The Metanoia Institute. In his clinical practice he endeavours to integrate developmental, relational and transpersonal perspectives to honour the client’s multiple and unique ways of being, experiencing and relating. This supports him to identify and work with the client’s developmental deficits and traumas, current relational struggles and spiritual issues, as these emerge within the therapeutic relationship.
To listen to Steven Smith’s talk, please click here
Dr. Dale Mathers & Chris Robertson Joint Presentation
Return to the Radical Edge?
By not recognizing that the soul is also in the world, therapy can’t do its job anymore. The buildings are sick, the institutions are sick, the banking system’s sick, the schools, the streets – the sickness is out there. James Hillman
How can therapy rediscover a vital edge? Both humanistic therapy and Jungian analysis arose as radical responses to cultural malaise. The focus on an internal world and only human inter-relatedness reflects an over emphasis in the Western world on Individualism. Moves to national registration and social respectability have worsened an inappropriate accommodation with cultural dis-ease. How can psychotherapists re-position themselves to recover our radical edge – get to the roots of what sort of healing art we are engaged with.
Are we to collude with the dominant discourse, scientific materialism, or can we find a discourse of our own? This joint presentation attempts to bring together themes at the edge between individual and cultural psychotherapy:
• acknowledging the gap between the human psyche and ‘nature’
• exploring how the ecological crisis impinges on us
• be aware of how a client’s pain, and our pain, at the violence perpetrated on the animate earth appears in our consulting rooms
Drawing on our experience of different modalities, this joint presentation will develop a dialogue and story that aims to explore symbols as cultural catalysts that can offer a radical perspective relevant to sickness and renewal in the world.
Dr. Dale Mathers MB. BS., MRCPsych. Supervisor with AJA. Psychiatrist and humanistic psychotherapist.analytical psychology in the UK and Europe. Directed the Student Counselling Service at the London School of Economics and was Mental Health Foundation Fellow at St. George’s Hospital, London.
Publications include:
(2001) An introduction to meaning and purpose in analytical psychology London: Routledge
(2001) The boy with no face in Awakening and Insight, ed. Young -Eisendrath, P and Miller, M. London: Routledge
(2009) (ed.) Vision and Supervision London: Routledge
(2009) (ed.) Self and No Self London: Routledge
(2014) (ed.) Alchemy and Psychotherapy London: Routledge
Chris Robertson has been a psychotherapist and trainer since 1978 working in several European countries. His training background includes Psychosynthesis, Child Psychotherapy, Family Therapy and Archetypal Psychology. He contributed the chapter ‘Dangerous Margins’ to the recent Ecopsychology anthology Vital Signs (Karnac, 2012); is co-author of Emotions and Needs (OUP, 2002). He is a co-founder and director of training at Re•Vision, an integrative and transpersonal psychotherapy training centre, where he is involved in developing Ecopsychology.
To listen to Dr. Dale Mathers & Chris Robertson’s talk, please click here
View flyer here.
The proceedings of this event are being published by Self & Society Journal in the autumn in a special edition edited by CAP Chair, Ruth Williams.