NINTH ANNUAL SPIRITUALITY AND PSYCHOTHERAPY CONFERENCE:  RITUALS IN PSYCHOTHERAPY THAT SUPPORT SOUL WORK

Friday, March 23, 2007, 7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., Shelton Auditorium
Saturday, March 24, 2007, 9:00 a.m.  - 3:30 p.m., Sweeney Chapel

Co-sponsored by Clarian Health Partners, the CTS Counseling Center, Buchanan Counseling Center, Central Indiana Friends of Jung, and Indiana Society for Psychoanalytic Thought.
 

Presenter:  Sylvia Brinton Perera, M.A. LP
Sylvia Brinton Perera trained at the C. G. Jung Institute of New York where she is now Director of Curriculum and Faculty.  She lectures internationally and has co-led yearly seminars for therapists to study Celtic mythology at ancient Irish sites.  Her books include:  Descent to the Goddess: a way of initiation for women; The Scapegoat Complex: toward a mythology of shadow and guilt; Dreams, A Portal to the Source (with E.C. Whitmont); Celtic Queen Maeve and Addiction; an archetypal perspective; and The Irish Bull God: image of multiform and integral masculinity.

Friday Address:  Rituals in Psychotherapy That Support Soul Work
Individuals in psychotherapy often create personally meaningful rituals that transform their relationships in archetypal energies and support an experiential understanding of the connections between ego and other and ego and Self.  We will look at some of these created rites to discover their basis in timeless patterns of initiation.  We will also discuss the analyst/therapist's role as a witness, who participates and who may, thus, also find renewal through serving Self-processes as they unfold creatively between the analytic pair.

Saturday Workshop:  An Experiential Workshop of the Rites of the Celtic, Healing Wellsprings
In Ireland and Wales many ancient rituals and myths of the cult of sacred waters survived into modern times  The holy wells have been seen as sources of fertility, regeneration, deepened and expanded visions, sovereignty initiations, and healing.  The symbolism of these rites has relevance in contemporary psychotherapy and can also serve us as a source of transformation after we have left our ongoing, personal analyses.  Making an imaginal journey to the healing wellspring, we will explore some of the ancient rituals that attune us to the source.  W will consider how the nine fold stages of the rites may apply to the healing of our client's complexes and our own.