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Jungian Analysis in Victoria, BC |
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About Jungian Analysis |
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"So difficult is it to understand a dream that for a long time I have made it a rule, when someone tells me a dream and asks for my opinion, to say first of all to myself : "I have no idea what the dream means." After that I can begin to examine the dream. "
(C. G. Jung, CW8, para. 533)
The aim of this 6 session course is for a small group (max. 6) to learn how to interpret their dreams using Jung’s Analytical Psychology. We will start with a clear overview of approaches to a Jungian dream interpretation, and then work with our dreams in the group. The personal material presented is treated with respect and care, and participants can offer valuable insights into our dreams in this atmosphere. No previous experience is required.
Jung viewed the dream as offering a valid perspective on the psychic situation as it is now. The manner in which we interpret our dreams, and integrate them into our daily lives can provide us with powerful impetus for change. Working with dreams enables us to embrace the symbolic life and, hopefully, gain a deeper sense of meaning.
More on Jungian Dream Interpretation...
"Dreams, then, convey to us in a figurative language-that is, in sensuous, concrete imagery - thoughts, judgments, views , directives, tendencies which were unconscious either because of repression or through mere lack of realization. Precisely because they of contents of the unconscious, and the dream is a derivative of unconscious processes, it contains a reflection of the unconscious contents. It is not a reflection of unconscious contents in general but only of certain contents, which are linked together associatively and are selected by the conscious situation of the moment. I regard to this observation as a very important one in practice." (CW8, para. 477)
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"But why should one consider dreams, those flimsy, elusive, unreliable, vague, and uncertain phantasms, at all? Are they worthy of out attention? Our rationalism would certainly not to recommend them, and the history of dream interpretation before Freud was a sore point anyway; most discouraging in fact, most " unscientific " to say the least of it. Yet to dreams are the commonest and universally accessible source for the investigation of man's symbolizing faculty, apart from the contents of psychoses, neuroses, myths, and the products of the various arts. All these, however, are more complicated and more difficult to understand, because, when it comes to the question of their individual nature, one cannot venture to interpret such a unconscious products without the aid of the originator. Dreams are indeed the chief source of all our knowledge about symbolism. " "As regards the much discussed symbolism of dreams, its evaluation varies according to whether it is considered from the causal or from the final standpoint. The causal approach of Freud starts from a desire or craving, that this, from the repressed dream-wish. This craving is always something comparatively simple and elementary, which can hide itself under manifold disguises. Thus the young man in question could just as well have dreamt that he had to open a door with a key, that he was flying in an aeroplane, kissing his mother, etc. From this point of view all those things could have the same meaning. Hence it is that the more rigorous adherents of the Freudian school have come to the point of interpreting - to give a gross example - pretty well all oblong objects in dreams as phallic symbols and all round or hollow objects as feminine symbols. From the standpoint of finality the images in a dream each have an intrinsic value of their own." (CW8, para. 470-471) |
