This seminar addresses the following questions:

• How can an ancient myth about confronting fear help us with contemporary clients who must deal with traumatic stress?
• Does an archetypal process facilitate the release of traumatic stress?
• Can we, as Erick Neumann stated, see "fear in all its format as an instrument of the Self?"

Using an ancient Egyptian story of a shipwrecked traveler, we will look at an archetypal journey through terrorizing ordeals to confront the chaos of abandonment and extreme affect, as well as defenses against such traumatic states.

The myth involves a series of confrontations between a terrifying deity and human that re-enacts and releases previous traumatic stress to allow the protagonist to undergo a profound transformation of consciousness. Sacrificed in the fire of affect, the traveler surrenders to "die before [he] dies" and discovers he has reoriented his identity in the direction of the Self and become an initiate, able to translate the meaning of his confrontation back to his society.

The story provides a way of looking at the physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual effects of extreme fear in order to access some archetypal processes that support and refine a more resilient ego capable of relating to the unconscious.  The material illuminates clinical work with clients suffering PTSD from early trauma and clients dealing with the traumatic stress caused by contemporary events.  

We will explore the parallel between archetypal and personal processes using examples from clinical material as well as developmental and initiatory theory in order to understand the relevance of the individual encounter of ego and Self in building the kind of consciousness that can develop through and beyond fear.

When: Saturday, October 30, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Where: Swedish Medical Center

Fees:

• $35.00 for JPA members (see link below)
• $50.00 for students and interns with student ID
• $90.00 for general registration, postmarked after 10/16
• $75 for advance general registration, postmarked by 10/16
• 6.5 CEUs available

To register, please print and fill out the form available at this link.

Sylvia Brinton Perera is a Jungian analyst who lives, practices, writes, and teaches in New York and Vermont. On the faculty and board of the C.J. Jung Institute of N.Y., she also co-leads study trips to Ireland every spring. Her publications include Descent to the Goddess: An initiation for women; The Scapegoat Complex: Towards a mythology of shadow and guilt; Dreams, A Portal to the Source (with E. Christopher Whitmont); Celtic Queen Maeve and Addiction: An archetypal perspective; The Irish Bull God: Image of multiform and integral masculinity.

Directions to Providence Conference Auditoriam at Swedish Medical Center, 500 17th Ave., Seattle, WA

From 1-5 southbound, take exit 165-A. Turn left onto James at the light. James will become Cherry. Turn right onto 16th Ave. Parking garage is on the right.

From 1-5 northbound, take James/Madison exit, turn right onto James. James will become Cherry. Turn right onto 16th Ave. Parking garage is on the right.

Paid parking in garage is $7 with JPA receipt.