C.G. Jung Society, Seattle: Spring 2001 Newsletter

Activating Self-Healing Power

Lecture: Friday, May 11, 2001, 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Good Shepherd Center, Room 202, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle
$10 members, $15 nonmembers

Jung's analytical psychology has developed in many places in the United States and in the world. Much of the spread has been during the past quarter century. As we enter into the twenty-first century, there has been a tendency not to remember how analytical psychology first developed in this country. It is the purpose of this workshop to briefly review the founding of analytical psychology in three areas, New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. These were the three areas in the United States where Jung's psychology developed during his lifetime and, as a result, he had an influence on how these professional groups developed. In these localities the founders had their analyses with Jung, which had an important bearing on how each professional society developed. Implications for the state of analytical psychology today will be presented.

When we face an impossible situation we may panic, be depressed, and sometimes get into a fit of anger. Jung saw that the unconscious arranges impossible situations in order to force the individual to bring out her or his very best. "What is needed is an impossible situation where one has to renounce one's own will and one's own wit and do nothing but wait and trust to the impersonal power of growth and development." I would ask, "How can I do nothing and trust such power to arrive on time for me? How do I know if such power exists in reality?" In this seminar, I will discuss and illustrate images of such manifestations of impersonal power in actual impossible situations—for example, of one who is recovered from earthquake trauma, and of a person who suffered through incurable illness. And learning from these images, we will explore how to work with our own dream images and fantasy that arrive from the far and deep unconscious.

Psychotherapy is at bottom a dialectical relationship between doctor and patient. It is an encounter, a discussion between two psychic wholes, in which knowledge is used only as a tool. The goal is transformation—not one that is predetermined, but rather an indeterminable change, the only criterion of which is the disappearance of egohood. No efforts on the part of the doctor can compel this experience. The most he can do is to smooth the path for the patient and help him to attain an attitude which offers the least resistance to the decisive experience.

— C.G. Jung, Foreword to D.T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, in Psychology and Religion: West and East, Collected Works vol. 11, para. 104

Jungian Perspective on the Japanese Tea Ceremony

Workshop: Saturday, May 12, 2001, 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Good Shepherd Center, Room 202, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle
$30 members, $40 nonmembers, $25 student/senior members, $35 student/senior nonmembers

To learn about preregistering for the workshop, see Preregistration Policy and Form.

Japanese Tea ceremony has roots in Chinese-Taoist inner alchemy. Originally Buddhist priests used it for concentration and meditation. In Tea ceremony, a host has made a bowl of tea for a guest and they are sharing a moment of peaceful intimacy in a humble tearoom. They enjoy hearing water boiling in a teakettle and wind in pine trees from the tea garden. The Japanese have a Tea-saying that describes this intimacy as "Ichigo, Ichie." Ichigo means a lifetime and Ichie means one meeting. So in a tearoom, host and guest share such moment, of one meeting in one's lifetime. I will present and discuss Tea ceremony with slides. Then I will demonstrate Tea ceremony and serve a bowl of tea for participants. In the afternoon, we will have a workshop on active imagination by creating a space called "tokonoma" where you don't step in, a special temenos in a tearoom. We will work on a flower arrangement and also make calligraphy with a Japanese brush for the tokonoma.

Special Requirements: The Saturday workshop will involve Tea, Ikebana, and Shuji. Please bring a vase for ikebana, flower arrangement. The vase might be 8" to12" tall. If you have a small garden clipper, please bring it. Weeds in bloom from your yard are also welcome. Optional items are white socks and a large shuji (Japanese caligraphy) brush. There will be a $10 materials fee for the workshop. If you bring your own brush, the materials fee is only $6.

Sachiko Taki Reece, M.F.C.C., was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan, and moved to the U.S. in 1969. She is a Jungian analyst practicing in Los Angeles and on the faculty of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles since 1990. She is a teaching member of the National and International Society of Sandplay Therapy. Ms. Reece has published many journal articles and book chapters in Japanese and English. Recent publications are about research on Sandplay therapy and Jungian psychology working with children diagnosed with severe emotional disturbance, and also working with adults living with AIDS. Recently she enjoys Japanese Tea ceremony as daily meditative practice and has been experimenting with tea ceremony for training therapists.