Most fairy tales and dreams focus on one or two individuals, and Jungian interpretations usually emphasize the psychology of individuals and the tasks of individuation. A distinct set of fairy tales and dreams, however, involves a group of protagonists, and highlights archetypes of community and collaboration. These dramas offer important models not just for society, but also of the Self: the Self is a community, a society, composed of many conflicting complexes, desires, needs, and structures. Conversely, groups and communities have an underlying unity, a self of society, so to say. Folktales about cooperation are most common from aboriginal, prepatriarchal cultures, suggesting that archetypes of community are archaic, and arise from hidden, often-forgotten levels of the unconsciousÑfrom deep community.
The lecture will present several fairy tales and dreams focused on images of community, and discuss the personal and cultural applications of these archetypes, exploring the society of the Self, and the Self of society. The workshop will introduce further stories and dreams, as well as exercises in visualization and writing. The goal is to experience, and not merely talk about, the community of Self and selves. Workshop participants should bring paper and a writing instrument.
Allan B. Chinen, M.D. is Associate Clinical Professor at the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine, in private practice, and the author of Waking the World, Beyond the Hero, Once Upon a Midlife, and In the Ever After.