Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D
What Women Really Want
Lecture: Friday, March 10, 2000, 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
Bloedel Hall at St. Mark's Cathedral. 1245 Tenth Ave. E., Seattle
$10 members, $15 nonmembers
The problem of female desire--why women are often confused about what they want--arises in part from wanting to be wanted rather than to be fully known. Wanting to be wanted, women lose themselves in the "desired effect" of appearance, sex, motherhood, career, money, and spirituality. In place of owning their own intentions, they undermine self-direction and self-confidence trying to fit an image--and always resent it. Drawing on C.G. Jung's psychology, feminism and Buddhism, this presentation will show why engaging female desire breaks the rules set down by patriarchy. Engaging female desire allows a woman to move beyond shame, doubt, and self-deception in order to know clearly the difference between being loved for who she is and being wanted for how she appears.
Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D. and Ed Epstein, M.A., M.S.W.
Couples in Dialogue: Love After the Romance Has Ended
Workshop: Saturday, March 11, 2000, 10 a.m. to 3 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.
Never before in human history have men and women attempted to engage in long-term intimate relationships that are based on equality and trust. Yet in the last two decades, couples young and old have expressed an urgent desire to create friendship as part of marriage. In many ways this kind of intimacy is more accessible to same-sex couples than to heterosexual ones because of the "contrasexual complex" (the Other within) that forms a major part of everyone's unconscious dynamics: the male's anima and the female's animus. Drawing on Jung's psychology, feminism, object relations psychology and the history of marriage, this workshop will explore the barriers and possibilities in this radically new kind of intimacy between the sexes.
Dialogue Therapy for couples was originated by Dr. Young-Eisendrath and Mr. Epstein as a Jungian object-relations couples therapy. Dialogue Therapy will be described in terms of its interventions with marital and cohabiting couples (both heterosexual and same-sex) who want to improve, transform or revitalize a relationship to which they are committed. Its goals are (1) enhanced intimacy, (2) greater differentiation, that is, seeing and accepting differences, (3) greater empathy, and (4) greater trust based on the ability to handle conflict with respect. There will be plenty of time for discussion and a brief video demonstration.
Polly Young-Eisendrath, Ph.D., is a psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in Burlington, Vermont. She is a Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont Medical College, and has published ten books, many chapters and articles. She lectures widely on topics of women's development, resilience, couple relationship, and the interface of contemporaray psychoanalysis and spirituality. Her most recent book is Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted (Harmony Books, 1999).
Edward Epstein, M.A., M.S.W., is a licensed clinical social worker with twenty years' experience teaching and practicing psychotherapy with individuals, couples and families. Having presented numerous workshops and seminars on conflict resolution and relationship skills, he also trains therapists in psychodynamic psychotherapy methods and Dialogue Therapy. Polly and Ed are a married couple who practice and supervise Dialogue Therapy.
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