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Donald Kalsched, Ph.D.
Jungian Analyst
Author
Friday Lecture
February 15, 2002
"Early Trauma and Dreams "
Experiences in early childhood that cause unbearable psychic pain or anxiety (trauma) can leavethe personality and the human spirit threatened with destruction. To avoid this, a defensive splitting of the self occurs in which a “progressed” part of the self casts a spell over a “regressed” part and locks it up in an inner sanctum for safekeeping. This self-encapsulation is out pictured in dreams during the psychological process.
In this lecture, using dream examples from the clinical situation and the fairy tale of Rapunzel, we will see how the wisdom of the psyche’s archetypal defenses saves the imperishable personal spirit from further trauma, but at the price of cutting it off from life. Psychotherapy of this “trauma complex” and its primitive resistances will be discussed.
Introductory audio clip from Donald Kalsched's lecture "Early Trauma and Dreams" (9 minutes)
Saturday
Workshop
February 16, 2002
"From Bewitchment to Enchantment:
Transformational Process in the Psychoanalysis of Trauma"
Patients who have suffered severe early trauma often find themselves bewitched by dark tyrannical voices assaulting them from within, leading to intense anxiety and depression. In dream work with such patients, the dark inner voices reveal themselves as both archaic and typical--hence archetypal--personifications whose inner purpose seems to be the defense of a vulnerable core of selfhood to make sure it is never violated again. However, in defending the true self against further trauma, the archetypal defenses also persecute and demoralize it, cutting off all hope for life-in-relationship to others. Under these conditions, the positive side of the Self cannot constellate and the individuation process cannot get started. In successful depth psychotherapy, these archetypal defenses slowly lose their power as their daimonic energy slowly becomes humanized in the transference and is transmuted into a mature capacity for love and creative living (enchantment).
In this workshop, clinical material as well as the Grimm's fairy tale Fitcher's Bird will be utilized to illustrate this process. Attendees are asked to read the tale before the workshop.
A version of the story can be found online at D.L. Ashliman's web site : Fitcher's Bird
Donald E. Kalsched, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and Jungian analyst with a private practice in Katonah, N.Y. He is a faculty member and supervisor at the C.G. Jung Institute in New York City and with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. Currently he is Dean of Jungian Studies specialty at the Westchester Institute for Training in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in Bedford Hills, N.Y. He is the author of The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit (Routledge, 1996), now in its fourth printing. He has lectured and led workshops on this topic in the US, Europe, and South Africa and is known as an engaging speaker and inspiring teacher.
© 2002 C.G. Jung Society of Atlanta. All Rights Reserved.
updated 03/21/02
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