Renowned Jungian analyst Dr. Michael Conforti is coming to town, and he’s going to unpack your archetypal patterns.
Founder and director of the Assissi Institute, Conforti has studied and written about those patterns for 35 years, exploring human behavior as it relates to field theory, the psychological theory that examines patterns of interaction between the individual and their environment. He has a particular interest in the sacred, in dreams and unconscious patterns, and how they can help people to stop repeating behaviours that keep them from healing and changing.
He will be in Guelph beginning on June 10 for a talk, workshop and clinical colloquium, all revolving around the topic of Trauma, Resilience and Healing.
Conforti has been a faculty member in the C.G. Jung Institute in Boston, the C.G. Jung Foundation of New York, and is a faculty member at Antioch University New England. He has travelled the world sharing his knowledge, and he is the author of Threshold Experience: The Archetype of Beginnings, and Field, Form and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature and Psyche. His articles have appeared widely.
Muriel McMahon, a registered psychotherapist and Jungian analyst with a practice in Guelph, is helping to bring Conforti to the city. She called him “cutting-edge” in the field, saying he has brought a unique perspective to it for many years.
Conforti, she said, pays particular attention to patterns of behavior - fairly intricate, often unconscious patterns that can lead to repeating the same behaviours over and over again. We have a better chance of ceasing to engage in those behaviours if we understand the ancestral, societal, and personal roots of those patterns.
“That is when a light comes on in the consciousness,” McMahon said. “We do not have to be lived by these patterns. We begin to recognize that there is a choice.”
McMahon said in the early days of psychotherapy, practitioners took those archetypal patterns much more seriously.
“Now, a lot of psychotherapy is about customer satisfaction,” she said. “It’s about making people feel better quickly.”
But if the patterns are not understood and changed, very little will actually change in the individual’s life, she indicated.
Today, the Jungian word is wrapped up in the post-modernist mentality that encourages a very individualistic interpretation of nearly everything, she suggested. If you think a recurring dream about a dog is something positive, that is your choice. But in terms of archetypal patterns, that same dog dream may represent a destructive pattern.
She said when patterns continue to effect our life negatively it is necessary to go deeply into them to avoid living in the same way.
Conforti speaks “compassionately and controversially” about the failure of mainstream psychotherapy as it relates to personal and collective trauma. He weaves new science, archetypal psychology, and spirituality into his presentations.
To register contact www.sacredwisdomcentre.com/June10-11.html.
On Friday, June 10, Conforti’s talk “Trauma, Resilience and Healing” takes place at Dublin Street United Church, 7:30-9:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door.
On Saturday, June 11, he will host a workshop entitled “Deepening Our Understanding of Trauma, Resilence and Healing,” at St. Brigid’s Villa at the Ignatius Jesuit Centre. It happens in the morning from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The costs is $75 plus HST. There is a limit of 45 participants.
A colloquium for clinicians will follow from 2-5 p.m. on the clinical aspects of trauma, resilience and healing, also at St. Brigid’s. The cost is $120 plus HST.
Editor's note: The Venue for the Friday Night talk has changed from Dublin Street United Church to St. Brigid's Villa, Ignatius Jesuit Centre.
