I invite you to step into the labyrinth of the unconscious for a deeper exploration of love’s rich and multifaceted dynamics. Come and be introduced to some of the profound and often misunderstood psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and their contemporaries James Hillman, Christine Downing, and Marion Woodman. Learn about the perils and powers of projection and projective identification, explore the archetypal patterns that influence love and relationships, and discover the myths and fairy tales behind different types of sexual attractions. Become empowered with deeper insights into your own relationship patterns and history, and move forward with expanded levels of choice.
The Paradoxes of Love
Perhaps no single arena of human existence has been as paradoxically confounding as romantic love. Our experiences can oscillate between intoxicating ecstatic heights at one end of the spectrum and abduction into an agonizing inferno at the other. How do we reconcile the opposites that love inevitably evokes: ecstasy and agony, satiation and frustration, peace and dysregulation, a sense of being found and a fear of being lost? Over the thousands of years since the conception of courtly love, the words written in poems, songs, love letters, novels, plays, and film scripts on the depths and heights of romantic misadventures could fill several large stadiums. During my 20+ years of working with clients in my psychoanalytic practice, difficulty with love is perhaps the most persistently recurring theme.
In Search of the Magical Other: Anima/Animus
The high rate of divorce in contemporary western society is common knowledge. Yet despite the consistent patterns of repeated wounding that accompany failed relationship after failed relationship, we remain largely undeterred in our pursuit of finding “the one” — that magical other who brings the promise of the everlasting union we so deeply yearn for. How many vows have been broken, though spoken with absolute conviction and certainty in the moment? How many dreams have been lost? How many loves betrayed? I often see two extremes in my work: individuals obsessively pursuing the exuberant phases of romance and engaging with an endless parade of partners; and couples who find themselves locked in rigid patterns that deplete their life force.
Are Vital Relationships Truly Possible?
What are the underlying components and dynamics of a sustainable loving relationship? Are there levels of love? What characteristics allow one to be capable of truly loving another? As the poet Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, “For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work
