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Recently: Dreaming to express yourself in ways you can’t say

Posted on March 20, 2008 by Staff

By Valarie Schwartz 

We all have dreams.

Besides the big ones, like world peace, there are the ones that come with sleep, serving as guides or revelations into our unconscious.

“Dreams don’t tell us things we already know about ourselves,” Marilyn Dyer told me. “What would be the point — they’d be a waste of time.”

Dyer, being one who seldom wastes time, waited only four years after moving to Chapel Hill in 1979 before starting the C.G. Jung Society of the Triangle. She had lived all over the world with her Foreign Service officer husband before they moved here.

“I’m a layperson with a great interest in psychology and what makes people tick,” Dyer said from her Carol Woods home. “I’m a logical person to come to town and start a Jung Society!”

It served to lead her to local Jungians — therapists who follow the “depth psychology” Jung approach, which involves digging deeper into the psychic layers to find answers that we have blocked ourselves from knowing.

Dyer refers to a classic case where a painter, who was blocked in his creative process, decided to try Jungian analysis and learned that the root of his problem was that his marriage of 15 years had never been consummated. Imagine that — and how deeply an abnormality like that would have to be pushed down in order to continue in a marital union without such physical expression.

A Jungian therapist helps people find the way to their secrets and then to make the changes necessary to alter the dysfunction.

Each fourth week of the month, those who practice the theories, and those like Dyer, for whom it holds great interest, gather to hear a lecture on Friday evening and/or attend a workshop on Saturday. The guest speakers offer a variety of topics for people to explore.

The 25th anniversary event on March 28 and 29 will feature Dr. Thomas B. Kirsch, a man who not only has been treating patients since the mid-1960s, but who is the son of two first-generation Jungian analysts. After moving from London to Los Angeles, Kirsch helped found the Jung Institute of Los Angeles. Besides growing up surrounded by Jungians, Kirsch met Carl Jung in 1955 on Jung’s 80th birthday, helping to seal his devotion to the practice he will share on Friday night in a talk titled, “The Legacy of C.G. Jung.” The Saturday workshop is “Working with Dreams,” where Kirsch, who practices in San Francisco, will discuss recent scientific findings in the study of dreams before discussing Jung’s view of that subject to which he owed his existence.

The usual $15 fee for the Friday night event at 7:30 will be waived in celebration of the anniversary, but the $48 fee will be charged for Saturday’s workshop, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., all at Binkley Baptist Church.

Dyer started the society hoping “that since other places had one, in a community like this it would take hold and bloom — and it did,” she said.

During its charter year, there were 110 members, which over the years peaked at 365, but generally there are about 200. Members pay a reduced fee at events and have access to a library of taped lectures.

See the schedule of speakers at www.jungnc.org or call 483-9722.

Contact Valarie Schwartz
at 923-3746 or valariekays@mac.com.

1 thought on “Recently: Dreaming to express yourself in ways you can’t say”

  1. Paul Peterson says:
    March 20, 2008 at 12:59 pm

    That is very interesting. I have always had a fascination with the Jungian approach and dream symbolism in general. Keep up the good work!
    Paulie from the snakepit

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