Saturday Workshop: from 9:30am-5:30pm
Our bodies and dreams may be our closest links to the unconscious, expressing the soul’s longing through image, breath, gesture, the rhythm of our step, and the music of our speech. Movement that emerges from a genuine source within us, when made conscious and integrated into lived experience, is by its very nature transformative. Attending to the body allows the individual to more fully access the affects and energies expressed through the textures, imagery and unfolding action of the dream. Here, body and psyche can begin to work together. Gestures emerge that can guide us toward where our life energy is directing us.
Recent advances in developmental neuroscience point to the right brain’s receptivity to nonverbal elements such as facial expression, voice tone, movement, affect, music, imagery and the play of symbols in dreams and poetry. From our earliest beginnings, empathic relating by the other is an essential component in the formation of the self. Affective mirroring and embodied presence provide a foundation for the development of consciousness in the cells, and a sense of well being and belonging in the world. Sensitivity to the body can allow clinicians to attend to this language as it arises in our clients, and in ourselves, hearing the soul’s call and working with the obstacles to its fulfillment.
Rooted in C.G. Jung’s active imagination approach, ‘authentic movement’ introduces the person to the inner world of body sensation, feelings, and images as movement helps them build a bridge between body and psyche. Participants may explore essential elements in the dream through a safe, inner-directed process, in the presence of a witness. As the witness watches the mover’s dream unfold, the witness also pays attention to the dream’s impact on his/her own body and feelings (somatic countertransference). It is the attitude and experience of the witness/therapist that invites the body of the mover/client into the room, where potentials held in the dream may touch and awaken both people.
Elements from this practice may enhance your clinical practice by providing an increased sense of comfort with and appreciation for your own bodily wisdom and feeling responses. Expanded ways of seeing and enhanced awareness of the somatic foundations of the intersubjective relationship can deepen empathy and effectiveness in working with others, while providing avenues for self care and renewal.
Early shamans and traditional peoples from many cultures respected dreams as oracles. Ancient Greeks made pilgrimages to Aesclepian temples where dreams were incubated to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of physical and soul illnesses. Today, Authentic Movement and body-sensitive psychotherapy/analysis can provide a temenos where dreams may be further explored through movement that springs from an inner source.
This day-long experiential workshop will integrate theory and direct experience, inviting participants to engage the wisdom of their dream through embodied exploration. Through respectful inner listening, moving, witnessing, drawing and writing we will support the unfolding of a source that informs the self, relationship, and the natural world. No experience in dance is necessary – only curiosity, respect, and a bit of courage to open to the unknown.
Faculty
Tina Stromsted, Ph.D., is a Jungian Analyst and registered Dance Therapist with a private practice in San Francisco. Past co-founder and faculty of the Authentic Movement Institute in Berkeley, she teaches in the Somatic Psychology doctoral program at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, the Expressive Arts Therapy department at the California Institute of Integral Studies, the Leadership Training program in the Marion Woodman Foundation and other universities and healing centers internationally. With three decades of clinical experience, she is the author of numerous book chapters and articles in professional journals exploring the integration of body, mind, psyche and soul in clinical work. www.AuthenticMovement-BodySoul.com.
Location
Saturday workshop, May 1; 9:30am-5:30pm, The Firehouse, Fort Mason Center, SF. Buchanan St. & Marina Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94123,www.fortmason.org
For registration contact:
Baruch Gould, Director of Extended Education
C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco
2040 Gough Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (415) 771-8055
http://www.sfjung.org