The Collective Unconscious in the Age of Neuroscience: 

​

Severe Mental Illness and Jung in the 21st Century

 

Presented by
Hallie Beth Durchslag, PhD, LISW-S

 

Sunday, June 26, 2022, 10:00 am - 3:30 pm PDT (UTC - 7)

​

(with an hour long lunch break around noon PDT)

​

NOTE EARLIER START TIME THAN USUAL:  10 AM PDT

​

link to video 

To protect the privacy of audience members, the Q&A was not recorded.  

​

Is all psychosis the same? Depth psychology treats it as such, yet medical models of severe mental illness say different. While medication can be a dirty word in Jungian circles, some disorders cannot be treated without it. Is there common ground? Can Jung’s bedrock notion of a collective unconscious coexist within scientific advances that have occurred since his death? The answer is a resounding yes. This program will explore the remarkable prescience of Jung’s work, how medical models actually advance his theory, and the challenges and opportunities for analytical psychology moving forward.

Join us for a personal journey of enchantment, then disillusionment with Jungian practice through the presenter’s own struggle with bipolar I disorder and psychosis. The research Dr. Durchslag will share was born out of the lived conundrum of reconciling medical and depth psychological models of treatment. In the end, her journey led to a renewed and deeper connection to Carl Jung’s body of work.

 

This program will allow participants to view these questions through an analysis of four autobiographical narratives, including the presenter’s, which highlight the consistency of connection to numinous and transpersonal collective material. A brief overview of medications used in the treatment of severe mental illness will offer a vision of how this transcendent material appears to manifest at a physiological level, and shed light on Jung’s later exploration of synchronicity and the ultimate unity between psyche and matter. 

​

Learning objectives:   

• Define severe mental illness from the perspective of both medical and depth psychological models.

• Using case material, identify challenges for depth psychology in regard to bipolar I disorder and schizophrenia.

• Acquire a basic understanding of current medications for the treatment of severe mental illness.

• Using case material, explain how severe mental illness aligns with basic tenets of analytical psychology.

• Build dialogue related to human physiology and a collective psyche.

​

Hallie Beth Durchslag, PhD, LISW-S, lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, where she teaches, writes, and maintains a private practice as a Jungian-based, psychodynamic psychotherapist. She began her career as a social worker in the arena of Community Development after earning a Master of Science in Social Administration at Case Western Reserve University (1999). Shifting toward a clinical practice in 2009, she earned her PhD in Clinical Psychology with an Emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute (2015). Dr. Durchslag has an abiding interest in the complexity of what makes us both human and transcendent beings. Her research over the past 10 years has looked at this subject through the lens of severe mental illnesses and their physiological connection to Jungian theory. Her book, The Collective Unconscious in the Age of Neuroscience: Severe Mental Illness and Jung in the 21st Century (Routledge) was released in July 2020. She maintains her commitment to the macro side of social work as the curator of The Anima Mundi Project, which looks at soul-based approaches to holistic personal development and community-building. She is a Past-President and current Honorary Board member of the Jung Educational Center of Cleveland.

​

Purchase Hallie Durchslag’s book from Amazon

Hallie Durchslag’s website