This presentation will begin with a brief history of the origins and development of Jung’s notions of synchronicity and the psychoid. Complexity and field theories will then be used to contemporize these ideas. Examples of synchronistic phenomena from the presenter’s practice will be explored using this approach. Further selected examples from the history of culture (especially where artisans or artists were able to represent profound knowledge of highly-complex natural phenomena well ahead of any scientific understanding) indicating the reality of psychoid fields will be offered.
The lecture will be followed by a 15-minute Q&A session. Suggested reading for the lecture is the soon-to-be- published volume, The Self, Individuation, Communitas: Reflections on Fundamental Values in Analytical Psychology, edited by Murray Stein and Emilija Kiehl (Chiron Publications).
Participants will have the opportunity to explore the inner dynamics related to their helper role. Helpers, it’s your turn (to take space and care for yourselves)!
Some of the questions we will explore:
9 ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
I explain how the autonomous animus ‘function’ is both the drive to spiritual development as well as a requirement for mental health in order to create and be active/recognized in the world. The larger issue of how to work in the analytic process with gender is also important here. I will be looking at the question of understanding why gender is so central in our biological psyche and essential for our work on the dynamics of psychic energy. It promotes psychological health as well as individuation.
On the basis of Edinger’s Anatomy of the Psyche, we explore how alchemical operations describe fundamental emotional states and how these states promote psychological healing. We will learn about the operations through beautiful slides as well as personal reflection. Inner reflection exercises will be private and not shared, but we will also work together to explore the emotional states of each ‘operation’. Participants are asked to think of films, literature, fairy tales, and myths that capture the unique emotions of the operations. I will provide many clinical examples showing how mapping these states helps the analytic process.
ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
This seminar aims to explore psychological themes through the visual narrative structures of selected films. We will focus on a rather common theme in therapy: adolescence. We will use three films to discuss the personal and archetypal patterns of adolescence through the eye of the camera. The films will be shown at ISAP and will be followed by a discussion led by the presenters. We wish to provide the opportunity of the collective experience of viewing a film together followed by the chance to share ideas and impressions.
30 ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
This course requires extra work between sessions.
In the first double hour I will screen the film The Social Dilemma (94 minutes, no subtitles) to show how toxic attitudes and disinformation, especially conspiracy theories, are spreading so rapidly. In the second double hour we will explore why they are doing so from a Jungian perspective. We will update the impacts of AI and examine the collective shadow contents projected, and other psychodynamic processes, using examples such as QAnon, the “Plandemic,” climate denial and now overt political manipulation.
Read ‘The Conspiracy Theory Handbook’ (12pp) https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/scholcom/246/
ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
Jung said dreams are symbolic communications from the Self, compensating for the conscious attitude, arising from the collective unconscious, the place where the Unus Mundus – the world soul – speaks, as seen in Wolfgang Pauli’s dream of the world clock (which developed his thinking about the structure of the atom).
Our minds form symbols using the executive network, the salience network, and the default mode network. Dreams develop empathy, memory and creativity, and connect us to the spiritual life of our planet through the transcendent function.
This seminar is meant to help participants learn to recognize essential and symbolic elements of dreams and to decipher their meaning.
10 Training and Diploma Candidates
This course explores how Babylonian and Norse creation myths reveal deep psychological truths about trauma, consciousness, and the human struggle for order. Drawing from modern neuroscience and depth psychology, we examine how these ancient narratives foreshadow the brain’s response to crisis and power dynamics. With rising global autocracy, we analyze why societies turn to authoritarian figures, repeating mythic cycles of destruction and renewal in history and politics. We will also explore individuation as a counterforce, fostering awareness and resilience against collective regression.
Using myths, folk tales and other forms of storytelling, we will explore the personal, collective, and archetypal challenge of confronting the anima – or the feminine mode of being.
15 ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
This course requires extra work between sessions.
In this lecture the motif of the false bride will be explored through fairy tale and legend. How do we recognize and address the true and false brides within our clients and ourselves? Are these constructs still pertinent to us in a world of expanding sex and gender roles and freedom of expression? And if so, what implications might they offer for a richer and more integrated inner and outer marriage?
The lectures take a Jungian look at the Germanic cosmology, the main gods and the end of time. We will speak about neglected Germanic female and male archetypes and the consequences of cultural repression and mythological illiteracy. I will explain how the old Germanic culture created an unrecognised precondition of the modern world. I will develop the concept of cultural ecology, emphasizing Germanic female archetypes. And I will show how Odin’s self-sacrifice designates him to become the wounded healer par excellence and the archetypal image for the Analytical Psychologist.
We will look at the reflections of the pioneers of Art Brut. We will discuss the art works, the lives and personalities of some Art Brut/Outsider Art artists and examine how their art expresses their suffering and the existential meaning their art had in their lives.
What are the attitudes and skills required of the Jungian psychotherapist when working with drawings and paintings in the analytic setting?
We will be putting the knowledge gained in the “Introduction to Picture Interpretation” into practice. In small groups you will practice interpreting a picture series and then discuss your approach in the large group.
16 Training and Diploma Candidates
ISAP was given the original pictures made by David Blum when he faced terminal illness. David sought guidance and solace from his dreams and visions by painting them and engaging with the images through active imagination. The pictures speak to the joys, struggles, emotional turmoil, suffering, and wisdom David experienced. What insights and inspiration can this case study offer on healing and transformation in the journey unto death?
Attendance of lecture 04 18 “They Once Called It ‘The Art of The Insane’” is recommended. Location: Collection de l’Art Brut, 11 av. des Bergières, 1004 Lausanne. Participants are asked to register by 25 October 2025 at [email protected]. Train schedule information will be provided upon registration.
ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
We will discuss some pictures from a series to show the psychic progress of a patient. I will bring case examples. Please bring your own drawing material (colours and paper).
8 ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
CIPBS (Conflict, Imagination, Painting and Bilateral Stimulation) is a creative technique developed by C. Diegelmann. A stressful situation/feeling is transformed into a symbolic form and processed step-by- step with tapping, and the help of the unconscious. In this seminar we will learn this creative and helpful technique and have the opportunity to practice it in small groups. It can also be used as a gentle trauma confrontation. This creative tool can easily be integrated into an analytical process.
10 Diploma Candidates
Cultural identities and narratives have an essential impact on the self concepts of nations and their political behavior. In times of social media with mass manipulation, with reactivated enemy projections and digital anesthesia regarding war or ecocide, we see a revival of archaic archetypal patterns threatening the basics of democracy. Analytical Psychology can contribute to a better understanding of these dynamics and become a resource for inner balance.
Tarantismo was an archaic ritual practice involving music, dance, colors, and a variety of symbols, used to heal women of a mythical spider bite. It was a mythical spider because only in rare cases had these women been bitten by an actual arachnid, even if most insisted that they had. The lecture will examine the symbolic meaning of the bite and its ritual healing, and explore the power of the ecstatic dance and its ancient Greek and Christian roots.
30 years ago, Zürich suffered a collective trauma: “The Needle Park.” In a short historical overview, we will look at the challenges and changes on the collective level as well as my experiences as an addiction therapist.
In Ancestor Drama we try to bring the ancestors to life psychodramatically. We can set up our genogram, our family tree or parts of it and enter into a psychodramatic dialog with the characters.
8 Diploma Candidates
This myth of the Bush People tells how their deity Mantis creates the eland antelope—the most important food source to satisfy the basic hunger instinct. Yet Mantis is cast out by his family, causing him utmost anger, even suicidal melancholy. But a crucial moment forces him out of his solitude toward what Jung calls an archetypal image: he creates the Moon—the eternal symbol of death and rebirth—bringing light into darkness, consciousness into unconsciousness. His reflected light becomes an expression of what Jung calls “the instinct of reflection,” “the cultural instinct par excellence.”
This lecture will present some important aspects and examples of the traditional shamanic worldview from cultures around the globe. What do they have in common with Analytical Psychology? According to C.G. Jung, “shamanistic symbolism [...] is a projection of the individuation process.” Citing Mircea Eliade, Jung held that during the shamanic trance, shamans find their true self. The shamanic trance is similar to Jung’s Active Imagination.
At the end of the Septem Sermones ad Mortuos, we find a beautiful hymn, a poignant prayer to the one single Star in the zenith, to the one guiding God. “To this one God man shall pray... To him all love and worship is due.” It is your God, the true origin of life. This lecture will explore various passages in the Black Books and The Red Book which actually herald the dawn of a new stellar consciousness. The sun is no longer the primary symbol of the Self; rather it is the star. The sun has entered the underworld, the nocturnal world of the unconscious. This is the place of renewal.
Location: Psychology Club Zürich, Gemeindestrasse 27
This lecture offers an introduction to mysticism, with examples from Christianity and other world religions. Evelyn Underhill’s classical definition of mysticism implies a “surrender... to ultimate Reality... from an instinct of love” (Mysticism, 1911).
Jung wrote his major work Mysterium Coniunctionis about the alchemical union, the “central mystical experience of enlightenment ... aptly symbolized by Light in most of the numerous forms of mysticism” (CW XI, §828). A second lecture, which follows in spring 2026, will study the relationship between Jungian psychology and mysticism and its relevance in analysis.
This seminar is intended to help those students who will be presenting their Word Association Experiments later this semester. We will review the steps involved in the evaluation of the data, working with the Excel sheet, and the grouping into complexes.
8 Diploma Candidates
I will illustrate how complexes function using the example of giants in fairy tales. I will include a thorough review of the Word Association Experiment (if needed) and the dynamic structures of the psyche as they are involved in complexes and their activation. For me complex theory is one of the most practical and useful of Jung’s insights. I will give many clinical examples of how complexes work and how to deal with them. As a couples therapist for 15 years, I found this approach one of the most powerful tools for the couples themselves. I will also look at neuroscience as a central aspect of psychiatry that substantiates Jung’s theories.
Participants must have attended an introductory seminar and administered the WAE. A draft of the WAE report is to be submitted to the course leaders and fellow participants by 1st Oct. Mutual discussion deepens the experience of each WAE, and allows for revision of the reports.
Studierende, die das A.E. Seminar auf Deutsch absolvieren möchten, mögen sich bitte melden bei:
Katharina Casanova, [email protected]
8 Diploma Candidates
This lecture provides a comprehensive review of Jung’s theory of autonomous complexes, exploring their structure, function, and impact on the psyche. Complexes operate independently of the ego, influencing perception, behavior, and emotional states. Using Rumi’s “Guest House” as a metaphor, we will examine how these psychic entities shape experience and how awareness of them can lead to greater psychological differentiation. Through a detailed exploration of Jung’s writings, this lecture offers a deeper understanding of the complex as a fundamental mechanism of the psyche.
We will use an initial dream and paintings to explore topics in the analytical relationship such as attachment, the search for the ‘good enough mother,’ participation mystique, and the constellation of the Self. The emphasis of the course is on a case history; it serves as an example of the exposure of an individual with a fragile ego structure to the Collective Unconscious.
11 Training and Diploma Candidates
Is moral development falling into the collective shadow? In light of what Jung had to say about the development of conscience, we will examine the work of Lawrence Kohlberg (1927–1987) on moral development and education; this work was influenced by Piaget and critiqued by Carol Gilligan. I will supplement the topic with findings from neuroscience.
This lecture will describe how an inner authoritarian system of dissociative defenses, typical of traumatized individuals, compromises the democratic nature of the psyche and tyrannizes it with fearful authoritarian “voices.” When a culture suffers traumatic anxiety, the same authoritarian system structures its cultural narrative and leads to the extremism and polarization we see today in the West.
Through the symbolism of a strange animal and one of the seven sins, this lecture explores the nature of regression, depression, introversion, and their role in the ego’s relationship with the Self.
We shall dive into this controversial concept through three case presentations within a Jungian framework and without.
ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
This course will help candidates prepare for an internship in a medical or clinical setting. We will discuss safety, confidentiality, privacy, conducting clinical interviews, working on a treatment team, building rapport/alliance, diagnostics and assessment and documentation. Candidates who have not had past clinical experience should consider this course prior to their first internship.
24 ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
This course is about learning to recognize, explore, name, understand and document psychopathological symptoms. The seminar is a preparation for the Propaedeuticum Exam “Fundamentals of Psychiatry and Psychopathology.” A candidate will be invited to interview a patient from my practice in the last session.
Training and Diploma Candidates
This course requires extra work between sessions.
Sexuality remains a sensitive topic that is often avoided in psychotherapy. Many individuals feel uncertain or fearful about their sexual attractions. In this workshop we confront this avoidance by addressing various paraphilias including the delicate issue of paedophilia (that can especially lead to harmful situations). We will look at the development of paraphilias, explore their Jungian symbolism, and learn how to work with clients (of every gender) suffering from these attractions in a non- judgmental manner. Join us as we tackle this challenging yet crucial aspect of therapeutic practice.
We feel cultural foundations we have relied upon are upended: polarization, violent projections, anxiety abound. Have we access now to truth? Gifts psyche offers are creative gestures, found in energy from recalling projections, from exploring integrative projections, from locality and naming, and in new forms of communication and of liberation from destructive complexes.
As Jungian analysts from Japan and the Philippines, we aim to highlight that the individuation process in East Asian cultures occurs differently and appears differently from what Jung suggested. In East Asia, individuation does not necessarily mean becoming an individual who differentiates him/herself from others. Rather, becoming conscious of being both an individual and a part of the collective, as well as striving for both individual and collective growth, is a more central concern. This lecture seeks to enrich the imaginative and creative space surrounding what the individuation process could be.
This presentation highlights and explores in depth two themes: the role of the productive imagination and the particularly analytical concepts of relationship – for the unconscious, between analyst and analysand, and for the individual in society. Jungian psychology, uniquely, initiates a dialogue between the reproductive and the productive imagination modeled in alchemy. Similarly, a creative dialogic relationship with the unconscious is fostered through the analytical process. Both imagination and relationship form healing modalities for the individual and for their role in society.
The psyche is a self-regulating system. So, too, is nature. What happens to the psyche when nature is no longer self-regulating? What happens to the natural world when the psyche is no longer self-regulating? What does the possible demise of the natural world constellate in the psyche, and what role might analytical psychology play when considering this outcome?
With tenderness and curiosity toward our psyche, we will use various modes of active imagination to uncover and acknowledge unclaimed aspects of ourselves. We will seek to become more conscious and accepting of our hopes, fears, wounds, and creative potential, and thereby become more alive and authentic. Participants are asked to bring lunch and contribute CHF 15 for art materials.
8 ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
This lecture is the culmination of an extensive collaboration between an architect and an analyst. I will present the story of Jung’s tower as it is represented in Jungian literature along with an architectural understanding of the place. This lecture will review the history of the tower, its meaning to Jung and its meaning as Jung’s “confession of faith in stone.”
A panel of four analysts (Dariane Pictet, Deborah Egger, Paul Brutsche and Bernard Sartorius) speak to the question from their own perspective and from their experience and interests. This will be followed by a time for discussion among the panelists and with the audience. The discussion is moderated by Murray Stein.
Location: Psychology Club Zürich, Gemeindestrasse 27
The astrological sign of Aquarius represents a human figure pouring water from a jug into the mouth of a fish. C.G. Jung calls this figure Anthropos, an image of the greater human being in us, or, we might say, the collective unconscious or “everything human” in us. The Anthropos embraces the opposites of the human psyche and is the origin of the human capacity for empathy and relatedness as well as the emotional brutality and fanaticism of mass man in our time. For Jung the union of opposites was a lifelong concern.
Location: Psychology Club Zürich, Gemeindestrasse 27
Despite all the gifts of our intellectual education, many of us have become profoundly disconnected from our bodies. Have you ever wondered why the term “vulva energy” is not as commonly used in psychoanalytic discourse as “phallic energy”? How can we navigate both our inner and outer worlds simultaneously—and truly expand?
Within the feminine core resides a powerful force of life, death and regeneration—a sacred rhythm centered in the pelvic floor, often called a woman’s second heart, a Holy Grail. Unlike the physical heart, however, this center requires conscious engagement—an intentional ebb and flow, contraction and expansion—to remain vibrant and alive. Let’s expand together.
ISAP Students (MA, TC, DC)
Longing played a crucial role for Jung: “Yearning is the way of life. If you do not acknowledge your yearning, then [...] you do not live your life.” (Red Book, pp. 249–250). Longing was also essential for many medieval mystics, e.g. John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, Meister Eckhart and Rumi. The lecture will explore the nature of longing and its significance for individuation and spiritual development, through the writings of various mystics as well as of Jung.
The method of Active Imagination that Jung practiced in his Red Book is introduced using elements from Michael Harner’s “core shamanism”; the latter is similar to Jung’s Active Imagination. Harner’s method allows participants to discover and enter into a relationship with a rich inner spiritual world, with its landscapes and helpful figures, such as animals and teachers. (Students who have not attended this course in autumn 2023 or spring 2025 will be given priority.)
10 Training and Diploma Candidates
This seminar will be a discussion of the differences between analysis and psychotherapy and the necessity of each analyst to be prepared to be a psychotherapist, regardless of what you are called or what the licensing authorities authorize as terminology.
Training and Diploma Candidates
This course requires extra work between sessions.
This seminar, for training and diploma candidates, is intended to supplement your theoretical knowledge of sex as encountered in your Jungian and Analytical Psychology training with other psychodynamic theories and research. The goal is for you to become more broadly acquainted with the phenomenology of sex in everyday life and as sex emerges within the consulting room.
10 Training and Diploma Candidates
This course requires extra work between sessions.
In each session two training analysts use one case vignette to show their considerations in working with the client, with a special focus on transference/countertransference. With: Ursula Ulmer, John Desteian, Ursula Wirtz, Christiana Ludwig, Deborah Egger and Ilsabe von Uslar. Please mind the early hour.
16 Training and Diploma Candidates
Nur für Diplomkandidat/innen. Anmeldung und Bezahlung direkt bei der Kolloquiumsleitung. Mindestens vier Anmeldungen sind erforderlich, damit ein Kolloquium stattfinden kann. Kolloquien werden nicht im Kalender aufgeführt, da die genauenTermine noch offen bzw. Änderungen vorbehalten sind. Alle Änderungen unterliegen der Verantwortung der Kolloquiumsleitung.
For Diploma Candidates only. Registration and payment directly with colloquium leader. At least four registrations are required for a colloquium to take place. Colloquia are not shown in the calendar as timing is either unspecified or subject to change. Any changes are the responsibility of the colloquium leader.
The participants are invited to experience the Balint intervision method.
Location: Steinbrüchelstrasse 64, 8053 Zürich
Registration: +41 (0)44 383 13 63
[email protected]
6 Diploma Candidates
This colloquium will seek to bring awareness to conscious, semiconscious and unconscious elements of nonverbal communication including, but not limited to, facial expression, eye contact, tone of voice, touch, gestures, personal space and constellated field energy.
The colloquium will be offered twice: for a first group on Oct 20 and 21, and a second group on Oct 27 and 28, each day from 10:00–16:00.
Location: Rietstrasse 3, 8712 Stäfa
Registration: [email protected]
7 Diploma Candidates
This colloquium will seek to bring awareness to conscious, semiconscious and unconscious elements of nonverbal communication including, but not limited to, facial expression, eye contact, tone of voice, touch, gestures, personal space and constellated field energy.
The colloquium will be offered twice: for a first group on Oct 20 and 21, and a second group on Oct 27 and 28, each day from 10:00–16:00.
Location: Rietstrasse 3, 8712 Stäfa
Registration: [email protected]
7 Diploma Candidates
Case Colloquium with emphasis on the Individuation Process.
Location: ISAPZURICH, S3
Registration: [email protected]
6 Diploma Candidates
This is an ongoing case colloquium with emphasis on psychopathology, psychiatric cases, and/or cases and topics corresponding to the candidates’ wishes, interests, and requests.
Dates and times of the sessions are agreed with the participants upon registration.
Location: Stampfenbachstrasse 123, 8006 Zürich
Registration: [email protected]
Diploma Candidates
This course requires extra work between sessions.
Case colloquium concentrating on frame, transference, counter-transference, diagnosis of intrapsychic dynamics and interpretational interactions.
The date/s and time/s are to be decided among the registrants.
Location: to be decided
Registration: [email protected]
8 Diploma Candidates
Für die detaillierten Bestimmungen siehe das Ausbildungsregulativ 7.2.3.8: Kandidat/innen können sich minimal 20 bis maximal 30 Stunden separater und paralleler Ausdruckstherapie auf die reguläre Lehranalyse anrechnen lassen, vorausgesetzt dass sowohl der/die Lehranalytiker/in als auch der/die Analytiker/in für Ausdruckstherapie informiert sind. Alle angerechneten Stunden dürfen nur bei einem/r der unten aufgeführten Analytiker/innen und Therapieformen absolviert werden. Kurse in Ausdruckstherapie werden nicht im Kalender aufgeführt, da die genauen Termine noch offen bzw. Änderungen vorbehalten sind. Alle Änderungen unterliegen der Verantwortung der Ausdruckstherapie-Leitung.
See the Training Regulations 7.2.3.8 for the detailed provisions: Candidates have the possibility to count a minimum of 20 hours and maximum 30 hours of separate and parallel expressive therapy toward their regular training analysis, provided that both the Training Analyst and the analyst for expressive therapy are informed. All credited hours must be completed with only one of the analysts and with one type of expressive therapy, as listed below. Expressive Therapy courses are not shown in the calendar as timing is either unspecified or subject to change. Any changes are the responsibility of the Expressive Therapy leader.
Maria Anna Bernasconi
Expressive Arts Therapy (ISIS)
Kunst- und Ausdrucksorientierte Psychotherapie (ISIS)
Marco Della Chiesa
Psychodrama
Psychodrama
Verena Osterwalder-Bollag
Therapeutic Sandplay (D. Kalff)
Therapeutisches Sandspiel nach D. Kalff
Christa Robinson
Group Processes Using the I Ching
Gruppenprozesse mit dem I Ging
Erhard Trittibach
Therapeutic Sandplay (D. Kalff)
Therapeutisches Sandspiel nach D. Kalff
Joanne Wieland-Burston
Active Imagining with Objects
Aktives Imaginieren mit Gegenständen