Integrating Psychoanalytic Theory - 2 x 45 minute sessions- Archetypes of Home and Homelessness: Social Displacement, Alteric Spaces, and the Trauma of the Unhoused - Claude Barbre, MDiv, PhD, LP
- Alfred Adler's Understanding of Extreme States - Thomas Federn, MDiv, MS
Archetypes of Home and Homelessness: Social Displacement, Alteric Spaces, and the Trauma of the Unhoused - Claude Barbre, MDiv, PhD, LPArchetypes are often defined as universal, inherited ideas, patterns of thought, or images that are present in the collective unconscious of all human beings—literal, symbolic, and psychic. In essence, archetypes are the deepest paradigms of psychic functions, reflecting the perspective we have of ourselves and the world. As James Hillman notes, “all ways of speaking of archetypes are translations from one metaphor to another… and these perspectives offer the advantage of organizing into clusters of constellations a host of metaphors and events from different areas of life” (Hillman, 1989). In this presentation we will explore the archetypes of home and homelessness, and the social complexes that occur in response to these collective primordial images. The archetype of home as a container, or a place to which one can belong, also suggests a “narrative reality” (Hill, 2010) that describes how we attach to a place, a person, an object, a nation, a group, a culture or an ideal” (Bright, 2014). As Bright notes, “home is a word weighted with affect and associated with rootedness, attachment, belonging, shelter, refuge, comfort, and identity” (Bright, 2014). Conversely, a severed connection to home creates emotional and psychological implications. Homelessness symbolizes a state of disconnection, both externally and internally. As Lee says, “Homelessness ranges from temporarily unsheltered individuals between jobs or homes to chronically unhoused individuals who spend years without stable housing” (Lee, 2023) Hence, traumatic and psychological distress (e.g. Enreiss, or “tears in the psyche”) accompany conditions of homelessness, as found in the etymological meaning of the word “uncanny” that literally means “homelessness at home.” In this presentation we will explore the psychological and spiritual implications of home and homelessness, particularly the archetypal images of the Outcast, Stranger, and Scapegoat that reflect the power of personified images of alteric spaces and homelessness.
Alfred Adler's Understanding of Extreme States - Thomas Federn, MDiv, MSAlfred Adler (1870 to1937) was one of the first four individuals to meet regularly with Sigmund Freud to discuss Freud’s ideas. These meetings began in 1902. Eventually, in 1911, because he disagreed with too many of them for comfort, he and some likeminded fellow members left what by then had become the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and founded what became known as the second of the three psychological schools of Vienna, the Society for Individual Psychology. Like those of Freud, Adler’s ideas ended up being disseminated throughout the entire world.
Adler believed that all the emotional difficulties of a person stemmed from feelings of inferiority acquired during early childhood. In order to compensate for these at times devastating negative feelings, a person engaged in what Adler called “masculine protest,“ a socioeconomic term which refers to the unfortunately still very prevalent inferior position of women in society. Adler believed that the goal of all psychotherapy was to help the individual overcome their need to be superior to others and to replace this need with a sense of community that involved a feeling of self-worth grounded in belonging to one’s own family and community. In order to achieve this end psychotherapy needed the help of both of these to motivate the person to abandon their “masculine protest” against their feelings of inferiority. Last but certainly not least, Adler believed that the individual was not just an aggregate of individual mental and emotional actions but a unified whole. Hence the name of the school of individual psychology.
My presentation will be comprised of three parts. First a brief one, placing Adler in his historical context. Then a longer summary of his basic ideas and finally then an even longer description of how to apply these ideas when one assists persons experiencing extreme states.
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