Contact hours:  4 CE contact hours for Licensed NYS Social Workers, Psychoanalysts and Creative Arts Therapists for this program.

Jung wrote, “So difficult is it to understand a dream that for a long time I have made it a rule, when someone tells me a dream and asks for my opinion, to say first of all to myself: ‘I have no idea what this dream means.’ After that, I can begin to examine the dream.” Dreams are indeed difficult to understand. Jung’s method of working with dreams invites us to deepen into their mystery but sometimes it can be difficult to know how to get started. Especially when working with long or difficult dreams, how can we find a toehold?

In this workshop, we will explore working with dreams using a series of prompts that can challenge the ego’s stuck thinking to open up the meaning of dreams. We’ll focus on areas of dreamwork that can be especially challenging, including complex dreams and anima/animus dreams. We’ll focus on the dream’s structure as well as the role of emotions in dreams.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

1.Explore the difference between a symbol and a sign and learn to avoid a key mistake in working with dreams.

2.Discuss three tools that can quickly open up a dream’s meaning.

3.Illustrate methods of working with long and complex dreams.

4.Demonstrate techniques for working with emotion in dreams.

5.Consider ways of conceptualizing anima and animus in dreams.

Assignment:                           

Please bring several dreams with you that we will work on. These can be your own dreams, or client dreams, or a combination. You will have a chance to share these dreams with the group but will not be required to.

Required Readings:               

Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams by Lisa Marchiano, Deb Stewart, and Joseph Lee. Sounds True, 2024.  Chapters 2, 5, 6, and 9

Supplemental Readings  If you have time, read the rest of the book. 

Lisa Marchiano, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, and certified Jungian analyst in private practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She received her MSW from New York University and completed analytic training at the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. She is on the faculty of the Philadelphia Jung Institute and is currently a doctoral candidate at the Boston Graduate School for Psychoanalysis.  She is the author of Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself, The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire, and the forthcoming The Dreamwork Deck: 63 Jungian Key to Unlock the Meaning of Your Dreams. She is the coauthor of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams and the co-creator of Dream School, an online program that teaches people how to work with their dreams.  She is also a host of the widely acclaimed depth-psychology podcast This Jungian Life, which has reached a broad international audience and become an important public forum for Jungian thought. She has lectured widely both in the US and abroad, and hosts popular women’s retreats.