March 7-8, 2008: Jacqueline West

LECTURE

The intense and compelling paintings of Frida Kahlo provide us with a rich context to begin an exploration of archetypal and developmental aspects of character structures. Accompanied by numerous images of both Frida and her paintings, on Friday night Dr. West will address how Frida's life and work may be seen as a remarkably courageous attempt to wrestle with the chaos of borderline experience. By embracing her own individuality, however cruel was her experience of it, Frida endured extraordinarily challenging encounters with the gods. Dr. West will suggest that she emerged from these encounters with a strengthened ego, along with access to more developed defenses.

WORKSHOP

In the Saturday workshop, we will look at how Frida Kahlo's basic relational pattern may be seen as a portrait of one of three identifiable relational patterns that inform our character structures. Dr. West will describe each of these structures and their underlying archetypal landscapes through various fairytales, myths, and other artists' works, again, accompanied by numerous images. Following the essential Jungian premise that we transform through deeply meeting ourselves, we will employ these perspectives on character to reflect upon ourselves individually, as well as upon the state of our world at this time.

JACQUELINE J. WEST, Ph.D., is a Jungian Analyst practicing in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is past President and past Training Director of the New Mexico Society of Jungian Analysts and is a Senior Training Analyst in the New Mexico Society, as well as in the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. She is co-author, along with Jungian Analyst Nancy Dougherty, of The Matrix and Meaning of Character: An Archetypal and Developmental Perspective - Searching for the Wellsprings of Spirit.