Lecture: Friday, October 20, 7 to 9 p.m.
Good Shepherd Center, Room 202, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N., Seattle
$10 members, $15 nonmembers
2 CEUs
Reductionism is a cognitive attitude that is typical of Western thinking. It
replaces different kinds of experience and points of view with one alone. It
seduces the observer with its functionality but impoverishes the observed
object. It starts already with ancient Greek philosophy but explodes with
Decartes, whose cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) reduces the psyche to the conscious ego
(hence psychoanalysis has to be invented).
Gradually, the West reduces narration to entertainment and art to investment. Racism and other degenerations of the social fabric reduce the neighbor to the “other.” Consumerism and the repression of rituals, particularly those surrounding death, reduce life to the “here and now.” The loss of the symbolic dimension reduces our experience to the materialistic dimension. Loneliness and depression of modern humans can be discussed from this perspective. The confrontation between the holist and the reductionist perspectives can be summarized by the confrontation between Sophocles’ heroine Antigone and her sister Ismene.
Note: The Jungian Psychotherapists Association is sponsoring a public event with Dr. Luigi Zoja on October 21, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.: "Archetype of the Father, Past and Present: A Contemporary Role Clarification." For more information, see the event Web page.
Luigi Zoya, Ph.D., is a Training Analyst of C.G. Jung Institute - Zurich and Past President of CIPA (Centro Italiano di Psicologia Analitica). Past President of IAAP (International Association of Analytical Psychology) and current Chair of the International Ethics Committee of the same. Former teaching activity at the School of Psychiatry of the Faculty of Medicine, State University of Palermo. Clinical practice in Zurich, then private practice in New York and currently in Milan. Diploma in Analytical Psychology of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich. Lectures at the same and at Institutes and Universities in Italy and abroad. Author of papers and books, published in Italian, English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, Lithuanian and Slovenian. Books in English: Drugs, Addiction and Initiation, 1st ed. Sigo Press, Boston 1989, 2d ed. Daimon, Einsiedeln 2000; Growth and Guilt, Routledge, London and New York 1995; The Father: Historical, Psychological, and Cultural Perspectives, Routledge, 2001; Jungian Reflections on September 11: A Global Nightmare (ed.) Daimon, Einsiedeln 2002.
This program has been approved for 2.0 CEU’s by the Washington Chapter, National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for Licensed Social Workers, Licensed Marriage & Family Therapists and Licensed Mental Health Counselors. Provider number is #1975-157. The cost to receive a certificate is as follows: 2 units for the Friday lecture $10.00.
Updated: 17 August, 2006
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