Jungian Psychotherapists Association presents the following public seminar for professionals, with Margaret Wilkinson.

Narrative and metaphor are relatively new areas of exploration in neuroscience, but significant ones for the therapist. Just as metaphor lights up more centers of brain activity than any other form of human communication, so also does story, which often relies on metaphor to develop aspects of the narrative. Therapy is very much concerned with the personal story of the client, so these are exciting areas of development for the therapist to explore. Affective experience, meaning-making process and emergent sense of self, that are the hallmarks of coherent narrative as it develops in the consulting-room, all arise in the right hemisphere and draw upon the linguistic capabilities of the left to produce the story.

Patients' initial trauma narratives may have confusing and distracting elements, a disjointed rather than coherent quality, and be intruded upon by flash backs. Therapy brings about transformations by engaging the emotions that underlie patients' stories; such transformations often announce themselves through metaphor.

Morning session: The Neuroscience of Narrative: Experience, Memory, and Meaning-Making

Afternoon session: Metaphor and Metamorphosis: Attachment, Affect Regulation, and Trauma, a Clinical Perspective

Learning principles: By the end of the day, participants should be able to:

1. Demonstrate critical awareness of the effects of mother-baby interactions on early brain development, attachment patterns, and developing a sense of self.
2. Demonstrate critical awareness of the neuroscience of narrative, right-brain function, implicit and explicit in coding of experience and the development of the innerself.
3. Reflect on and critically appraise the way in which these may inform clinical practice.
   
   

When: Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (luncheon provided); bring cushion for hard chairs

Where: Bloedel Hall at St. Mark's Cathedral, 1245 10th Ave. East, Seattle, WA (Capitol Hill). Parking available adjacent to the hall.

For more information, and a registration form, download the Adobe Acrobat (PDF) brochure.

Alternatively, to register online using PayPal, use this form.

Registration:

• Advanced general registration, postmarked by 10/15/2009: $100
• General on-site registration or postmarked after 10/15/2009: $115
• Advanced student registration (postmarked by 10/15/2009): $50
• General student registration (after 10/15/2009): $75
• Advanced JPA member registration (postmarked by 10/15/2008): $60
• General JPA registration (after 10/15/2009): $75

6.5 CE credits are available.

Margaret Wilkinson is a professional member of the Society of Analytical Psychology and of the Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy, in private practice in North Derbyshire, England. She is assistant editor of The Journal of Analytical Psychology and the author of numerous papers. Her book, Coming Into Mind: The Mind-Brain Relationship: A Jungian Clinical Perspective, was published by Routledge in 2006. Her new book, Changing Minds in Therapy: Emotion, Attachment, Trauma and Neurobiology, will be published by Norton this year as part of their Inter-personal Neurobiology series. She lectures internationally on the application of insights from contemporary neuroscience, trauma theory, and attachment research to psychodynamic counseling and psychotherapy.