Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Individuation: Colonization or Decolonization of the Psyche? An Indigenous, Animist Inquiry
Presenter: Dylan Martinez Francisco, Ph.D.
Friday, January 24, 2025 7:00 pm Eastern (approx. 2-2 1/2 hours)
I thought this event might be of interest to our group, because we ourselves may be a Power with respect to indigenous peoples and culture. And I believe indigenous people have much to teach us with regard to care of the earth. Devastation from storms and wildfires is a reminder of the impact of climate change on the earth that sustains us–making this issue the most important one confronting us apart from the consciousness that created it, in my opinion.
Culture colors how we understand and engage with depth psychological concepts. This is particularly true of C. G. Jung’s perspective on individuation—the movement towards the realization of psychological wholeness. The depth psychological community must critically evaluate Western culture’s influence on how individuation is conceptualized, so that we do not enact ways of relating to the psyche that only perpetuate unconscious colonialist assumptions and attitudes—that inflict a hierarchical process of subjugation and dominance over psychological realities. Dylan Martinez Francisco’s presentation will provide a detailed inquiry into how to recognize colonialist assumptions and attitudes carried by popular notions of individuation, and provide a detailed counterpoint from an Indigenous, animist perspective on how individuation can be engaged in a way that embodies a liberatory approach to the psyche—and therefore to other humans, and the animated world—since how we relate to the psyche becomes paradigmatic for how we relate to all of life.
Dylan Martinez Francisco, Ph.D., is co-chair and a core professor of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies specialization in the Depth Psychology M.A./Ph.D. program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. Dylan grounds his teaching in the depth psychology of C. G. Jung, decolonialism, and Mestizo/Mexican/Indigenous traditions that provide a primordial, holistic, and sacred worldview within which to understand the psyche, to embody its wholeness individually, and to live it relationally through honoring Spirit, the ancestors, and the land.
You may register for this (virtual) event at the Charlotte Friends of Jung website. Single event fee is $25 and family membership for a year is $74. Membership also gives you access to recordings of prior events.
Bob, did you attend this event? It sounds like it would have been intriguing.
I did not attend the live event, but I plan to watch the recording!
For me it is SURREAL that our indigenous people are the ones on the front lines fighting the hardest battles for us. Dying first. Warning us to save our nest. It’s heartbreaking. Shameful. We are deeply distorted and cannot find the road to recovery. For all our sophistication, WE are the problem. And all this STUFF doesn’t make us healthy or happy. ENOUGH. When will we call it out? Please, more leaving things to nature. Less is more. May I model humility. Awareness. That we are simply too abundant and everything we do has consequences for someone else, especially other beautiful living, feeling and loving people and species.