November 10, 2010

Presenter: Mary Ley, MA, MEd, LPC
Topic: 'The Voice of the Other:
When Creativity Speaks in the Analytic Hour'

When C.G. Jung’s private journal, The Red Book, became available to the general public for the first time in 2009, thanks to the generosity of Jung’s heirs and the unstinting work of the Philemon Foundation, we were given the gift of Jung’s own exquisitely illustrated account of his descent into the world of the unconscious, the arena of psyche, of soul.  There was no analyst companion for Jung in what he described as a “confrontation with the unconscious.”  Yet, as disturbing and painful as he found his terrifying and joyous travels in what he called “the land of the dead” to be, he is quoted as saying they formed the basis of …”all my works, all my creative activity…” Using Jung’s red leather Liber Novis, which is what he entitled his amazing journal, and dream material from patients in analysis, Mary Ley will explore with those in attendance those dead spaces, circles of eros, and moments that reverberate like a bell in the analytic hour when creativity enters the room and the lives of both patient and analyst.

Mary Ley, M.A., M.Ed., L.P.C., received her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas at Austin, received a Masters in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California, and a Masters in Counseling from Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.  She trained with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, an interstate analytic training group.  She is a senior training analyst with the Texas Seminar of the I-RSJA, and currently serves as President of the Texas Analyst Group.  Mary speaks Spanish, and has traveled widely through the Americas, Europe and Egypt.  She is a writer and painter, a prolific collector of folk art, and has a deep appreciation of the relationship between, and healing function of, dreams, the archetypes, and all the arts.  She is a longtime resident of Austin, Texas, where she has served on the City of Austin Environmental Board, the City Arts Commission, and the Austin Planning Commission, and where she maintains her private practice as a Jungian Analyst.

*Free parking is available in the Seton parking garage across Medical Parkway next to Austin Medical Plaza.  You may park in the main Seton garage for a fee.