“It was clearly Jung’s view that the whole analytic process was not so much about curing symptoms and enabling adaptation, but discovering through one’s pain a link to the infinite.”—Veronica Goodchild
Pain often shows up at our table as the uninvited, unwanted guest.
In modernity, we are immersed in a culture systematically trying to avoid pain, but this wasn’t always so. There was a time when we embraced pain in all its forms through ritual, ceremony and community. Pain was better understood as a messenger and a teacher, often starting a process of ending and renewal.
However, we also have the opportunity to tip the axis of avoidance toward curiosity and investigation, and adopt a friendlier, more invitational approach to pain. In doing so, we will often receive kinder instruction.
In this workshop with Jungian-based experiential psychotherapist, Andrew Lindsay, we will pay service to pain by firstly gathering as a group and not seek to banish it. From this edifice, we will begin a gentle inquiry, learning and playing with the intentional experiencing of our pain to facilitate a deeper understanding and relationship with it.
This event is free to subscribers of The Fifth Direction. You can also gain access by joining our community and taking advantage of the free trial. The Fifth Direction is a welcome community for everyone. This includes people of all genders, faiths, backgrounds, orientations, ages and abilities.
About Andrew Lindsay:
Andrew began a career in Chinese medicine and quickly became interested in psychosomatics. He was lucky enough to discover a Jungian-based experiential psychotherapy called Process Oriented Psychology early in his career. The capacity of this model to work organically with body symptoms appeared magical and enthralling. He pursued the rigorous training and practice of this model, and also completed training as a psychologist in order to deliver it more easily. In the earlier part of his psychotherapy practice, he worked with Karuna, a Buddhist home-based palliative care service in Brisbane, as a counsellor for dying people and their loved ones. Andrew feels he can bring a wealth of experience to this topic, and also an understanding that it is always a mid-wifing/stewarding process, not knowing quite what we are delivering.