SEPARATING THE DIVINE FROM THE HUMAN:
Relationships in the Process of Recovery & Individuation
When we get scrupulously honest with ourselves regarding our relationships we are faced with the realization that most, if not all, our upsets, dissatisfactions and anger with our partners are merely projections of unfulfilled areas within ourselves. Our partners are exceptionally brilliant mirrors upon which we see what we do not or can not see about ourselves.

As androgynous beings we each have within us the opposite energy of what we physically and consciously are. Jung called these opposite energies archetypes; the animus being the masculine within the female; and the anima, the feminine within the male, respectively. Jung referred to our encounter with the animus and anima as the "master piece" of individuation. For in bringing to consciousness and working with these aspects of ourselves we begin to create union between our consciousness and our soul.

In our journey of recovery we are involved in a quest for meaning and individuation as we find our place in relationship to our highest wisdom and power. The animus and anima can serve are powerful guides in this journey.

Much of our internal tension (potentially contributing to relapse) derives from the opposite energies within us. This struggle in turn can create one of the most powerful urges within us; the desire for wholeness. This wholeness can only occur within ourselves...not with another person and certainly not when we project our opposite qualities onto our partner, expecting to unite with them and feel our wholeness through union with them. And yet, our partners provide us the
possibility of recognizing and integrating these projected unconscious contents of ourselves.

In initial stages of relationship we place expectations of God and Goddess upon each other. When these expectations (conscious and unconscious) are not fulfilled, relationships, and our
work at individuation face possible disaster. To separate the human from the divine, to love our
partners for who they are without the burden of carrying our projections is truly spiritual work.

TITLE OF TRAINING: FAMILY THERAPY

This workshop has been presented in workshop format where it is more experiential than the following description. It has also been presented for college credit.

Workshop Description

This workshop will examine the history, theories, and practices of Family Therapy. Focus will be on different types of families, strategies to use with different families; counter-transference, and ethics. The workshop will address these variables through lecture, handouts, discussion, case examples, and role-play.

GOALS

PART 1

1. To understand individual and family's life stages from a General Systems' perspective.

2. To understand characteristics of Healthy and Dysfunctional families.

3. To comprehend the problems common to the beginning stages of working with families.

Failures to Act

* Failure to establish structure

* Failure to show care and concern

* Failure to engage family members in the therapeutic process

* Failure to let the family work on its problems

Overreaction

* Overemphasis on details

* Overemphasis on making everyone happy

* Overemphasis on verbal expression

* Overemphasis on dealing with one member of the family

4. To understand the varieties of today's families.

• Remarried (Step) Families

• Single-Parent Families

• Culturally Diverse Families

• Dual Career Families

PART 2

1. To understand the major theorists of Family Therapy.

1. Experiential Family Therapies.

2. Psychoanalytic & Family Therapies.

3. Behavioral and Cognitive-Behavioral Family Therapies.

4. Structural Family Therapies.

5. Strategic, Systemic, and Solution Focused Family Therapies.

2. To understand dynamics of special populations and therapeutic approaches for working with them.

3. To understand the ethical and legal issues involved in Family Therapy.

1. To understand how one's own family of origin effects one's practice of Family Therapy.

The didactic format is combined with impactful experiential exercises to enable participants to more fully understand, on an internal level, the information presented.