Her presentation at the conference is titled "Dancing the Chakras." The abstract reads:
Jung was fascinated with the chakra system and yoga. During his travels in India, he gained great insight into the way this approach to the body, mind, and spirit figured into everyday life in India. He saw parallels between the chakra system and alchemy as symbolic reflections of the process of individuation. However, he cautioned Westerns about pursuing this work with the human energy field from a purely intellectual perspective. This workshop will begin by sharing knowledge about this ancient Yogic philosophy and then, as an aid to understanding, will actively engage participants in a movement exploration of the seven energy centers of the body. Sequentially moving up the spine—starting with grounded movement from the root chakra and progressing upward to the spiritual crown chakra—participants will move in their own way to musical accompaniment that supports the verbal imagery offered to connect with each body area and energetic intention. This activity is designed to enhance fluidity of movement throughout the body, gently work through the spine to help one release energy blocks, and invite a sense of harmony within one’s soma, soul, and psyche by learning to address the whole person.
For a link to the conference, click here.
The Depth Psychology Program congratulates ABD student Jeanne M. Schul for being chosen to present at the 2009 Journey Conference "Moving Toward Wholeness" to be held at Browns Summit, North Carolina, held October 15-18.
Journey conferences focus on the dialogue between the psychology of Carl Jung & Christian spirituality along with spiritual experiences at the heart of other faiths.
We interviewed Jeanne in September of 2009, a month before the conference.
Tell us a little about how you've come to present at this year's Journey conference.
I became involved with the original Journey into Wholeness conference in October 2002, when two different friends brought the conference in North Carolina to my attention, after they had attended my annual dance concert where I had presented a dream-based dance. At the conference, I was asked to help lead the closing ceremony by incorporating dance in a mass modeled after those Mathew Fox had described in his Journey presentation on Creation Spirituality. Following that experience, I began presenting dance-movement workshops at every conference that focused on dancing dreams and the chakras. At the October 2005 conference, I was invited to participate in an evening performance, at which I read original, dream-based poetry and performed a solo dance, She Who Dances Us, which was inspired by images of the Earth Goddess empowering all beings to join the dance of life. When the original Journey into Wholeness conference announced its ending and Journey conferences evolved, I stepped out of the mix for a while. However, during the spring of 2009, I felt it was time to give Journey conferences a call about participating once again and the rest is on the website!
You had an M.A. in Dance before you came to doctoral studies. What brought you to choose a Ph.D. in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute?
In undergraduate school, I began to feel a strong pull toward a vocation that addressed both the soma and the psyche. As soon as I graduated, I began a six-month internship in Dance Therapy at Central Louisiana State Hospital. I taught therapeutic dance for seven years in Louisiana schools—focusing on children with special needs—while also teaching dance technique, performing, and choreographing. During this time, I considered focusing my Master's degree in Dance Therapy, but the field seemed a bit restrictive for my broad range of interests, which included performance. Although my M.A. in Dance incorporated coursework in dance therapy and adoptive dance, the primary focus was on dance training, history, pedagogy, and choreography. So, my desire to delve into the place where soma, soul, and psyche are well integrated continued to work me. Many years later, while teaching the dance program at Berry College, I found myself devouring volume after volume of what I eventually realized was Jungian literature. This process paralleled a continuous stream of anxiety-producing nightmares that were counterbalanced by profoundly archetypal dreams. Part of my mid-life wake-up call involved finally finding a way to bridge the mind-body dichotomy with an academic degree in Depth Psychology at Pacifica, which offered me the opportunity to learn more about psyche and soul while making my own embodied connections to soma.
You've had a lifelong passion for theatre dance. How have your studies at Pacifica intersected with that passion?
Frankly, I stepped into the Depth Psychology with some degree of trepidation. I was not at all sure there would be an intersection. Although my undergraduate degree was in Dance, I also had a second major in English. My desire, since those early developmental days, was to bring my embodied experience of dance into my writing. I made a commitment to myself in the first quarter of the first year of the coursework to write my papers in a fully engaged, embodied way. My sense was I would find out very quickly whether or not I was in the right program. Much to my astonishment and delight, my embodied way of communicating was well received!
Dance and somatic movement therapy gradually found their way into the learning environment at Pacifica. Dances that I choreographed for my college dance company began to be depicted in the appendixes of my papers to illustrate a Goddess image or a dream image that I choreographed and about which I spoke in my paper. In Archetypal Psychology, Dr. Joseph Coppin directed us to work in groups and my group performed a dance to satisfy our course requirements. Dr. Dennis Slattery began to ask me to lead movement experiences to give our class an embodied connection with the class material. Dr. Mike Denney suggested that I share a brief exploration of hands-on somatic movement therapy with our class. Dr. Jennifer Selig, as chairperson of the Depth Psychology program, invited me to dance a poem in the opening ceremony in September 2007 of my third year of classes.
I experienced a slow, developmental opening to unite soma with psyche and soul at Pacifica, but that was all I needed. The research course with Dr. Ed Casey really made that connection clear for me when I began exploring the phenomenology of dance. My entire third year of classes was an engagement with my dissertation topic, Creating Dances from Dreams: Embodying the Unconscious through Choreography. Every course provided an opportunity to discuss my ideas with a different professor as they were evolving. I used my time in residence at Pacifica very mindfully, meeting with every possible faculty member to process my topic and get feedback, realizing that I would soon be on the other side of the country—home alone—writing my dissertation.
How have your studies in Depth Psychology been received by the academic world from which you come? (Jeanne is a Dance Specialist at Berry College.)
The Chairperson of Kinesiology, the Dean and the Associate Dean of the Charter School of Education and Human Sciences have been very supportive of my graduate work. I have received help effectively covering my classes when I was in residency at Pacifica, backing for faculty development grants to continue my studies, and guidance in the process of applying to Berry College’s Institutional Research Board to work with human subjects for my dissertation research. I am currently in the process of revising the dance program at Berry to offer a degree in Somatic Movement and Dance. More than ever, I am motivated to complete my research and dissertation, so that I am clearly in a position of leadership with a Ph.D. and can enable this program to unfold.
You mentioned that your work with embodiment was well-received at Pacifica, though soma was not on equal footing, so to speak, with psyche and soul. Can you say more about that?
I came into Pacifica as a registered somatic movement therapist with a graduate degree in dance. I had seriously considered pursuing a Ph.D. in Somatic Psychology. At the time, I was in the six-month Dream Tending training program with Dr. Stephen Aizenstat who suggested I take notice of the books I was reading: “What you are reading,” he told me, “will tell you what you wish to study.” At the time, every book I was devouring was Jungian in nature. I was a member of the Atlanta Jung Society and already presenting at the Jungian Journey into Wholeness conference. I was especially desirous of learning everything I could about dreams and the imaginal. So, I came to Pacifica to develop my understanding of Depth Psychology.
What has unfolded, as I have described, has been my way of integrating body-based or kinesthetic intelligence into the program for me personally. Certainly, psyche and soul are well established in our program. During Marion Woodman’s visits to campus, we were offered a way into the body through the dance explorations she leads; as she explains: “for me, body work is soul work, and the imagination is the key to connecting both” (Stromsted, 2005, p. 19).
I would like to see more integration of dance and somatic movement exploration in the field of Depth Psychology in an effort to ground that which is philosophical by connecting the visceral with the cerebral, the emotional with the spiritual aspects, with the intention of empowering each of us to move into wholeness. In Touching: Body Therapy and Depth Psychology, McNeely (1987) describes the body as a “point of contact with the unconscious” (p. 26). She develops the concept of “somatic unconscious,” with which she uncovers memories through bodywork that were not accessible in analysis (p. 94). In Jung and Yoga: The Psyche-Body Connection, Harris (1987) asserts: “I believe that the integration of analysis and body therapy contributes to an ongoing universal process of uniting mind, body and soul” (p. 107). It is also my perception that soma, soul, and psyche have the potential to dance gracefully together in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, which is my most sincere wish for the future of the institution.
References:
Harris, J. (2001). Jung and Yoga: the psyche-body connection. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.
McNeely, D. A. (1987). Touching: Body therapy and depth psychology. Toronto, Canada: Inner City Books.
Stromsted, T. (2005). Cellular resonance and the sacred feminine: Marion Woodman’s story. Spring, 72, 1-30.
Jeanne M. Schul
Jeanne is a Dance Specialist at Berry College in the Departments of Kinesiology and Theatre in which she coordinates the dance program and serves as Artistic Director of the Berry College Dance Troupe. She is currently engaged in research for her dissertation, entitled Creating Dances from Dreams: Embodying the Unconscious through Choreography. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist and a Reiki Master with a small private practice. Jeanne has published numerous articles focusing on the intersection of dance, chakras, and dreams. She serves as President of the Eastwest Somatics Network. In 2008, Jeanne received the Honor Award for the 13 state Southern District for life time service in the field of dance. She was named the College/University Dance Educator of the Year in 2005 for the Southern District and the state of Georgia. She earned a M.A. in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, a M.A. in Dance from Texas Woman’s University, and a B.A. in Dance and English from the State University of New York at Brockport.
