C.G. Jung Society of Atlanta

Please join us for the rescheduled Sharon Martin's lecture, Anima: The Archetype of Life Itself and workshop, Exploring the Mysteries of Anima/Animus. For the Saturday workshop, we will offer 5 hours of Core CEUs for LPC, Social Work, and Marriage & Family Therapy.

If you weren't able to attend her 2007 Animus lecture, the complete lecture is available online. It is suggested listening before the Saturday workshop. Audio of  Feminine Authority: Empowerment through Animus :

    • Stream Windows media
    • Stream RealAudio
    • Download mp3

Other links:

    • Article: Sharon Martin – Anger in Animus Development
    • Half-price, half-year memberships are now available

Sharon Martin

Anima: The Archetype of Life Itself

August 6, Friday Lecture 7:30 pm
members: $20; non-members $25; students $10

Dr. Carl Jung calls the anima “the very soul of man,” “an extremely dramatic content of the unconscious,” and “the archetype of life itself.” She is man’s other personality. Individuation, or becoming the person you really are, depends upon getting into a living, respectful relationship with this internal other. This is also of course the foundation for meaningful relationships in the external world.

The anima constitutes a problem for the world at large no less than the individual, for feminine consciousness is severely lacking and profoundly needed in our world today. Its lack has led to a one sided rationalism, which has brought rigidity, sterility and a tragic dissociation with instinct and feeling. And this is not a problem of men only, for we women have unconsciously cooperated in her devaluation (for more on this, please listen to Sharon’s 2007 lecture on animus development given at the Atlanta Jung Society available in the audio library).

In our elevation of masculine values, we have ignored the feminine rhythms of our being. We have discarded her treasures and she has gone underground, where she must appear in her negative, hostile form. If we give her appropriate recognition, honor and compassion, she can again ascend to the upper world and give her gifts. If we do not, we remain fragmented creatures, realizing only half of our development. This has profound repercussions personally, as well as in our relationships, our culture and our world.

Drawing on the work of Carl Jung, Emma Jung, Marie Louise von Franz, Anthony Stevens and others, as well as myth, story and case material, we will explore Jung’s concept of anima development. It is immense, it is elusive, it is slippery, and it disappears from sight as quickly as we glimpse it. Bur if we are to become who we are, and if we are to give our gifts to the world, it is essential that we consciously confront this obscure and difficult complex. Now, more than ever, we are in dire need of awakening to her rightful place within us.

Workshop: Exploring the Mysteries of Anima/Animus

August 7, Saturday Workshop 9:00am - 4:00pm
members: $60; non-members $70; students $50

(includes lecture if paid before lecture)

In the words of Dr. Carl Jung: “Everyone knows nowadays that people  'have complexes.'  What is not so well known, though far more important theoretically, is that complexes can have us.” And further, “Identification with a complex, particularly the anima/animus…is a frequent source of neurosis. The aim of analysis in such cases is not to get rid of the complexes-as if that were possible-but to minimize their negative effects by understanding the part they play in behavior patterns and emotional reactions. A complex can be really overcome only if it is lived out to the full. In other words, if we are to develop further we have to draw to us and drink down to the very dregs what, because of our complexes, we have held at a distance.”

Anima/animus are forever defiant of complete understanding, for they connect us with the limitlessness of the psyche itself. They are the most difficult of complexes to differentiate and integrate and for this reason they require our constant attention and devotion. Jung said, “Those who do not see them are in their hands, just as a typhus epidemic flourishes best when its source is undiscovered.” But our unique gifts and strengths lie precisely where our weaknesses seem to be! Emma Jung refers to the recognition and integration of these “unknown elements of the soul” as nothing less than “redemption. ” And it is undeniably true that men and women who have achieved it in some measure have extraordinary warmth, depth, vitality and psychological insight.

If we do not confront this powerful complex, we are cut off from our other personality and fulfill only half of our potential. If we attend these images and devote ourselves to this work we may glimpse our wholeness and become who we really are. In this workshop, we will explore manifestations of our anima/animus complex in art, literature, symptoms, neuroses, dreamwork and active imagination. We will attempt, in Dr. Jung’s words, to “draw to us and drink down to the dregs what we have held at a distance.”

Sharon Martin was born and grew up in the Deep South. She received both her bachelor's and master's degree at Emory University in the Psychosocial Nurse Practitioner program, obtaining advanced certification as Family Nurse Practitioner and Psychiatric Clinical Nurse Specialist. This program introduced her to the exciting work of C. G. Jung. She fell in love with his deeply spiritual and scientific approach, which lead to her enrollment as a training candidate at the C. G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland in 2001. She received her diploma in Analytical Psychology there in 2005. During her training she became acutely interested in the relationship between culture and gender, writing her thesis on this topic. Her fascination with this essential concept continues to inspire her work.

She began her private practice in Atlanta in 1999 and for the last several years has lived and practiced in Charleston, South Carolina. In addition to her analytic practice, Sharon lectures and gives workshops on Jungian theory.