Course Materials
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Enjoying the Afternoon of Life.
Analytical Psychology –Carl Jung’s version of depth soul work– is unique among psychotherapeutic schools and it’s positive attitude towards old age and the aging process.
Jung felt that people should live into life right up to the moment of death and he laid out a process for doing so that draws on personality type, personal talents, creative expression, and a variety of life experiences that foster soul connection and anticipation of life after life.
In this course we read Jung’s work on the stages of life, along with several other short works by older Jungian analyst who draw on their own experience of aging. In-class activities include multiple thought-provoking exercises. It doesn’t take away exercises encourage students to continue the work after the workshop ends.
Syllabus and Homework
Jung on Aging Course
Module 1:
- Introductions
- Exercise 1
- Definitions of aging
- Our culture’s attitude toward aging and the elderly
- Some key archetypes
- Jung’s concept of types and how types relate to aging
- Jung’s prescription for living in old age
- Homework: begin reading Jane on Aging, Old Age & Death (pp. 441-549); read my essay “Enjoying the Afternoon of Life: Jung on Aging,” and Jung’s essay, “The Stages of Life;” complete the type assessment exercise (if you have never filled it out before); reflect on this question after you have identified your type: “How might I develop my inferior function?”
Module 2:
- Discussion of the type assessment exercise
- The concept of “late life liminality”
- Jung on the stages of life
- Discuss Jung’s image of the arc of life
- Exercise: Reflect on the Challenge of Your Sixth Stage of Life
- Exercise: What is Your Image of the Afterlife?
- Features of aging
- Homework: continue reading Jane on Aging; read Wheelwright’s two articles and the article by Lionel Corbett; complete the two exercises: “Noticing Your Limits” and “Listening to the Messages from Your Body”
Module 3:
- Discussion of homework exercises
- How to make aging a positive experience
- Some tasks of old age
- Discussion of Wheelwright articles
- Discussion of the Corbett article
- Homework: finish Jane on Aging; do the exercises “Doing a Life Review” and “What does your life mean?”
Module 4:
- Discussion of the homework exercises
- The Eriksonian concept of “generativity”
- Discussion of Pretat
- Homework: hand out and discuss the Vermont Advanced Directive and ask the students to complete it and give to their relatives, executor etc. If they haven’t done estate planning, give them reasons to do so
- Hand out “Exercises to Continue the Work:” Act as an Elder of the Tribe, Claim Your Unlived Life, Dealing with the Mortificatios of Life, Disidentify with Your Body, Making a Dying with Life, Meditate into Pain, Reflect on Your Ideal Image of Your Dying Process, Reperceiving Death, What Are You Aiming for in Your Life? Write Letters of Appreciation, Write Your Obituary