Jung at the Workplace

Course Description

We spend a significant part of our lives at work. This series, based on several of Jung’s core ideas, provides a framework to better understand what happens in this vital venue, our places of work. Five teachers bring their expertise to help us appreciate and deal with the complexity of workplaces. 

Each class provides insights that help us explore ourselves, our colleagues and the world around us at work. Our teachers address the following themes:

• By looking for the myths and stories that our places of work are telling, we can better understand our workplace culture and our role within it. 
• As we recognize our own personal stories playing out on the job, we can improve our working relationships with others. 
• When we look to our dreams, we can receive guidance to meet professional challenges and enhance our unfolding on the job. 
• A Jungian view of career helps us to become clearer about our vocational calling. It uncovers our true motivations and shines a light on the diverse motivations of others. 

The teachers in this series share clarifying anecdotes, supportive exercises and practical wisdom from multiple vantage points. They draw from a variety of Jungian concepts including the numinous, the shadow, the centrality of myth, folklore & stories, archetypes, the personal & collective unconscious and dreams.

This course is ideal if

• Explore your vocational calling
• Develop your working relationships and leadership skills
• Understand workplace culture and your role within it
• Look deeper into your motivations and the motivations of others
• Learn how to use dreams and their creative intelligence to meet challenges and overcome problems at the workplace

Course Overview

Class 1. Following Numinosity: How Our Childhood Passions Call Us to Vocation

In this class, Jennifer Leigh Selig, lifelong educator & founding chair of the Jungian and Archetypal Studies doctoral program at PGI, encourages us to mine our childhoods & early adolescence for vocational gold. Seeking clues from our younger selves can suggest pathways towards vocational fulfillment. She helps us see how we can decode these clues and affirm our vocation by turning to the numinous experiences of our younger years. To illustrate this Jennifer draws on fascinating stories from the lives of luminaries like Martin Luther King, Carl Jung, her clients and others as well as from her own.

Class 2. Folklore and Myths at Work: Exploring Organizational Culture and Work Roles through Story

Motifs and images from myths, folktales & fairytales appear recurrently in many situations, including the workplace.  In this class, depth psychologist Craig Chalquist brings the perspective of folklore to common work situations. He draws on years of experience in diverse work environments & his deep interest in storytelling.The unspoken stories that we find at all levels of an organization often function unconsciously. If we can find fitting folklore that sheds light on our dramas on the job, then we can take a step back from the stories that surround us. We are able to catch sight of the story-characters that we and others may have  taken on unwittingly at work. On the way, we may discover the story we want to show up with at work.

Class 3. A Web of Shadows: Understanding How Our Stories Create and Impact Our Relationships at Work

The workplace can be seen as a system of interpersonal relationships and expectations. In this class, teacher & founder of the process of Unstorying Nicole Miller shows us how the often unconscious narratives we carry about ourselves have an impact on interpersonal dynamics at work. We see that as each individual comes with their own stories, it affects the entire work-system. With plenty of examples and thoughtful exercises, Nicole helps us flesh out the stories we may be carrying about ourselves. She shows us how changing those narratives that no longer serve us can re-balance our sense of self as well as our entire work-system. 

Class 4. The Unseen Movers: Exploring Motivation through the Enneagram

For centuries, psychologists, sociologists, economists and others have been seeking wisdom on motivation: what moves people & why we do what we do. According to organizational consultant and teacher Jennifer Smith, one of the best ways to understand our own and other people’s motivations is through a personality framework. In this class, she introduces us to an ancient personality system called the Enneagram. She briefly touches on the  various types and subtypes of the Enneagram, how it relates to Jung’s Psychology, motivators connected to each type, the strengths & shadow side of each and the archetypal associations within each type. 

Check out the Jung Platform For the upcoming course Introduction to the Enneagram.

Class 5. Guiding Dreams: How Dream Incubation Can Solve your Work Problems

In this class, founder of Jung Platform & author of the book Dream Incubation, Machiel Klerk demonstrates how dreams can be important to the workplace. Dreaming is a very creative state of consciousness. Through the method of Dream Incubation, Machiel shows us how to tap into this creative intelligence to address challenges, problems or any areas that we want to grow in at work.  He takes us through the five steps of effective dream incubation and presents many practical suggestions to better our lives at work and otherwise.

By the end of this course you will

• Recognize how our childhood & early adolescent experiences often contain seeds of our vocation
• Identify how to use folklore to better understand the roles we take on & the dynamics that play out in the workplace
• Understand how the stories we carry into our jobs about ourselves can affect the interpersonal dynamics of the work culture
• Get a taste of the Enneagram and how it is a great tool to understand motivation
• Know how working with our dreams can help us grow at work & otherwise