DO WE HAVE FANTASIES, OR DO THEY HAVE US? Ethics and the Imagination in Our Life, a workshop by Sean Fitzpatrick

Workshop

*Note: venue location has changed to JSW Library

Are there right and wrong ways to imagine, things we should or should not feel, think, desire? Our greatest innovations, works of art, acts of compassion emerge from the human imagination. As do our horrific atrocities. How we imagine matters. But the imagination is not a tool at our ready disposal, to direct as we will.

Jung suggested that, “Every psychic process is an image and an imagining.” Our imaginations fill with the experiences, conscious and unconscious, of our clients, and those experiences interact with our own in ways that are mysterious and as potentially destructive as they are potentially transformative--for them and for us. Our imaginings of each other, our fantasies, come unbidden. Rather than attempting to ignore or control those fantasies, however, we can learn how to host them in ways that honor the potential for growth and healing in both therapist and client. In this workshop, we will use lecture, film, and discussion to explore the ethical dimension of the imagination in the practice of psychotherapy.

Sean Fitzpatrick, PhD, LPC, is the executive director of The Jung Center. He has master’s degrees in religious studies and clinical psychology, and he completed his doctorate in psychology, with a concentration in Jungian studies, at Saybrook University. He is also a psychotherapist in private practice. His first book, The Ethical Imagination: Exploring Fantasy and Desire in Analytical Psychology, will be published by Routledge in August 2019.