Complexes as Psychopomps to the Unconscious: A Lecture With Lourdes Hernandez

Jungian analyst Toni Wolff wrote in the mid-1900s, “Nowadays, Jung mostly uses the term Complex Psychology, especially when he speaks about his psychology from a theoretical point of view.” Her words underscore how crucial and seminal the theory of complexes was to Jung and to his broader body of work. Contrary to the Freudian dictum that dreams are the via regia, the road to the unconscious, Jung contended that it is the complex that abducts us into the depths. This lecture will lay a foundation for understanding Jung’s complex theory, with an emphasis on how we might work with this all-too familiar archetypal phenomenon.

How might the complex serve as a kind of “psychopomp to the unconscious,” as something we can engage with without being overwhelmed by its grip? How did Jung model this encounter in his own work? We will explore this living process through a fairy tale that illustrates touching the wound and going through it, without discarding the legacy hidden within the emotional distress. 

Lourdes Hernandez is a Jungian analyst, marked by the traumas of war and political asylum when her family fled Cuba to take refuge in the United States. She holds post-graduate degrees from Pacifica Graduate Institute and Regis University in hermeneutics, counseling, and Jungian and Archetypal Studies. After a period of study in Zurich, Lourdes completed her analytic training with the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and has a bilingual private practice in Boulder, Colorado. Lourdes is a lifelong musician and visual artist who values the curative power of the symbolic psyche and its restorative interventions.