A Mythic Path to Healing: A Workshop With Julie Bondanza

In this workshop, we will explore several myths and fairy tales to discover the healing that occurs in the story and to learn to apply the method suggested by the healing, either to our ourselves or to our practice of psychotherapy. We will look at the myth of Medusa, to work with the victim complex, and at the story of Oedipus, to work with the problem of a too one-sided personality. We will also read the “Homeric Hymn to Demeter” to explore the mother complex in women. Our last story will be Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Red Shoes,” which presents the problem of un-mourned grief and its effect on the psyche.

The program will also be opened up to stories the participants may want to work with; we can explore together how the myth or fairy tale shows the path of healing.

Julie Bondanza, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and a diplomate Jungian analyst who trained at the C.G. Jung Institute of New York, where she was Director of Training, a job she also held with the Philadelphia Association of Jungian Analysts. She has taught extensively in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington, as well as for various Jung societies across the country. Presently she serves the board of the C.G. Jung Foundation of New York and continues to serve as its program chair, a post she has held for many years. Dr. Bondanza practices in Takoma Park and lives in Washington, D.C.