“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”  ~  C.G. Jung.

In these challenging, polarizing times we are called to draw from creative, healing energies from deeper parts of the Self.

Dreams, imagination, and embodied knowing offer profound resources ~ personally, culturally, and from the timeless collective unconscious that connects us to one another, to all of life, and to the creative intelligence that informs us all.

Transformation is an embodied, cellular process involving reclaiming rejected parts of the self necessary for wholeness. Re-integrating shadow material projected onto others is essential to the work: What could emerge if we reclaim this “other?”

Authentic Movement, or embodied active imagination, is a simple yet powerful meditative and therapeutic approach that bridges body and psyche through expressive movement, inviting descent into the body and psyche within a safe environment. Shadow elements often emerge spontaneously through unconscious movement responses, gestures, voice tone, verbal expressions, breathing patterns and mood. These can, over time and with rapport, be reflected by the therapist and experienced more consciously by the client.

This energy can have a profoundly transformative effect when experienced, differentiated, and integrated. The shadow may also represent positive elements within ourselves – “everything that is yet unborn or not yet conscious within us” (Jean Bolen). We cannot yet “own” these but instead project or
attribute them to someone whom we feel is able to do something that we “could never do.”

Exploring body-level responses provides a bridge to the unconscious.  Freeing life energy essential for growth, it connects us to a deeper sense of knowing, creativity, and wholeness ~ for ourselves, as practitioners, and as world citizens attuning to an evolving planetary call. 

Through presentation, natural movement, and sharing we will rediscover the light in the darkness.

Please bring a dream figure – or your sense of a person in your life, past or present – who inspires you! 

All those interested in Embodied healing are welcome!

1.0 ADTA CE, 1.0 NBCC CE, 1.0 NYLCAT CE

Tina Stromsted, Ph.D., MFT, LPCC, BC-DMT, RSME/T is a Jungian psychoanalyst, training analyst and supervisor, a Board Certified Dance/Movement therapist, Somatic psychotherapist, author and educator. Past co-founder and faculty of the Authentic Movement Institute, she lectures and teaches at universities and healing centers in many parts of the world, and has co-facilitated programs with Drs. Joan Chodorow, Janet Adler, and Marion Woodman for many years.

Faculty at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco, and Jung Platform online, she was adjunct professor in the Depth Psychology/Somatics Doctoral program at Pacifica Graduate Institute and a core faculty member for the Marion Woodman Foundation. With a background in dance and theatre, she has a special interest in the creative process, neuroscience, ecopsychology, embodied spirituality, cross cultural modes of healing, and engaged social activism.  Her numerous articles and book chapters appear in professional journals, text books, and collected editions.

Founder and director of Soul’s Body Center®, her work supports the development of embodied consciousness. With 45 years of clinical experience Dr. Stromsted’s publications and webinars engage the integration of body, psyche, soul, culture, community, and nature in healing and transformation. Her private psychotherapy practice is in San Francisco, with international virtual consultation.