Hi all, Bob here. I have always thought my role as a Spiritual Director is guided by my continued learning and listening as I visit the Men’s Ministries of the congregations I help, and the spiritual leaders I meet along the way. Recently, I was looking for a more structured learning experience which would benefit my role as a spiritual director, and in helping to launch and develop new men’s groups. For the next two years, I’m participating in a Jungian-Christian Dialogue training, led by Marist Brother Don Bisson. This is an ongoing, intensive conversation for spiritual directors on the nature of the soul. Carl G. Jung and analytical psychology has profoundly rediscovered soul- work outside of structured religious traditions. His gifts of understanding the deep human experience parallels at times the Christian spiritual mystical journey. Jung’s scientific discoveries and writings on the soul, brokenness, and the search for a meaningful life has affected our society.
A Deeper Dive
The tools of analytical psychology such as shadow work, dreams, introversion and extroversion provides a contemporary language to assist and deepen the articulation of religious experience. This creates a link between consciousness and the wisdom and dangers of the unconscious. This process is not the absorption of one study into another but a respectful enrichment of two parallel studies of psychology and spirituality. Jung’s work continues to enrich the deeper spiritual guidance in areas of conversion, prayer, surrender, God images, evil, afterlife etc.
The Program’s Purpose
The key objective of the program is to grow as a spiritual director who’s practice will attune to the call of God through in-depth work to promote growth towards wholeness as a means of entering more fully into a divine relationship. This will provide a hybrid approach bridging Jungian discoveries with traditional Ignatian Spiritual Direction.
