Nancy Swift Furlotti, M. A., Ph. D. candidate, is a Jungian Analyst in private practice in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, California. She is a past President of the C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles. Nancy did her analytical training at the Los Angeles Institute while also participating in the Research and Training Centre for Depth Psychology According to C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz in Switzerland. She is, also, an active faculty member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts, the C. G. Jung Institute of Colorado, and an associate member of JPA. Beyond these, Nancy teaches and lectures in the US and Switzerland, and has a number of publications: The Archetypal drama in Puccini’s Madam Butterfly; Angels and Idols: Los Angeles, a chapter in the book, Psyche and the City: A Soul’s Guide to the Modern Metropolis. Her article, Tracing a Red Thread: Synchronicity and Jung’s Red Book, was published in Psychological Perspectives. Most recently her co-authored book, The Dream and Its Amplification, has just been released.
Nancy has a deep interest in exploring the manifestations of the psyche through dreams and myths with a specific focus on the dark emanations from the psyche. A current focus of research is on Mesoamerican mythology, ritual, dreaming, and healing the split between science and nature. Her interest in exploring symbols and deepening her understanding of Jung, have landed her on two foundations: The Philemon Foundation, where she was a founding board member and served as Vice-President, Treasurer, and Co-President of the Board of Directors. She has been a board member of ARAS (Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) for more than 15 years. She is, also, chair of the Film Archive Committee that oversees the Remembering Jung Video Series, 30 interviews with Jungian analysts, and the films, A Matter of Heart and The World Within. Nancy is in the process of organizing a Jung Endowment at UCLA in collaboration with the department of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Semel Institute, which will bring Jungian theory and training back into a major university.
Check out the following Psychology CE Courses based on listening to Shrink Rap Radio interviews:
Jungian Psychotherapy Part 1 (6 CEUs)
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Jungian Psychotherapy Package of the Five Above (33 CEUs)
Wisdom of The Dream (4 CEUs)
Positive Psychology (6 CEUs)
Pros and Cons of Positive Psychology (5 CEUs)
CERTIFICATE PROGRAM IN POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY (32 CEUs)
Body-Mind: Goodbye to Dualism (6 CEUs)
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A psychology podcast by David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
copyright 2013: David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
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What a terrific interview on the Jungian approach to dreams. Thanks to both you and Dr Furlotti. I really appreciated you asking questions about terms and concepts in Jungian or any other approach your podcast covers. Sometimes guests can assume that ideas or terms in their particular psychological approach have an agreed, assumed or given meaning, when in fact they don’t always, especially not to the uninitiated. Even among those already initiated into Jungian thought it helps to revisit these meanings and it’s interesting to hear each guest you interview offer a slightly different interpretation of a term or concept. Rather than being confusing this diversity of meanings is a good thing. It also encourages your listeners to add in their own meanings as well while they listen. Thanks too to Dr Furlotti for explaining ideas in a fresh and understandable way.
On fairytales and myth, I sometimes have a problem relating to them too. Myth and fairytales are one of the major carriers of archetypal wisdom, knowledge, symbolism and one with a great tradition and history. There are also others and I like to swap between them. I think music, visual art, dance, theatre, cinema, writing are all carriers of archetypal and symbolic knowledge and express psychological experience in deep ways. At various times in my life some art-forms have been more meaningful than others – this is an evolving process and I’m ok about finding meaning in different forms.
Great work Dr Dave, keep the variety of podcasts coming.
I got so much out of this interview I hardly know where to start but first up I must commend David on the excellent questions, which really opened up the discussion and kept it flowing right to the well rounded end. I have worked with my own dreams for many years and have intuitively used both the free association method and amplification without a clear understanding of the distinction, so was grateful for Nancy’s very lucid explanation. The example she used, of the series of dreams one of her patients had over many years, illustrated beautifully the application of the principles she was talking about and also demonstrated how transformative working respectfully and diligently with dreams can be over time.
I was very interested also in David’s allusions to a dream of Hitler’s, which was a wonderful example of how an erroneous interpretation of a dream can have such devastating effects. I remember hearing about the dream many years ago but couldn’t remember much detail and didn’t know where I had come across it. David’s memory of it being in Laurens van der Post’’s book ‘Jung and the Story of Our Times’ and a Google search soon found the dream in its entirety with commentary. I was delighted to hear David read it out after podcast #368, followed by a response to it by Nancy.
In that response she said ‘Dreams do throw us into turmoil hoping to get us to question our thinking and behaviour, to wake us up to see the false reality we have created and preserve. It wants to guide us but unfortunately most people don’t really listen or don’t know what to do with their dreams.’ I can certainly vouch for the accuracy of her statement and also for the rich rewards of doing the inner work, whether through dreams or other means.
There was also a great discussion about dreams as initiations in times of life transitions which I found fascinating. It had me reviewing some of my significant dreams in a new light and added new dimensions to the richness of snake symbolism.
Nancy alluded to Jung’s use of active imagination in the interview and how Jung took his inner figures very seriously, dialoguing with them vigorously and challenging and engaging with them as if they were real. I can only marvel at the courage it must have taken for someone who was only too aware of the fine line between sanity and insanity to dive so deeply into uncharted waters. As Nancy said, when we engage with each other in real life the exchange potentially changes us, so the same principle applies with the inner world figures. The comparison of where Jung’s approach has taken the world with the Hitler example demonstrates the imperative of a healthy relationship with the unconscious in all its layers. This interview is another great example of how we can develop that healthy attitude.
“The psyche may guide us or lead us astray.”