SPECIAL EVENT: Dr David Russell's Saturday Workshop "God as an Archetype" and "Carl Jung as Hero"

SPECIAL EVENT: Dr David Russell's Saturday Workshop
"God as an Archetype" and "Carl Jung as Hero"
Saturday 4th October 2025 10am - 3pm
at MacKillop House, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham ACT 2602

Dr David Russell is a friend of long-standing at the Canberra Jung Society. His workshop in October last year focussed on the theme: "Carl Jung: His Passion of Unconscious Forces and our Capacity to be both Self-Centred and Selfless". |

This year's workshop will focus on two themes: "God as an archetype" and "Carl Jung as hero**,** trying to find his way home"!
Morning: God is an Archetype: Implications for Everyday Life and Psychotherapy

“ … when I say as a psychologist that God is an archetype, I mean by that the ‘type’ in the psyche.” Carl Jung, CW 12:14.

Jung was at pains to distinguish between what is a matter of hereditary and what is a matter of belief. For Jung, the ‘type’ as an aspect of the psyche is pre-existing to conscious awareness.

This notion of archetype didn’t come out of nowhere. Contemporaries of Jung in the field of psychology (Jean Piaget) and Zoology (Konrad Lorenz) wrote of behavioural patterns that could be traced back to an evolutionary past.

The word ‘schema’ is uses today in psychology and neurology to convey the meaning of an hereditary action pattern.

But asserting that God is an archetype, now, that’s pure Jung.

Jung’s grandson (Ulrich Hoerni) when asked what he remembered most about Jung as an older man was the definition of deity: “God is that which crosses my wilful path.”

I want to make these words of Jung my central focus for the presentation. To extent the meaning of this quote let me say: The life of the spirit is one shaped by the desire to embrace the non-wilful, the unknown, the unknowable.

In this presentation I’m taking the liberty to change Jung’s use of the word ‘God’ to ‘life of the spirit’. I believe this to be in keeping with his intention and the spirit of our times.

By using references to myth and cultural stories I will explore Jung’s words, that which crosses my wilful path, as a psychologically useful focus for one’s everyday life and one’s psychotherapeutic practice.

Afternoon: Carl Jung, as hero, trying to find his way home

How to best talk about Jung … was he hero, guru or a significant teacher? Was he like Odysseus trying to find his way home, find his personal myth?

A lot of his followers have seen him as a guru … someone offering new ways of self-development, new paths to salvation. A spiritual teacher. Certainly, he was a distinguished psychiatrist who enlarged our understanding of the mind and who made important contributions to psychotherapy. In sum, he was all of the above.

I’ve structured this presentation by addressing, through biography and story-telling, all three of these qualities.

Dr David Russell*’s initial studies were at the Pontifical Institute of Spirituality (Teresianum) in Rome, Italy. His main area of study were the works of two Spanish mystics, John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila. Back in Sydney he studied psychology completing his BSc (Hons) and the PhD. After a couple of years in private practice he joined the fledgling Western Sydney University and taught first in the Department of Social Ecology and then in the School of Psychology where he was an Associate Professor. On leaving the university he moved back into private practice where he is still engaged on a part-time basis.*

David is a past-Present of the Sydney Jung Society and is currently an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University.

Location: MacKillop Conference Centre, 50 Archibald St, Lyneham (Canberra).

Time: 4th October 2025 10am - 3pm

A light lunch is provided.

Cost for attendance (at MacKillop House - There is no on-line access or recording of the Workshop):
Jung Soc members: $40
Senior / Concession: $50
Standard Guest rate: $60
Pay at the door by cash, cheque or credit card, or in advance by bank transfer or by TryBooking (via our website):

Details: www.canberrajungsociety.org.au
RSVP: Jeanne (0406) 375 670 (for catering)

You may also like the following events from Canberra Jung Society Inc.:

• This Friday, 3rd October, 09:30 am, "Consciousness and the Phenomenology of Psychosis" with Shauna Winram in Canberra

Also check out other Workshops in Canberra, Nonprofit events in Canberra.