Teaching 'origins of depth psychology': overview and candidate-members' experience

In 2002 the North Pacific Institute inaugurated a new seminar series on the 'origins of depth psychology' for incoming candidate-members. This approach emphasized the historical and cultural embeddedness of analytic theory, practice and institutions. The seminar was experienced as enlightening and freeing, as well as sometimes painfully disillusioning. The overall feedback indicated that it fostered an opening of creative space for their education as analysts. This paper describes the structure, and some of the rationale and process of the seminar. It includes firsthand expressions of the candidate-members' experiences.