Jungian Process & Experiential Group (JPEG)

This is a monthly on-going learning experience programme

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.” Carl Jung

This exciting programme aims to meet the following interests of participants:

  • On-going personal development and exploration with like-minded people through exploring Analytical Psychology
  • Exploring the possibility of applying for the twice weekly psychodynamic psychotherapy training or the Adult Analytic training
  • General exploration of concepts in Analytical Psychology through reading, discussion, debate, process and experience

JPEG Course Content 2024-25, 2025-26 will be available here soon.

JPEG Programme 2024-25, 2025-26 will be available here soon.

Emil Alzamora, Spool on Spool, 2009

When the body speaks: exploring body and mind in Jungian Psychology

‘One has to include a body, so one must include not only the shadow – the psychological unconscious – but also the physiological unconscious, the so-called somatic unconscious which is the subtle body. You see, somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: they contact the body. Somewhere there is a place where the two worlds meet and become interlocked’.
(Jung. C.G. 1988, p 441)

This year’s series of JPEG looks at the place of the body in Jungian and contemporary literature; exploring the emergence of writing and research relating to the importance of the body within therapeutic practice.

What happens when words fail us but the body speaks? How do we understand the role of bodies as communicators in the therapeutic process? How does society and culture view bodies as a definer or descriptor of who we are and how we are related to?

If bodies become the location of a societal or cultural expression, the bearer of the somatic unconscious in Jung’s words, then there is a need to consider this unconscious as both a personal experience of body/mind and as a container for collective responses to how we live within this body/mind paradigm. Over the course of the series the group will explore the ways in which we relate to the body/mind paradigm on a personal, collective, societal and political level.

We will draw on research and literature that explore the symbolic language of the body—examining what may be lost in the interplay between psyche and soma, what can or cannot be expressed, and how myths, storytelling, and psychotherapy portray the connection between matter and spirit through bodily archetypes.

Seminars begin with a social dreaming matrix, giving us the opportunity to explore a collective response to the topic. From there we will build on material that arises in the matrix with reflection on the reading and with exercises or experiential work related to the connection between body and mind.

This series of JPEGs offers an invitation to examine our response, individually and collectively as a group, to Jung’s statement that ‘the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it’.

Programme Structure

The JPEG programme will take place on 10 Saturdays over 10 months from 2pm-5pm. Participants will be asked to do some reading, look at artwork, or watch a film beforehand.  The day will be structured roughly in the following way.

Format: JPEG meetings are held on a Saturday afternoon once a month in person at the SAP.

2.00 – 3.15pm: social dreaming matrix
3.15 – 3.30pm: break
3.30 – 4.00pm: dream reflections
4.00 – 4.30pm: small group – discussion/exercise
4.30 – 5.00pm: large group – discussion/exercise

Entry requirement: The course is open to:

  • Past participants of the Foundations Course & Therapeutic Skills Course
  • Participants of previous JPEG groups
  • Current SAP trainees and course participants
  • Other individuals who have done an equivalent introductory course.

you can download an application JPEG 2025-2026 here.

Application deadline for 2025-26: 7 September 2025

For further information or clarifications, please contact publicevents@thesap.org.uk call 020 7435 7696 or fill in the contact form below.

We reserve the right to cancel or alter any part of the programme, including course fees, as necessary.

    MEET THE COURSE CONVENOR


    Ruth Oreschnick

    Ruth Oreschnick is a Jungian Analyst and Music Therapist, working in the NHS (across a range of clinical setting) and in Private Practice. She previously also worked as an Associate Lecturer at Anglia Ruskin University, and was course leader for music therapy trainings in South Asia.  Ruth has over 15 years experience of facilitating groups, both in this country and abroad. 


    Barbara MaRCH

    Barbara March is a Jungian psychotherapist, a member of the Society of Analytical Psychology, and a chartered clinical psychologist. She has been a facilitator of the SAP Foundation Course. Originally trained and worked in Italy. She has been working in the UK in the NHS Secondary Care for 20 years. She also maintains a private practice in Cambridge.