Do you have a problem, predicament, dilemma or obstacle that frustrates you? An issue that you feel incapable of resolving, a cause of despair? This could be in any area of your life: a relationship, a professional or vocational issue, or a compulsive self-sabotaging behaviour. Do you have an area of your emotional, mental, spiritual or physical relationship with yourself, the world or others that has proved stubborn and resistant to change or transformation?

Carl Gustav Jung’s Four steps of Transformation is possibly the single greatest tool for dealing with such problems ever documented. One of the greatest gifts from Jungian psychology is in helping us recognise the immense value of problems, predicaments and dilemmas. This hidden value in problems is typically overlooked.  Psychoanalysis broadly speaking, and Jung specifically, offers a clear, practical and structured approach to addressing problems, dilemmas and predicaments et al. An approach that goes beyond the typical and all too often limitation of problem solving strategies, to recognising that within the dilemma is a source of renewed imagination, creative intuition, personal inspiration and ultimately transformation.

step 1: confession/catharsis

This stage is about the process of becoming conscious of and entering into catharsis. Separating and extracting the constellated content from the psyche. Unburdening one’s self breaks through personal defences and neurotic isolation and creates the possibility of change.

step 2: elucidation

This stage includes the process of illumination, amplification, association, creative imagination and symbolization of the problem. During this stage, a process of analysis is applied to the neurosis. Ties to unconscious processes are revealed and an awareness of this brings about a marked change in attitude, sacrificing supremacy of the conscious intellect

step 3: education

This stage enrolls the ego and persona in reference to the issue. Consciousness is used to interpret and understand the issue in the realms of both thinking and feeling, rational and irrational. Moving from a neurotic to a healthy relationship with regards to the constellated content (problem).

step 4: transformation

“Everything that occurred on the objective level in the history of our psychology – confession, elucidation, education passes to the subjective level; in other words, what happened to the patient must now happen to the doctor…What was previously a method of medical treatment now becomes a method of self-education, and with this the horizon of our psychology is immeasurably widened.” – C. G. Jung 

This stage re-imagines your relationship to the problem. The re-symbolization and assimilation of the constellated content. Moving forward in relation to the issue. Transformation as an alchemical process of internal transubstantiation, which notwithstanding the value of the three prior stages requires something more, something not wholly reducible to method, something intangible, relational, alchemical and dialectical.

Thank you both so much for opening my inner and outer eyes, my heart, my soul ever more to the magic of the alchemical process. Natalie

Thank you for this course. I have gained a lot from it. I feel like I have been given the key to my very own secret garden. Blessings to all of you on your journey. Lana

 I will offer my gratitude here, as well, for this course, Anja and Stephen – the materials, lectures and applications were so well put together, and your responses to questions asked by participants so illuminating. And of course I am grateful for all that shared here, as it was thought provoking process all around. My tool/medicine kit for living fully has been profoundly enriched.  I am also particularly appreciative of the materials covered and applications, as they reflect a solid grounding in this approach to well-being and authenticity. They require much energy, and sometimes patience, but were presented in a way that I find very usuable/ accessible. I have added to my resource kit for living fully, and I am quite grateful for those able to share over this course’s forum, as I learned much from that openness. Cheers Carli

Thank you Anja and Stephen for the depth of your heart. Also For the offerings of these modules and providing a safe venue to share this moment in time with a community of people from around the world. Noreen

Thank you for this course. I feel I have once again awakened to The Transformation. You are to be commended for the depth and divergence brought to bear in such a concise and succinct way. Leaving you with this borrowed symbol. Durelle

I have really enjoyed the material and process that went with it. I will return again to a lot of the material, and processes, that have had a really good impact on my life, and my perspectives. Thank you for what is a really wonderful and beautifully appropriate programme to look deep in the mirror and see with different eyes. I have recommended to quite a few who I see are now also starting or recently started. Mike

The course has been very good for me. Shoring up existing understating and opening new areas. This infuses my counselling work seamlessly and I move closer to my imaginal vision – A small house in the woods with a wooden sign at the gate; Alchemist. Enquire within. Steven

Thank you for a wonderful and interesting course. I have enjoyed each and every post. Jeanine

This course helped me dig deep and get to understand what is bubbling under the surface and accepting it. You really are looking into the mirror. Margaretha

Bingo! smile emoticon I’d say more but the roofers are helping me to meditate on the symbolism of change and pounding hammers. It’s loud in here! Thank you Anja van Kralingen and Stephen Anthony Farah. I know my purpose is to continue working with symbols and to share my individual experiences and perspectives with others. I have a deeper understanding of that now. I am not sure though on what level…? My passion is already music. This kind of work is transpersonal and I love it! Thank you! PEACE Michael

Big thank you to the facilitators and fellow travellers. I feel privileged to have been a part of this course. Deep work and it has way exceeded my expectations. Claire

Thank you very much Anja and Stephen, I have enjoyed this course very much and need to go back over it to process more and share with the group. It’s lovely to engage with a like-minded tribe! Corrine

Thank you for this offering! I found the content approachable and yet deep, and the applications described well and enticing! My understanding of the healing power of symbols calls for more exploration and more reading from Jung and Taoism…and simply playing in this realm. Toni

Thanks for a very enlightening and healing course – I feel like I am developing a more creative and playful relationship to my “problems”, “issues”, wounds – no longer connected to them in a pathological way, but as clues and symbols towards envisioning and carrying out a life of meaning and purpose. I believe in the value and importance of seeing and living life in its poetic form. Justine

A huge thank you again to Anja and Stephen , the course has been intense but the rewards are great and deep and will reverberate for a long time. Claire