We live in a world rich with diverse healing traditions, wisdom, and energy work, often brought to life through the unique voices of women. Their stories hold the power to heal, inspire, and connect us across boundaries.
I’ll be sharing the story of one extraordinary woman practicing in the fields of therapy, healing, and energy work. These women bring unique perspectives and approaches that illuminate the strength and beauty of their journeys.
This month, we start with the inspiring Dr Sue Mehrtens PhD
Join me in celebrating the women who are changing lives, one healing moment at a time.
My Journey to Teaching and the Jungian Center - Dr Sue Mehrtens PhD
I have always been a teacher. When I was small, I never played "house" with my dolls; I played school. I would line my dolls up and hold up a book and "read" to them (pretend read, as I did not then know how to read). In one form or another, I've been teaching since then.
My father, not being an enlightened man, let me know at age 12 (when the school system would channel students into college track or occupational track) that he saw no point in sending girls to college. I realized then that I would have to put myself through college, so I began to study hard, and I got a whole series of scholarships (along with a strong commitment to women's equality and an aversion to patriarchal misogyny). In college I took one education course, found it vacuous, and then aimed higher: I would be a college professor. After ten years of post-secondary education, I had a B.A., M.A., M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in medieval studies.
Then I taught at several colleges and assumed that "professor" would be my lifelong education. The Self (my inner divine wisdom) had other plans. On November 25, 1983, I had the first of what I have come to call my "voice-over" dreams--just words, not actions or scenes. It said, "Friends will die. Relatives will die. You will give up everything, and your life will be transformed." The voice was so loud it woke me up. Then I asked my husband if he had heard it, and he said no, so I told him the words, and then, given the very small Ivy League "box" I was living in mentally--where things like dreams were trivial nonsense--I promptly forgot it.
Five days later I learnt of the sudden death of my friend Hazel Crafts, and my husband, reminded me of the dream. "Oh, that's just a coincidence!" I replied. But within a few weeks I heard of another friend's death, and two aunts and an uncle died, and then I began to wonder. Over the next year, my old life began to fall away and the predictive dreams kept coming, along with a lot of the more usual dreams, and I thought I was going crazy, so I would ask my friends if they thought I was crazy, and they suggested I consult this counselor, that therapist, even the psychiatrist at the hospital in Bangor. They all told me the same thing: if I was having all these dreams, I should work with a Jungian, as they specialize in dreams.
I was so obtuse that I kept hearing "union," leading me to think there was some dreamworkers union! Finally, after hearing this from several of the therapists, I asked how to find this union. Only then did I learn of Carl Jung (being German-speaking, the "J" is pronounced as a Y). That sent me to the college library, where I found an entire bookcase of books by Jung and Jungiana.
Just as the initial dream said, I did give up everything--home, marriage, job, career identity--as more dreams kept pointing me to aspects of my new life. Through all this time (and right up to today), Jung and his wisdom have been my lodestar. Once I found Jung's books, I knew I wanted to get into analysis.
It took two years to find a Jungian analyst, because in 1984 there were none in Maine. Lynda Schmidt moved to Maine in July 1985 and I worked with her for 38 years, until her death in 2023. The directive dreams have continued to this day, sending me to California, Washington D.C., New York and finally Vermont, and every place I moved I found other analysts to work with. Now, happily settled in rural Vermont, the dreams focus more on the work I do at the Jungian Center, which is also the result of a series of dreams in 2005. Over a week in July of that year, the structure, mission, values, and logo of the Center were given to me in dreams.
I now live by dreams, some of which come to me spontaneously, others which I "incubate," asking for guidance in writing in my dream journal, and then paying close attention to outer life and inner guidance, then following the instructions I receive. The 201+ essays archived on our Jungian Center site were written at the behest of dreams, and many other aspects of my life are guided by my dreams or by synchronicities or intuitions. As Jesus said, his "yoke" is easy, and by choosing to live by divine guidance, I find my life to be so much easier than it was 40 years ago.
The above is how I came to set up and run the Jungian Center. Enough about me. Now, for a bit about the Center. The Jungian Center for the Spiritual Sciences is a non-profit educational organization whose mission is to disseminate the wisdom of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Toward that end, we run courses, workshops, and special events, post monthly essays to our blog, write books related to Jung's ideas (the latest of which is Jung on America, which is selling like hot cakes!), and link our site to others with similar missions and values, like Hemla's site and her work with family constellation theory/color therapy.
The Center is structured with a five-path curriculum, reflecting the various ways the psyche can express: via the intellect (via investigative), via the body (via physica), via the creative muse (via creative), via meditation (via contemplative), and via practical, hands-on activities (via practica)--so as to help anyone, regardless of his/her type preference to develop what Jung called the "inferior function."
At the Center we strive to create a warm, relaxed, safe space for learning, so there are no tests, no forms of evaluation, no possibility of failure--much like the atmosphere in the temenos (sacred space) of the analytical encounter analysands enjoy with their analysts. Following Jung's emphases to "keep it loose" and "keep it small," our programs are flexible and personal in nature, with small enrollments, adaptable design, and low costs: much like Jung, the Center is primarily about soul work and Spirit, not money. Since the pandemic, all our offerings have been via Zoom (as part of our effort to do our bit to reduce carbon emissions). This format has resulted in our having participants from all over the world.
Students are often the instigators of programs and courses. Recently, for example, a student suggested we offer a course on anima/animus (the "inner partner" that lives in all of us), and the very popular course we ran on Mary Magdalene was student-generated. True to our Jungian orientation, we regularly offer courses on dreamwork, Jung's psychology, and Jung-related subjects like alchemy, mythology, and symbolism.
The Center's web site is now in its third iteration, and the overhaul done in 2023 has made it much more user-friendly as well as a richer resource for Jung scholarship, as we have all 20 volumes of Jung's Collected Works, the two volumes of his Letters, and the book of interviews he gave to journalists and visitors, Jung Speaking. The 201+ essays I have written over the years are based on various of Jung's ideas and concepts, and all of them have been indexed for ease of use.
Looking to the future, the Center will celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2025, when we will also observe the sesquicentennial of Jung's birthday (1875)--a year-long celebration of Jung's life and work. Starting in January, we will have special pages on our web site with games, puzzles, and other "specials"--all in honor of Jung.
Dr Sue Mehrtens PhD
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