Edith Sullwold Memorial Lecture: Zoom Only: “Social Media and the Collective Unconscious: Archetypal algorithms and the impact on children and youth”

Presented by Jane Clapp

Saturday, October 19, 2024 from 10-1pm on zoom

This lecture is an in depth exploration of the often negative impact of heavy social media use on the developing psyches of children and youth. The colonization of the human psyche driven by greed and hunger for power during this period of end-stage capitalism has played a part in weaving algorithms that infect the unconscious. Jane maintains that heavy social media impacts the healthy developmental processes of children and youth. It interferes with the psyche’s capacity to develop a symbolic life and the egoic strength necessary for the healthy creation of identity which in needed in the evolution of the ego-Self axis. Many underestimate the influence of this cultural phenomenon on both the individual and collective psyche. Jane believes that Jungians have much to offer in sounding the alarm bells given our understanding of the unconscious and the archetypal realm.

Jane Clapp is a Jungian Analyst (IAAP), and a Registered Psychotherapist. For over twenty years, she was a movement and somatic coach and embodiment educator working with a diverse clientele worldwide, many of whom have suffered deeply from emotional or physical pain, longing to come back into meaning and vitality. Jane founded and created a professional training program, Movement for Trauma, that she offered to psychotherapists and somatic practitioners from around the world. She is a member of The Breathe Network, which connects sexual violence survivors with trauma-informed healing arts practitioners. She has presented her work at the Jung Society of Utah, the Calgary Jung Society, and the London Arts-Based Research Centre. She presented on vicarious trauma prevention and compassion fatigue for organizations including the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs and Fire Service Women of Ontario, and at the Trauma Talks conference at Women’s College Hospital. She believes in the power of understanding the body and psyche together to recover who we are truly meant to be in our lives. The bringing together of her many years of somatic study, over twenty years of clinical experience, extensive personal Jungian Analysis, and professional training as a Jungian Analyst, has given birth to a body of work she calls Jungian Somatics™.

Learning Objectives:

• Describe how social media use can impact a young psyche’s capacity to develop a symbolic life and interfere with the egoic strength necessary for the healthy creation of identity.
• Explain the intersection of neurobiology, nervous system theory and Jung’s model of the psyche during social media use and how this can negatively impact the development of the prefrontal cortex.
• Discuss how heavy social media use impairs the capacity for connection with others and can trigger the dopamine addiction pathways in the brain.

Refund requests must be sent by email at administration@junginla.org before noon (12:00 pm) prior to the program being paid for. No refund will be issued otherwise.