This  presentation will discuss the trauma of political exile, how it splits  and shapes the psyche of displaced individuals, making their lives feel  psychologically conflictual and incongruous. We will explore how Jungian  theory can assist the exile in fashioning a new mythic center that  grounds the uncentered, culturally diverse self-states that develop from  acculturation. We will discuss how Jungian analysis is uniquely suited  to working with the exile complex through the presenter’s own dreamwork,  active imagination, the transcendent function of the symbol, and the  transference container - ultimately bringing meaning to the suffering of  exile.

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Lourdes Hernandez was  marked by the traumas of war and political asylum when her family fled  Cuba to take refuge in the United States. She holds post graduate  degrees from Pacifica Graduate Institute and Regis University in  hermeneutics, counseling, and Jungian and Archetypal Studies. She is a  Diplomate Jungian Analyst with the IRSJA and has a bilingual private  practice in Boulder, Colorado. Lourdes is a lifelong musician and visual  artist who values the curative power of the symbolic psyche and its  restorative interventions.

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