Talks, Workshops & Events
Upcoming Events
Thursday 26 February, 8-9:30pm Online
BJAA Jung Forum
Dispatches from Ukraine:
“So much is at stake…does the individual know that [they are] the makeweight that tips the scales?” (CG Jung, CW10, para 586)
Presenter: Catherine Cox BJAA
Chair: Ursula Wirtz ISAP
Open to bpf members and members of the public. Ukrainian translation provided.
Catherine Cox writes:
I have recently returned from two trips to Ukraine, the second taking me close to the front line. It was an extraordinary experience—one I would like to share with you. This is not the story you will read in the papers or watch on the news, but I hope it will move and inspire you.
As we enter a new year, it is increasingly evident that the world order is breaking down and reshaping itself in ways that, until recently, few of us anticipated. “Man is his own greatest danger,” Jung warned, pointing to the very real threat of mass psychosis and the profound suffering it can inflict on millions.
Writing of the “metamorphosis of the gods,” Jung described a moment of decisive transformation: one that may lead to a significant increase in consciousness—or to catastrophe. Near the end of his life, he reflected, “So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of modern man.” But, he questioned: “Does the individual know that he [they are] makeweight that tips the scales?”—that each of us “is the infinitesimal unit on whom the whole world depends?”
I was standing at a bus station, talking with undercover explosives operatives, when suddenly I understood what Jung meant—and how it works on the ground. Hope for the future, albeit precarious, returned.
As we approach the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, our colleagues there are keen that those who have visited bear witness—not only to the suffering, but also to the resilience, creativity, and enduring beauty of life in Ukraine.
BJAA invites you to let me tell you a story, to show your support for our colleagues, and to join us in reflecting on Jung’s enduring question: whether it is indeed the individual who is the makeweight—on whom the fate of the world depends.
Catherine Cox is a Jungian Analyst and Supervisor in private practice in London and Norfolk. She is the founder of With Ukrainian Jungians, an international pop-up that supports Jungian analysts and others in Ukraine.
Her professional life took her from theology to law, before drawing the threads together as a Jungian Analyst. She has a particular interest in working with trauma, inter-generational trauma and grief, and in Jung’s Red Book as a paradigm of the individuation process.
Ursula Wirtz, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in literature and philosophy, with a multifaceted expertise, being a clinical and anthropological psychologist as well as a Jungian psychoanalyst.
She has been internationally engaged in the training of Jungian analysts in Russia, Czech Republic, the Baltic States, China, and Taiwan. As a psychotraumatologist , serving for 20 years as a board member of a Swiss Foundation for War Trauma Therapy, she has been actively involved in global efforts focused on peace and reconciliation. Her experiences extended to providing supervision for war and torture victims through the Red Cross and guiding therapists in their work with female survivors of mass rapes in former Yugoslavia.
Ursula has contributed significantly to the field, with numerous publications covering diverse areas such as trauma, ethics, soul murder, and the convergence of psychotherapy and spirituality. Among her seminal works, “Trauma and Beyond: The Mystery of Transformation” stands as a testament to her expertise, having been translated into multiple languages including German, Russian, Polish, Czech, and Chinese. Moreover, her impact extends to the translation of two other books, “Soulmurder: Incest and Therapy” and “Hunger for Meaning” (Wirtz/Zöbeli) into Ukrainian.
May 30 – June 6, 2026
Organised by ISAP Zurich. Jungian Odyssey – Annual Conference and Retreat. Flims, Switzerland.
“Hope is the thing with feathers” – Imagination in times of despair.
Catherine Cox: “Radical Hope as a Way of Life”
Open to all with an interest in C.G.Jung’s Analytical Psychology.
Saturday 6th June, 2026
WMIP (West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy): The Analytical Psychotherapy Training: Birmingham. Public Lecture Series
Awakening in the Sepulchre: A Journey to Eternal Becoming
Open to all.
In person only: St Paul’s Convent, 94 Selly Park Road, Selly Park, Birmingham B29 7LL 10.15am – 2.30pm
“My works are fundamentally nothing but attempts, ever renewed, to give an answer to the question of the interplay between the ‘here’ and the ‘hereafter.’”
— C.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Sonu Shamdasani, editor of The Red Book, describes how Jung, in 1945, articulated what he described as a critical reformulation of analysis:
“The whole goal of analysis is conceived … as the preparation for the detachment of the soul from the body. Not how is your life going, but how is your death coming along, would be the critical question from this perspective. Thus analysis became reframed as a modern form of the ars moriendi.”
This seminar invites a profound reorientation in how we live our lives. It is an invitation to drop into a deeper, more vital current of being— challenging, requiring sacrifice, but also alive with joy.
Together, we will reflect on the kenotic (self-emptying) nature of love; on the ancient idea of theosis, or divine becoming in this life; and on epiktasis, the souls’ capacity for unending growth beyond death. We will consider the continuing presence of the dead in our lives, and ask what it means to live in transformative relationship with them.
Grief—in its many forms: for those we have loved, for our own suffering, for our ancestors, for victims of war and famine, and for the Earth itself—offers an initiation, a rebirth into a richer life.
Drawing on the Gospel of Mary Magdalene and the mystical revelation of Ladislaus Boros, we will explore how preparing consciously for death may not only enrich us in this life, but also set us on our way in the next.
The Chronicles of Narnia (7): The Last Battle by C S Lewis concludes with the gentle encouragement:
“All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of The Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every Chapter is better than the one before.”
Date to be confirmed
A Jungian Analyst’s Dispatch from near the frontline in Ukraine.
With a Performance by critically-acclaimed Concert Pianist Sasha Grynyuk
Jungian psychoanalyst Catherine Cox reports from two recent journeys to Ukraine: the first to Kyiv, and the second to Odessa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Lviv. Hers is a vivid account of resilience, courage, fortitude, and hope in the face of overwhelming force, of evil, betrayal, tyranny, and terror. Catherine will speak of daily life under missile attack, the struggle to preserve Ukraine’s cultural and historical artefacts, the legacy of the Cossacks, and the profound reasons why Ukrainians are sacrificing their lives for their country.
Ukrainian pianists, of which the country has a strong tradition, have emerged as powerful cultural agents of resistance, transforming performance into acts of witness, solidarity, and defiance. Through concerts in bomb shelters, ruined concert halls, and on major international stages, they assert the continuity of Ukrainian culture in the face of attempted erasure. These musicians counter propaganda with lived truth—reminding audiences that resistance is not only military, but moral, imaginative, and deeply human.
We are privileged to welcome award-winning and critically acclaimed pianist Sasha Grynyuk, who will perform in the second half of the evening on the Club’s piano.