Reflective sessions with Colleen EL-Bejjani
Harvard Street Integrated Wellness
18 Harvard Street
Rochester, New York 14607
[email protected]
 
“Everything we can possibly know and experience consists of soul stuff, has been filtered through language and images. We touch an oak tree and think that we touch the real thing, but what we touch is ‘oak tree,’ which is a human concept and image. We see a cow, a mountain, the moon, a fog, my mother, but all these perceptions are linguistic and mental concepts. Even the idea of something incomprehensible and the idea Jung toyed with … of an extra-linguistic reality as an absolutely unknowable X (‘the essence of things external to ourselves’) is a linguistic concept. There is for us no exit from the soul, the soul in this general sense, and soul is here synonymous with consciousness.” Wolfgang Giegerich, What Is Soul? New Orleans: Spring Publications, 2012, p. 75.  
 
Have you ever felt that you and others seem to be disengaged from meaningful lives in an increasingly fast-paced world?
 
Why does it seem that cultural institutions such as family, religion, and education seem to be failing? 
 
Would you like to find a way to view cultural phenomenon objectively to better understand its effect on daily experience?
Interiority Studies is an approach toward personal and cultural reflection that engages the client/student intellectually as well as emotionally. Deeply seeped in the Jungian tradition, re-thought through the eyes of Jungian analyst Wolfgang Giegerich and the work of various writers engaged in the Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority (PDI), Interiority Studies explores the movement of objective soul expressed within cultural phenomenon and individual life. As well as the recursive reflection that occurs in conversation, clients explore dream images, fantasy, and reflect on selected readings that are psychological, philosophical, and/or poetic. Colleen’s clients possess the willingness to deeply engage in the subject matter that holds them in its grip – whether that be a relationship, world view, dream/fantasy, or work of art.
Colleen EL-Bejjani serves on the Executive Committee for The International Psychology as the Discipline of Interiority (ISPDI) and holds monthly international tele-seminars for the ISPDI community known as Open Inquiries. She has presented her work on Interiority at international and national conferences, including Berlin, Germany, Malibu, California, Rochester, New York, Buffalo, New York, and Toronto, Canada. Colleen holds an M.A. in Liberal Arts from the New York State University at Empire State College, and has served as the artistic director of Bush Mango Drum & Dance from 1988 - 2016. She has also completed her Archetypal Pattern Recognition certificate from The Assisi Institute: The International Center for the Study of Archetypal Patterns. After a long career performing and teaching dance in community, university, and city school settings, she currently teaches poetry at Northeast High School in Rochester, New York.  To schedule an appointment, email [email protected].
 
 

How do we each create meaningful lives in a world where "Meaning" is no longer a given? Meaning en masse has become obsolete. Humankind isn't unified within a living concept in the Gods, Goddesses, God, or any one singularly potent system of identification with Meaning, our selves, or each other. Our soul/world relationship is all together ours to make. Of course, some have strong belief systems that mask this reality, such as religion, activism, or a morality that supersedes all else. Even schools of psychology have belief systems that are rooted in biology, anthropology, or medicine - all existing external to soul.

Interiority roots itself in the noetic, not the reified, obsolete images or concepts of what was once soul, but the living, temporal moments of soul-making when the subject of our inquiry (psychology itself!, our dreams, whatever has us in its grips) is not thought about, but is negated until its very essence reveals its truth.

Interiority is a methodological way to perceive the world as it is - not as it once was, or how we hope for it to be. Interiority begins with what is.

On Friday, May 27th I will offer 5 introductory sessions to anyone interested in my work though unsure if it is the right fit.  The cost of introductory sessions are $25. They are offered on a first-come, first-served basis. You can secure a time by using the "schedule an appointment" page. Be sure to include your Skype address so I can phone you at the scheduled time.  Looking forward to talking with you.

Available times are:
12:30 p.m. - 1 p.m.
1:15 p.m. - 1:45 p.m.
2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
4:15 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.
5:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

I will be accepting new clients beginning June 1st, 2016. I work mainly through Skype. If you are interested in finding out more information about how I work with psychology, you can contact me at [email protected].