Welcome to my website. Here you can learn a bit about my training and background; watch a brief video interview; and get some idea of the clinical services I offer. The way I practice, psychotherapy and analysis serve your individuation – that is, your becoming ever more completely the authentic you.

Since graduating from the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago in 1987, I have practiced psychotherapy and Jungian Analysis in the Milwaukee and Madison, WI, areas.

At the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago I continue to serve on the faculty and various committees, and teach and supervise analytic candidates. From 2009-2013 I served as director of the Analyst Training Program.

In addition to my practice and my work at the Institute, I offer talks and presentations on Jungian psychology as well as consultation for social workers and psychologists. To learn more about me and how I work, or to schedule an appointment in Madison by calling 608.217.5184.

The Ox Herding [web 1] pictures on this page are a classic depiction of stages on the path of healing and spiritual development. The ten pictures and accompanying poems from the Zen are also accurate descriptions of the experience of psychotherapy and analysis moving toward individual wholeness, what C.G. Jung called “individuation.” Follow the story by clicking on each of the images throughout the site.

The first picture and poem, In Search of the Ox, poses a challenge we deal with in psychotherapy and analysis: The exhausting search.

In Search of the Ox

In the pasture of the world,
I endlessly push aside the tall
grasses in search of the Ox.
Following unnamed rivers,
lost upon the interpenetrating
paths of distant mountains,
My strength failing and my vitality exhausted,
I cannot find the Ox.

Video Interview

Discovery of the Footprints

Along the riverbank under the trees,
I discover footprints.
Even under the fragrant grass,
I see his prints.
Deep in remote mountains they are found.
These traces can no more be hidden
than one’s nose, looking heavenward.

If you feel you have gone as far as you can on your own without some help, if you feel you are stuck in a rut or stranded on a plateau, psychotherapy and analysis can help get your life moving again.

“I am blessed that our paths in life have crossed. Your insight and support, along with your in-depth dream analysis, has been so helpful in moving forward on the journey.” -Mary Ann

I work with women and men who recognize the need to function better, to nurture their unique talents and aspirations, and to lead more meaningful lives.

Perceiving the Ox

I hear the song of the nightingale.
The sun is warm, the wind is mild,
willows are green along the shore –
Here no Ox can hide!
What artist can draw that massive head,
those majestic horns?

I looked forward to my time with Boris every week.

He listens, sees.

Knows, sympathizes.

Supports, challenges.

Boris has the gift of helping you see the truths about yourself and the solutions to the problems of your life that lie within you. I came to Boris carrying an empty basket. I now have a basket filled with precious gem stones and covered with cloth that I carry with me always. Whenever I need to, I turn to the basket, lift up the cloth and recall the wise truths that he shared with me and led me to see in our time together.

I feel the impact of our work together in my life every day.

~Allison

Services & Specialties

Since graduating from the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago in 1987, I have been maintaining a general practice of psychotherapy and Jungian Analysis in the Milwaukee and Madison, WI, areas. I served as director of the Analyst Training Program from 2009-2013. I continue to serve on the faculty and teach and supervise analytic candidates. In addition to my practice and my work at the Institute, I offer talks and presentations on Jungian psychology as well as consultation for social workers and psychologists.

Emotional Disturbances

Emotional disturbances can be of many flavors: anxiety, fears, frustration, sadness, grief, disappointment. Emotional disturbances are information — messages — indicating a degree of conflict between your needs, hopes, abilities and expectations on the one hand and the world you live and move in.

Through psychotherapy and psychoanalysis we identify the faulty “fit” between your current skills and attitude, and the world you have to live in. Our aim is to help you realize — to make real — the fullest possible development and expression of your essential nature.

Catching the Ox

I seize him with a terrific struggle.
His great will and power
are inexhaustible.
He charges to the high plateau
far above the cloud-mists,
Or in an impenetrable ravine he stands.

Taming the Ox

The whip and rope are necessary,
Else he might stray off down
some dusty road.
Being well-trained, he becomes
naturally gentle.
Then, unfettered, he obeys his master.[web 9]

Depression

Depression is an emotion and condition that everybody experiences from time to time. Frequently depression stems from disappointment – what we have hoped for, worked toward, counted on falls short. This sort of depression is a normal experience of life albeit unpleasant and uncomfortable. Depression challenges us to take stock of ourselves and our situation, and to find new ways to actualize our essential nature and meet our needs.

Anxiety and fears

Anxiety and fears are two sides of the same issue. Both are sources of information that signal us to feel endangered. When we feel anxiety, we do not know the source or cause. All we can experience is the uncomfortable but “invisible” threat to our well-being. The challenge when dealing with anxiety is to be able to find the image that brings the anxiety into focus.

Unfortunately, anxiety can become a habitual mind-set that operates automatically and has a tendency to generalize, taking up more and more of our conscious attention. The challenge is now twofold: to explore the roots of the anxiety which often lie in past experiences even sometimes forgotten experiences, and assess the relevance of the felt threat to our current life.

Once the process has begun of unraveling the anxiety we can begin to deal with it as a fear. Fear is, so to speak, anxiety limited and in focus. When we identify a fear, we have the opportunity to address it consciously. Very often fear tells us that we need to grow in some way, and growth means “stretching” ourselves better to deal with new challenges and opportunities.

Riding the Ox Home

Mounting the Ox, slowly
I return homeward.
The voice of my flute intones
through the evening.
Measuring with hand-beats
the pulsating harmony,
I direct the endless rhythm.
Whoever hears this melody
will join me.

The Ox Transcended

Astride the Ox, I reach home.
I am serene. The Ox too can rest.
The dawn has come. In blissful repose,
Within my thatched dwelling
I have abandoned the whip and ropes.

“The work with you has started my healing journey” – Don Z

The Healing Path

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is problem-oriented. In the course of Jungian psychotherapy, work on finding a better balance between your way of living in the world and how you live with yourself. We identify problems and we create strategies. We build on developing your strengths to find solutions to current or chronic issues that concern you. We work to heal your old emotional wounds and facilitate more effective living in the world.

Jungian psychoanalysis

Jungian psychoanalysis continues the work of psychotherapy as we move from improved coping to exploring patterns of emotion and less-developed or unrecognized potentials that often announce their presence in fantasies and dreams. The goal of Jungian psychoanalysis is for you to experience an everyincreasing sense of wholeness.

Dreams

Dreams bring us information that we have not consciously registered and acted on. Jungian psychotherapy and analysis draw on your dreams as the source of guidance uniquely attuned to you. They are one way that our organism attempts to maintain a dynamic equilibrium in which we further our adaptation to our essential nature and our functioning in the world around us. When we closely follow your dreams over several months or years, we discover certain themes that repeat, either relatively unchanged or changed. They tell the story that develops over time: the story of your individuation path.

Individuation

Individuation refers to a particular type of wholeness: the process of healing inner conflicts, divisions and contradictions with the aim of becoming undivided, whole, or complete—the most authentic you that you can possibly be. Individuation is the natural goal in life. It is the natural process of fulfilling your innate potential so far as is humanly possible in the context of your actual life in the world. Individuation aims for wholeness that consciously embraces your “light” and “dark” sides – not “perfection.” Wholeness – individuation – is a quality of presence that we sense in another person who has achieved a high degree of self-acceptance. It has been well-expressed in these simple words:

Both Ox and Self Transcended

Whip, rope, person, and Ox –
all merge in No Thing.
This heaven is so vast,
no message can stain it.
How may a snowflake exist
in a raging fire. Here are the
footprints of the Ancestors.

if you meet a person who has individuated, you can say: “Oh, this is still old John
Smith” – completely, in the true sense of the word. He has really remained himself.
Analysis has not distorted him. He is still the good old John Smith I once knew, but he
is on a higher plane. How can you express this fact? You can only say: “I feel it.” There
is something more mature, more conscious, more calm, and whatever he was is more
intensely there and more real. But you can only hint at it. You cannot put into
quantitative terms how much of John Smith is still John Smith and how much isn’t. You
see? This higher consciousness is something you feel about another person. You have
a feeling that this is the same old person but somehow he is more worthy, more
intense, more real, more himself. But it is something you can only feel.

Marie-Lousie von Franz
interview with Claude Drey,
Lectures on Jung’s Aion

Wilmette, IL: Chiron Publications (2004), p. 164

People often find that the Jungian approach goes deeper and yields more satisfying, lifesustaining wellbeing as compared to other modalities.

Reaching the Source

Too many steps have been taken
returning to the root and the source.
Better to have been blind and deaf
from the beginning!
Dwelling in one’s true abode,
unconcerned with and without –
The river flows tranquilly on
and the flowers are red.

Return to Society

Barefooted and naked of breast,
I mingle with the people of the world.
My clothes are ragged and dust-laden,
and I am ever blissful.
I use no magic to extend my life;
Now, before me, the dead trees
become alive.