There is something both terrifying and exquisite about the transformative experience of what initially rises up from within us in symbolic form, becoming a comprehensive and functional pattern and process of conscious, living and empowering feelings, behaviours, thoughts and words. Jung describes these transformations saying, “even though we do not understand it – we can listen directly to the throb of creation itself.”
Carl Jung deepened Freud’s conception noting that the unconscious of a person contains more than repressed unconscious memories or forgotten experiences held in the personal unconscious; Jung discovered that the unconscious also comprises typical patterns and processes which are common to all human beings. He called these archetypes and said that these are held in the collective unconscious. When we seek to develop a repressed part of ourselves or to become conscious of a potential we have never yet developed, it is these human-specific processes and patterns that we need to access and make conscious in our personalities.
Preparations For This Work
I am an accredited Jungian Analyst, also called an Analytical Psychologist. One needs to have a Masters degree in order to train as an Analyst. I am a Research Psychologist and graduated with a Masters degree from Wits University here in Johannesburg. I then studied and graduated as a Jungian Analyst at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. It was a six-year training. In Switzerland I studied and was examined in Developmental psychology, Psychiatry, Ethnology, Comparative religions, Individuation, Picture and Dream interpretation and Fairy tales. My studies naturally included working with clients under supervision for a number of years. But the training is not merely theoretical; during the training process we were also required to undergo a minimum of 300 hundred hours of analysis ourselves.
What I do
From my training at the Jung Institute, Zurich, it becomes evident from the subjects listed above that although my subjects included some of the scientific areas of psychology I studied at university, the others straddle and bring in the capacity to recognise and work with – not only the personal unconscious of a person – but the archetypal patterns and processes that belong to all human beings. This is not lightly said. These inner archetypal processes are awesome in both their beauty and their darkness and are to be deeply respected and even “feared” for the power they carry. This is not an area of work for an untrained person to step into lightly without having first been rigorously prepared and trained.
People come to me to work with their vulnerabilities and their inner and outer development from the perspective of the specific training I have noted above. How is this work approached? Simply put, what we can explain and speak about is conscious for us. What we cannot express in words, thoughts, feelings or behaviour is unconscious for us and is thus inaccessible to us in the normal course of events. But, what is unconscious is expressed in symbols and metaphor and with some assistance we can learn to understand this symbolic language. These symbols express themselves in dreams, pictures, behaviours, thoughts, our attitudes, our feelings and our stories about ourselves, the world and others. I am trained to work with these symbols. This is the work I do. This is why people come to work with me.
About Leslie
Leslie Zimmermann is a Jungian Analyst trained in the philosophy and psychology of C.G. Jung in Zurich and is based in Johannesburg. She offers a range of services, which she integrates, to meet the needs and aspirations of people. In a word, her work is in the service of wholeness. Wholeness includes both our vulnerabilities and our strengths, becoming conscious of our own unique mix of these, honoring our own unique way of functioning and with this knowledge and confidence, contributing as only we each can in our own way, to this evolving world we find ourselves to be a part of.
Besides having a Diplomate qualification in Analytical psychology, which qualifies me to write about the theory and practice of dream interpretation, I also have an Honours degree in Applied Psychology and a Masters degree in Research psychology, which qualify me to write about theories of human development, personality, abnormal psychology, social psychology, sociology and ethics. Also, theories and knowledge pertaining to sleep and dreams from a perspective of neuropsychological and biological systems.
Leslie specializes in Analytical Psychology, Voice Dialogue, Life Coaching solutions for business executives. Consulting and coaching for family owned and home-based business
For an appointment Leslie Zimmermann can be contacted on:
Email: leslie.zimmermann@gmail.com
Mobile: +27 (0)83 384 9812
Member: SAPC (South African Psychoanalytic Confederation); AGAP (Association of Graduate Analytical Psychologists, Switzerland); SAAJA (Southern African Association of Jungian Analysts); IAAP (International Association for Analytical Psychology); International Association for the Study of Dreams