Register by:	September 9, 2014; after that, check availability
Tuition:	$100 members; $115 non-members
Materials fee:	$10
Materials:	Love and the Unconscious materials list

How does the unconscious operate in a couple relationship? How important is it in understanding the dynamics of the relationship?

Over the past decade, attachment psychology has been put to the rigors of scientific standards through numerous clinical trials. In this significant body of research, evidence for what has been operating between couples on an unconscious level is being brought into the light through hundreds of hours of recorded couple therapy sessions. What is being discovered is just how significant the unconscious is in a majority of the interactions between couples. This new finding is throwing into question some age-old held beliefs, and confirming others, like the importance of compromise to a successful, loving relationship, and the importance of partners being good at negotiating within a relationship.

In this class we will use the stories of couples we find in literature as illustrations of what these unconscious attachment dynamics look like as they are played out in the fictional lives of the characters. Through this process participants will learn to see beyond the surface of the endless issues that couples become immersed in, to what is going on at deeper levels.

By the end of this class you will have gained not only a new way of looking at relationships, but also the ability to make available to yourself the wisdom of the unconscious -- in all your relationships.

About the instructors

M.A. Brauer has been a psychotherapist in private practice for the past 30 years. Most of that time she has spent working in the San Francisco Bay Area, commuting between offices in San Francisco and the East Bay.

In 2000 she was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Along with this crisis, an opportunity presented itself -- to move to Sea Ranch. The way opened. She and her husband, Bryan, moved up to Sea Ranch in 2001. With this move, she went into semi-retirement in order to concentrate her energy on trying to slow down the progression of the disease by a program of diet, meditation and exercise. About two years ago she had a moment of realizing how much she missed being able to help people as a psychotherapist. She has now retired from retirement and begun a new practice here on the coast with a renewed focus that motivates her everyday -- being of service.

Ida Egli will be offering for discussion short pieces of literature that demonstrate or highlight the psychological theory introduced by M.A. Brauer.

She has taught creative writing and literature on the Mendonoma Coast for eleven years, first for Santa Rosa Junior College, and later shorter courses for Gualala Arts. She taught for many years at SRJC, was department chair, before semi-retiring to the coast. She has written and had published non-fiction, fiction, poetry.

See also: Gualala Arts Workshop Registration, Payment & Cancellation Policy.

The Gualala Arts Center, located at 46501 Old State Highway in Gualala, CA,
is open weekdays 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., and weekends from noon to 4:00 p.m.
Please call (707) 884-1138 for more information, or email info@gualalaarts.org.

Serving the coastal communities of northern Sonoma & southern Mendocino Counties.