Dr Wilna van der Walt Psychotherapy Practice

Medical Practitioner and Creative Facillitator

MB ChB (UFS) Pr nr 0681652

Address: Muizenberg, South Africa

Hi, I am a registered medical doctor, and practice within the field of psychotherapy.

Creative work can support one’s inner work and be very beneficial. When I speak about creative work, I am not referring to art or art therapy. You also do not need previous artistic experience or training of any kind. To incorporate creative work into your inner journey, or not, remains your own choice.

Jung, in The Aims of Psychotherapy:

“A patient needs only to have seen once or twice how much he is freed from a wretched state of mind by working at a symbolical picture, and he will always turn to this means of release whenever things go badly with him.” (Chodorow, 1997, p. 93)

Psychological inner growth

A crisis may bring about inner growth, enabling one to acquire a more objective perspective on life’s difficulties and to engage more effectively with the problem at hand. This is the personal journey.

Together with the therapist one undertakes this search for inner truth and connectedness. The journey of self-discovery gradually opens up the pattern of one’s deeper life.  The connection to this deeper life grows slowly, like a tree, for only swamp plants shoot up overnight.

Creativity and the Inner Other

We take special note of our dreams and their messages, for they assist us in restoring the connection to our deep symbolical life. Creative work can be an indispensable tool in this process of inner growth, assisting the therapeutic relationship.

The creative process, the act of creative self expression, starts with creative play and fantasy, our imagination.

My approach is based on my own experience with creative play and the unfolding of the creative process in my own life.  I have always found inspiration in Jung’s work and continue to learn from it.

Creativity is the life-force itself, and the process of inner growth is aimed at the restoration of the relationship to that central creative force at the core of one’s being.

Developing a conscious relationship to one’s creative work does not mean analysing it intellectually, but learning to relate to the world of images in a meaningful way. A conscious relationship to one’s creative work has the ability to nourish, support and contain the personality.

Jung says in Memories, Dreams, Reflections p. 340:

The need for mythic statements is satisfied when we frame a view of the world which adequately explains the meaning of human existence in the cosmos, a view which springs from our psychic wholeness, from the co-operation between conscious and unconscious. Meaninglessness inhibits fullness of life and is therefore equivalent to illness. Meaning makes a great many things endurable – perhaps everything.

The Swiss psychiatrist, CG Jung (1875 – 1961), was the founder of analytical psychology and is known for his exploration and description of processes of the unconscious and archetypal phenomena.

Jung found that the unconscious spoke to us in our dreams by way of symbols. Convinced that dreams offer practical advice, sent from the unconscious to the conscious self, he felt that self-understanding would lead to a full and productive life. (Blurp from Man and His Symbols)

In CG Jung speaking: Interviews and Encounters, edited by William McGuire and RFC Hull, Jung says:

Together the patient and I address ourselves to the 2,000,000 year old man that is in all of us. In the last analysis, most of our difficulties come from losing contact with our instincts, with the age-old forgotten wisdom stored up in us.

Creativity and the Inner Other

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Creative work can be an indispensable tool in the process of individuation. 

The aim of this workshop is to provide a safe space in which to explore our creativity and our relationship to that aspect of the inner Other. The workshop will provide many opportunities for practical work as well as discussions of key aspects of this symbolical creative process. Stories will be used to demonstrate properties of the creative space as a sacred space, of the unfolding of the image in the space and our developing relationship to it. Participants will be guided on an exploratory journey to facilitate better access to deeper levels of creativity, accessible to all of us, that have often been suppressed. Practical experiential aspects of the process will be interwoven throughout the discussions. No previous artistic experience or other ways of expressing creativity are required for this workshop.

Jung, in The aims of psychotherapy:

“A patient needs only to have seen once or twice how much he is freed from a wretched state of mind by working at a symbolical picture, and he will always turn to this means of release whenever things go badly with him.”  (Chodorow, 1997, p. 93)

Jung, in the Tavistock Lectures:

“But [the therapist] should leave the originals with the patients, because they want to look at them and they become enchanted. The suggestive influence of the picture reacts on the psychological system of the patient and induces the same effect which he puts into the picture. That is the reason for the use of idols, for the magic use of sacred images, of icons. They cast their magic into our system and put us right, provided we put ourselves into them.” (Chodorow, 1997, p. 152)

Would you like to be notified of the next workshop? Please click here to mail me your details.

Venue: CG Jung Centre, Cape Town

Creativity Workshop Program

Friday evening:  Introduction and first practical

After a short introduction to some of Jung’s views on creative play and fantasy, we encounter our natural fear of the other side in a Croatian tale.

Saturday morning: Second practical; Colour and shape, outlay and meaning; Art materials, the right marriage; The creative space as Temenos;

After a look at a general approach to shape, colour and outlay in a meaningful way, we discuss the choice of artistic materials with regard to assisting inner work. Do personality types play a role in the chemistry of the right medium?

We explore the creative space, and the process of the unfolding message from the deep, by way of a Native American legend.

Saturday afternoon: Creativity and nourishment;  Third practical; Learning from the work of David Blum

With the help of an ancient Chinese story we explore how symbolical creative work may play a role in restoring inner imbalance. We also trace developing patterns and motifs in the work of David Blum.

Sunday morning: Last practical; Amplification and meaning; An objective approach, building a relationship; Sharing and feedback 

In Ovid’s Pygmalion we explore how the amplification of the image opens up the content and brings it into context. In conclusion, we discuss the objective approach we have been exploring all through the workshop, followed by optional sharing and feedback.