Dr. Margery Runyan, Psychotherapy
“Our wounds are often the openings into the best and most beautiful part of us.”
Psychotherapy is a process of healing which resides within the relationship between the client and the licensed therapist. In the safety and confidentiality of this bond, an emotional world emerges, unfolds, and transforms everyone. Some of this emotional content arises from the unconscious where it has been waiting to find light.
I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 things that do not work.
The Tao is the One. The Two is the Yin and the Yang. The rest is the 10,000 things.
Undisturbed by the unpleasant, Longing no more for the pleasant, Free from attachments, fear and anger is the steady-state of the Chitta. The Self is everywhere, without a body, without a shape, whole, pure, wise, all-knowing, far-shining, self-depending, all transcending; in the eternal procession assigning to every period its proper duty.
The Self is the driving capacity to integrate all the parts of the life cycle and to become whole. We must allow the unconscious to emerge in order to establish balance with the consciousness and achieve the integration of the Self.
After receiving a BA in French literature from Goucher College in 1970, I began my social work career, joining VISTA in Philadelphia, working with OIC and the Reverend Leon Sullivan as a community organizer. I achieved my Masters in Social Work at Rutgers in 1975, and started a 25 year career with the State of NJ, beginning as a child abuse caseworker in Hudson County, NJ, and eventually acting as Representative of the Commissioner of Human Services in Hudson and Bergen Counties. After retirement, I relocated to Durango, CO in 2000. I taught social work at NM Highlands University and sociology/human services at San Juan College in Farmington, NM from 200 to 2013. I received my PhD from Capella University in Human Services in 2010.
In my subsequent career as a Jungian analyst, I studied with Dr. Mehrtens who runs a Jungian school in Waterbury, Vermont. Over the years, I have taken numerous courses primarily with Dr. Murray Stein past president of the Zurich Institute and John Hall also in the Zurich Jungian Community. These courses included Living the Symbolic Life, Personality Types, Alchemy, Fairy Tales, Transference, the Red Book and more. My studies have led me deeply into Jung’s affinity for the Mandala which represents wholeness.
I joined the School of Practical Philosophy while still working as a child abuse caseworker in Jersey City, NJ. This school was founded in England with strong ties back to India and has disseminated its teachings worldwide. Just within the last five years, I have come to believe that this school was affiliated with the Theosophy School founded by Madame Helena Blavatsky, who traveled to India in the 19th Century and brought back esoteric Eastern beliefs, making them palatable to Western audiences. Her most famous works, The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled, are major parts of my library.
I now live six months of each year in the South of France in the Aude Department south of Carcassonne where I write books on twins and study the Cathars, Mary Magdalene, and the French language.