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The fifth meeting of the Association was held in a magnificent setting—a large country-house on the banks of the Elbe outside Hamburg. Fifty-four members assembled from Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, the United States and England to live together for a week and work on common Jungian concepts.
The theme chosen this year was ‘Masculine-Feminine’ and, as with last year's meeting, the idea was to get away from ‘head’ activities and explore non-verbal ways of communicating and developing. Several formal papers were presented, including ones by Christopher Achenbach, Barbara Beyland, Kurt Höhfeld and Andrew Samuels, but, mainly, work went on in groups using a variety of active imagination methods. These included relaxation, folk dancing, movement and physical expression and a painting group organised by Cordula Keppler and Elisabeth Liening using the theme of Beauty and the Beast, while Helga Anderssen and Karin Kirchdorfer directed a mock family therapy session. Pino Bartalotta, as well as providing and cooking the now-traditional spaghetti for the last evening, produced extracts from Twelfth Night in his experimental theatre group.
Thus, the creative aspects of each member were stimulated and channelled into ways which could be understood and discussed by the whole group. Language problems were minimised, language not only national but expressive of the widely different methods of working and training.
In this vigorous and enthusiastic milieu, I found two experiences personally memorable: the morning spent in reversing masculine/feminine rôles, and the mask creation group directed by Vivane Thibaudier-Alexon.
In the former, by assuming the persona of the opposite sex, inter-action between men and women was experienced in a new way and in the discussion that followed, observations and experiences could be compared. The exercise, typical of the conference, was an attempt to stimulate the imagination and have a body experience rather than an intellectual one, and, sheer