The Psychology of Separation

Saturday 1:00pm | Landing

“The Psychology of Separation” is an interactive presentation that invites participants into a shared experience of simultaneously questioning and dismantling some of the aspects of individual and collective socialization that serve to separate us. With insights from Carl Jung, Howard Thurman, and Christian scripture, this presentation points participants towards new ways of relating to self and other, from objectification of self and other to relational restoration. The Kingdom, and the Beloved Community, are presented as qualitative realities, dimensions of being, as aspects of Ultimate Reality, or relational wholeness. This presentation focuses particularly on issues of separation related to race, but the insights are also applicable to separation along the lines of gender, religion, or sexual orientation. Division is presented as an internal reality that creates our external shared reality. The splits between us are informed by the splits inside of us. Loving God, self, and the “”other”” are inextricable.

Tony Caldwell

Tony Caldwell, LCSW is a psychotherapist in private practice, a Social Work educator at the University of Mississippi, and Director of College Ministry at Oxford-University United Methodist Church in Oxford, Ms. He is a member of the Memphis-Atlanta Jungian Seminar and the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts. As a public speaker, human rights activist, project facilitator, town hall moderator, and workshop leader, Tony has partnered with The William Winter Institute For Racial Reconciliation, The Human Rights Campaign, Mississippi Racial Equity Community of Practice, the W.W. Kellogg Foundation, The Sarah Isom Center For Women and Gender Studies, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Radical South Conference. Tony and his colleague, Dr. Jandel Crutchfield, have enjoyed success in their grassroots Together Projects promoting interracial and interfaith dialogue across the state of Mississippi. Tony loves writing about the intersection of theology, depth psychology, and social justice. You can find some of his writings at www.tonycaldwell.net