ABSTRACT

The Adolescent Shadow in Dreamwork with Adults.

Renee Beck, MFT 
dreamcrucible@hotmail.com

Renee Beck, MFT lives in Oakland, CA. She has an MA in Transpersonal and Clinical Psychology, and a BA in Consciousness.  She has been in private psychotherapy practice in Transpersonal Dreamwork and has spent thirty years working with dreams, ritual, energy and symbolic systems.  She is co-author of The Art of Ritual and Contra Costa Alternative School Co-Director, and has been teaching & doing therapy with teenagers and families since 1982.

Summary of Presentation

Learning Objectives

1) To understand the importance of working through Adolescent Shadow issues
to individual, relationship and cultural healing & growth;

2) To understand the developmental tasks of adolescence, and recognize some
of the symbolic ways adolescent issues may appear in dreams;

3) To understand the relevance of grounding the Adolescent Shadow dream
lesson in right action in the world.

Evaluation questions:

1) What is the Adolescent Shadow and why is it important for adults to
acknowledge and deal with it?    Answer:  The Adolescent Shadow is the
repressed complex of unresolved developmental issues and psychological
woundings from adolescence.  It is important to address because, while our
culture acknowledges and addresses childhood issues, it does not adequately
acknowledge adolescent ones, and, until we work them through, we cannot
become healthy adults. 

2) Name the primary adolescent developmental task, and its four dimensions. 
Answer:  The primary developmental task of adolescence is Identity
Integration, as a sexual, intimate, ideological/political and spiritual
being. 

3) Why is it important to take action in the waking world as a way of
grounding dream wisdom about the Adolescent Shadow?               
Answer:    Because the developmental tasks of adolescence include
identification as a powerful, effective human being in relationship with and
responsible to other people and community, until we realize our knowledge
with action in the world, we remain children, and leave the responsibility
to others.

Abstract 

This workshop addresses the need for adults to explore their Adolescent Shadows, the adolescent developmental task of identity integration, adolescent symbols that may appear in dreams, and developing ways to ground the dream wisdom with specific actions in the waking world. While western psychology has focused a lot of energy on dealing with early childhood developmental issues and traumas in adults, not enough attention has been paid to the repercussions of adults not completing their adolescent developmental tasks, or how trauma during the adolescent years negatively affects adulthood.  Combined with the widespread disrespect of youth in our culture, this has created a society consisting of many adults who, even if they have completed their childhood developmental tasks and healings, are fixated in their teens.  Too many of us feel bad for being sexual, are terrified or incapable of healthy intimacy, have lost touch with a sense of meaning and purpose, feel politically impotent, and are overly invested in materialism at the expense of spirit. By working through the issues of identity integration as sexual, intimate, ideological/political and spiritual beings (see Table I), we can become healthy adults.  Our dreams provide access to these issues with such symbolic guides as teenage figures, hangouts, music and dress, situations including new houses, high school or early college, or focusing on popularity, alienation, and political or authority issues. Once these issues have been recognized and addressed, action in the waking world can help us become responsible adults participating in and having an effect on our culture. Action examples could include volunteering to hold crack babies (for drug abuse issues), becoming a Big Brother or Sister (for authority issues), becoming active in local government or a cause (for political powerlessness), etc. Dream symbols denoting adolescent issues can help adults identify and work through the Adolescent Shadow.  By completing the tasks of identity integration and healing adolescent wounding, including grounding such healing with action in the world, we can become healthy, functioning, effective adults.

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