TITLE: Writing From Inside the Inside

One of my favorite things I did when teaching was writing seminars. I did several of these in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s with analysts, candidates, lay groups, and others. My basic approach was to illustrate various ways to “write from the inside out.” My intent was to get people to write from where dreams and words, like twins, are born, that is, from the depths of the psyche and not from the ego. Almost all writing books are useless in this regard. One major exception is Robert Olen Butler’s book, From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction. This is the one book on writing I recommend without reservation. The year 1992 was the high point for me in what I was trying to do. I organized a large public event sponsored by Pacifica Graduate Institute that was entitled, “Writing Inside Out.” The speakers were Annie Dillard, Allen Ginsberg, Natalie Goldberg, and me. Later that year, I represented the United States at the 12th Arts Festival at Dunvegan Castle, Isle of Skye, Scotland. I gave two talks: “Writing from the Inside of the Inside” and “The Cost of Poetry and the Price of Its Loss.” What I did at each of these venues was spontaneous and improvisational. There are no recordings and no texts. Part of my desire to do a writing seminar again is to recapture the spirit of these presentations and make them available once again. If you have any interest in writing or deepening your writing in relation to in-depth psychological work, I invite you to participate in this seminar.