Name: Lecture: On Sacred Ground: Breakthrough Experience As a Manifestation of the Self Archetype
Start: 2024-09-19T19:00:00-04:00
Location: Saint Leo University - Tampa & MacDill AFB

Lecture: On Sacred Ground: Breakthrough Experience As a Manifestation of the Self Archetype

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”
– Rumi
The eruption of the Sacred into the world of matter has been chronicled throughout history in cultural myths and stories, religious traditions, and even personal narratives. Divine revelation or intervention is often unbidden, i.e., the ego is overtaken by unconscious content.
Experiences which suppress the self-reflective functions of the ego – such as overwhelming stress or traumatic events can act as a catalyst through which the Sacred is encountered. Stories of the Sacred revealing itself in times of stress where the individual stands at the precipice between life and death (both physical and psychological death) contain essential similarities despite the unique forms and appearances by which they manifest.
This presentation will:
• Explore the historical and personal manifestations of breakthrough experience
• Present the breakthrough as a way in which the Self can be encountered during times of great stress or trauma
• Offer a clinical paradigm in which the breakthrough experience acts in the service of individuation by presenting an opportunity for reorientation of meaning, change of trajectory and posttraumatic growth.
LuAnn Conforti-Brown PhD
Dr. Conforti-Brown is a certified Archetypal Pattern Analyst and faculty member with the Assisi Institute: The International Center For the Study of Archetypal Patterns. She holds a Masters degree in Clinical Social Work from New York University and a PhD in Existential-Humanistic Psychology from Saybrook University. She is currently in private practice in the Tampa area of Florida. For the past 15 years Dr. Conforti-Brown has been an Assistant Professor of Clinical Instruction at the University of South Florida, School of Social Work. During her tenure with the university, Dr. Conforti-Brown received the Social Work Educator of the Year award from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) for outstanding teaching and mentorship. She is an expert in traumatology, and has published journal articles and book chapters on the importance of integrating spirituality into trauma treatment for military and Veteran populations. She is an experi