Jungian Somatics

About Jane

Jungian Psychoanalyst, Writer & Advisor

Creator of Jungian Somatics™

Jane Clapp

C. G. Jung wrote that the deepest aim of his work was not simply the treatment of neurosis, but “the approach to the numinous.” This speaks to the centre of my own work. I’m interested in what happens when we move beyond symptom management alone and begin to listen for the deeper intelligence of the psyche, the symbolic life of the body, and the soul’s longing to become more fully alive.

As a Jungian Psychoanalyst, Registered Psychotherapist (IAAP/CRPO/CAPT), and creator of Jungian Somatics™, I bridge analytic depth, intellectual rigour, and the wisdom of the body. My work brings together Jungian analysis, somatic intelligence, dream work, symbolic imagination, trauma-informed clinical experience, anti-oppressive practice, and the living intelligence of the unconscious.

Before becoming a Jungian Analyst, my work was shaped by a long apprenticeship to the body. I trained in many movement modalities and spent years working with people through embodiment, somatic exploration, trauma-informed practice, and clinical care. I have worked with people impacted by sexual assault, sexual abuse, developmental trauma, torture, life-threatening illness, chronic health issues, institutional stress, oppression, and collective trauma. This has shaped the way I understand suffering, embodiment, survival, dissociation, power, shame, grief, and the ways the psyche protects itself when a person has endured what was too much, too soon, or too alone.

This taught me to listen not only with my mind and body, but through my heart and soul. I learned to notice subtle shifts in breath, tissue, gesture, posture, sensation, affect, and presence. I came to understand the body not as an object to be fixed, but as a living field of intelligence, memory, feeling, symbol, and soul.

Earlier in my life I worked in labour relations and specialized in conflict and relational conflict resolution — on both the labour and management sides. That background continues to inform the way I understand power, projection, rupture, repair, communication, authority, and the unconscious dynamics that constellate between people. It also grounds my work in an understanding that suffering does not arise only inside the individual — it is also shaped by family systems, workplaces, culture, oppression, collective history, and the conditions we are asked to survive.

I also studied acting and performance early in my life, which deepened my understanding of authenticity, presence, embodiment, voice, expression, and the ways we learn to perform versions of ourselves in order to belong, succeed, or survive. This continues to shape my work with people seeking a more truthful relationship to their own soul, creativity, and embodied presence.

Jungian Somatics™ emerged from these many streams: years of clinical practice, teaching, movement work, personal analysis, embodied inquiry, anti-oppressive practice, conflict work, and serious study of Jungian theory. It is a way of listening to the psyche not only through words and concepts, but through sensation, movement, image, dream, symptom, gesture, posture, voice, expression, and felt sense. It honours the body as a symbolic field and recognizes that the unconscious often speaks through the body long before it can be understood by the mind.

At the heart of my work is the cultivation of mystical aliveness: a state of being in which we reconnect with vitality, meaning, soul, and the felt preciousness of life.

Forthcoming from Routledge

A book in progress

I’m writing a narrative nonfiction book about Jungian Somatics™ and somatic theology, forthcoming from Routledge.

Depth, Meaning, and Jungian Somatics™

In addition to my analytic training, my work emerges from many years of clinical practice specializing in personal and collective trauma through an anti-oppressive lens.

This has shaped the way I understand suffering, embodiment, survival, dissociation, oppression, and the ways the psyche protects itself when a person has endured what was too much, too soon, or too alone.

At the same time, my work does not reduce people to trauma or to what has happened to them.

The soul also matters. Meaning matters. Dreams matter. Symbols matter. The numinous matters. Intellectual understanding matters too, but it must be joined with the body’s intelligence if transformation is to become lived rather than merely understood.

Jungian Somatics™ is the body of work I created to explore the relationship between the unconscious, the body, symbolic life, and embodied transformation. It recognizes that the unconscious speaks through symptoms, gestures, images, impulses, postures, dreams, spontaneous movements of the soul, and the felt intelligence of the body.

I have taught and presented Jungian Somatics™ in Jungian, academic, and clinical settings across Canada, the U.S., and internationally. My teaching and clinical work bring together intellectual rigour, symbolic perception, somatic intelligence, conflict work, embodied presence, and the numinous dimension of psyche.

I work with people who are longing for more than symptom relief. Many are creatives, leaders, depth practitioners, and high-achieving people who have built meaningful lives, but feel called toward a deeper connection with soul, creativity, and embodied aliveness.

My work is an invitation to rediscover your own spark, to listen to what stirs in your depths, and to step into a more embodied, soulful, intellectually grounded, and fully alive way of living.

This work invites a different kind of listening

What’s the body carrying symbolically?

What image is trying to form?

What movement wants to happen?

What’s been exiled from consciousness?

What part of the soul is trying to return?

What does psyche know that the mind or body alone can’t yet grasp?

Teaching and Speaking

I have taught and presented Jungian Somatics™ in Jungian, academic, and clinical settings across Canada, the U.S., and internationally including:

Jungian Organizations

  • The Jung Centre Houston

    Faculty Member

  • South African Association of Jungian Analysts

  • Jungian Studies Istanbul

  • Jung Society of Austin

  • Southern Arizona Friends of Jung

  • Minnesota Jung Association

  • C.G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles

    Edith Sullwold Memorial Lecture

  • Calgary Jung Society

  • C.G. Jung Foundation of Ontario

  • Jung Society of Utah

  • Jung Archademy

Academic and Interdisciplinary Settings

  • London Arts-Based Research Centre

    Demonstration of embodied spontaneous drawing

  • Alchemy Conference

  • California Institute of Integral Studies

    Experiential session on the embodiment of the religious function of psyche

  • Forever Jung Conference

Clinical and Professional Conferences

  • Women’s College Hospital

  • Trauma Talks Conference

  • Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs Conferences

  • Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture

  • Sexual assault counsellors and crisis teams at University of Toronto

  • Social service and community organizations

For inquiries about Jungian Advisory, creative projects, or speaking, please get in touch.

Contact Jane