Photo: Michelle Litvin
Anne Redlich, LCSW
After experiencing a spiritual emergency my freshman year of college, I became deeply interested in non-western medicine and psychology. A trip to Mexico to study Spanish later that year, in 1978 began my long journey of self discovery and a career as an eclectic psychotherapist. While in Mexico, I was introduced to Eastern Philosophy and the Mexican Shamanic tradition of healing and throughout my travels through the cities, towns and jungle villages of Mexico, I learned about native traditions of healing and experienced shamanic rituals and treatments.
When I returned to the Residential College at the University of Michigan, inspired by my travels, I designed an independent course of study in Medical Anthropology and Psychology. My inquiries focused on questions related to the prevalence of mental illness in the western postmodern world. I investigated this inquiry by looking at how native healers and shamans experienced their calling and how that related to what Stanislav Grof called spiritual emergencies. While at the University of Michigan, I was fortunate to attend graduate seminars in Medical Anthropology with Michael Taussig, Ph.D., Feminist Medical Anthropology classes with Devva Kasnitz, Ph.D and Eco-Philosophy with Henryk Skolimowski Ph.D. I also spent a summer as an apprentice for the late Keewaydinoquay, an Anishinaabeg mashkikwe (Ojibwe plant medicine woman) on Garden Island in Northern Lake Michigan.
After graduating, with my bachelors degree, I began my career as a Clinical Social Worker in 1982, working with severely emotionally disturbed children in residential facilities. A few years later, as a graduate student at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, I lead an ongoing seminar on Jungian Psychology and I wrote my final Master’s Paper on “Astrology and Family Systems Theory.” I have studied in the analyst training programs at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, maintained a private practice in Chicago and I am committed to the process of making the unconscious conscious by helping the patient to understand and integrate dreams, memories, creative work, and reflections. To this end, I have been a disciplined and deliberate student of psychoanalysis, art, literature, dreaming, nature, and the symbolic life. I believe that an open and inquiring mind is necessary to undertake the complex and lengthy process of helping another to become conscious.
I have enjoyed studying astrology since I first had my horoscope read at age nineteen. I was so surprised by the depth and accuracy of the reading I received that I decided to investigate the subject for myself. Then, when I moved to Chicago in 1981, I was fortunate to meet Vonda and Irene Urban who became my brilliant astrology teachers. Since, I have read hundreds of charts and have continued to study astrology. The combination of astrology and psychology has aided me in understanding myself and others. The contemplation and understanding of astrological symbolism have also helped me to understand the language of dreaming. The archetypal nature of dreams and astrology informs my approach to both psychotherapy and astrology. In fact, early in my studies of astrology, I recognized the profound value that astrology could add to psychotherapy and dream work. After a long career, I conclude that astrology and psychology are extremely compatible bedfellows. To quote Carl Jung, Astrology is assured of recognition from psychology, without further restrictions, because astrology represents the summation of all the psychological knowledge of antiquity.
I have also been committed to social justice work throughout my career. I am skilled in treating Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and have worked extensively as an expert witness for people seeking asylum in the United States. I conduct psychological evaluations for those seeking asylum and seeking to avoid deportation. I have executed this work for the National Immigrant Justice Center and the Marjorie Kovler Center for Survivors of Political Torture. I was a longtime volunteer at the Marjorie Kovler Center for Survivors of Political Torture where in addition to aiding in asylum cases, I provided psychotherapy for survivors and supervision for clinicians.
I have extensive experience teaching. I have taught at the Jung Center in Evanston, Illinois, in the continuing education department at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy and Practice, and at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, N.M. In addition, I conduct private workshops. These workshops and classes focus on dreaming, astrology, and the creative mind.