3.19.26 | Guest Lecturer: Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath | Behold the Gates of Mercy

This presentation draws principally on two models of substrate consciousness: Jung’s collective psyche and Buddhist understandings of mind and suffering. Dr. Polly Young-Eisendrath explores trauma not only as a personal psychological wound, but as a shared human condition that shapes ethical life, imagination, and responsibility. Using the image of the “Gates of Mercy,” she considers how moments of breakdown, grief, and moral injury can become thresholds—places where meaning, compassion, and ethical responsiveness may emerge. The lecture invites reflection on how we relate to suffering without turning away, hardening, or idealizing transcendence.

Polly Young-Eisendrath, PhD is a Jungian analyst, developmental psychologist, author, and internationally recognized teacher whose work bridges depth psychology, mindfulness practice, and the psychology of adult development. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Real Dialogue™, a nonprofit dedicated to cultivating psychological maturity, ethical wisdom, and humanizing dialogue across differences.

She has taught and lectured widely on Jungian psychology, trauma, relational development, and the cultivation of wisdom in both clinical and public settings. She is the editor of The Cambridge Companion to Jung and the author of several influential books exploring women’s psychology, conflict, love, loss, and spiritual maturation. Her work is especially valued for its clarity, compassion, and grounded integration of psychological insight with lived experience.

A longtime mindfulness practitioner and teacher, Dr. Young-Eisendrath draws on Buddhist psychology alongside Jungian and developmental frameworks to explore how individuals and communities can meet suffering, complexity, and difference without dehumanization. Through her writing, teaching, and public programs, she invites audiences into a deeper engagement with inner life, ethical responsibility, and the possibility of mature love and dialogue in challenging times.