June Singer, founding member of the C. G. Jung Institute of Chicago who received her doctorate from Northwestern, died Jan. 29 of a cerebral hemorrhage. She was 85.

Singer became exposed to the Jungian branch of analytical psychology when her first husband, a rabbi, enrolled in the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. Both completed the program and returned to Chicago, where Singer earned her doctorate in psychology from NU in 1968. She eventually set up her own private practice as a Jungian analyst in Chicago.

“Many people in the Chicago area came to sit at her feet, literally, and absorb what she had to give them as training,” said Singer’s widower, Dr. Irving Sunshine.

Singer and her group of colleagues later collaborated to form the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago, according to Executive Director Jacquelyn Mattfeld, who called Singer “the founding mother of this institute.”

“It’s important that she brought to people’s attention very different ideas that should be considered when you are trying to actualize yourself, and also if you are a clinician,” Mattfeld said.

Singer soon became a popular speaker and author. Her books, which include the bestseller “Boundaries of the Soul: The Practice of Jung’s Psychology,” have been published in more than four languages, Sunshine said.

Singer later moved to Palo Alto, Calif., to become a professor at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. She met Sunshine, then a toxicologist in Cleveland, at her sister’s 1987 New Year’s party.

The next summer Singer flew to Australia to fulfill a teaching commitment. “She told me, ‘Come. I want you to be with me,'” Sunshine said.

Over the next months, they toured Australia before returning to their respective homes. The two wed that October.

Sunshine believes that Singer’s personality contributed greatly to her success in promoting Jungian psychology.

“She was a very vibrant and engaging person,” he said. “She could listen and relate with persons. That was well-received both professionally and socially.”

Mattfeld says Singer was an energetic friend.

“She was a person who was just extremely vivacious,” Mattfeld said. “She was so clearly alert and in tune with what was going on. She felt like she could have been any age — she had that kind of personality.”

The C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago will hold a memorial service for Singer in June.