Couch trip.

The C. G. Jung Institute takes on a new patient: Los Angeles.

The psychoanalytic institute is sponsoring a weekend conference (Jan. 31-Feb. 1) at Mount St. Mary's College called "Myths of L.A."

"This conference is really an analysis of a city," said Dr. John Beebe, a San Francisco Jungian analyst who will be speaking at the gathering. "We will be looking at its myths and archetypes, at people's projections about the city--and the myths that have come to life on its soil."

Other speakers include rock musicians (John Densmore of The Doors), writers, historians and psychoanalysts.

Beebe explains that Jungian psychology increasingly is used to understand cultural complexes, and in a city that tends to be self-absorbed, this might seem fitting. "There are various pollutants in our culture," he said, "lots of unexamined unconscious ideas that can influence us--and damage us. L.A. has a rich, rich atmosphere to study the psychology of culture."

The conference will be attended by what he described as an audience interested in "'depth psychology," which examines cultural archetypes and their influences on the psyche. The question is how archetypes become part of Jung's "collective unconscious" and how that unconscious filters out.

Jungian analysis is a tool to dissect the tension between self and city. And perhaps there is no better place to study the issue than Los Angeles, where myths take form and movie makers become mythic.

"In Los Angeles," said Dr. Brad TePaske, a Jungian analyst and the conference chairman, "'our media industry influences the collective consciousness of the entire planet."