Ancient gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines, and fabulous creatures are alive and well within our unconscious. Sigmund Freud speaks of "endopsychic myths" and "psycho-mythology"; C.G. Jung, of the "mythopoeic imagination" and the "mythforming structural elements" of the psyche. James Hillman contends that "the essence of the psyche is myth." Michael Vannoy Adams provides persuasive examples of how myths appear in our dreams and fantasies and does so with erudition, wit, and eloquent clarity. Adam's authoritative study, now appearing in a second, expanded edition, has won high praise from fellow analysts. Ginette Paris called The Mythological Unconscious "a treasure trove of the imagination," and Beverly Zabriskie cited its "balance of charm and scholarship, humor and gravitas, which simultaneously amuses and enlightens."
At least three major questions can be asked of myth: what is its subject matter? what is its origin? and what is its function? Theories of myth may differ on the answers they give to any of these questions, but more basically they may also differ on which of the questions they ask. C. G. Jung's theory is one of the few that purports to answer fully all three questions. This volume collects and organizes the key passages on myth by Jung himself and by some of the most prominent Jungian writers after him: Erich Neumann, Marie-Louise von Franz, and James Hillman. The book synthesizes the discovery of myth as a way of thinking, where it becomes a therapeutic tool providing an entrance to the unconscious. In the first selections, Jung begins to differentiate his theory from Freud's by asserting that there are fantasies and dreams of an "impersonal" nature that cannot be reduced to experiences in a person's past. Jung then asserts that the similarities among myths are the result of the projection of the collective rather than the personal unconscious onto the external world. Finally, he comes to the conclusion that myth originates and functions to satisfy the psychological need for contact with the unconscious--not merely to announce the existence of the unconscious, but to let us experience it.
Theories of myth differ based on perceptions of its origin and function. This volume collects and organizes key passages on myth by Jung and by some of the most prominent Jungian writers after him. The book synthesizes the discovery of myth as a therapeutic tool to explore the unconscious.
"I have entitled this book For Love of the Imagination. Long ago, I fell in love with the imagination. It was love at first sight. I have had a lifelong love affair with the imagination. I would love for others, through this book, to fall in love, as I once did, with the imagination." Michael Vannoy Adams, from the Preface. For Love of the Imagination is a book about the imagination – about what and how images mean. Jungian psychoanalysis is an imaginal psychology – or what Michael Vannoy Adams calls "imaginology," the study of the imagination. What is so distinctive – and so valuable – about Jungian psychoanalysis is that it emphasizes images. For Love of the Imagination is also a book about interdisciplinary applications of Jungian psychoanalysis. What enables these applications is that all disciplines include images of which they are more or less unconscious. Jungian psychoanalysis is in an enviable position to render these images conscious, to specify what and how they mean. On the contemporary scene, as a result of the digital revolution, there is no trendier word than "applications" – except, perhaps, the abbreviation "apps." In psychoanalysis, there is a "Freudian app" and a "Jungian app." The "Jungian app" is a technology of the imagination. This book applies Jungian psychoanalysis to images in a variety of disciplines. For Love of the Imagination also includes the 2011 Moscow lectures on Jungian psychoanalysis. It will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists, students, and those with an interest in Jung.
The Fantasy Principle makes a strong case for a new school of psychoanalysis - the school of 'imaginal psychology'. It radically affirms the centrality of imagination and emphasizes the transformative impact of images.
Originally published in 1940, this classic study of two schizophrenic case-histories further opened up the seemingly intractable problem of this condition; a task preceded by Jung’s own Psychology of Dementia Praecox. It was Baynes’s grasp of the meaning of the symbol coupled with his wide scholarship that enable him to explore the case-histories in such remarkable and fruitful depth, thus linking pathological psychology through graphic expression and the dream of the myths of mankind and the universal man. This was truly a scientific task. In case 1, the series of dreams, fantasies and active imagination, fully illustrated by the patients’ spontaneous paintings, suggested to him a kind of mythological imagery. Baynes then demonstrates the emergence and development of a hero myth together with its therapeutic effect upon the patient, as an inner personal experience of death and rebirth. Baynes also applied the methods of synthesis to the understanding of modern art and its reflection of the spirit of the times – a realization of the basic split in the socio-religious structure of European Culture. In case 2, the subject was an artist, and out of his own split he seemed to have created a symbolic bridge that would be a therapeutic bridge for himself and a possible model for curing the evil of the times in which we then were living.
A challenging inquiry into the complex interrelationship between our ideas about race and color and the unconscious, provoking the reader to confront those unconscious attitudes that stand in the way of authentic multicultural relationships.
Summarizes Grof's experiences and observations from more than forty years of research into non-ordinary states of consciousness. This accessible and comprehensive overview of the work of Stanislav Grof, one of the founders of transpersonal psychology, was specifically written to acquaint newcomers with his work. Serving as a summation of his career and previous works, this entirely new book is the source to introduce Grof's enormous contributions to the fields of psychiatry and psychology, especially his central concept of holotropic experience, where holotropic signifies "moving toward wholeness." Grof maintains that the current basic assumptions and concepts of psychology and psychiatry require a radical revision based on the intensive and systematic research of holotropic experience. He suggests that a radical inner transformation of humanity and a rise to a higher level of consciousness might be humankind's only real hope for the future. "It's rare to find a textbook that is both extremely informative and enjoyable to read. Psychology of the Future has to be one of the first ones I've ever come across ... Each chapter brought an entirely new concept, theory, or method that was just as engaging as the previous one." — Dr. Tami Brady, TCM Reviews "This book is by a pioneering genius in consciousness research. It presents the full spectrum of Grof's ideas, from his earliest mappings of using LSD psychotherapy, to his clinical work with people facing death, to his more recent work with holotropic breathing, to his latest thoughts about the cosmological implications of consciousness research and the prospects for dealing with an emerging planetary crisis. Grof has always been one of the most original thinkers in the transpersonal field, and his creativity has kept pace with the maturity of his overall vision." -- Michael Washburn, author of Transpersonal Psychology in Psychoanalytic Perspective "Grof offers an outstanding contribution to the ever-growing debate about the nature of human consciousness and about the place of humankind in the cosmos. If more psychiatrists could be persuaded that human consciousness transcends the limitations of the physical brain, and instead is but an aspect of what may best be described as 'cosmic consciousness,' we could not only expect treatment modalities to change, but we could also anticipate the possibility of culture-wide rethinking of the basic presuppositions of modern cosmology, the cosmology that grounds Western institutions, ideologies, and beliefs about the nature of personhood." -- Michael E. Zimmerman, author of Contesting Earth's Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity Stanislav Grof, MD, is a psychiatrist with more than fifty years of experience in research of non-ordinary states of consciousness. He has been Principal Investigator in a psychedelic research program at the Psychiatric Research Institute in Prague, Czechoslovakia; Chief of Psychiatric Research at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center; Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University; and Scholar-in-Residence at the Esalen Institute. He is currently Professor of Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, conducts professional training programs in holotropic breathwork, and gives lectures and seminars worldwide. He is one of the founders and chief theoreticians of transpersonal psychology and the founding president of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA). In 2007, he was granted the prestigious Vision 97 award from the Vaclav and Dagmar Havel Foundation in Prague. He is the author and editor of many books, including The Adventure of Self-Discovery: Dimensions of Consciousness and New Perspectives in Psychotherapy and Inner Exploration; Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science; Beyond the Brain: Birth, Death, and Transcendence in Psychotherapy; The Cosmic Game: Explorations of the Frontiers of Human Consciousness; and Human Survival and Consciousness Evolution; all published by SUNY Press.
