analysis - Blogs - Depth Psychology Alliance2024-03-28T19:18:58Zhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/analysisJungian Child Analysis - New Publicationhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/jungian-child-analysis-new-publication2018-07-20T23:09:26.000Z2018-07-20T23:09:26.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jungian-Child-Analysis-Audrey-Punnett/dp/1771690380/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1530995298&sr=8-1&keywords=1771690380&linkCode=li3&tag=fkr-20&linkId=534fe508ca02a4777bd488f10f0e404b" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1771690380&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=fkr-20" alt="q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=1771690380&Format=_SL250_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=fkr-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=fkr-20&l=li3&o=1&a=1771690380" style="border:none;margin:0px;" width="1" />Just Published by Fisher King Press<br /> <br /> <span style="font-size:large;">Jungian Child Analysis</span><br /> <br /> <a href="https://amzn.to/2J3jXAJ" target="_blank"><i>Jungian Child Analysis</i></a> brings together ten certified Child and Adolescent Analysts (IAAP) to discuss how healing with children occurs within the analytical framework. While the majority of Jung’s corpus centered on the collective aspects of the adult psyche, one can find in Jung’s earliest work clinical observations and ideas that reflect an uncanny prescience of the psychological research that would later emerge regarding the self and the mother-infant relationship. This book discusses and illustrates in very practical ways how one uses an analytical attitude and works with the symbolic: this includes illustrations of analytical play therapy, dream analysis, sandplay, work with special populations and work with the parents and families of the child. Not only will the book capture your interest and further your development in working with children and adolescents, but also will enhance your work with adults.<br /> <br /> <i>Jungian Child Analysis</i>, edited by Audrey Punnett; foreword by Wanda Grosso; contributors include Margo M. Leahy, Liza J. Ravitz, Brian Feldman, Lauren Cunningham, Patricia L. Speier, Maria Ellen Chiaia, Audrey Punnett, Susan Williams, Robert Tyminski, and Steve Zemmelman.<br /> <br /> Contents:<br /> Preface – Wanda Grosso<br /> Introduction – Audrey Punnett<br /></p><div>Chapter 1 – Margo M. Leahy<br /> Jung and the Post-Jungians on the Theory of Jungian Child Analysis<br /> <br /> Chapter 2 – Liza J. Ravitz<br /> Child Analysis and the Multilayered Psyche<br /> <br /> Chapter 3 – Brian Feldman<br /> The Aesthetic and Spiritual Life of the Infant: Towards a Jungian View of Infant Development<br /> <br /> Chapter 4 – Lauren Cunningham<br /> Play, Creation and the Numinous<br /> <br /> Chapter 5 – Patricia L. Speier<br /> The Portal of Play Through a Jungian Frame<br /> <br /> Chapter 6 – Maria Ellen Chiaia<br /> The Importance of Being: Silence in Child Analysis<br /> <br /> Chapter 7 – Audrey Punnett<br /> Children’s Dreams<br /> <br /> Chapter 8 – Susan Williams<br /> Awakening to Inter-subjectivity: Working with Autistic Spectrum Disorders<br /> <br /> Chapter 9 – Robert Tyminski<br /> Males Coming to Terms with Sexuality in Later Adolescence<br /> <br /> Chapter 10 – Steve Zemmelman<br /> Working with Parents in Child Analysis and Psychotherapy: An Integrated Approach<br /> <br /> <br /> <img border="0" src="https://fisherkingpress.com/thumb/9781771690386.jpg" alt="9781771690386.jpg" /><br /> <br /> Editor: Audrey Punnett<br /> Paperback: 250 pages<br /> Condition: New<br /> Edition: First<br /> Index, Bibliography<br /> Publisher: Fisher King Press (May 21, 2018)<br /> Language: English<br /> ISBN-10: 1771690380<br /> ISBN-13: 978-1771690386<br /><blockquote><div style="font-weight:normal;margin:0px;"><b><a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/logor75.jpg" alt="logor75.jpg" /></a></b></div><div style="font-weight:normal;text-align:left;"><div style="margin:0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/" target="_blank">Fisher King Press</a> publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Jungian Psychological Perspectives </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">and a growing list of </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;">Cutting-Edge</span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"> alternative titles. </span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-small;"><a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/" target="_blank">www.fisherkingpress.com</a></span></b></div></div></blockquote></div></div>Buddha's birthdayhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/buddha-s-birthday2014-05-06T20:30:00.000Z2014-05-06T20:30:00.000ZBrigitte Hansmannhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/BrigitteHansmann<div><p><img style="width:640px;height:480px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rzScMWnfxrI/U2OXbzz22-I/AAAAAAAABN4/q_SEdP8li0Q/s1600/SH100451.JPG" class="CSS_LIGHTBOX_SCALED_IMAGE_IMG align-center" alt="SH100451.JPG" /></p><p style="text-align:right;">The other day I found these words in my heart, wanting to be written:<br /> Barcelona, May 1, 2014</p><p style="text-align:left;">In a few days it will be Buddha Sok Ga Mo Ni’s birthday. As this joyous occasion is drawing near, this year, Queen Maya keeps coming to mind. <br /> <br /> In my work as a DFA practitioner of Somatic Pattern Recognition and Archetypal Pattern Analysis, I have the chance to observe the patterns that evolve out of the early conditions of my clients’ lives. Since humans are born before gestation is complete, it continues in the womb of the family, as biologist Adolph Portman put it. During the first year of life, primarily the right hemisphere of the brain evolves. It organizes sensory perception and combines huge amounts of bits of sensory information into images that become the material we use to weave our life stories, even before we have words to associate meaning with the experience reflected in those images. During that time the infant’s nervous system continues entangled with that of his or her mother. The child depends on the mother’s ability to manage the flow of her sensations that help her to adequately take care of her son’s or daughter’s needs.<br /> <br /> When there is a premature separation from the mother due to sickness, death or any other circumstance, the nervous system protects the infant against the full impact of the trauma to assure his or her survival, isolating the unbearable aspects of the loss of connection and keeping them underneath the threshold of conscious experience. In a manner of speaking, the parts of the organism occupied by these unbearable sensations do not participate in the development of the rest of the organism and, thus, these sensations remain forever underlying the experience and decisions for the rest of the person’s life. Sooner or later, they will surface in one way or another, giving the person a chance to integrate them later in life and recover those parts of the organism from the isolation they had been in. Invariably this is experienced as disruptive and human beings usually try to avoid it. <br /> <br /> Supreme Matriarch of the Yun Hwa Denomination of World Social Buddhism, Ji Kwang Dae Poep Sa Nim, once said that Buddha Sok Ga Mo Ni had been quiet, very studious, and somewhat sad as a child. It seems undeniable that Queen Maya’s death shortly after giving birth to Prince Siddharta must have had a bearing on his decision to leave his life as heir to the throne and seek a solution to human suffering.<br /> <br /> My father was separated from his mother for the first three years of his life, because she had to be hospitalized due to complications of a difficult birth. My father’s greatest wish had been to study to become a gynecologist or a forestry engineer, because he wanted to help make sure that women would not have to undergo the troubles his own mother had had in giving birth to him and he wanted to take care of nature. But he did not have the strength to resist his father’s command to take over the family business, as Prince Siddharta had had. He did bring up his daughter with the awareness of being one with nature, though. And his wish lives on in her. Not because he actively instilled it in any way; the only thing he ever told me he wanted me to do is to get clear on what I wanted to do in life and then go ahead and find a way to do it. It is a great joy for me that my work as a DFA practitioner of somatic pattern recognition and as an archetypal pattern analyst fulfills my father’s wish, including the one great wish he had not been able to carry out. Especially grateful I am for Sok Ga Mo Ni Buddha's example and teachings as well as my master Ji Kwang Dae Poep Sa Nim's and the great guidance they offer me in my personal and professional life.<br /> <br /> We are told that on the morning when Sok Ga Mo Ni Buddha saw the morning star and became enlightened, he withstood the assaults of Mara who tried to distract him from his clear purpose. I am sure that the desire for fusion with the all-embracing feminine, born out of the premature disruption of the natural state of entanglement with the mother during the first year of life, and the terror resulting from this disruption were Mara’s main arms. But the Buddha did not let himself be carried away with desire nor did he recoil from the terror, but he remained quietly seated, watching the parts of his sensory experience that had up to then remained in the darkness of the unconscious unfold, so he could gain an understanding of his own nature and human nature in general. Like this he recovered the access to the experience of being a part of the whole he had lost when his mother died, but with a nervous system that was now developed enough to be able to integrate the parts that had been cut off. And he discovered how to relate to the whole in such a way that, instead of suffering, he would enrich it in every way he could.<br /> <br /> That is what my father would have wanted. In his life, the trauma of premature separation from his mother in 1928-30 in Germany was followed by others resulting from abuse of power, both on a personal and a collective level. <br /> <br /> I feel truly fortunate to be able to follow the footsteps of Sok Ga Mon Ni Buddha and on the occasion of his 2558th birthday I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the guidance of Supreme Matriarch Ji Kwang Da Poep Sa Nim on this path. From the bottom of my heart, I would also like to thank Annie B. Duggan and Janie French for developing and teaching me their approach to DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition, and to Michael Conforti for developing and teaching me his approach to Archetypal Pattern Analysis. From all of them I am learning to relate to the whole in such a way that, instead of suffering, I can endeavor to enrich it in any way I can.<br /> <br /> Many thanks to all my teachers, those named here and those whose names and faces remain silent in my heart.<br /> Truly, <br /> Gak Hwa - Brigitte Hansmann</p></div>Healing and Archetypeshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/healing-and-archetypes2014-04-29T16:35:58.000Z2014-04-29T16:35:58.000ZPatricia Dameryhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/PatriciaDamery<div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><table cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;text-align:center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ecR7-M37qKI/U1_IGF7rWoI/AAAAAAAACro/4vXITLdpYO8/s1600/IMG_0669.jpg" style="clear:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ecR7-M37qKI/U1_IGF7rWoI/AAAAAAAACro/4vXITLdpYO8/s1600/IMG_0669.jpg" height="300" width="400" alt="IMG_0669.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption">Marqués de Riscal Hotel</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear:both;text-align:center;"></div><p><br /> This last Sunday the Curriculum Committee of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco offered an intramural event for members and candidates on <i>Contemporary Issues in Archetypal Theory</i> in which several members and board members presented different perspectives. The concept of “archetype” is an ancient one with roots as far back as Pythagorus, Plato and Aristotle. Goethe took up the concept again in the late 1700's and 1800's, which greatly influenced Carl Jung in the 20th century.<br /><br />My thoughts were nourished by these presentations and discussions, which also reminded me of an experience of last April 2013. My husband Donald and I visited the <a href="http://www.patriciadamery.com/2013/05/art-and-dark-sun-of-consciousness.html">Bilbao Guggenheim Museum,</a> Spain, drawn mainly by its fame. The structure was designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry and first opened in October 1997. Its photographs do not do it justice. Neither Donald, an architect himself, nor I expected to be particularly impressed. Nevertheless, we decided to visit such an acclaimed architectural feat and to splurge the night before by staying in another Gehry designed building, Marqués de Riscal Hotel, in the nearby village of Elciego.<br /><br />Upon arriving at the hotel, we realized that we were in for an experience beyond anything we expected. The photos of the hotel give an impression of a building that looks like a wad of paper. In person, though, the space is transformative. One cannot assume anything about what is going to be experienced next. Our gently angular room was in the front of the hotel overlooking the entry, with a large wall of windows opening toward the vineyards and village nearly. In the morning we awoke to the sun rising into our sheltered space, the curve of the roof feeling very much like that of an egg. One was hatched into the new day!<br /><br />The museum was a public expression of this experience. What I thought would be silly, in fact, stretched my imagination with potentialities. Through these structures, we accessed essence of space, the archetypal rendering of what contains and shapes us. I wonder, if in ripping away the common assumptions about what living and/or public space is, we experience something much more prime, and, as a result, we are renewed. Isn’t that what healing is? Being reconnected with the gods, in this case, the gods of space?<br /><br />I suspect this is what happens in analysis. When it goes well, we do not enact archetypal processes, such as mother/child, or father/child, but actually hold the space in which these feelings and often unconscious complexes stemming from archetypal processes, visit the analytic container consciously. Through this, they are rendered to their essence and transform. What we experience is in fact a process, if we take Goethe at his word. If we are to know the essence of something, Goethe says, we must hold all aspects of it at the same time. Then we may know the Spirit of it. This is true if we are talking about the essence of a plant or the essence of a human being.<br /><br />Is healing ourselves or our relationships with each other, or the earth, about reconnection with Spirit? What is your own experience?</p><div style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:11px;min-height:13px;"></div><div style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:11px;min-height:13px;"></div><div style="background-color:#fff9ee;color:#232323;font-family:Baskerville;font-size:15px;min-height:18px;"></div><p></p><div style="font-family:Baskerville;font-size:16px;min-height:18px;"></div></div>Working with Beliefs Reflected in Liquid Crystalhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/working-with-beliefs-reflected-in-liquid-crystal2013-12-09T17:00:00.000Z2013-12-09T17:00:00.000ZBrigitte Hansmannhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/BrigitteHansmann<div><p>The link below leads to an article published in the 2013 IASI Yearbook (International Association of Structural Integrators). It comes out of an ongoing attempt to understand how belief systems and complexes shape the body; and it is based on the author's experience in approaching psyche from the body as a DFA (Duggan/French Approach) practitioner to Somatic Pattern Recognition</p><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142446858,original{{/staticFileLink}}">Working with Beliefs Reflected in Liquid Crystal</a></p><p>I have received requests from people who would like to participate in a discussion of this article. So I am posting it here in the understanding that the Depth Psychology Alliance will allow access to anyone who would like to participate in such a discussion.</p><p>In amore recent article, published in the 2014 IASI yearbook I continue de research started in previous years with <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142447059,original{{/staticFileLink}}">Towards a Fuller Understanding of the the Interaction between Myofascial tone and Water</a></p><p></p><p>In previous years I published two more articles in the same venue, the 2009 and 2011 IASI Yearbooks, which give some background on the Duggan/French Approach to Somatic Pattern Recognition, its relationship to Archetypal Pattern Analysis and its relevance to Depth Psychology.</p><p>DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition: <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142446892,original{{/staticFileLink}}">DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition.pdf</a></p><p>and</p><p>DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition, Archetypal Field Theory and the New Sciences <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9142447480,original{{/staticFileLink}}">DFA Somatic Pattern Recognition, Archetypal Field Theory and the New Sciences</a></p><p></p><p>The 2014 IASI Yearbook will publish an article based on two posters presented at the 7th and 8th Annual Conference on the Physics, Chemistry and Biology of Water in 2012 in Vermont, USA and 2013 in Samokov, Bulgaria: Towards a fuller understanding of the interaction between myofascial tone and water. It is a follow-up to the article that gives title to this post and I will post it here as well, when it becomes available, because I believe it might prove helpful, or at least interesting, for practitioners of depth psychology as well.</p></div>Hummingbirds - A bird in the Handhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/hummingbirds-a-bird-in-the-hand2013-03-12T20:30:00.000Z2013-03-12T20:30:00.000ZSilvia Behrendhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/SilviaBehrend<div><p>In the Assisi Institute's Dream Pattern Analysis class with Dr. Conforti, students are trained to look at images objectively and to discern their most dominant message. We are taught that there are two crucial elements to translating an image objectively and not to get hooked by our associations which can be the expressions of our complexes. The first element is to understand that Psyche provides the image with a high degree of specificity. When we dream of a snake, it is important to note whether it's a garter snake or a boa constrictor because they are very different from one another.<br /> <br /> The second element is to look at the way the image functions in Nature. What is the innate, normal, and natural development in each image? Does the image conform with Nature or does it go against Nature? I was really taken by these two elements when a friend provided me with an image from a dream and gave me permission to use it publicly. The fragment that remained from the dream was the image of a hummingbird held in the hand. The dreamer could clearly see the hummingbird's breast in the palm of the hand and it seemed to still be alive.<br /> <br /> Now, it could be easy to say things like how wonderful it was that the bird allowed itself to be held so intimately, that there is such a natural connection between the dreamer and this beautiful bird. And that may be so.<br /> <br /> However, my training is to look at the image from the point of view of what would happen in the natural world. It is a great temptation to pick up a wounded or sick bird and bring it inside and care for it. The danger to the bird is that human contact makes it likely that it will not be accepted back into the flock. Some birds actually nest on the ground and picking them up takes them from their habitat. Either way, it also points to the human inability to accept that some things don't make it, some birds die, some birds are protecting their young, and human interference is about human needs and not the needs of the bird.<br /> <br /> The next thing to look at is what are the main characteristics of a hummingbird. It is a solitary bird that is designed to pollinate nectar-producing flowers, it has the fastest heartbeat of all birds (and maybe all animals?) and its wings beat so fast, it seems as though they are staying still. They are a highly specialized bird, its beak perfect for inserting into the flower for the nectar. In mating, the male only fertilizes the egg and leaves the female and the young because to stay would put them in competition with one another for the nectar. Hummingbirds can navigate in all directions, including backwards. This is some kind of fantastic avian!<br /> <br /> But this one is lying breast up in a human hand. It is completely exposed and seems to be dying. Something had to happen to make it still long enough to be picked up, after all! On further research, I found the most amazing fact: when the nectar supply is too low or the temperature is too low, the hummingbird goes into torpor! It just stops. And when I read this, I understood that the most basic of needs for life support were not being met. This bird was telling the dreamer something important.<br /> <br /> We know some things about birds in dreams; they are the messengers of the Spirit, they can traverse heaven and earth, they are the mediators of two realms. We also know that animals in dreams represent the instinctual life. What I got from this amplification is that the dreamer has to pay attention to feeding instinctual basic needs. To ignore them puts the dreamer into a torpor that could mean death of something vital, necessary and unique for both the self and the world. If the bird can no longer fly or feed, flowers do not get pollinated, the dreamer's destiny cannot be fulfilled.</p></div>Transcending Narcissism - a timely and innovative expose by contemporaryJungian psychoanalyst, Ken Kimmelhttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/transcending-narcissism-a2011-06-28T18:00:00.000Z2011-06-28T18:00:00.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eros-Shattering-Gaze-Transcending-Narcissism/dp/1926715497?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1926715497&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20" /></a><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" width="1" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jungbook-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" width="1" alt="ir?t=jungbook-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" />With Great Pleasure Fisher King Press announces the publication of:<br /><br /><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_10&products_id=65"><i>Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism</i></a><br />by Kenneth A. Kimmel<br /><br />This timely and innovative expose by contemporary Jungian psychoanalyst, Ken Kimmel, reveals a culturally and historically embedded narcissism underlying men’s endlessly driven romantic projections and erotic fantasies, that has appropriated their understanding of what love is. Men enveloped in narcissism fear their interiority and all relationships with emotional depth that prove too overwhelming and penetrating to bear—so much so that the other must either be colonized or devalued. This wide-ranging work offers them hope for transcendence.<br /><br />"A skilful and articulate interweave of the best of traditional views on 'relationality' and more contemporary critique. The vivid clinical vignettes bring the arguments alive and the result is a stimulating and fresh take on this ever-timely topic. The sections on the 'split feminine' in contemporary men are especially fine, eschewing sentimentality without abandoning hope."<br /><div style="text-align:center;">—Professor Andrew Samuels, Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex.</div><br />"The author is an extremely sensitive and experienced specialist who possesses a broad perspective and profound historical psychological knowledge. The content is carefully observed and conveyed with great precision. The contemplative and self-reflective reader who seeks to grasp the full measure of this rich manuscript, can expect to gain substantially in both knowledge and inner maturation."<br /><div style="text-align:center;">—Mario Jacoby, PhD, senior Jungian Analyst, Zurich, author of </div><div style="text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Individuation-Narcissism-Psychology-Self-Kohut/dp/0415064643?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank"><i>Individuation and Narcissism: The Psychology of Self in Jung and Kohut</i></a><i><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0415064643" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" width="1" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=0415064643" /></i></div><br />"This is the book for those who fear that Jungian efforts to gaze deeply into the Self are simply carrying coals to the Newcastle of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Its author, Ken Kimmel, certainly shows us the egoistic pitfalls that can attend such an enterprise, but he also makes us see why he believes that inner work really does hold the power to shake the foundations of someone’s inability to see the face of the Other. One comes away from reading Eros and the Shattering Gaze with renewed understanding as to why brave patients have subjected themselves to this very deep form of scrutiny and why fine therapists like Kimmel have been willing to see them through it. Attempting the rescue of authentic eros from its fear-driven shadow of predation is a work that will engage most of us at some point in our relational lives. We should be grateful for the insights with which this book is studded, for they can enlighten the labors of learning to love."<br /><div style="text-align:center;">—John Beebe, Jungian analyst, author of <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Integrity-Carolyn-Ernest-Analytical-Psychology/dp/1585444634?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969" target="_blank">Integrity in Depth</a><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1585444634" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" width="1" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1585444634" /></i><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jungbook-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1585444634" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" width="1" alt="ir?t=jungbook-20&l=btl&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1585444634" /></div><br />Ken Kimmel is a Jungian psychoanalyst in Seattle, Washington, with over thirty years of clinical experience. He received his Diploma in Analytical Psychology in 2008 from the North Pacific Institute for Analytical Psychology where he is currently a clinical and faculty member. His present interests concern the interface of Analytical Psychology with contemporary psychoanalysis, postmodern philosophy, and mystical traditions.<br /><br /><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_10&products_id=65"><i>Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism</i></a><br />ISBN 13: 978-1-926715-49-0<br />Psychology / Movements / Jungian <br />Trade Paperback <br />Publication Date: June 21, 2011<br />Price: $28.95<br />Size: 7.5 x 9.25<br />310 Pages<br />Index & Bibliography<br />Author: Kenneth A. Kimmel<br />Publisher: Fisher King Press<br /><br /><a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/" style="clear:right;display:inline;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;"><img name="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_66tG-ibjAoU/StmAZLTraMI/AAAAAAAAASs/kmBy84VNLJ8/s200/fkplogo110x100.jpg" style="display:block;height:100px;margin-bottom:10px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-top:0px;width:110px;" alt="fkplogo110x100.jpg" /></a>Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles.<ul><li>International Shipping.</li><li>Credit Cards Accepted.</li><li>Phone Orders Welcomed. Toll free in the US & Canada: 1-800-228-9316 International +1-831-238-7799 skype: fisher_king_press</li></ul></div>An Introduction to Ken Kimmel's Eros and the Shattering Gazehttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/profiles/blogs/an-introduction-to-ken-kimmel-s-eros-and-the-shattering-gaze2011-08-22T00:40:42.000Z2011-08-22T00:40:42.000ZFisher King Presshttps://depthpsychologyalliance.com/members/FisherKingPress<div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Eros-Shattering-Gaze-Transcending-Narcissism/dp/1926715497?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20&link_code=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969" style="clear:left;float:left;margin-bottom:1em;margin-right:1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism" src="http://ws.amazon.com/widgets/q?MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&ID=AsinImage&WS=1&Format=_SL160_&ASIN=1926715497&tag=wwwmalcolmclc-20" /></a><br /><div style="text-align:center;"><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" style="border:none;margin:0px;padding:0px;" width="1" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" /></div><div style="text-align:center;"><i>I want to be able to fly. I want to hover around you like a </i></div><div style="text-align:center;"><i>winged Cupid in attendance on his Goddess.(1)</i></div><div style="text-align:center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align:center;"></div><div style="text-align:center;"><span class="font-size-2">From <i>The Golden Ass by Apuleius</i>. Lucius here pleads with his lover, a witch’s apprentice, to steal a magical potion so that he can be transformed into a god. Instead, he is given the form of an ass and must submit himself to an existence as a loathsome beast of burden.</span></div><br />We live in a time and culture predisposed toward life at the surface. Ours is a society that privileges eternal youth and beauty, consumer-driven instant gratification, and narcissistic preoccupation with self-centeredness, not self reflection. Like Narcissus we often look no deeper than the reflection in the mirror, seeing only skin-deep beauty, never daring to know our own—nor the other’s, inner depths.<br /><br />Contemporary thought has attempted to respond to this cultural climate that, in the words of Stephen Frosh, “[fights] against the deepening of relationships [and love], against feeling real.”(2) Psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, and philosophy have addressed the contemporary individual’s crises of the heart, separation from authenticity, and repudiation of the other. They offer a variety of viewpoints on the problem of narcissism, from its ontological and healthy conformations to its pathological forms, and its grandiose illusions leading to growth or to defense.<br /><br />Jacques Lacan’s notion of the mirror stage helps us to understand the essential alienation inherent in narcissism and its search for perfection in an idealized image of another. Lacan describes a moment in infancy when the six-month-old child “recognizes” himself in the mirror and falsely identifies the reflection as an image of the unified wholeness and mastery he does not in fact possess. In that moment, the infant, with his smiling mother’s assent, is lured into an illusion of false certainty and omnipotence that splits him off from his fragmented body/self with its accompanying experiences of terror and uncertainty.<br /><br />Lacan’s conception of the mirror sequence describes the way a mental construction of a perfect, alienating identity can originate, separating the infant from his own insufficient self image. The I itself that takes form here is an artificial representation, a self split between its idealized mirror image and the raw truth of human existence.(3) It is not difficult to imagine, then, how this narcissistic ideal can be later projected onto objects of desire who mirror this ideal.<br /><br />Narcissism is not limited to the psychology of individuals. American culture, politics, and its recent national wounding uncannily mirror these narcissistic phenomena. The Patriot Act and the War on Terror can be seen as unconscious fantasies enacted upon the world stage. In this post-September 11 world many individuals err on the side of security and rigid borders, thereby sacrificing freedom, relationality, and dimensionality. Nor is narcissism merely a contemporary phenomenon. Literature and history provide ample illustrations of the historical and cultural contexts underlying the problem of narcissism and the way it is transcended.<br /><br />The essence of narcissism is the repudiation of the other in its differences. Sometimes this takes the form of appropriating the other under the guise of romantic love, and sometimes it takes the form of casting out the other to protect the vulnerable self. In these pages I attempt to present a theory of the transcendence of narcissism, in which the humble capacity to love comes about through the surrender of the self to the shattering truth of the other.<br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;">• • • • •</div><br />Western culture’s most ancient tale of love, “Psyche and Amor,” which forms part of Apuleius’ <i>The Golden Ass</i>, will introduce us to these dynamics. The story features a leading man—Amor, the very personification of Love—whose amorous desires are so embedded in narcissism that he never dares to reveal himself to the object of his passion. The couple, Psyche and Amor, remains suspended in a dark fusion removed from life until Psyche has finally had enough; the illusion is pierced and shattered, and loss ensues. Emerging from his state of wounding, Amor comes in a new way to the side of his beloved, the mortal human Psyche, his act signifying the inner “awakening of the sleeping soul through love,” as James Hillman puts it.(4) How many hundreds of modern romantic dramas follow in the train of the Tale of Psyche and Amor, telling the story of the selfish or hardened man who uses everyone, then loses everything, but then finds a woman from whom he learns how to love?<br /><br />More than a millennium later, the tales of medieval courtly romances portray the fate of lovers whose longing for oneness can be realized not on earth but only in their sacrificial death and reunion in Heaven. These are tragedies portraying an idealized longing for true love that can never be sustained in our flawed human condition.<br /><br />The blissful fantasy of everlasting union merely conceals the face of narcissism. This romantic ideal privileges the allure of the lovers’ paradise over the enduring struggles in human relationships in all their vicissitudes. These are the romantic fantasies of a happily-ever-after ending, illusions ultimately deriving from childhood experiences. Time and again, lovers plunge blindly into brief enthrallments that are doomed to failure, yet hold fast to their unquestioned, cherished beliefs, and to a faith in an idyllic innocence that is inevitably shattered. Young lovers blindly enter marriage with the fantasy that romantic love will endure forever. But predictably, when the burning fires of first love’s desires have cooled to warm embers, many men devalue the apparently known quantity at home and look to a passionate love affair with a mysterious other, in which to be absorbed. For the narcissist this process signals the avoidance of human relationship in its fullness, rife with difficulties, limitations, and ethical responsibilities, in favor of the grandiose illusion of ecstatic oneness and freedom from all pain.<br /><br />Ultimately the narcissistic avoidance of the difficulties of life arises in response to a primal experience—the inevitable wounding and loss suffered in the earliest infant-mother relationship. Thus narcissistic dynamics are deeply impacted by the experience of trauma. Psychological wounds too devastating to bear are reflexively partitioned and buried, while simultaneously, reactionary wars of retaliation against one’s pain are staged in order to provide safeguards from disavowed shame and profound vulnerabilities. Throughout life grandiose fantasies in all their forms will magically supplant the experience of unbearable vulnerability, literally obliterating it.<br /><br />These clinical themes are richly amplified by cultural signifiers found in the myths and mysteries of antiquity and from the medieval Tales of Courtly Love through the literature of the mystics and Romantics, to Gothic horror stories and modern romances from contemporary popular culture. These provide the historical and cultural contexts for the contemporary problem of narcissism as well as its transcendence.<br /><br />As we will see, Levinas’s postmodern philosophy describes the way the encounter with the ineffable Face of the Other shocks and deconstructs the sameness and narcissism within eros, freeing the subject to assume an enduring responsibility for the other from which new and transcendent capacities to love may be envisioned.<br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;">• • • • •</div><br />My theory of the transcendence of narcissism is based on the work of two men: C. G. Jung and the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. Jung’s theory of the complexes illuminates two vital concepts that are threaded throughout this book: the ego’s primitive identification with the negative or overly positive aspects of the Mother, and the relationship of the puer aeternus, the eternal boy, with his split-off counterpart, the senex, the old man. We can see how these complexes come about by observing the characters in Apuleius’ The Golden Ass, which contains the immortal “Tale of Psyche and Amor.” The path through which they are overcome leads from the romantic, narcissistic, predatory preoccupations of what I call the mother-bound man to the wound that shatters the isolation of his standpoint. Through the work of the transcendent function this shattering may culminate in the emergence of empathic dimensions of emotion and a humble yet still masculine standpoint.<br /><br />One of the ways this book contributes to the development of contemporary analytic psychology is through the cross-fertilization of Jungian and contemporary psychoanalytic ideas. For instance, I argue that narcissistic defenses arise not after the development of the complexes, but prior to them. The puer aeternus psychology described by Jung comes into being in reaction to the narcissistic defenses that have appropriated the infant’s most archaic, unsignifiable complex—the mother. These narcissistic defenses encapsulate the infant’s ego, protecting it from experiences reminiscent of its original loss of maternal containing. Another original area of contribution may be found in my analysis of the Grail Legend, where I view von Eschenbach’s Parzival through the lens of eros development in its dual guise, as both a narcissistic and wounding process and one that is relational and healing.<br /><br />The work of the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas provides the second major source for my theory of how narcissism may be transcended. A traumatic encounter with an utterly unknowable, transcendent Other(5)—sometimes initiated by analytical work or psychotherapy—may violently shatter the narcissistic illusions that maintain, among other things, the individual’s endless, romantically driven projections and erotic fantasies. There is therefore a painful, even violent, yet redemptive potential to the wounding. Levinas’s postmodern philosophy is essential to an understanding of this kind of encounter with the Other by a subject; he too emphasizes its capacity to decenter the ego’s “solipsism”—the belief that the self is the only reality and the only thing that we can be certain of. Levinas attempts to describe this shift from an ego-centered view of the universe as something that defies understanding or category. All religious experience perhaps stems from such a primordial awareness. His ethical philosophy, informed by the Holocaust in which his entire family was murdered, centers upon the “relation of infinite responsibility to the other person.”(6) Levinas provides a profound insight into the dangers of how individuals can be so easily subsumed in the vision of a tyrannical utopia which he often refers to as a “totality.”<br /><br />To Levinas, the Other is unknowable, ineffable, ungraspable, tormenting, enigmatic, infinite, irreducible, sacred. Its mere trace can only be glimpsed interpersonally or intersubjectively—a term defining a psychological experience created between individuals. The Other does not originate in the psyche. It is infinite, already there, before subject or object exists, and our subjective awareness of it comes through the primacy of its impact upon us. It transcends subjective being, defies our concepts or categories, and cannot be engulfed or appropriated by ego consciousness.(7)<br /><br />As Levinas would say, the trace of the Other is glimpsed in the irreducible “face of the human other,” who is revealed in (her) vulnerability, sacredness, and nakedness.(8) In Levinas’s ethical view, one’s responsibility emerges from the trauma he feels for the useless suffering and destitution of the one now standing before him. He is taken hostage to the guilt of surviving when the other is stricken. He is even compelled to wish to substitute himself for the other, to put himself in (her) place—but it is too late. This is the torment of which Levinas speaks—the unavoidable responsibility to the other invoked by the shattering Other. It is impossible to evade this summons, which accuses one and even leads him to wonder just how much truth he can bear.<br /><br />In moving from the ethics of human justice and compassion to personal psychology, one can observe how the traumatic impact of the Other destabilizes and shatters the ego’s narcissism, awakening the subject from his slumber. Such a violent blow often appears to the ego in forms that are dark and shadowy, or that threaten to obliterate its fixed orientation and need for certainty, its wish for everything to remain the same. For Levinas, the ego’s need to appropriate alterity—the other’s difference—and to reduce it to sameness is the origin of all violence: narcissism is violence. In those cases where the shattering encounter is successfully navigated, a restructuring of a man’s core of being occurs. An inner cohesion develops that enables him as an ethical subject to bear love’s separations, uncertainties, longing, as well as its closeness.<br /><br />Here I propose a significant revisioning of Jung’s concept of the enigmatic Self, conceptualizing it as an idea akin to Levinas’s unknowable Other, where both, I contend, transcend subjective being and the boundaries of the psyche. I argue that this revised understanding of the Self provides the basis for what I have previously described as a unifying theory of the transcendence of narcissism.<br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;">• • • • •</div><br /><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_10&products_id=65"><i>Eros and the Shattering Gaze</i></a> is concerned with men’s problems with love due to narcissism. While some of these difficulties are common to women as well, I will leave the exploration of the woman’s perspective to another. Similarly, I write primarily about heterosexual relationships, but many of these ideas can also be applied to homosexual relationships.<br /><br />At the same time, though it focuses on narcissism in individual men, the book is not intended to be a textbook on the clinical theory and treatment of narcissism. Rather it is meant to bring to light the prevalence of narcissism in our culture and the possibilities for its transcendence. It does so through stories—stories old and new, epic and personal, fictional and historic. They include vignettes from my over thirty years of clinical experience as well as examples from a variety of cultural and historical sources, beginning with Apuleius and other Greek, Roman, and Biblical material and continuing through medieval romances to contemporary culture. Permission has been given in all case vignettes and each patient’s identity has been carefully disguised. Some case vignettes are composites. I have found films to be particularly helpful in illustrating the forms narcissism takes in contemporary love relations.<br /><br /><div style="text-align:center;">• • • • •</div><br /><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_10&products_id=65"><i>Eros and the Shattering Gaze</i></a> consists of three parts, preceded by a Prologue that follows this introduction. The Prologue summarizes Apuleius’ story for those unfamiliar with it; the retelling of the tale is followed by the description of what I term the Eros template—that is, those narcissistic qualities illuminated in the character of Eros, or Amor, in his relationships to his mother, Venus, and to his lover, Psyche.9 Apuleius’ work offers important glimpses into the reversal of narcissistic states in men, and in doing so also provides the metaphorical entry points for the three parts of this book.<br /><br />Part One is entitled, “Narcissism in the Romantic: The Mother, Her Son, His Lover.” These chapters depict how romantic and erotic desire for the instant but transient pleasures found in the lovers’ fusion enacts men’s earliest longing to return to the fantasy of a lost maternal paradise. The primitive development of these defensive and destructive forms of narcissism maintains and insulates men throughout life against the perceived threat of retraumatization that emotional depths or mutual relationships could initiate. Their desire seeks its ideal object through projections that colonize the individuality of the other, as the other is used for the colonizer’s own completion. This creates an inflated state of fusion in the couple.<br /><br />Part Two, “The Predator Beneath the Lover,” shows how this fragile wholeness ultimately collapses. The object is discarded and devalued, leading to reactive attempts to restore the lost union through colonization and manipulation of a new object. As an alternative the subject withdraws into narcissistic encapsulation. Narcissism’s disavowal of the other’s human distinctiveness and mutuality in relationships can be viewed as a tyrannical maintenance of sameness that results in the annihilation of otherness. These obstacles to loving are portrayed in Ovid’s myth of “Narcissus and Echo,” where we see the tragic isolation of the person hopelessly ensnared at the surface of existence. He lives in desperate fear of contact, both with other humans and with his own internal depths. The existence of the other (Echo) is negated through a false sense of superiority. Part Two will enlarge upon these Ovidian themes.<br /><br />In Part Three, “The Shattering Gaze,” we encounter the traumatic gaze of the Other, who is unknowable and transcendent. It may shatter the individual’s narcissistic omnipotence, whether it comes through unforeseen and unbearable tragedy, loss, or in the naked truth of revelations that seem too devastating or shameful to bear. Following this encounter, a resilient, emotional depth may evolve in a man, signifying the greater psychic cohesion needed to endure love and loss.<br /><br />Notes<br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">1 Apuleius, The Transformations of Lucius otherwise known as The Golden Ass. Translated by Robert Graves (NY: Noonday Press, 1951), 42.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">2 Stephen Frosh, “Melancholy Without the Other,” in Studies in Gender and Sexuality 7(4) (2006): 368.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">3 Jacques Lacan, “The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function,” in Ecrits, translated by Bruce Fink (New York: Norton, 2006), 78.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">4 James Hillman, The Myth of Analysis (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1972), 55.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">5 The term “Other” stemmed from the philosophy of Hegel’s dialectic and gained contemporary relevance primarily from the work of Jacques Lacan and Emmanuel Levinas. Lacan doesn’t see the Other in an infinite or transcendent way as Levinas does. Rather, he identifies the Other with the world of the Symbolic, which encompasses the cultural, social and linguistic networks into which the person is born, and from which subjectivity comes into being. The two men are similar in a general way, in that both privilege an ‘otherness’ that is already there at the origins of the subject, and from which the subject emerges. That is, for both, the ‘self’ is not an entity that is present from the beginnings of development. See Simon Critchley, Ethics, Politics, Subjectivity (New York: Verso Press, 1999), 198-216. See also Suzanne Barnard, “Diachrony, Tuche, and the Ethical Subject in Levinas and Lacan,” in Psychology for the Other, edited by Edwin E. Gant & Richard N. Williams (Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 2002), 160-181.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">6 Simon Critchley, “Introduction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Levinas, edited by Simon Critchley and Robert Bernasconi (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 6.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">7 Jung may have had a similar idea of the Other in mind in his conception of the Self as ineffable and different from the ego, in a way that transcends even the psyche and is an infinite mystery disclosing itself only gradually over time. See the Glossary.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">8 Adriaan Peperzak, To the Other: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas (West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993), 89, 161.</span><br /><span style="font-size:x-small;">9 My rendering and commentary is but one in a long line of previous and noted endeavors. Why have so many depth psychologists delved into the subject, and tried their hand at bringing new meaning to the myth, almost in the way that serious actors must all take a stab at Shakespeare? Simply put, we are all intrigued by a story that features as its star Psyche, the namesake of the profession to which we have all tethered ourselves. There must be some profound meaning we may yet discover in the relationship between Love and Psyche. For some examples see Erich Neumann, Amor and Psyche; Marie-Louise von Franz, The Golden Ass of Apuleius; Robert Johnson, She; James Hillman, Myth of Analysis; Donald Kalsched, The Inner World of Trauma; Polly Young-Eisendrath, Women and Desire</span>.<br /><br /><br /><div style="margin:0px;"><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;border:none;" width="1" alt="ir?t=wwwmalcolmclc-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" /><img border="0" height="1" src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=jungbook-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" style="padding:0px;margin:0px;border:none;" width="1" alt="ir?t=jungbook-20&l=bil&camp=213689&creative=392969&o=1&a=1926715497" /><i><a href="http://fisherkingpress.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2_10&products_id=65">Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism</a> </i>by Kenneth A. Kimmel </div><div style="margin:0px;">ISBN 9781926715490, 310 Pages, Glossary, Index, Bibliography, Published by Fisher King Press</div><br /><a href="http://www.fisherkingpress.com/" style="clear:right;display:inline;float:right;margin-bottom:1em;margin-left:1em;"><img border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_66tG-ibjAoU/StmAZLTraMI/AAAAAAAAASs/kmBy84VNLJ8/s200/fkplogo110x100.jpg" style="display:block;height:100px;margin-bottom:10px;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;margin-top:0px;width:110px;" name="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393483198773291202" alt="fkplogo110x100.jpg" /></a>Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting Edge Fiction, and a growing list of alternative titles.<br /><ul><li>International Shipping.</li><li>Credit Cards Accepted.</li><li>Phone Orders Welcomed. 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