A Jungian Life

From conception until the present, C.G. Jung, his ideas, and analytical psychology itself have been a central thread of Thomas B. Kirsch’s life. His parents, James and Hilde Kirsch, were in analysis with C.G, Jung when he was born, and he was imaged to be the product of a successful analysis. At an early age, Dr. Kirsch was introduced to many of the first-generation analysts who surrounded C.G. Jung, and over time became acquainted with them. Later, in his roles with the IAAP, he gained a broad knowledge of the developments in analytical psychology, and through both his early family history and in his later professional life, Dr. Kirsch worked closely with many analysts who were integral in forming the foundations of analytical psychology.

Dr. Kirsch graduated from Yale Medical School in 1961, did his residency in psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University, and then spent two years with the National Institute of Mental Health in San Francisco. He completed his Jungian training at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in 1968. In 1976 Dr. Kirsch became president of the Jung institute in San Francisco, and in 1977 he was elected second vice president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, or IAAP, the professional organization of Jungian analysts around the world. As vice president and then president of the IAAP for eighteen years, he traveled the world and was able to meet Jungian analysts from many different countries. This position allowed him to serve a missionary function of sorts in new areas like China, South Africa, Mexico, Russia, and other former Soviet Eastern Bloc countries. In A Jungian Life, Thomas B. Kirsch reflects upon his entire existence which has been intimately involved with C.G. Jung and analytical psychology.

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Time

Recently Published

Meister Eckhart: A Mystic-Warrior for Our Time

 by Matthew Fox

Though he lived in the thirteenth century, Meister Eckhart’s deeply ecumenical teachings were in many ways modern. He taught about what we call ecology, championed artistic creativity, and advocated for social, economic, and gender justice. All these elements have inspired spiritual maverick Matthew Fox and influenced his Creation Spirituality. Here, Fox creates metaphorical meetings between Eckhart and Teilhard de Chardin, Thich Nhat Hanh, Carl Jung, Black Elk, Rumi, Adrienne Rich, and other radical thinkers. The result is profoundly insightful, substantive, and inspiring.

The author of thirty books, Matthew Fox has been an instrumental teacher and scholar in the revival of Western mysticism, particularly the work of Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, and Thomas Aquinas. Fox teaches and speaks widely and lives in Oakland, California.

Author: Matthew Fox
Publisher: New World Library (July 8, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-1608682652

Just Published - Spiritual Democracy by Steven Herrmann

Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward (Sacred Activism)

by Steven B. Herrmann

Exploring what the author calls the "shaman-poets"—Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson—this book demonstrates how far ahead of their times these writers were in forecasting developments of our current time. It was Whitman who first wrote of "Spiritual Democracy" as a vision of transformation and global equality. Steven Herrmann delves deep into the visionary expressions of this idea of Spiritual Democracy—"the realization of the oneness of humanity with the universe and all its forces"—in these early American writers, showing the influence the groundbreaking work of the geologist and thinker Alexander Von Humboldt had on Whitman and others. Writing that every member of the global community regardless of color, gender, or sexual orientation can realize these freedoms, the author explores how one can tap into the vitalizing source of equalizing, vocational energy to bring a sense of purpose and peace. Although the book shines as a work of literary criticism, the author's insights as a Jungian psychotherapist take the reader ever deeper into the creative impulses of Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, and other poets in their crafting of the seminal notion of Spiritual Democracy. In addition, Herrmann offers practical methodologies for personal and global transformation in the section, "Ten Ways to Practice Spiritual Democracy."

Sea Glass by Gilda Frantz

Sea Glass: A Jungian Analyst's Exploration of Individuation and Suffering

by Gilda Frantz

"Gilda Frantz knows first hand about difficult childhoods, early widowhood, aging, death of a beloved grandchild, and closeness to the end of life. She knows about suffering and the creativity and soul growth that can go hand in hand. These are themes in her own life and in her observations of others. Sea Glass is an apt metaphor for this book—to discover why requires reading it. "

—Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., author of Goddesses in Everywoman, Goddesses in Older Women, and Close to the Bone.

"Frantz shows us that individuation is much more than the distillation of consciousness within the confines of a long and dream-filled analysis. Rather, growth of awareness is revealed to occur in what cannot be contained, in the self that endures when illusions break down. Sea Glass pieces together many such moments in the life of its author. Taken together, they let us see the analyst she has become through the eyes of the person she has always been."

—John Beebe, author of Integrity in Depth.

"You could be listening to the storyteller by the fire, or to your favorite aunt at the kitchen table—the one who always makes you laugh—so vital and engaging is the narrative voice in Sea Glass. In fact, you are reading the gathered writings of Gilda Frantz, a beloved Jungian elder in the classical tradition. Frantz is on intimate terms with the gods and their myths. She has personal experience of alchemy, individuation, dreams, and the creative process, all of which she describes in accessible and lively language."

—Naomi Ruth Lowinsky, author of  The Sister from Below: When the Muse Gets Her Way and The Motherline: Every Woman’s Journey to Find Her Female Roots.

The Orphan

by John Hill, from the preface of Audrey Punnett's

The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness

The book addresses loneliness and the feeling of being alone in the world, two distinct characteristics that mark the life of an orphan. Regardless if we have grown up with or without parents, we are all too likely to meet such experiences in ourselves and our daily encounters with others. Our technological age has enabled us to create networks with many people, but these relationships often fail to meet the need to belong to someone, some place or something in a world that suffers from “spiritual depletion, emotional alienation, and personal isolation.” With numerous case examples, Dr. Punnett describes how loneliness and the feeling of being alone tend to be repeated in later relationships, especially when the earlier attachment patterns have been insecure, disruptive, or intrusive and can eventually lead to pathological states of anxiety and depression.

Fractures in the Mirror

The New School For Analytical Psychology Presents:

FRACTURES IN THE MIRROR

A Three Part Seminar Series on Men, Narcissism, & Love based on Eros and the Shattering Gaze: Transcending Narcissism

Beginning Sept 26, 2014 at the Talaris Conference Center in Seattle

With Kenneth Kimmel, Jungian Psychoanalyst

These three seminars reveal a culturally and historically embedded narcisissm in modern men that, in its most malignant forms, perpetrates great harm, not only to their own core integrity, but to the wives, daughters, sons, and partners who have loved them.

The instructor employs rich storytelling to amplify his teaching–-the medium of modern film, art slides, music, extended clinical case presentations, mythology, Biblical stories, the Arthurian tales of tragic love, classic literature, Gothic horror, and a weaving together of inter-texts from diverse psychoanalytic and philosophical schools of thought. They all bring a wealth of perspectives and meaning to bear upon the many faces of narcissism and the single act that pierces its embeddedness.

This broad and multi-dimensional view sharpens our clinical understanding of this shattering and renewing process--one that leads in fortunate cases to the awakening of men’s capacity to love. . . .

Beginning Friday night, September 26.

For registration information, please click here. www.nsanpsy.com/eros-seminar

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond

[The Fisher King Review Volume 3]
edited by Mark Winborn

Shared Realities: Participation Mystique and Beyond brings together Jungian analysts and psychoanalysts from across the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Carl Jung’s concept of participation mystique is used as a starting point for an in depth exploration of ‘shared realities’ in the analytic setting and beyond. The clinical, narrative, and theoretical discussions move through such related areas as: projective identification, negative coniunctio, reverie, intersubjectivity, the interactive field, phenomenology, neuroscience, the transferential chimera, shamanism, shared reality of place, borderland consciousness, and mystical participation. This unique collection of essays bridges theoretical orientations and includes some of the most original analytic writers of our time. An essential read for psychoanalysts, Jungian analysts, psychotherapists, and analytic candidates.