Jung and Feminism
Liberating Archetypes
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- 35,99 €
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- 35,99 €
Publisher Description
Jung, in contrast to Freud, has typically been considered more sympathetic to women largely because of his emphasis on the feminine as a way of being in the world and on the ‘anima’, the unconscious feminine aspect of male personality. Feminists, however, have viewed Jung’s whole notion of the ‘feminine’ with suspicion, seeing it as a projection of male psyche and not an authentic understanding of female humanity.
For Demaris Wehr both feminism and Jungian psychology have been guiding forces, and in this book, originally published in 1988, she mediates between feminists and classical Jungians – two groups historically at odds. She faces squarely the male-centred assumptions of some Jungian concepts and challenges Jung’s claims for the universality and purely empirical basis of his work, but nevertheless maintains an appreciation for the value of Jung’s understanding of human nature and the process of individuation. By bringing the insights of feminist theology to bear on the seemingly unbridgeable gap between analytical psychology and feminism, she succeeds in reclaiming Jungian psychology as a freeing therapy for women and reveals it as the ultimately liberating vision its founder intended it to be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Carl Jung wrote that women are, by nature, passive and "indefinite''; his writings implied that a woman can most fully realize her identity in the service of a man. Jung's home life was divided between his wife Emma, a mother figure, and his mistress-collaborator Toni Wolff. Wehr, who teaches psychology of religion at Boston University School of Theology, attributes Jung's messy family life to a split image of the feminine operating in his psyche. The author, a Jungian therapist in training, feels uncomfortable with the sexist bias that she and other modern Jungians have detected in the master's system. Although her cautious, academic approach in this revised Ph.D. dissertation may not satisfy feminist critics, she does offer a useful critique of Jung's gender bias, his patronizing of women and his misogyny. The Jungian collective unconscioustimeless and universalfails to take into account the way women's negative self-images are molded in societies where women have second-class status.