This book is an introduction into the understanding of symbolic language, including a discussion on the less difficult concepts of Freud's theory on the level of his "Interpretation of Dreams."

"Our "shadow" is the collection of negative or undesirable traits we keep hidden--the things we don't like about ourselves or are ashamed of, but it also includes our positive, untapped potential. The shadow is often a source of creative inspiration and greater self-acceptance. Befriending the shadow makes fear an ally and enables us to live more authentically. It also automatically improves our interpersonal relationships, because we are freed from...

"A sprawling analysis of religion in major psychological and philosophical literature, fiction and in private life ... compelling and remarkable."-Publishers Weekly "Unlike Freud, I do not claim that religion is just an illusion and a source of neurosis. The time has come to recognize, without being afraid of 'frightening' either the faithful or the agnostics, that the history of Christianity prepared the world for humanism." So writes Julia Kristeva...

Jacques Lacan is probably the most influential psychoanalyst since Freud (of the roughly 20,000 psychoanalysts in the world, about half are 'Lacanians') yet most people know nothing about him. The 10,000 analysts who use Lacan's ideas work mostly in France, Spain, Italy, and South America. To the rest of the world, including England and America, Lacan is a genius-in-waiting, due to be 'discovered' any day now. Despite or because of his brilliance,...

An assessment of psychoanalysis and the views of its creator reveals Sigmund Freud's blunders with patients, his misunderstandings about the psychological controversies of his time, and how he advanced his career on the appropriated findings of others. Since the 1970s, Sigmund Freud's scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin - and for excellent reasons. Nevertheless, the idea persists that some of his proposals were visionary discoveries....

As an associate of C. G. Jung for many years, Jolande Jacobi is in a unique position to provide an interpretation of his work. In this volume, Dr. Jacobi presents a study of three central, interrelated concepts in analytical psychology: the individual complex, the universal archetype, and the dynamic symbol.

An alternative history of the work of Freud and his supporters traces the development of psychoanalysis in Europe, placing the movement's origins against a backdrop of the nineteenth century while profiling Freud as a creative, interdisciplinary thinker.