Aspects of the Masculine by Carl Gustav Jung

One thing about Dr. Jung. He doesn't take an impersonal, detached view of his subjects, rather it is obvious he has lived the experiences he puts the analytic lens to, and that with heart. This is perhaps the most personal and heart wrenching work I have read from Jung. He faces the psyche of the male with all the gusto of a matador facing a prize bull.

Although we like to consider ourselves unique, I don't think hardly any of us could argue with Jung's insights on masculinity. It turns out there are a limited number of psychological experiences we can encounter which manifest in yet again a limited number of archetypes. So, the masculine journey we find, follows most closely that journey of the supreme example of the Father, the Sun. The sun rises in the morning, reaches it's apex at high noon where it shines the most light, and makes it's way back down to the nebulous realm below the horizon. Symbolically, in life the male rises from the primordial unconscious, attains Ego after much striving, only to begin to lose libido as he approaches old age, again descending to the unconscious.

But we find Nature abhors a vacuum and this loss of libido is compensated by the Anima, or the feminine side all men possess. We in older age become softer, gentler and more creative, or else we stultify and become rigid, set in our ways as if those ways depend solely on us to carry them forward. Having attained the age of forty five, I can relate deeply to this book and the phases of life it brings to light. Not only in others do I see these psychological workings, but in myself as well.

Because of works like these, I consider Jung a pioneer. Not just in psychological knowledge does he excel, but in the prudential variety as well. One would do good to read closely books such as these and ponder their nuances and even echoes in one's life.

Boundaries of the Soul by June Singer

Having read Carl Jung now for the past twenty years, and having given his psychology much thought over this amount of time, it should come as no surprise I still turn to introductory material to help broaden and refresh my understanding of this analytical genius.

I read June Singer first back in the eighties. It was a little book called 'Seeing Through the Visible World' and was a nice rumination on Jung and his relationship to the gnostics.

In this great book, though, Singer proves to be expansive, well read and well experienced in Jungian philosophy and psychology.

Singer proves, chapter by chapter, her deep grasp of the material and provides wonderful clinical examples of this particular brand of psychology at work.

If nothing else, in seeking Wholeness, the crux of Jung's psychology, there is a dynamism and tension of opposites because Jung does not arrive at Platonic Forms that are static and good, but rather Archetypes, which are dynamic and therefore hold out the promise in polarity of both good and evil. His is an honest and sobering psychology and philosophy, a bareknuckled approach to the realities of life that sometimes borders on a Religion, what with Jung having become the prophet and harbinger of the modern subjective view to reality.

Singer begins in this work with complexes, continues on through archetypes, the persona, the shadow, individuation and culminates in the reality of death and dying. But she does so with an extreme intelligence on the subjects that makes the material available and most, relevant, for a new generation of discoverers.

While I have read other Jungian analysts such as Jaffe and Edinger, Singer takes the cake with this one, in my humble opinion!

A landmark!