You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
This book consists of a number of talks, revised and rewritten as essays, given by the author over the many years of her practice as an analyst. Sub-titled ‘Soundings in Jungian psychology and religion’, they are divided into two sections, ‘Aspects of man’ and ‘Analytical psychology and the Christian’. Apart from this classification, the talks are not related, nor are the original occasions for which they were written disclosed.
The author's concern is not with technical aspects of analysis but with universal problems of human living, as these are illuminated by analytical psychology. She writes for the general rather than the specialist reader, and provides many rich insights on such themes as loneliness, separation from parents, the problems of being a woman in the modern world, the specific problems of Catholics in analysis, and questions of guilt and confession. To this reviewer at least, she is at her best when she illustrates what she says from her own experience or that of others, and least convincing when she writes on a theoretical level.
Inevitably there are many points which invite debate. For instance, on page 73, she writes: ‘When, during the reformation, Mary was removed from heaven, woman lost her light side and all nature, human nature, and instinct and body became wholly evil.’ Even allowing for the hyperbole of rhetoric, there is a simplification here which confirms rather than challenges popular stereotypes. For puritanism has a long history inside the Catholic church as well as outside it (de Rancé, founder of La Trappe, provides a good example of one who combined a zealous devotion to the Virgin with a fierce rejection of human nature and the body), and equally in non-Roman Catholic traditions puritanism has not been the only voice.
Again, on page 102, in her discussion of confession, the author implies that feelings can be sins. I believe this to be a harmful notion, though a common one, because it leads people to confuse feelings with actions and