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This short book illustrates the process of an analysis in a classical Jungian style. The analyst, Carotenuto, acting as psychopomp on the journey, shows through the study of significant dreams the gradual development of consciousness in the patient and the movement towards insight and responsibility. The image of the vertical labyrinth suggests that the early days of an analysis, when the patient is working through defences, carry no easy reference points. This labyrinth, however, seemed too well-trodden for my understanding of those frustrating structures. The seductive smoothness of the journey almost lulled me into experiencing the book at face value. As it was, I wondered where the complexities and confusions of encounters with psyche on different psychological levels had gone. Where was the anguish of the uncomfortable doubts and questions on the part of the patient when the inner void can no longer be resisted? Where were the times when the patient and the analyst must face the fire?
The journey contains potentially enlivening and enriching material but the book seemed to be written for, and perhaps sacrificed to, the enthusiastic layman rather than aimed at colleagues. This may be due partly to the confusion between, on the one hand, images, and, on the other, their relationship to the psychological development in the patient. The images become poetic, philosophers and poets are evoked. This may lead to overlooking the importance of such matters as the attainment of unit status and the capacity to be alone (Winnicott) with loneliness (Klein), and solitude, which is born in the sphere of inner search and creativity, belonging to the third area of mind (Balmt). The hero myth too, which can symbolise the long and painful process of the ego's liberation from the grip of the unconscious, is not about a once-and-for-all labour; it can also relate to smaller releases, valuable in depth and meaning throughout analysis and indeed life.
While finishing this review I noti