Aliveness and Deadness are processes that cannot be captured, only symbolized within the precincts of psychology and religion.
Opening under the shadow of 9/11, our new century must reassess the preciousness of life and what we are living for, what we love, and what we find worth dying for. In the face of loss and absence, we must again ask what makes us feel connected to the source of aliveness. Yet, we must also understand that feeling fully alive means that we must come to fresh insight about the contrary of aliveness, which is deadness. Both aliveness and deadness are part of the same fabric of being. But how do we talk about them? Or do we leave these unnamed? For Ann Belford Ulanov, aliveness is to make something of what we hear, and to hear what we hear makes of us. Working on oneself enlarges; thus, society as psychological work and spiritual practice form a kind of social action. Our heart becomes unshuttered making new depths possible for the self and others.
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This eloquent work speaks of the centrality of imagination in the life of the spirit. Ann and Barry Ulanov describe the imagination as a bridge between the psyche and the spirit. Using rich imagery drawn from literature, film, and their own experience as therapists, they unlock for us the healing power of our imagination. "Imagination heals by building a bridge sturdy enough to link us up, each of us, to the river of being already present in us, to the currents flowing through us and among us in our unconscious life." After describing this healing power of imagination, the authors go on to show how it is vital in the spiritual life: in preaching, prayer, teaching, counseling, and politics.
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How does the spirit come into clinical work? Through the analyst? In the analysand’s work in the analysis? What happens to human destructiveness if we embrace a vision of non-violence? Do dreams open us to spiritual life? What is the difference between repetition compulsion and ritual? How does religion feed terrorism? What happens if analysts must wrestle with hate in themselves? Do psychotherapy and spirituality compete, or contradict, or converse with each other? What does religion uniquely offer, beyond what psychoanalysis can do, to our surviving and thriving? This book abounds with such important questions and discussions of their answers.
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Prayer is our basic expression of religious belief. It is our personal and most private act of devotion. Words cannot do justice to the feelings, wishes, terrors, pains, or pleasures that we exchange with God. This book sets out to define prayer as both a means of drawing nearer to God everyday and as a coping tool that people can use in order to achieve harmony, balance, and satisfaction in their in their lives.
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Ann Ulanov on the Self as Analytic Fourth
by Dr. Mark Winborn
The Psychoanalytic Muse is devoted to the appreciation of the language and literature of Psychoanalysis and Analytical Psychology. The beauty and elegance of the ideas associated with the various schools of depth psychology underscore the common foundations of our process. Excerpts of analytic thought from diverse theoretical orientations will be updated twice weekly, so please visit often. In this paper Ulanov articulates the role of the Self in the analyst's countertransference. She describes the presence of the Self, which from Jung's...
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Transforming Sexuality: The Archetypal World of Anima and Animus by Ann Belford Ulanov via .
Picturing God: .