5 comments about Final Analysis: The Making and Unmaking of a Psychoanalyst.

1. I thought this book the best of the several books I have read by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.
   
   A very good read, this will help you realise what does go on with psychotherapy - largely for the psychotherapist's benefit.
   
   This author is worth reading and this is the book I think you are best off starting with.



2. Like many other people, and despite having serious doubts about psychotherapy myself, I was put off by the pamphleteering tone and over-comprehensiveness of "Against Therapy". In this book, Masson reveals the reasons behind "Against Therapy", which are very sound indeed. The ways in which absolute power can corrupt a therapist absolutely are made crystal clear, and are shown most convincingly by this highly intelligent and lucid first-person narrative. It is unsurprising that Masson should have been put off therapy completely by his experiences, and a pity, as his intelligence and dedication would have made him a great reformer.



3. Anyone even remotely associated with analysis, as either a patient, friend of a patient, or an analyst himself, should read this very informative and fascinating book. Clear and well-written, Masson does a wonderful job of exposing the clique of therapists who get rich by deceiving their patients, pretending to care and asserting knowledge they simply don't possess. A very engrossing book that explores a heretofore closed society.



4. I found this book very interesting to read. I was very interested to hear a psychoanalyst's account of his training and membership in the psychoanalytic society. However, I found no news in the book; I wouldnt expect a circle that holds views which are Darwinian to refrain from acting like our prehistoric ancestors.



5. Reading Masson's book, I was reminded time and again of the injustices and psychological abuse I experienced whilst undergoing Social Work training a number of years ago.

   "Final Analysis", together with Masson's other treasures - "Against Therapy" and "Assault on Truth" provide, in my view, an accurate insight into the arrogance, self-righteousness and pretense to knowledge and care that often occurs both behind the scenes and quite openly in the world of Psychotherapy.

   One of the better books I have read.

5 comments about Introducing Jung.

1. The book gives a good view of who Jung is as a whole person and not in a good way. The book says little to Jung's accomplishments. It portrays him more as an antisemitic, cold hearted, opportunistic, manipulative, off balanced quack with little wisdom to offer of his own merit outside of knowledge gained from Freud. The book seems to mock him more than adore him. The book makes alot of interesting inferences into Jung's character. Often, the humor and cartoons are too obtuse. However, I guess that's about as entertaining as a book on Jung could really be.



2. I guess I'm not a big fan of Jung in general, and that might be clouding my opinion of this book, but I found it to be pretty dry and boring for an Introducing... work.



3. I found this book after I had already read quite a significant amount of Jung's work. I was amazed at how peceptive and witty this treatment really is. It makes a great review for the already knowledgeable, and I can see where it would also be an excellent first introduction.

   The book covers Jung's early childhood history, his work and differences with Freud, the basics of Jungian Analytical Psychology, type theory, the psychology of religion, the uncanny and synchronicity, the I Ching, astrology, alchemical speculation, and it even addresses and debunks some of the controversial criticisms of his personal life and work. There is also really useful "little dictionary" in the back for those who are not yet familiar with Jungian terminology, or psychology in general.

   The illustrations of this book are not mere cut-and-paste filler and distraction, but they exactly augment and demonstrate the topics being discussed. While some might dismiss this as an instructional comic book, there is no obvious "dumbing down" involved.

   This is a excellent and insightful little book. In fact, I intend to read it again.




4. Introducing Jung
   by Maggie Hyde and Michael McGuiness

   Carl Gustav Jung was born on the 26th of July in Kesswil, Switzerland. He was at one point, Sigmund Freud's student, however, they eventually parted ways due to philosophical differences. Sigmund's psychoanalytical approach was scientific whereas Jung took a spiritualist's stance.

   Through Jung's work with the insane, he discovered that their delusions were drawn from a collection of archaic images and symbols and referred to them as "archetypes". The collective unconscious, he said, was formed of the instincts and the archetypes.

   Jung was a fascinating man with fascinating ideas and concepts that have greatly affected our modern view of psychiatry and the unconscious mind. Jung was a scientist and a scholar but he used astrology, religion and ritual magic to explore the dreams and fantasies of his patients.

   I would highly recommend this book if you want an easy-to-read and understand book about a complex subject. Each page of this book contains ink drawings, done in a sort of cartoon fashion, of the concepts being discussed.

   There are several books in this series including:
   Freud
   Mathematics
   Quantum Theory
   Philosophy
   Marx Einstein
   Chaos




5. Introducing Jung is not the only book I have from totem's "Introducing" series, but it is one of my favorites. It clearly presents many of the ideas that may be glossed over in your intro to psych class. Like all the "Introducing" books, it is not too muddled with details but rather serves as an excellent jumping off point for research in a subject you may be unfamiliar with. The drawings are also helpful and humorous, especially to those more visual learners. These books make great inexpensive gifts for college students, and they are much apreciated when recieved. They are an overall easy read on not so easy subjects and can be referenced over and over again.

No comments about Journey to Xibalba: A Life in Archaeology.

1 comments about Carl Rogers: The Quiet Revolutionary : An Oral History.

1. The context of this book is an interview with Carl Rogers that occurs late in his life. I found it to be very well constructed and edited in such a way to allow Carl to tell his story and give his account of his remarkable life. Anyone with an interest in humanistic psychology or Carl Rogers will enjoy this book.

No comments about Why Did Freud Reject God?: A Psychodynamic Interpretation.

1 comments about Freedom of Angels: Surviving Goldenbridge Orphanage.

1. This is a surpisingly objective account in places, but it's interesting to see how the author, a qualified counsellour, often reverts back to a childhood linguistic mode when describing her early experiences. She's conscious of the effect that living in an orpanage has on the way she percieves the world as a whole. At times it feels like the book is written by 2 different authours, one a badly scarred orpanage vitim, the other an impartial commentator.

   it works, though, it's often harrowing and should be enough to make anyone who perpetuated the institionalised cruelty of these institiutions feel ashamed. It's an angry, but not necessacarily bitter book that deserves a wide audience in Ireland and elsewhere.

No comments about The Segregated Scholars: Black Social Scientists And the Creation of Black Labor Studies, 1890-1950 (Carter G. Woodson Institute Series in Black Studies).

No comments about Mapping Trauma and Its Wake: Autobiographic Essays by Pioneer Trauma Scholars (Routledge Psychosocial Stress Series, 31).

2 comments about Secret Places: My Life in New York and New Guinea (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiographies).

1. This book was written by a flagellant. Reading it is a painful experience.



2. In travels through faerie sanctuaries and other exotic lands, I've enjoyed the company of many unusual personalities. One of the most memorable is Tobias Schneebaum. Reading his latest book, Secret Places, has increased my sense of awe at the uniqueness of this man.

   Toby's fame results largely from a brief encounter (an unpleasantly personal encounter) with cannibalism in the 1950s. His free-wheeling explorations of the Amazon region, searching for a life more meaningful than accumulating money and possessions, led to an extended visit with the little-known Akarama tribe. Toby bonded strongly with the indigenous tribal men, who had little or no experience of modern culture. He found himself embraced as a temporary memory of the tribe, and was included both in headhunting expeditions and same-sex celebrations of body and spirit. On one occasion, a traditional ceremony culminated in eating the heart of a captured warrior from a neighboring tribe; it would have been impolite (and probably dangerous) to decline.

   His first book chronicling these and other adventures, Keep The River On Your Right, was published in 1969, and the book soon became a cult classic. Schneebaum became a rather unlikely, and somewhat notorious, celebrity. (Recently, the story has been retold and updated in a fascinating documentary film of the same name, now available on DVD and video - highly recommended.)
   Toby's latest book, Secret Places, is one of a series of gay and Lesbian autobiographies from the University of Wisconsin Press. About half the book consists of detailed and fascinating stories of Toby's adventures with the Asmat people of New Guinea. It is probably no coincidence that he describes Asmat stories and myths as "not following any particular pattern. They do not have a beginning; they do not have an ending." My perception may be colored by the way I met the author a few years ago at a dinner party in New York, but to me, the book reads like a transcribed dinner conversation. Unlike any other autobiography I've read, the style is remarkably non-linear. For example, details are often repeated from prior pages as if brand new, as they might be in casual conversation. I found this loose approach unusual, and most enjoyable.

   Jumping forward and backward in time and space, incorporating stories of his religious Jewish childhood, of New York friends succumbing to mid-80s AIDS, of aboriginal lovers in faraway lands, of missionaries bringing permanent change to ancient cultures, Toby regales the reader with episodes of his remarkable life. He is struck by the similarity between Catholic communion - eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ - and ritual cannibalism - eating the body and drinking the blood of conquered warriors. He chronicles a multinational company's bull-in-china-shop destruction of untouched wilderness among the Asmat, in an oblivious attempt to drill oil where only water exists. And he mourns the inevitable shift in artistic style among Asmat woodcarvers, from subtle hand-tooled techniques passed down from uncountable generations, to pretty but "soulless" items more easily sold to tourists for easy packing in their luggage or shipping home as excess baggage.
   Toby's book is a small but generous gift, offering a glimpse into cultures and climes few will ever experience (and none will experience in the state of preservation that still existed at the time of his youth). It is thrilling to read about Toby's apparently fearless adventures, to enjoy them vicariously through his memoirs. Don't miss this book, and if you ever get the chance to hang out and chat with 80-something Tobias Schneebaum, it will be time well spent.

   Reviewed By Mountaine in
   White Crane Journal
   A Journal on Gay Spirituality

1 comments about Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life.

1. Alfred Kinsey is a hero to everyone who believes in what Kinsey called sexual variation -- the notion that sexuality is deep, broad, somewhat ungovernable, highly individualized, difficult to judge and a fundamental expression of one's self. For these folks, Kinsey outed all of us (and high time, too), opening a healthy and necessary global discussion on sexual preference, choice and predilection.
   
   Equally, Kinsey is a demon to everyone who believes that the phrase "sexual deviant" means something, and who subscribes to the notion that, somewhere in the 1950s, US culture lost its way in a maze of permissiveness and perversion. For thse folks, that maze was designed in large measure by Kinsey.
   
   Kinsey's devotees will find this biography unsettling. Jones gives us a wonderfully rich and detailed view of just how deeply Kinsey's own needs (and blindnesses) informed his work and the work of his team, and how (consciously or otherwise) Kinsey's quest for self-validation led him to concoct (no other word will do, it seems to me) validation for all those like him who could not find their sexual self-images in the rather poverty-stricken catalog available in the 1950s and before.
   
   Kinsey-haters, while clapping gleefully at all that Jones reveals about the flaws behind Kinsey's path-breaking work (Mister Y in particular), will also be disturbed by this book. Jones doesn't demonize Kinsey, or, if he does, he makes of Kinsey a Lucifer: a bringer of light, an arrogant, fallen angel, a friend of humankind. It is impossible, it seems to me, to read this truly great book and not conclude that, flawed and conflicted as he was, Kinsey was doing the work of the angels -- that his research did open, in an unforecloseable way, the facticity of sexual variation in the human species.
   
   For historians and sociologists of science, this book is a must-read: a wonderful case study about the open boundary between the psyche of the investigator and the subject of investigation.
   
   For the rest of us, this is the biography of a man, in full: a big, brilliant [...], dead-on and dead-broken at the same moment. It's nice -- in these days of perpetu-spin, Fox News and reality TV -- to see something whole, to see it clearly, and to see it without the annoying drone of (leftist or rightist) commentary.
   
   All kudos to Jones for his fairness, his scholarship and his reach, which does not exceed his grasp.