Wisdom Of The Psyche

In the quest for identity and healing, what belongs to the humanities and what to clinical psychology? Ginette Paris uses cogent and passionate argument as well as stories from patients to teach us to accept that the human psyche seeks to destroy relationships and lives as well as to sustain them. This is very hard to accept which is why, so often, the body has the painful and dispiriting job of showing us what our psyche refuses to see. In jargon-free language, the author describes her own story of taking a turn downwards and inwards in the search for a metaphorical personal 'death'. If this kind of mortality is not attended to, then more literal bodily ailments and actual death itself can result. Paris engages with one of the main dilemmas of contemporary psychology and psychotherapy: how to integrate findings and insights from neuroscience and medicine into an approach to healing founded upon activation of the imagination. At present, she demonstrates, what is happening is damaging to both science and imagination.

The first edition of Wisdom of the Psyche engaged with one of the main dilemmas of contemporary psychology and psychotherapy: how to integrate findings and insights from neuroscience and medicine into an approach to healing founded upon activation of the imagination. In this revised edition, Ginette Paris re-focuses her attention on the modern lack of desire to become adult and updates the book with brand new neuroscientific research. Paris uses cogent and passionate argument, as well as stories from patients, to demonstrate that the human psyche seeks to destroy relationships and lives as well as to sustain them. She makes clear that the way out of those destructive states does not start with an upward, positive, wilful effort of the ego, but with an opening of the imagination, and aims to foster the dialogue between psychotherapists and neuroscientists. In clear and accessible language, Paris describes how depth psychology can be seen as a subject of the humanities rather than the sciences, and explains how gaining an understanding of neuroscience will not necessarily make us psychologically wiser. A unique and powerful book, Wisdom of the Psyche will be fascinating reading for Jungian and depth psychologists, psychotherapists, analysts and others in the helping professions, as well as students and those in training, and readers with an interest in psychology and neuroscience who want to create an inner life worth living.

This book promotes a strong argument for a ‘feminine’ approach to religious discovery: to struggle in the ambiguous gap between the wisdom of the psyche and the wisdom of Scripture, between our interior experience of God and the exterior reality of God. The Wisdom of the Psyche urges clergy to help parishioners bring forth their unconscious feelings and images to join their conscious thoughts. In this way, the church allows its members the space to present themselves fully to God and to be fully present to the human need around them.

While not all aspects of Carl Gustav Jung's work have aged well, many of his ideas remain consistent with current concepts in behavioral psychology and neuroscience. Psychology of the Spirit reviews the lasting effects of Jung's work and how it integrates with modern neuroscience, cognitive and behavioral studies, and Christian theology. It combines the mystical insights developed by Eastern Orthodox Christian theology with Jung's vision of the psyche and the concept of the collective unconscious and its archetypes. Though written as a contribution to the field of psychology and as a tool for clinical practice, it is also accessible to lay readers interested in the relationship between the mind and the brain....

Connecting modern psychology to its Indigenous roots to enhance the healing process and psychology itself • Shares the healing wisdom of Indigenous people the author has worked with, including the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert, the Fijians of the South Pacific, Sicangu Lakota people, and Cree and Anishnabe First Nations people • Explains how Indigenous perspectives can help create a more effective model of best practices in psychology • Explores the vital role of spirituality in the practice of psychology and the shift of emphasis that occurs when one understands that all beings are interconnected Wherever the first inhabitants of the world gathered together, they engaged in the human concerns of community building, interpersonal relations, and spiritual understanding. As such these earliest people became our “first psychologists.” Their wisdom lives on through the teachings of contemporary Indigenous elders and healers, offering unique insights and practices to help us revision the self-limiting approaches of modern psychology and enhance the processes of healing and social justice. Reconnecting psychology to its ancient roots, Richard Katz, Ph.D., sensitively shares the healing wisdom of Indigenous peoples he has worked with, including the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert, Fijians native to the Fiji Islands, Lakota people of the Rosebud Reservation, and Cree and Anishnabe First Nations people from Saskatchewan. Through stories about the profoundly spiritual ceremonies and everyday practices he engaged in, he seeks to fulfill the responsibility he was given: build a foundation of reciprocity so Indigenous teachings can create a path toward healing psychology. Also drawing on his experience as a Harvard-trained psychologist, the author reveals how modern psychological approaches focus too heavily on labels and categories and fail to recognize the benefits of enhanced states of consciousness. Exploring the vital role of spirituality in the practice of psychology, Katz explains how the Indigenous approach offers a way to understand challenges and opportunities, from inside lived truths, and treat mental illness at its source. Acknowledging the diversity of Indigenous approaches, he shows how Indigenous perspectives can help create a more effective model of best practices in psychology as well as guide us to a more holistic existence where we can once again assume full responsibility in the creation of our lives.

'We have to shift from a mindset of shame, which sees anxiety as evidence of brokenness, to a mindset of curiosity, which recognizes that anxiety is evidence of our sensitive heart, our imaginative mind and our soul's desire to grow towards wholeness.' Three million people are thought to suffer from anxiety in the UK, and it is an issue that affects a growing number of people across all ages. For anyone troubled by obsessive thoughts, insomnia and other manifestations of anxiety, counsellor Sheryl Paul offers shelter in the storm. In The Wisdom of Anxiety, Paul reveals that anxiety, like any emotion, is a signal - a clear bodily invitation to heal and renew your trust in your choices, self-image and core values. Weaving together practical exercises with personal stories, Paul offers medication-free approaches for accessing the gifts in different kinds of anxiety, and especially the anxiety summoned by life's transitions, for example a career change, becoming parents or becoming carers for loved ones. Chapters include recognising the symptoms of anxiety, its origins, the myth of 'normal', the expectation of happiness and a timeline of healing that includes exercises for the body and mind. There are also chapters on parenting in an age of anxiety and the vulnerability of connection and relationships.

From the Back Cover: Psychedelics have been a part-often a central and sacred part-of most societies throughout history, and for half a century psychedelics have rumbled through the Western world, seeding a subculture, titillating the media, fascinating youth, terrifying parents, enraging politicians, and intriguing researchers. Not surprisingly, these curious chemicals fascinated some of the foremost thinkers of the twentieth century, fourteen of whom were interviewed for this book. Because no further human research can be done, these researchers constitute an irreplaceable resource. Higher Wisdom offers their fascinating anecdotes, invaluable knowledge, and hard-won wisdom-the culmination of fifty years of research and reflection on one of the most intriguing and challenging topics of our time.

The first comprehensive coursebook on the psychology of wisdom, providing an engaging, balanced, and expert introduction to the field.