Love and Soul-Making:
Searching the Depths of Romantic Love
By Stacey Shelby
Romantic relationships are often laden with psychological expectations of mythic proportions. This book by Stacey Shelby Ph.D. examines the myths of Psyche and Eros, and Tristan and Iseult to mine the treasures of depth psychological thinking about love, desire, sexuality, and marriage. Concepts such as libido, anima and animus, projection, transference, and beauty are queried along with the premise of two unions, the inner and the outer.
Love and Soul-Making brings awareness to both the patriarchal origins of romance and the unarguably magical, archetypal experience of love. Relationships can serve as an alchemical vessel for the development of the soul as part of the individuation process. The struggles of relationships, whether one is partnered or not, can allow us to engage more deeply with the psyche and can guide us further into her territory. For those experiencing romantic difficulties, the myth can serve as a guide to the stages involved in soul-making and how that is enacted in human relationships. Soul (Psyche) follows what she loves (Eros).
