Dr. Murray Stein’s prolific career has produced a substantial body of writings, lectures, and interviews. His writings, captured in these volumes, span a wide domain of topics including Christianity, individuation, midlife, the practice of analytical psychology, and topics in contemporary society. His deep understanding of analytical psychology is much more than an academic discourse, but rather a deeply personal study of Jung that spans nearly half a century.
Volume 1 contains one of the core elements of Dr. Stein’s lifelong teaching, namely the concept of individuation. The process of individuation fosters the fulfillment of our unconscious potential as called forth by the archetypal Self. In many ways, it is the meaning of one’s life journey. It encompasses the entire lifetime and includes both our psychosocial as well as spiritual development. Concepts of transformation, failure, midlife, mythological figures, and liminality are central to his writings on individuation. Our journey culminates as we approach alchemical union through the Unus Mundus.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Containment/Nurturance Stage of Individuation
2. The Adapting/Adjusting Stage of Individuation
3. The Centering/Integrating Stage of Individuation
Conclusion
The TwoFold Movement of Individuation
1. The Analytic Movement (Separatio)
2. The Synthetic Movement (Coniunctio)
Numinous Experience in the Alchemy of Individuation
1. On Healing and Numinous Experience
2. Rudolf Otto, Creator of the Idea of the Numinous
3. Jung and Otto
4. Numinous Experiences and Individuation
5. Shadows of the Numen
6. The Individuation Hero(ine)
A Tale of Initiation and Full Individuation
1. Curiosity, Knowledge and Catastrophe
2. Maintaining Consciousness
3. Extreme Trials
Deconstructing Bewitchment
The Struggle with the Complexes, Personal and Cultural
1. The Story of a Wounded and Imperfect Greek God
2. A Theoretical Interlude
3. Hephaistos Within
4. Hephaistos Whole
Finding a Space for Individuation
1. Hermes, an Introduction
2. Hermetic Space
3. Individuation Space
4. Hermetic Space in Psychotherapy
The Ethics of Individuation: The Individuation of Ethics
Midway on Our Life’s Journey: Psychological Transformation at Midlife
1. The Midlife Period
2. The Two Halves of Life – Achievement of Conventionality, Development of Individuality
3. Change at Midlife – A Transformation Process in Three Phases
Betrayal: A Way to Wisdom?
1. “In God We Trust”
2. Jung’s Answer to Job
3. C.G. Jung and Fr. Victor White, O.P.
Moments of Meaning – Synchronicity and Individuation
1. Strange Happenings
2. Hermes, A Mythical Portrait of the Author of Synchronicity
3. Three Vertices in Synchronistic Events
4. The Dual Object as Symbol
5. Butterfly Tales
6. Synchronicity and Meaning
On the Role of Failure in the Individuation Process
1. “Crucible”
2. “Failure”
3. Transformation – Reversing the Perspective
4. The Collective
Individuation in Organizational Life
Helping Tradition to Individuate
Individuation and the Politics of Nations
Where East Meets West: In the House of Individuation
1. Psychological Differences between East and West
2. The Place of Meeting
3. The Practical Result
Psychological Individuation and Enlightenment
1. Stage One – The First Conjunction: Unio Mentalis
2. Stage Two – The Second Conjunction: Uniting Unio Mentalis with the Body
3. Stage Three – The Third Conjunction: Unus Mundus The Union of Personal with Impersonal Self
References
Index
