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Title: She : Understanding Feminine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson ISBN: 0060963972 Publisher: HarperCollins (paper) Pub. Date: 1989 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33
Rating: 3
Summary: complex & obtuse
Comment: I admit, I didn't get it. I bought this book on the strong recommendation of a psychology major, who praised He, She & We (all three books by Johnson). Perhaps my lack of understanding of Jungian theory interfered with my ability to glean meaning from the text.
The book is a short, readable eighty pages, developed around the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. In Johnson's explanation of how femininity evolves (including the man's feminine side, or anima), a person must go through certain rites of passage, in sequential order, to develop fully as a woman. Psyche must complete four tasks assigned by Aphrodite. Failure to complete any task before nightfall will result in death. The tasks include sorting a pile of many different seeds, collecting golden fleece from rams, filling a crystal goblet with water from the river Styx, and collecting a cask of beauty ointment from Persephone, goddess of the underworld. Johnson explains how each of these tasks represents an evolution in a woman's life (choosing one of the many seeds a man gives to a woman to begin the miracle of birth, gathering the fleece as acquisition of a bit of masculinity necessary to survive in the world, the single goblet of water from Styx as focusing on a single item at once from the vast choices in the universe). The text is rich with metaphor -- marriage as both death and resurrection for a woman, a beautiful oil-burning lamp as a woman's natural consciousness, etc. Interesting, but (at least for me) not particularly enlightening. Overall, I enjoyed the story, but I didn't come away with an enhanced understanding of female psychology.
Rating: 5
Summary: Approachable, Casual Jungian Interpretation
Comment: This is a short, easy read (about 80 pages) of large-typed, generously-spaced, amply-margined words. Johnson's style is light and casual. Whilst not as in-depth as Marie-Louise Von Franz' treatments, for example, it is also much more approachable and less academically inclined. Still, it provides a concise forray into Jungian thought as related to færy tales and myth.
Whilst the readers of Von Franz might find it too light, I suggest it simply adds to the analytical repertoire. If you enjoy Clarissa Pinkola Estes' work relative to færy tales, you should also enjoy this, too.
Rating: 4
Summary: Let the Animas Out of Their Cages
Comment: I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about women. I've been fascinated by them, and irresistably, magnetically attracted to them all of my life. I wanted to understnad a little more about this powerful pull. Women are beautiful, mystical, and wonderfully different. There's that quality in a woman's voice that just doesn't exist in a man's that can make all of the world feel like it's suddenly become light as a feather. There's always been that bewitching paradox about the sexes. We're all human, but our perspectives are inherantly different.
In this slim but nourishing volume, Johnson lucidly examines the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid. Using Jungian pysychology, he shows that the trials a girl must undertake to become a woman are no different today than they were in the ancient world. Johnson tells us why myth is so important to us as humans. It's one of the truest, clearest records of ourselves. When a myth is passed on from one generation of storytellers to another, it is refined and slowly given its truest shape. The parts that glow are given more emphasis and the parts that don't are left along the way.
As the author stresses, this book is not really about women, but rather about the 'feminine' that exists in both women and to a lesser degree men. In learning to understand the psychological imperatives of the female, not only will a man be more adept in his relationships with women, but he will also better understand his own complex nature.
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Title: He : Understanding Masculine Psychology by Robert A. Johnson ISBN: 0060963964 Publisher: HarperCollins (paper) Pub. Date: 1989 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
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Title: We : Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love by Robert A. Johnson ISBN: 0062504363 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 1985 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Owning Your Own Shadow : Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche by Robert A. Johnson ISBN: 0062507540 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 1993 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Inner Work : Using Dreams and Creative Imagination for Personal Growth and Integration by Robert A. Johnson ISBN: 0062504312 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 1989 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Ecstasy : Understanding the Psychology of Joy by Robert A. Johnson ISBN: 0062504320 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 1989 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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