The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover in the Male Psyche - Softcover

Moore, Robert; Gillette, Douglas

4.15

86 ratings by Goodreads

9780380720712: The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover in the Male Psyche

Softcover

ISBN 10: 038072071X ISBN 13: 9780380720712

Publisher: Avon Books, 1995

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From the authors of The King Within, The Warrior Within and The Magician Within comes the concluding book in this powerful four-book series exploring the male psyche. Moore and Gillette teach men how to use their masculine energy to empower themselves and live richer, fuller, more satisfying lives.

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From Kirkus Reviews:

This last volume of four (The Magician Within, p. 208, etc.) from Jungian psychoanalyst Moore and mythologist Gillette completes a vision of the mature man as a noble, emotionally generous, artistically expressive soul. Here, stating that all men are ``wired for loving, and for mystical experience,'' the authors consider why this is such a difficult ``energy'' for most men to master. They agree with men's movement luminary Robert Bly on the importance of a father to a boy's psychological development and on the connection between impaired adult instincts and early loss or deprivation: ``What determines the mode of a man's loving [monogamy, promiscuity, etc.] involves the ways in which he was wounded and affirmed as a boy.'' Men can struggle to avoid shadow behaviors and learn to use techniques to access the ``Lover within''--techniques including some form of play every day (to honor ``the Child within''); expressive activities (especially dance); and the development of capacities for spiritual experience. In this view of the authentic lover's ideal, a romantic involvement is central, not to find the lost elements or repressed parts of a man's life--though failure to do so sours a relationship--but to share what Harville Hendrix calls a ``passionate friendship'' (a friendship with, the authors add, a spiritual dimension). Shorter and less burdened by elaborate distinctions than the previous books--and offering a more streamlined roundup of background examples and fewer of those murky philosophical passages that erect barriers where there should be bridges. But even so, it's a dense and weighty read. (Fifty b&w photos, eight pages color photos--not seen) -- Copyright �1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Publishers Weekly:

In this final volume in the four-book series that began with The King Within , Jungian analyst Moore and mythologist Gillette, a counselor, examine the Lover archetype within the male psyche (the others are the King, the Warrior, and the Magician--each examined in a previous volume). The authors trace how the Lover--the feeling side of men's nature--gives rise to passion, creativity and the pursuit of pleasure. Through the Lover's energy, the conscious mind may encounter the personal and collective unconscious. However, the authors contend, because many men fear being consumed--and thus emasculated--by the Lover's energy, they suppress their feelings and creative instincts. At the opposite extreme, a man can become possessed by the Lover, which then manifests itself as an addictive personality (whether to alcohol, drugs, food or relationships). A potpourri of Jungian theory and mythology, with anecdotes from Moore's workshops and private practice, this book attempts to show men how to get in touch with their inner Lover and use its energies without becoming consumed by them. Careful notes supply documentation for the authors' statements. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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