texas a m university press february 2004 (1 results)

Paper Back. Condition: New. Borrowing from and expanding upon the Jungian concept of individuation (the life-long process toward wholeness), Swiss psychologist and professor Verena Kast reintroduces the long-suspect emotions of elation into a therapeutic world acquainted more with explorations of darkness. While Kast affirms Jung's therapeutic model in which patients are counseled to ''go into'' their depression, anxieties and fears, learning to endure and even rely on them for emotional homeostasis, she asks why entering more deeply into joy, inspiration and hope can't also be a turning point and source of stability. Kast quickly moves from philosophical conjecturing to practice. In therapy sessions with numerous patients, she's developed a practice of biographical reconstruction in which she and the patient proceed chronologically to recall sources of joy in the patient's life. The point of the biography is not only to locate sources but also to identify the fate of joy. Kast's development of the elated emotions includes a discussion of mania and our fear of excess -- a way of ''protecting ourselves'' from mania's wild swings -- which often represses real sources of hope and inspiration. She also points out that the lack of joy and hope has propagated secularized parodies of religious ecstasy, such as addiction and compulsiveness. Joy is no mere ornamentation. In fact, ''the isolation produced by anxiety is one-sided without the alliance created by joy. We should not be ashamed of our delight. It would be an odd thing to be ashamed of plenty and not of poverty.''.