Tag Archives: Edinger

Ego & Archetype

Posted on by under Books, Grad School

Ego and ArchetypeEgo and Archetype by Edward F. Edinger

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a rich reading! Edinger really breaks down individuation and integrates powerful support direct from various texts of Jung. What stands out to me is Edinger’s examination at what the individual faces in dreams, the shadow, and through symbols/archetypes. Through the use of examples of patient’s dreams, he both shows us the richness of the psyche and how to begin to understand the images it brings to us. I read this for my class on Jungian psychology. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this field!
“To be aware of individuality is to realize that one has all that one needs. It also means that one needs all that one has, namely, that every psychic content and happening is meaningful” (168).

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Reading

Posted on by under Books, Grad School, Life, Writing

For the first time since I got over my flu, I had the chance to sit and read all day. And not papers written by students, but a real live book!!  ;)   I’m catching up on assigned readings for my graduate program. Today I dug into Edinger’s Ego & Archetype. I’m not done yet, but I managed to devour one hundred pages today. I really enjoy psychology and am loving reading about Jung again. I realized when I’m reading though that I’m really multi-tasking the information I consume. Any time I read a text for school, I have four constant and equally important goals:

1). I read to understand the text itself and apply that to the course work.
2). Taking it one step further, I’m digging for ideas to include in my final research paper for the course. (I am lucky with my Jung class that I’ve known my research topic from the start: the role of the shadow figure in Ursula LeGuin’s Wizard of Earth Sea).
3). I’m also always keeping my eye out for anything related to the hero myth or Greek myth as research for my book. (This does happen a lot, since a lot of ideas in myth tend to, at some point, circle back to Greek mythology. I found some tasty tidbits today).
4). And I’m also always keeping my eye out for anything that could possibly contribute to my potential future dissertation topic, which at this point roughly is going to be an exploration of the representation of chronic pain in mythology and what that provides for chronic pain patients.

All this leads to a lot of notes, highlights, and post-it-note tabs. My books definitely look well worn by the time they’ve had a once-over from me. I really enjoy that tactile experience though. Many people in my life have converted to digital readers, and some can’t understand what I’m talking about! I need to touch the book, feel the book, crack the book, and, most importantly, write all over it! No offense to the Kindles, Nooks, and iPads, but this just cannot be done electronically. I will always adore the physical experience with books. I love the smell of new books and old books; I love the markings; I even love the way the edges of the pages turn yellow first. It’s all part of digging into the book, transforming your mind, and meeting with this other world in the print form!

How do you read?