Practicing Wholeness: Analytical Psychology and Jungian Thought

Wholeness is a difficult concept to understand in any field. Psychology and psychotherapy are no exceptions. If wholeness is the goal of our deepest human desire, how best can we work toward that goal over our lifetime? What path is right for us?

In this book, Murray Stein argues that practicing wholeness is relevant to many areas of our lives: our private inner worlds; our religious beliefs, images, and rituals; our organizational involvements; and our cultural paradigms. Practicing wholeness is a daily activity with implications at cognitive, emotional, physical, and spiritual levels.

Stein sets out a general concept of wholeness and attempts to detail what it is made up of by using Jung's theory of instincts and archetypes. He focuses on daily life and on the clinical practice of psychotherapy, exploring the relation of psychotherapeutic treatment to human nature. Finally, he examines several aspects of treatment as these confront the practicing therapist and the patient: the reconstruction of personal history and its meaning; the nature of the relationship between therapist and patient, and the role this plays in the healing process; and some psychopathological problems that stand in the way of practicing wholeness.

Murray Stein is the author of In MidLife, Jung's Treatment of Christianity, and Solar Conscience/Lunar Conscience, and is the editor of Jungian Analysis. He is a training analyst for the International School of Analytical Psychology in Zurich and is the focus of many Asheville Jung Center online seminars.