Join Amazon Prime and get unlimited Free One-Day Delivery. Already a member? Sign in.

 

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
26 used & new from £1.34

Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
A Life of Jung
 
 

A Life of Jung (Paperback)

by Ronald Hayman (Author)
3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
Price: £9.99 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Only 1 left in stock--order soon (more on the way).

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, July 21? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
17 new from £2.20 9 used from £1.34
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover 9 used & new from £3.47
Paperback (Reprint) 10 used & new from £7.10
Unknown Binding Order it used

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Flamingo)

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Flamingo)

by C.G. Jung
4.7 out of 5 stars (6)  £6.99
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Routledge Classics)

Modern Man in Search of a Soul (Routledge Classics)

by C.G. Jung
5.0 out of 5 stars (1)  £9.49
Love's Executioner: and Other Tales of Psychotherapy (Penguin Psychology)

Love's Executioner: and Other Tales of Psychotherapy (Penguin Psychology)

by Irvin D Yalom
4.6 out of 5 stars (18)  £6.49
The Essential Jung: Selected Writings

The Essential Jung: Selected Writings

by C.G. Jung
4.5 out of 5 stars (4)  £6.99
Contemporary Jungian Analysis: Post-Jungian Perspectives from the Society of Analytical Psychology

Contemporary Jungian Analysis: Post-Jungian Perspectives from the Society of Analytical Psychology

by Ian Alister
Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 544 pages
  • Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (2 Sep 2002)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0747557225
  • ISBN-13: 978-0747557227
  • Product Dimensions: 18.8 x 13 x 4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 741,830 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested in These Sponsored Links

  (What is this?)
Psychotherapy training
   www.aip.org.uk    Association of Independent Psychotherapists. UKCP registered. 
Second Hand Books
   www.AbeBooks.co.uk    Find all your books cheap & second hand at AbeBooks. 
  
 

Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review
According to composer Nikolai Medtner, Goethe had foreseen psychoanalysis as "a psychic cure in which insanity is sent in to cure insanity." Jung fitted the bill and for many years he actually believed himself the great-grandson of Goethe (he wasn't). In the hands of accomplished biographer Ronald Hayman, the founder of analytical psychology emerges as a magnificently flawed colossus, with a Jeffrey Archer-like capacity to recycle negative energy, and a similarly mythic bent. When "aiding" Aniela Jaffe with Memories, Dreams, Reflections, he was to write in the prologue, "In the eighty-third year of my life I have undertaken to tell the myth of my life." For those who like their idols with feet of clay (and Anthony Storr included Jung with Freud in his book of that title), Jung is irresistibly magnetic.

In a portentous dream aged 12, he saw God defecate mightily on the cathedral at Basle. He claimed consistently throughout his life that his career was an attempt to make sense of such a wicked thought. The tales of his eccentricity are legion: Loudly greeting pots and pans in the morning, a belief that plane travel meant leaving bits of one's psyche in the air, an advocacy of marital promiscuity (of which he was an active example, with a steady line of female patients who willingly traipsed from his consulting room to his bed to their own consulting room, now fully qualified to practise; late in life he was to justify flirting with a pretty patient by saying "It was my Self that did it"). Easy targets, especially out of context, but they are the payoff for breakthrough modes of thinking, such as a restored belief of ancient, instinctual wisdom, the concept of a collective unconscious, mythological archetypes and a spiritual reaching out beyond facts, like Swedenborg and Blake, which saw him seriously entertain seances, astrology, UFOs and ghosts, and detrimentally give too wide a berth to anti-Semitism and the Nazis. And then there was Freud. Where sex was a subset to religion for Jung, the opposite was true for Freud, who gladly took the young Swiss under his wing for a symbiotic relationship which ended, as gurus do not easily tend to work in tandem, with both distinguished men caught in a blank-firing duel, each accusing the other of neurosis. Glorious, but the breakdown Jung was to suffer lasted for six years and severely changed him.

Self-dramatising, outrageously intoxicating, his theories as baggy as Freud's were claustrophobic, Jung finds his perfect complement in Hayman, with his detached, less than reverential but nevertheless boldly erudite analysis, which somehow maintains its pace and poise to the close. This is ideal for Jungian Freudians, Freudian Jungians and those who just like a rollicking good tale of genius and folly. --David Vincent --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Anthony Storr
'This is the best biography of Jung'

See all Product Description


Tag this product

 (What's this?)
Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items.
Your tags: Add your first tag
 

 

Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
5 star:    (0)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:
 (1)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars A poorly written biography with blunt axes to grind, 11 Jul 2003
Hayman's treatment of Jung is one of those typical biographies of psychologists where the author tries to analyse the subject from time to time, with embarassing results to anyone familiar with the work of the subject. In addition, the writing is often quite poor, disjointed - seemingly the result of some cut-and-paste editing - especially near the beginning where the form is abrupt: "Jung did this, then this, then this".

There are many profound misunderstandings of Jung's work, often displayed when trying the usual political correctness trick of attempting to display some form of calumny - anti-semitism, unfaithfulness etc. These little currents of attack are not very well hidden and display Hayman's poor grasp of the real content of Jung's work. Biographers often do this - they desperately want to display contradictions between the subject and his work: this is the biographical equivalent of celebrity gossip. However, with some subjects - and certainly with Jung - this technique is simply irrelevant. That is, you cannot criticise someone on the basis of their contradictions if their work was involved in showing that contradictions within people are essential and natural. You may dislike them, but that is a different thing altogether.

This is not a sympathetic reading of Jung, partly because Hayman does not understand him and partly because he does not really like him. For anybody who has read all of Jung's works (which I very much doubt Hayman has - awful in itself for someone who supposes to write a biograhy), this will be more irritating than enlightening.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars at long last, 3 Jan 2000
This review is from: Jung: A Biography (Hardcover)
at first it seemed that what we did not need was another hatchette job on Jung, but it is truly delightful to find a fair and accurately appraised book about his life, neither lopsised and sicophantic, nor a ruthless and ill researched hate job. well worth reading, a genuine contribution .
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Only search this product's reviews



Customer Discussions

 Beta (What's this?)
This product's forum (0 discussions)
  Discussion Replies Latest Post
  No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
  [Cancel]


   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Translate this Darkness: The...

Translate this Darkness...

The Christiana Morgan who emerges from this book is a fascinating... Read more
£36.05

Find similar items

 

More From Ronald Hayman

K: A Biography...

K: A Biography of Kafka by Ronald Hayman

Hayman shows how the unique writings of this extraordinary man force... Read more

 

Train Hard...Play Hard

Nike, Gola, Converse, and more
Gear up with up to 60% off athletic and outdoor shoes.

Shop now

 

Treat Someone

Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificates--available in any amount from £5 to £500 With an Amazon.co.uk Gift Certificate, you can get them what they want (even if you don't know what that is).

Learn more about Gift Certificates

 
Ad

Where's My Stuff?

Delivery and Returns

Need Help?

Your Recent History

  (What's this?)
You have no recently viewed items or searches.

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.

Look to the right column to find helpful suggestions for your shopping session.

Continue Shopping: Top Sellers

amazon.co.uk Amazon Home
International Sites:  United States  |  Germany  |  France  |  Japan  |  Canada  |  China
Business Programs: Sell on Amazon  |  Fulfilment by Amazon  |  Join Associates  |  Join Advantage
Customer Service  |  Help  |  View Basket  |  Your Account
About Amazon.co.uk  |  Careers at Amazon
Conditions of Use & Sale |  Privacy Notice  © 1996-2009, Amazon.com, Inc. and its affiliates