How can we deal with the chaos that inevitably infects our lives? Perhaps more to the point, shouldn't we strive to eliminate it? Isn't chaos a sign that things have gone terribly wrong? Not necessarily. Jung believed that psychological development proceeds according to the influence of symbols in our lives. In stripping us of our old points of view so that growth can occur, symbols invariably feel chaotic. That's Jung's theory, but until recently there was little in the hard sciences to back him up. Now, with the advent of chaos theory, there is new support for his psychological perspective. Archetypes & Strange Attractors maps the correspondences between the dynamics of symbols in the psyche and the dynamics of chaos in the world of matter. Just as the material world oscillates between states of order and chaos, so also the individuation process involves stages of psychic balance and disruption. In both cases the great paradox holds: the wild dynamics of change are contained within a broader pattern - the pattern of life itself. In accepting that chaos can be creative as well as destructive, we are challenged to revision our basic notions of psychic health and to enter into a new dialogue with the forces of change. John R. Van Eenwyk, Ph.D., is a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute in Chicago and a priest in the Episcopal Church. He has a private practice in Olympia, WA, and is a clinical supervisor at the Medical School of the University of Washington. He has lectured internationally on the subject of this book and on the treatment of torture survivors. "Archetypes & Strange Attractors succeeds because a religious sensibility infuses it, giving it a depth that would have been lacking if the author had just moved back and forth between Jungian terms and chaos theory." - Robin Robertson, Gnosis Magazine. - from the publisher |