Reviewed by Jan Bauer, published in the Journal of the Jung association of Montreal (November 07)

This is a 'heady' book - heady in at least three ways. It is an extremely intelligent analysis and critique of the field of psychology today, both within and without academia. In this it succeeds in what Paris announces as one of her goals in the Preface: "to make a critique of my field, an inventory of what is useful and what is dead."

But it is also 'heady' in the sense that it is full of brilliant, often poetic, nuggets of wisdom and insight that both startle and satisfy the reader eager for new or original ways to envision psychological reality. For example:

"The pursuit of consciousness, of wisdom - even of happiness - is the opposite of treatment." 'The psyche is, above all, complex. It dances with history, evolves or regresses according to the evolution of culture." "Despotism, tyranny and revolution, fundamentalism, heresies, triangles, alliances and betrayals, all the causes of war have their parallel in family life where psychic combat is a daily occurrence. A normal family does not exist.ˆ (Italics mine)

Finally, Wisdom of the Psyche is heady because the author gives many examples, especially from her own life, of psychological experiences that both move and inspire the reader. This fulfills what she announces as her second goal, which to take "ordinary experiences of inferiority, brokenness, failure and pain and to test the (psychological) theories against my own experiences of suffering."

The first chapter, "Denting my Thick Skull," in which she describes her nearly fatal backwards fall into a dry swimming pool and the time spent in intensive care and the parallel stories of outer medical care and inner psychological voyage, is just simply stunning. We feel we are in the IC bed with her as the cold nurse who reminds her of her own rejecting mother alternates with inner butterflies and bulls and compassionate Great Mother who together create an alternate, and ultimately more healing energy.

I think this chapter illustrates better than anything else in the book what she set out to do, i.e. to show the importance of image and myth and inner voyages in bringing life back to what she calls today's "unhappy souls who suffer what we could call emotional hypothermia." (See what I mean by nuggets?) Again and again she will return to the themes of imagination and myth-making, saying depth psychology belongs not to science but to the humanities and the arts. Some examples of 'nuggets' that I think capture this message well:

"Defining abnormalities belongs to the medical profession and to neuroscience whereas defining normality depends on the power of one myth over another."

"Analysis is not so much a cure as it is an education, like learning a new language, a philosophy, an adventure in self-discovery, an art of living more lucidly and intensely."

"The medical model is inadequate to make sense of the agony and the ecstasy of our life because the tragic, comic, epic and lyric genres are inherent in the human narrative. Artists, not doctors, give us the words and images to become conscious of when and how we suffer and when and how we rejoice."

It almost seemed to me that the book was written by two people. (And perhaps that would fit with the author's own ideas on the multiplicity of the psyche) One is an intellectual with a formidable ability to present and deconstruct the myriad conceptions and myths that mainstream psychologies and therapies maintain about themselves. The other is an empathetic psychologist who gives excellent, vivid examples from her patients' and her own life to show why the conventional psychological attitudes fall short.

Looking at the intellectual track, we find that chapters 3-6 are all mainly critiques of common attitudes. We have "Therapy as Cure: the Medical Model," "Therapy as Investment, the Economic Model," "Therapy as Plea, the Legal Model," and "Therapy as Redemption." In each of these chapters the 'as' is presented and then deconstructed in favor of soul-making, imagination, quality of life as opposed to 'victimology' or 'ego pursuit of happiness' or 'who owes what to whom.'

Other chapters also begin with a critique, this time of the way the Child, Mother and Father archetype are used and misused in our general collective thinking. How one-sided they are towards over-maternal, unconditional, coddling attitudes that neither respect the true wholeness of the Mother archetype or the need for much more Father presence in the form of leadership, of conditional love that requires self-control, discipline and achievement. It would be impossible, for me anyway, to argue with this content and basic critique. They are presented thoroughly and deconstructed skillfully. Her passionate plea for a less rigid, more truly psychological attitude, expresses itself in touching examples as well.

Still, there are some aspects of Paris's critical texts in these chapters that seem to me rather jarring and judgmental generalizations. For example, in a section subtitled, "avoiding neurotic contacts," she says that in order to know what love is we need to know what it is not. Fine. But the way she says it - "We know with more certainly what it is not … somebody on the via negativa is able to smell the destruction of worn-out psychological patterns," - implies too much ego certainty. As if anyone who wanted could simply follow, 'with certainty,' the path to avoidance of neurotic contacts. This statement stands out in her actual text as a little glib because it is not qualified at all, by, for example, "anyone who has worked long and hard at understanding themselves …" Even if it were, it still implies a fairly straightforward gymnastic while, in fact, I don't know anyone at all who is able to avoid neurotic contacts in their lives!

There seemed to me some glibness too in, for example, a tendency to take for granted strong ego control and will when discussing neurosis. "Being neurotic is like a bad habit that wastes what life has to offer ... the ordinary neurotic personality is like somebody who possesses a colossal fortune and worries every day when the Dow Jones index goes down a few points." Again, there is no qualifier here. It jarred this reader and came off, ironically, as an intellectual dismissal of all the very real suffering and complexity of any neurotic individual, once again seeming to imply that such a condition is mostly chosen and consciously maintained.

The same attitude emerged in a short discussion of narcissism in which she describes the narcissism of an individual as a kind of undesirable self-centeredness that simply needs to be addressed directly ( "Narcissus, who put you in charge?"), to be transformed into a more satisfying and joyous quality of life. Would that things were so simple.

Then, when addressing the meaning of love and how difficult it is to define, she points out, for example, that a child cannot show love, only need, which is proven by the fact that its affections will quickly change from parent to another good enough caregiver. Again, there is surely a lot of truth here but the terse, unmodified way in which it is said seemed too reductive and categorical. In holding a sustained critical stance such as hers in these chapters, the writer risks hitting all subjects, regardless of their complexity, with the same abrasive Brillo pad.

Finally, in her discussion of Therapy as Redemption, the author clearly and openly states she is agnostic and glad to be so. Let me quote from these important statements:

My generation is perhaps the first in history to have been so freely agnostic, without the risk of being shunned, condemned, tortured or burned at the stake ... The God-image or God principle, this beyond the ego realm of the archetype, is truly different from traditional religion faith. It does not demand the kind of obedience that traditional religions have tried (and are still trying) to impose. It is a radical move away from a posture of belief (p. 67).

She is, she says, however, also spiritual, and she talks of how important it is for her to find spiritual values in other sources such as Greek mythology and other simply human values that transcend ego reality and purpose.

In spite of the qualifiers, I still could not help but feel a subtle judgment about those who might still be naive or needy enough to need to 'believe' or have 'faith' in a traditional religious outlook. Also, I couldn't help having a feeling of real disconnect between what she relishes as her personal agnostic freedom and the simultaneous, but not mentioned fact, that American religiosity has been increasing exponentially.

Yet, outside of the sense of judgment and disconnect that this reader did experience, it must be said that Paris is still superb in her deconstruction of the effects of a rigid orthodox religious position.

What I found may jar but this does not lessen the fullness and true wisdom that is in this book and the nuggets that are far too numerous to mention but remain in the mind long after the book is closed.

The last chapters of the book which concern myth-making and soul in the world confirm this richness. As she leaves the grids of criticism, the 'via negativa' and enters the area she loves, a 'via positiva', Paris really soars. She has some wonderful passages on 'mother' and 'father' in the world at large, on our need and ability to keep revising our own myths, on the difference between fear and anxiety, and how image and imagination can help to free us from anxiety.

As for the psychologist - the other writer of the book - she provides, throughout the book, very apt and moving examples of real peoples' lives to illustrate the difference between what conventional psychology would make of us and how depth psychology can both enrichen and deepen our lives.

To conclude, Wisdom of the Psyche is not an easy book. But it is rich, intelligent and honest and should be read at least twice to appreciate its richness or, if not twice, then slowly. It is a book that rewards the reader with a huge store of knowledge, psychological history, challenges to both intellect and feeling and, most of all, lots of wonderful metaphors and imagination to chew on.
-Jan Bauer