Customer Reviews

Boundaries of the Soul

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have to write a review, since there seem to be a lot of negative comments on this board about this book, which I find misleading.

Jung is not easy. If some readers think that Singer is unfocused and unscientific, Id suggest their going to the source. Jungs writings meander like the subconscious streams he plummets into. His thinking is generally inter-relational and holistic, not as mechanistic and simplistic as Freuds theories tend to be. Jung wasnt happy with merely restoring a patients ego to the status-quo; he wanted to know and understand the whole-shebang. He had an inkling that there was more to reality than rational systems could explain, and spent his life exploring this realization.

Basically, Freud was a depth psychologist using a mechanistic model, where humans are seen as separate units being driven by internal engines, whereas Jungs model is closer to a quantum theory of the subconscious mind, with humans, indeed all reality, connected by a field on the deep level that is incompatible with "ego" functioning. All things, he seems to say, affect all other things, just as a lot of quantum mechanical experiments illustrate about the physical world. He called this "inter-realtedness" the collective subconscious for lack of a better term, I suppose.

Both views, by the way, are essential; simply two sides of the same coin. Freud developed a more practical, easier to use system, but Jung is the superior theorist.

I think Singer not only does an admirable job explaining Jung. Though it takes some work to read, I really like the way she illustrates examples with stories from her practice. She organizes and humanizes the often incomprehensible theories of Jung with real-world examples. I have read the book four times in my life, and have found it ever more reliable and insightful as I grow older. While I still love to ponder Jung, without Singer and her real-world case studies, I would have been lost.

As an aside, I would suggest to anyone doubting the difference in the sexes to pick up Jean Shinoda Bolens "The Goddesses in Everywoman" and "The Gods in Everyman" for a modern, post-feminist perspective on these issues. Her point, as well as Jungs, is that men and women are different. Equally powerful, but different.

I first read this wonderful book some 30-odd years ago, and I've returned to it many times since. It remains one of the best introductions to Jung's thought & basic concepts that I know. Singer's personal touch, both in her own case histories & her autobiographical anecdotes, add to the book; the feeling is one of listening to a wise woman, rather than hearing a dry lecture. Singer not only knows her material intellectually, she knows it in her soul, and that comes through on every page. This book made me start paying attention to my dreams, and gave me a much-needed framework for understanding my life at a crucial time, when I was most in need of such a framework.

While the revised & updated edition is excellent, I'd also recommend reading the original 1972 edition if you can find it. For example, Singer's chapter on Jung & the Counterculture is superb, and not nearly as dated as the author herself believed; in any case, it provides a valuable on-the-spot account of Jungian thought & its intersection with the 1960s, the impact of which is still being felt today. Yet it's also fascinating to read the follow-up stories of some of her patients in the newer edition.

Jung is a much better known name today than when this book first appeared, but his thought isn't always as well understood as it might be. Let Singer take you on a revelatory tour of the Psyche & learn far more about both Jung & yourself than you ever imagined. Highly recommended!

I have now read this book twice during crisis in my life and find June Singer's book on Jung the most accessible, understandable approach to Jungian analytical psychology that I have ever read. (I have read about 4000 pages of Jung's own work and undertood much of it.)

It is helpful to have a woman's approach to how the analytical process actually happens. She gives away the secrets as to how analysis ought to be done by a faithful but always questioning Jungian analyst.

I recommend this book for anyone who has problems, who has an interest in psychology, or wants to understand how really advanced therapies such as analytical psychology (depth analysis) actually works.

I have to give this book 5 stars not just because I found it to be a very thorough explanation of Jung's theories but also because readers much greater than I have given this book rave reviews as noted from the back cover! Admittedly, this book is not easy to get through but worth the bit of struggle; it seems everyone should be interested in psychology since it's how we think, our attitudes and resulting behavior that rules our lives and the lives of all the human beings that we come in contact with!

Interspersed with Jung's theories are real life psychoanalytical scenarios most centered around dream analysis which I thought was way more real and interesting than reality TV! Prior to reading this book, I did not realize how much of Jung's theory has become a part of our lives, such as archetypes, although I think these were originally discussed by Plato, projection and transference, synchronicity and of course the individuation process. The latter is the acceptance of our humanness on a holistic level and the continuing discovery of our potential.

Warning, this book may raise your level of consciousness and force you to realize that the world does not revolve around you! The sooner we all face up to the truth of our existence, that all human beings are untied, regardless of their race, color or creed, the sooner we can achieve internal and therefore external peace.

A wonderful accessible book written in warmth and sincerity and utilizing real case examples throughout in furthering understanding the applicability of Jung whose impact remains paramount.
Obviously a well studied book by Jungian practicioners,this books appeal is it's lucid prose and style,never dry, written by a then leading Jungian therapist carefully in tune with her then radical climate of the day.
The book remains contemporary and not dated with time especially since the revised edition was written in 1994 and changed where she deemed appropriate.
The major concepts of Jung are explained here through case studies in addition to great insights, such as her take on the understanding of Plato as distinct from Aristotle and the fusion that Jung accomplished between Adler and Freud with his development of his Personality Theory.
A very useful,enjoyable and needed book allowing one to enjoy the appetizer with all the historical background and theories dealt with prior to relishing Jung's actual text.

A very nice Jungian tells how it is without jargon taking over. She is Jung's best anima ideal: grounded; related; earthy; told in plane English real life that illustrates the way in which Jung's ideas (so often inscrutable in our age of extroverted sciences & explanations) really express themselves in daily life. A great read. I only wish she had been my Jungian analyst.

A thoroughly lucid description of a life philosophy we can all learn from. June Singer provides specific examples from her many years of growth and practice of Jungian psychoanalysis. Very perceptive updating of Jung's theories for the 1990's

Very practical and useful for the reader interested in implementation of Jungian analysis. It's a bit light, however, on theory. The case examples can be a bit tedious at times and somewhat repetitive. I would have appreciated a greater context applied to the examples through explanation of original Jungian theories.
Overall, I think this book is best read in concert with Jung's original texts.

Boundaries of the Soul seems to have stood the test of time, especially in updated form, and it does give one a nice sense of a Jungian practice at work. However, Singer's writing style is uneven and meandering, and unless the reader already has a reasonably good conception of Jung's thought as a whole, much of this volume may feel like navigating in an entirely new country without a map. The book's fairly substantial lenth makes this even more of an issue. For an introduction to Jung, it would be best to look elsewhere, and then come back to Singer.

Having read Carl Jung now for the past twenty years, and having given his psychology much thought over this amount of time, it should come as no surprise I still turn to introductory material to help broaden and refresh my understanding of this analytical genius.

I read June Singer first back in the eighties. It was a little book called 'Seeing Through the Visible World' and was a nice rumination on Jung and his relationship to the gnostics.

In this great book, though, Singer proves to be expansive, well read and well experienced in Jungian philosophy and psychology.

Singer proves, chapter by chapter, her deep grasp of the material and provides wonderful clinical examples of this particular brand of psychology at work.

If nothing else, in seeking Wholeness, the crux of Jung's psychology, there is a dynamism and tension of opposites because Jung does not arrive at Platonic Forms that are static and good, but rather Archetypes, which are dynamic and therefore hold out the promise in polarity of both good and evil. His is an honest and sobering psychology and philosophy, a bareknuckled approach to the realities of life that sometimes borders on a Religion, what with Jung having become the prophet and harbinger of the modern subjective view to reality.

Singer begins in this work with complexes, continues on through archetypes, the persona, the shadow, individuation and culminates in the reality of death and dying. But she does so with an extreme intelligence on the subjects that makes the material available and most, relevant, for a new generation of discoverers.

While I have read other Jungian analysts such as Jaffe and Edinger, Singer takes the cake with this one, in my humble opinion!

A landmark!