Dante's Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom [Hardcover]

Richard Schaub (Author), Bonney Gulino Schaub (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2003

Two pioneers in holistic psychology show how to heal mind and spirit, using Dante's Divine Comedy as a metaphor for personal growth.

Bringing a unique Western approach to the quest for enlightenment, Dante's Path addresses such struggles as depression, anxiety, and addiction through a brilliant lens called psychosynthesis. Conceived by Italian psychotherapist Roberto Assagioli, who was a student of Sigmund Freud and colleague of Carl Jung, psycho-synthesis embraces spirituality as a key component of mental health. Dante's Path draws on Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy (of which Assagioli was a devotee) as a rich metaphor for the challenge of escaping from fear-based instincts (Dante's Hell), into a place of personal transformation (Purgatory), then into the confidence of finding life's higher purpose (his Pilgrim's Paradise).

With specific exercises, such as guided imagery and meditations, Dante's Path leads readers on a unique step-by-step journey for building an ongoing relationship with their guiding inner wisdom. The Schaubs have used this holistic method to successfully treat hundreds of patients for over thirty years.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Dante's Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom is primarily a self-help book. However, it is a self-help book with a difference. Authors Bonney Gulino Schaub and Richard Schaub use their perceptive, though simple reading of Dante's Divine Comedy to guide their readers through a process that allows them to access their internal wisdom, or "wisdom mind," to achieve liberation from their fears and to realize their deeper potential. Psychotherapists for over 30 years, the Schaubs practice psychosynthesis, a holistic method developed by Italian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli, that recognizes "the importance of integrating spirituality into the paradigm for seeking mental and emotional health." The book provides practical techniques, based on the world's meditative traditions, to assist readers to free themselves from their fear-based patterns and to move closer to their "higher" selves.

Taking the lead from their mentor Assagioli, the authors recognize that the spiritual path traveled by the poet in Dante's masterpiece provides the perfect road map for achieving internal wisdom and peace. Like Dante's poet, the readers are urged to move through their "hellish" impulses (such as envy, addiction, and rage) by "Learning to Witness" and to proceed to self-transformation (Purgatory) by becoming "Lord of Yourself" and ultimately to achieve enlightenment (Paradise) by "developing a relationship with your wisdom mind." In addition to their primary focus on The Divine Comedy as a metaphor for the psychoanalytic process, the authors explore connections to other spiritual world traditions. Thus, they reveal the broader implications of self-healing and discovery. They tell us if we can learn how to deal with our fears and reduce the negative actions that are generated by them, we could increase the amount of peace in our lives and subsequently, the amount of peace in the world. --Silvana Tropea

From Publishers Weekly

The authors are practitioners of a form of holistic psychology called "psychosynthesis," which was founded by Roberto Assagioli when he, along with Carl Jung, began developing the field of transpersonal psychology as a way to bring spirituality into the psychoanalytic movement. But you don't have to be a proponent of psychosynthesis to enjoy this book, because it is less a guidebook and more an interpretive reading of Dante's epic poem The Divine Comedy as Assagioli saw it, as a metaphor for his psychoanalytic approach that stressed the process of first dealing with one's fears of mortality (Hell), then developing a sense of the power of one's spirituality (Purgatory), and finally experiencing the "loving force" of the spiritual or "universal energy" in one's daily life through access to one's higher self or "wisdom mind." Throughout, the authors offer helpful sidebars detailing mental exercises, especially forms of applied meditation and imagery, to help people access their higher self-"a creative process in which, through a series of discoveries, your experience of who you are is gradually expanded." The book's real success is in providing a fascinating interpretation of Dante's masterpiece-and the movement of Dante from the "dark wood" to the beatific image of his beloved Beatrice-in a way that is sensitive to the work itself and doesn't use The Divine Comedy merely as an advertisement for the authors' psychoanalytic approach.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Gotham Books/Penguin Group; 1st edition (September 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592400299
• ISBN-13: 978-1592400294
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,338,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a practical approach to the metaphor of the Commedia, October 12, 2003

By 

Mark Henderson (Sammamish, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dante's Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom (Hardcover)

This book is part an interpretation of Dante's Commedia and part a set of related practical meditation and visualization exercises for following Dante's path as interpreted by the authors.

The fact that the Commedia is a metaphor for a psychological-spritual journey towards wholeness is certainly not original to the authors. They could have written volumes on the symbolism in the Commedia from a depth psychological perspective, but in doing so, they would have lost the popular appeal of this book as a guide for a psychological-spiritual practice. They manage the balance between interpretation and practice nicely.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dante's Path, March 12, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Dante's Path: A Practical Approach To Acheiving Inner Wisdom (Paperback)

Using Dant's description of hell as the backdrop for exploring our fears, limitations, and weaknesses is outstanding. and a path is given to the reader to follow to confront and resolve our worst enemy, ourself.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another nice walk through the Divine Comedy, July 7, 2005

By 

Cerulean (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dante's Path (Mass Market Paperback)

The authors blend their personal stories related to transpersonal psychology with an allegorical walk through Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, and modern perspective to look at the cantos. Their modernism includes 22 quieting and meditative exercises for the reader and a storylike narrative on exploring Dante Algheri's legacy. Their modern perspective is based on work from the 20th century Jungian psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli from Florence, Italy.