Customer Reviews

Introducing Jung, 2nd Edition

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

 

 

Introducing Jung is not the only book I have from totem's "Introducing" series, but it is one of my favorites. It clearly presents many of the ideas that may be glossed over in your intro to psych class. Like all the "Introducing" books, it is not too muddled with details but rather serves as an excellent jumping off point for research in a subject you may be unfamiliar with. The drawings are also helpful and humorous, especially to those more visual learners. These books make great inexpensive gifts for college students, and they are much apreciated when recieved. They are an overall easy read on not so easy subjects and can be referenced over and over again.

I found this book after I had already read quite a significant amount of Jung's work. I was amazed at how peceptive and witty this treatment really is. It makes a great review for the already knowledgeable, and I can see where it would also be an excellent first introduction.

The book covers Jung's early childhood history, his work and differences with Freud, the basics of Jungian Analytical Psychology, type theory, the psychology of religion, the uncanny and synchronicity, the I Ching, astrology, alchemical speculation, and it even addresses and debunks some of the controversial criticisms of his personal life and work. There is also really useful "little dictionary" in the back for those who are not yet familiar with Jungian terminology, or psychology in general.

The illustrations of this book are not mere cut-and-paste filler and distraction, but they exactly augment and demonstrate the topics being discussed. While some might dismiss this as an instructional comic book, there is no obvious "dumbing down" involved.

This is a excellent and insightful little book. In fact, I intend to read it again.

I bought « Introducing Jung: A Graphic Guide » to see if I could recommend the book to some Lao students who have no knowledge of psychology or psychoanalyse and not a very strong English. I was hoping that reading a cartoon book would be more motivating. However I was disappointed by the content and had to drop the idea. The author Maggie Hyde is not a trained psychologist but a sort of new age journalist who is more interested in every thing that is weird in Jung's work without providing a decent explanation of his psychology. The book focuses too much on Jung's life and not enough on his ideas, but even the biographic part is weak. I have read almost all Jung's works and based on his autobiography, his correspondence and other biographies such as Anthony Steven's I do not think that the presentation of Jung's personality is objective. As for the theoretical aspects there are too many gaps and what is presented is either distorted or superficial. I can only confirm the critic already made on this page by T. Gallion.

The book gives a good view of who Jung is as a whole person and not in a good way. The book says little to Jung's accomplishments. It portrays him more as an antisemitic, cold hearted, opportunistic, manipulative, off balanced quack with little wisdom to offer of his own merit outside of knowledge gained from Freud. The book seems to mock him more than adore him. The book makes alot of interesting inferences into Jung's character. Often, the humor and cartoons are too obtuse. However, I guess that's about as entertaining as a book on Jung could really be.

Hey I love the complete idiot and and Beginners guides. I use them as much as any regular guy. With that said, this is one that I would definitely say is not worth getting. 1st off. While I may be your average idiot, I am smart enough to say that when your having someone write any kind of book on a subject find an expert on that subject. So a book on psychology should be written by lets say,.. hmm a Psychologist?!? But the author is not; nor has the experience to put Jung's theories into context. The author is a new age writer. At least for the Melonie Klein book they got a Melonie Klein expert, why couldn't they have got a Jung expert for this. I mean come on there are so many! I am a psychology student with a degree and have read a lot of Jungs material and feel that this book perpetuates only sad stereotypes of Jung and Freud that are, frankly some of them unsubstantiated.
For example: Most Americans dont know that since the beginning Freud and JUngs books were written in German. It is widely known by most psychoanalytic scholars (such as Christine Downing) that most translations of thier writings are very badly done. In this case, thiers a lot of downright non-factual stuff in this book that is really greatly exaggerated. This is unfortunately the worst Introducing book i have rad thus far. Go with another version if you can or just read "Man and his symbols" by Carl Jung ; its not that hard to read sheesh.

Review of "Introducing Jung."

Let me preface this review by stating that I am impressed by the "Introducing" line of books. With that said I chose Introducing Jung because I had a need for a fast and succinct knowledge of Jung the man and his Jungian Analytical Psychology.

I was not disappointed with my selection as it was detailed and on point with a clever narrative providing the subject's particular back story, in this instance that of Carl Gustav Jung, and the works that defined his life, without delving too far into debate, praise, or criticism. In short, it was just what I needed.

This text explains the theories that led Jung to break away from Sigmund Freud, and describes his own near psychotic breakdown in mid-life, a "night sea voyage" from which he emerged with radical new insights into the nature of the unconsciousness mind. This text also describes how Jung, through his patients' dreams, fantasies, and psychic disturbances, explored the psychology of religion, alchemy, astrology, and other phenomena rejected by science.

At only 119 pages (complete with instructive illustration) Introducing Jung is very well done in providing the reader with the salient benchmarks of the subject's life & works without the drudgery often accompanied by excessive interpretations and extrapolations by authors and editors who attempt to delve deep. If you need a somewhat complete yet "quick" understanding, this could be it.

Five stars.



JP

Introducing Jung
by Maggie Hyde and Michael McGuiness

Carl Gustav Jung was born on the 26th of July in Kesswil, Switzerland. He was at one point, Sigmund Freud's student, however, they eventually parted ways due to philosophical differences. Sigmund's psychoanalytical approach was scientific whereas Jung took a spiritualist's stance.

Through Jung's work with the insane, he discovered that their delusions were drawn from a collection of archaic images and symbols and referred to them as "archetypes". The collective unconscious, he said, was formed of the instincts and the archetypes.

Jung was a fascinating man with fascinating ideas and concepts that have greatly affected our modern view of psychiatry and the unconscious mind. Jung was a scientist and a scholar but he used astrology, religion and ritual magic to explore the dreams and fantasies of his patients.

I would highly recommend this book if you want an easy-to-read and understand book about a complex subject. Each page of this book contains ink drawings, done in a sort of cartoon fashion, of the concepts being discussed.

There are several books in this series including:
Freud
Mathematics
Quantum Theory
Philosophy
Marx Einstein
Chaos

He was Jung when he was old, and old when when he was Jung.

I bought this book casually, rather intrigued by its bold graphics, and it's conscise explanations of Jung's theories, and his provocative ideas.

If you are new to Jung, you will get more out of it than if you're not new to Jung.

Today, many of his ideas abound in our consciousness, for example MBTI personality typing, introversion extraversion, archetypes, individuation process, dream interpretation, dealing with the shadow, mandalas, symbolism, duality, the collective unconsciousness.

If you are like me, the further you get into this book, the more you learn many things you did not already know. My favorite bit in the book was the exploration of inner alchemy, and how we create our inner gold.

I hope you find this review helpful.

I enjoyed this book very much. It presents virtually the whole range of Jung's life and thought without confusing a reader new to Jungian psychology.I went an opposite way in my own introduction to Jung ("Beginner's Guide to Jungian Psychology") by limiting the scope of what I covered, using only the bare bones of Jung's own biography plus the structure provided by the individuation process. Anyone who reads my book could definitely benefit by reading this one as well, before they dig deeper into Jungian thought.

I guess I'm not a big fan of Jung in general, and that might be clouding my opinion of this book, but I found it to be pretty dry and boring for an Introducing... work.