The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships [Paperback]

John B. Sanford (Author), Sanford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1979

An examination of the feminine and masculine qualities in every person.

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Paulist Press (January 1, 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809122774
• ISBN-13: 978-0809122776
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #80,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and helpful book, January 29, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships (Paperback)

The Invisible Partners is simply the best book on relationships I have ever read. Sanford simplifies the highly complex dilemma in relationships of projecting our shadow side onto our spouse. He maintains a clear respect for both men and women and helps us understand how our psychological differences can create havoc if they are left unnoticed. The joy of this book is that it not only has great information but is also highly entertaining and very well written.

Though written in the 80's this is a book that I continue to give to my clients in couples therapy who are eager to understand deeply what is driving their relationship problems. This is a book for the 21st century.

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Jungian Anima and Animus, December 3, 2004

By 

Neal J. Pollock (VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships (Paperback)

This book primarily addresses the Jungian concept of the contra-sexual in which men have a feminine archetype (called the anima) in their psyches, and women have a corresponding masculine archetype (called the animus) in their psyches. These unconscious forces have profound effects upon our lives, especially upon our relationships with persons of the opposite sex. This short book, while written some time ago, is still applicable today. It covers a lot of ground in a short space so it can be a bit difficult or even dense in places, especially if the reader is not intimate with Jungian psychology. Nevertheless, the concepts (or model, if you will) are valuable and useful in everyday life-not just with romantic relationships, but also with interpersonal communications and understanding.

In order to get the most out of this book, it is necessary to keep an open mind. This can be challenging; as stated on page 9: "Even the most elemental knowledge of oneself is something that most people resist with the greatest determination. Usually it is only when we are in a state of great pain or confusion, and only self-knowledge offers a way out, that we are willing to risk our cherished ideas of what we are like in a confrontation with the truth, and even then many people prefer to live a meaningless life rather than to go through the often disagreeable process of coming to know themselves."

Thus, recognition of animus/anima interplay can result in "being in love" which we resist analyzing and bringing into the everyday world. From pages 18-19: "Relationship founded exclusively on the being-in-love state can never last...being in love is a matter for the gods, not for human beings...it can endure only in a fantasy world where the relationship is not tested in the everyday stress of real life...To the extent that a relationship is founded on projection, the element of human love is lacking. To be in love with someone we do not know as a person, but are attracted to because they reflect back to us the image of the god or goddess in our soul, is in a sense, to be in love with oneself not with the other person...Real love begins only when one person comes to know another for who he or she really is as a human being, and begins to like and care for that human being."

Projection is not, however, a totally negative process because per page 20: "Each time projection occurs there is another opportunity for us to know our inner Invisible Partners, and that is a way of knowing our own souls." Thus, for example, on pages 53-4: "In learning to relate to a woman, a man also has to come to terms with the little boy in himself...We have no free choice unless we are psychologically conscious persons," and on page 55: "Of the choices every man and woman makes of his or her partner in life; in some way the partner represents something we need to understand about ourselves."

But it's not a bowl of roses either because per page. 83: "Projections can never be withdrawn completely, for they are out of our conscious control; nor can we ever become so conscious of the inner images of the anima and animus that projections do not occur. Withdrawing projections does not mean that they no longer occur, but that we understand them as images within ourselves when they do." But, (page 124) "We get well in direct proportion to the energy we put into our psychological development."

For additional reading on unconscious forces, see: George Weinberg "Invisible Masters: Compulsions and the Fear that Drives Them" Plume NY 1993 and Loren E. Pederson Dark Hearts-The Unconscious Forces that Shape Men's Lives Shambhala, Boston 1991

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars short, easy and interesting read, April 9, 2003

By 

remosito (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Invisible Partners: How the Male and Female in Each of Us Affects Our Relationships (Paperback)

This book was a really interesting and thought provoking first contact with the Jungian concepts of projection, anima and animus and the roles (positive and negative) they play in intimate, heterosexual relationships.

It was a really wonderful read with lots of good and easy explanations (theoretical and practical) of the concepts and it's manifestations. And a wonderful outline of a positive and workable approach to dealing with projections and what their purpose is (in a nutshell, first to break through the barrier that exists between to people and secondly and more often than not just a way of your unconscious to tell you what you have to work on with yourself {if you have strong bigger-than-life-women projections --> get in touch with your inner female/emotions. If you have bigger-than-life-men projections --> get in touch with your inner man/creativity/strive; if you have are heavily attracted to artistic partners it might be that your own artistic potential needs to be worked out).

On the more negative side:
It seemed to treat the male/anima side of the whole equation a lot more indepth than the female/animus part. And there is hardly anything about people who don't match their own gender archetype much or to be more concrete match their opposite gender archetype more than their own. Which might be a result of it being a bit dated by now and it's shortness of only 120 pages.

I as well enjoyed the treatment of at the time rather current discussions about if men and women both have anima and animus. Or if their occurence is gendered.

All in all an excellent introduction though!