Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science [Paperback]

Sonu Shamdasani (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 22, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0521539099 | ISBN-13: 978-0521539098

After decades of myth making, C.G. Jung remains one of the most misunderstood figures in Western intellectual history. This comprehensive study of the origins of his psychology provides a new perspective on the rise of modern psychology and psychotherapy. It reconstructs the reception of Jung's work in the human sciences, and its impact on the social and intellectual history of the twentieth century. The book creates a basis for any future discussion of Jung by opening new vistas in psychology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...one of the most definitive books available on Jung and his impact on psychology. A must read for anyone who wishes to explore Jungian thinking. Essential." Choice

Book Description

After decades of myth making, C. G. Jung is one of the most misunderstood figures in Western intellectual history. This book is the first comprehensive study of the origins of his psychology, as well as providing a new account of the rise of modern psychology and psychotherapy. It reconstructs the reception of Jung's work in the human sciences, and its impact on the social and intellectual history of the twentieth century. This book creates a basis for all future discussion of Jung, and opens new vistas on psychology today.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 404 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (December 22, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521539099
• ISBN-13: 978-0521539098
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #403,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Meet a man you thought you knew..., November 23, 2004

By 

Peter FYFE (Erskineville, Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science (Paperback)

Shamdasani's "cubist history" of Jung's core projects places them in their historical and intellectual context. His meticulous research incorporates an extensive review of the writing of Jung's contemporaries, Jung's own papers, Jungian commentary, and even some of Jung's personal marginalia. The scholarship alone is staggering.

Be warned: this is no anecdotal hagiography for the converted but a serious exploration of the man and his thinking. Shamdasani's style takes no prisoners. If you are heavily invested in Jungian ideas, or those allegedly attributed to Jung, you may discover the intellectual rug pulled out from under you without ceremony. Brace yourself.

But do engage, as I dared to. By his apparent scepticism of all psychologies and patent love of opening once tightly sealed black boxes, Shamdasani allows you to re-discover Jung and marvel at the unparalleled breadth and depth of the work of one of our great minds. If you square up and look this author and his subject in the eye, I'd be surprised if you are not profoundly shaken or at least significantly stirred, as I have been.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best history of how Jung's ideas emerged, February 26, 2006

By 

Robin Robertson "Psychologist and author" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science (Hardcover)

Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology is a landmark in Jungian scholarship. The author, Sonu Shamdasani, is a historian of psychology, with a specialization in Jungian psychology.
This book is both a gift and a challenge for Jungian psychology. As a gift, it provides a picture of an era in which new ideas were in the air. It carefully traces how those ideas emerged and eventually crystalized in Jung's psychology. As a challenge, it points to areas still unresolved, hopes Jung had for psychology that have largely gone unfulfilled by his successors.
Early in the book, Shamdasani says "once, when asked who he was, Miles Davis replied that he had changed the course of music several times in his life. Something similar could be said of Jung." By the end of his life, however, Jung felt that he had failed in his mission: "I was unable to make people see what I am after. I am practically alone . . . I have failed in my foremost task, to open people's eyes to the fact that man has a soul and there is a buried treasure in the field and that our religion and philosophy are in a lamentable state. Why indeed should I continue to exist?"
Perhaps by providing this history of ideas, filled both with how Jung came to his model of psychology, and with his hopes for the future of such a psychology, Sonu Shamdasani has provided a starting point for Jungians to help prove that Jung did not fail in his task. The appearance of his book is a monumental event in Jungian scholarship.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, January 17, 2010

By 

M. T. Huerta (Sonoma, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology: The Dream of a Science (Hardcover)

One of the most original books I have found in many years, a critique on the history of Jungian Psychoanalysis as academic as possible; no wonder why the author was the only scholar handling the Jung's Red Book's publishing...