Customer Reviews

Knowing Woman: A Feminine Psychology

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It was a tragedy to finish this book and learn that there were no others by the author. This is one of the most insightful and thought-provoking books on feminine psychology that I have read - I needed to go back and reread it to assimilate the wonderful revelations she gives. The book is easy to read yet profound in the content and after being disappointed by so many other books on Jungian psychology (as they address the female), the author seems to illuminate the darker side of the feminine and also honor the beauty and purpose of women simultaneously. It's a must read for any women on the individuation path.

I loved the book, and I know very little about Jungian psychology. It is so insightful and clearly written that at times it causes goosebumps. I wish there were more books written by her available.

I recommend this to the lay person who has had some acquaintance with Jungian analysis or would like to. She has an amazing understanding of & respect for the analytic relationship and great insights into feminine psychology. Because it is written in the 70s there is an overuse of the masculine pronoun, which jars in a book on feminine psychology; but her other insights make up for it. This may be especially useful for women over 40.

I have had 3 copies, shared it with friends over the last 18 years and still refer to it. I am now ordering copies for my nieces.

As a male this book has enlightened me to aspects of womyns psychology, as well as my own feminine part of my psyche. She gives a personal example, a community example and how globally these psychologies effect us all. I applauded at the end! One of the best books i've read. Compulsory reading for men!

Although written in the early 20th century this book is well worth reading for both men and women. Almost every male doesn't understand women, regardless of any protestations to the contrary (I'm a male of 73 years and I make this statement based on life long experience and 51 years of marriage). And surprisingly a great many women do not understand themselves. The 21st century has changed a lot of male/female interrelationship but it has not changed the inner workings of the feminine psyche, and that is where this book by Ms. De, Castillejo proves invaluable.

The opening lines on the dust cover put it well: "A wise woman wrote this book-a warm woman-a woman who speaks in simple words, uncluttered with psychological jargon, free of esoterica." In many ways Irene C's efforts to find clarity for herself have helped me to find some also. Being familiar with Jungian concepts, I appreciated her experience in showing where they cause confusion or posed limitations.

Her life, and that of her husband, the great Spanish educator Jose de Castillejo, was no less remarkable, having fled from their farm in Madrid before the advancing fascist armies (1936)during the Spanish civil war, they lived in France until the Nazi's invaded that country, finally settling in England where her husband died in 1945. Many greats were fleeing Spain along with them: Pablo Picasso, Jean Gebser, George Orwell....She studied Jungian psychology in Switzerland after the war, and wrote many fine pamphlets on psychological subjets, and poetry, this book being a compilation of some of that along with new material. Her autobiography 'I married a stranger' has been translated into Spanish as 'Respaldada por el Viento'(supported by the wind).

So..this is a little-known classic that deserves many more reviews, more interrnet publicity, and the broad audience that it definitly deserves!

Knowing Woman: A Feminine Psychology is, in my view, a must read for every woman, from maiden to mother to crone, who wants to understand her self. Classic books like Anna KareninaAnna Karenina (Oprah's Book Club), Jane EyreJane Eyre (Penguin Classics), and Madame Bovary Madame Bovary (Penguin Classics) profoundly impacted my feminine self awareness as I was growing up.

But of all the books I've read, Knowing Woman:A Feminine Psychology has been my favorite for more than thirty years. I've reread my personal copy so many times it's in tatters. In essay after essay, I discovered new concepts about who I as a woman am, about women's psychology at every age. If you are curious like me, you will want to see where you fit into a women's path at your particular time in life, be it as a single woman, a married spouse, mother of children, rainmaker, or crone.

Irene Claremont de Castillo ends her book with a plea to every woman who feels the task worth while to find her feminine soul and "lag her on the green, growing grass of conscious reality." She so inspired me that I determined in the mid 70's to try to find mine...a story that is told in my recently published spiritual memoir, Knowing Woman, Nurturing the Feminine Soul Knowing Woman: Nurturing the Feminine Soul.

Happy reading!

After reading this book I understand my deeper self and that of my mother, grandmother at a much more profound level. I now feel more connected to women (or understand my connection) and therefore feel more part of a whole. This knowledge has immediately improved my marriage and overall sense of `place' in the world. I would not hesitate to recommend this book to any woman OR man!!! Thank you to those who wrote Reviews previously....They inspired me to buy it!

I wonder how closely some people have read this book. Irene has some disturbing views. On p.91(hardback edition) she says: "...deep in the unconscious of most women lurks a primitive desire to be raped." On p.136 she says "...the wife who complains of a bullying husband has generally brought it upon herself by a cringing attitude." Other parts of the book discuss well known Jungian concepts such as the unconscious, the shadow, projection, anima, and animus. Irene says of love:

"Love happens. It is a miracle that happens by grace. We have no control over it. It happens. It comes, it lights our lives, and very often it departs. We can never make it happen nor make it stay."

Irene says she has never understood love. She says people who have self understanding and have achieved wholeness have a better chance with love. You can't argue with that. But she doesn't go into the question that love is not always a bowl of cherries and that we have to work at it. Regarding this book as a whole, you have to sift through her ideas to sort out the wheat from the chaff.