Marriage: Dead or Alive [Paperback]

Adolf Guggenbhuhl-Craig (Author), Murray Stein (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 2001

The Swiss psychiatrist Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig examines marriage with his customary vigor and deceptively facile prose against the background of individuals and their search for soul. This brilliant book questions and radicalizes our conventional notions of what constitutes a "happy marriage," or even if happiness is necessary for a marriage to be successful. Guggenbühl-Craig understands marriage as an expression of human fantasy and imagination rather than merely as a social institution. He concludes that marriage is a place for individuation, for that difficult process of deepening one’s own self.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, German (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Adolf Guggenbühl-Craig, a former president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology and widely respected analyst, teaches at the C. G. Jung Institut in Zurich, of which he was President for more than ten years. Of his numerous books, Spring Publications has published Power in the Helping Professions, The Emptied Soul, Marriage: Dead or Alive, From the Wrong Side: A Paradoxical Approach to Psychology, and The Old Fool.

Product Details

• Paperback: 147 pages
• Publisher: Spring Publications; Revised edition (February 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0882143786
• ISBN-13: 978-0882143781
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,729,986 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Creative, Counterintuitive Look at Marriage, January 11, 2007

By 

Paul F. Ginnetty (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Marriage: Dead or Alive (Paperback)

A very insightful and thought provoking look at marriage as a challenging but promising vehicle through which one might eventually achieve what Jungians call individuation, i.e., the integration of apparently opposite polarities--male and female, anger and love, good and evil. Nicely written, demonstrating the author's broad sophistication in terms of his grasp of literature, anthropology, theology and, of course, clinical psychotherapeutic experience. His critique of the at times excessive emphasis on procreation as the aim of sexuality is something that the Vatican might benefit from reading with an open mind and heart. Meanwhile, his discussion of marriage as a source of salvation through sacrifice rather than just the pursuit of superficial wellbeing is a challenging message for the prevailing feel-good culture.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No pain, No gain, August 3, 2008

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Glacier Mom - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Marriage: Dead or Alive (Paperback)

Here's a wedding toast for you: Marriage is Dead! Long live Marriage! Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig seems to me to be an apologist for marriage; he loves marriage, and in this he reminds me of the famous writer who, when asked for advice on how to become a writer, replied, "Don't." Do you think the world needs more--bad books--or bad marriages? He writes, "That a decent, responsible society not only allows, but actually encourages, young people in their complete ignorance to bind themselves permanently to the psychological problems which their vows entail, seems incomprehensible."

And yet, and yet...the author suggests that marriage may provide an especially ideal soteriological pathway for those so inclined and gifted, a means of salvation and knowledge of self and world, and in this he differentiates between the "individuation" marriage and the "welfare" marriage. Such a "continuous, unevadable confrontation" unto death entails sacrifice of aspects of both partners' personalities and is characterized not by the harmony of soul-mates but by difficulty and suffering (as well as joys, sure).

Do I agree? For starters, I find the Jungian vocabulary proprietary and limiting. Some good marriages, say between two sensitive, creative individuals, may be based upon giving each other space and safe haven in a chaotic world, in my opinion. And then, Guggenbhul-Craig is not afraid to write some ridiculous and unsupportable things, that most parents are not qualified to raise their own children, for example. He devotes too much time to the murky topic of exploring sexual fantasies within a marriage, which seems to me peculiarly "male" and kind of icky; hey, here's my fantasy: it's called, "mommy needs sleep!"
I dig his core message, however, as a needed antidote in confusing times; how we women struggle with the burden of perceived limitless possibilities and the fear we've chosen wrongly or too soon, especially when we feel the crunch.

Do you want to know why I like this book? It helped me once. My husband and I were taking our first vacation together, after 5 years of marriage, to--here's a loaded place--Paris. And suddenly, I was plagued by a yeasty existential crises, all the more irritating because I realized its ridiculousness, brought on by the clash between my girlhood fantasies (Chanel, a drink at the Paris Ritz, Shakespeare & Co., etc.) and my husband's ideas of fun challenges, namely riding public transport and stretching the franc by scouting out cheap hotels and restaurants where the locals dined. Was this my soul-mate? We left the city and made our way to Cote-Rotie, where the intense wines are the product of stressed vines, and somehow I made my peace there, symbolically intuiting that my path was right; I remember a thin, blue curl of smoke in the gray sky and a sudden apprehension of the ancient Roman presence and the idea of sacrifice taking hold of me, the sacrifice of illusions, for example. Later, I found this book in my mother's book shelf, and I seized upon it as a means of clarifying what I'd grasped.

5.0 out of 5 stars wonderful working about marriage, May 28, 2007

By 

G. A. Taprantzis "giorgio" (athens greece) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Marriage: Dead or Alive (Paperback)

it`s interesting working about matters of marriage from a very good psychologist