The Two Million-Year-Old Self (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology) [Paperback]

Anthony Stevens (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Anthony Stevens provides a clear, concise reading of the evolutionary perspetive in Jungian psychology. . .. Steven''s is an intelligent and erudite voice."--Journal of Analtyical Psychology

(David Tacey Journal of Analytical Psychology 20100401)

". . . Dr Stevens explores how evolution is both a source of species specific social strategies and, at a subject level, of our passions, dreams, imaginations, creativity and needs. With exemplary clarity of exposition he shows how Jung''s concept of archetype is the missing link between the evolved process and subjective experience. . . . There are few works that succeed in tracing these links successfully and yet remain accessible. Dr Stevens achieves both. . . . I recommend this as a deeply illuminating volume."--Paul Gilbert, author of Human Nature and Suffering

(Paul Gilbert, author of Human Nature and Suffering ) --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Anthony Stevens is an internationally known Jungian analyst and writer from England. He is a graduate of Oxford University in both psychology and medicine. He holds a doctorate in medicine from Oxford and is an affiliate of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. Stevens is the author of Archetypes: A Natural History of the Self (1982), Withymead: A Jungian Community for the Healing Arts (1986), The Roots of War: A Jungian Perspective (1989), and On Jung (1990).

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: Fromm Intl (April 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0880642149
• ISBN-13: 978-0880642149
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,857,488 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the missing synopsis from amazon/uk, October 23, 2007

By 

Mary Emerson-Smith "So many books, so little ... (Florida) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Two Million-Year-Old Self (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology) (Paperback)

With the evolution of human consciousness, nature has finally become conscious of itself. It has taken eons of time, this lumbering progress through the minds of reptiles, mammals, and primates, and it is still working out its purpose in the archetypes of the collective unconscious encoded in the most ancient parts of the human brain. The recent evolutionary history of our species, which Jung personified as "the two million-year-old human being in us all," is still active in our dreams, myths, psychiatric symptoms, traditional healing practices, and typical patterns of behavior. Through a wide-ranging review of developments in anthropology, ethology, sociobiology, neuroscience, psycholinguistics, and Jungian psychology, Anthony Stevens explores the nature of the two million-year-old self and examines ways in which the contemporary world both fulfills and frustrates its basic needs and intentions. Drawing on his experience as an analyst, Stevens evokes dreams and psychiatry to reveal a compelling and challenging view of the two million-year-old Self as embodying no less than the will of nature. By granting close attention to nature's mind, Stevens argues, we not only further personal wholeness but also help redress the gross imbalances of our culture, which are threatening the destruction of the earth. For the ecologically concerned, this book offers a dramatic new perspective on our future relations with our planet.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Archetypes Clarified, November 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Two Million-Year-Old Self (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology) (Hardcover)

I have read this book four times, and compared with everything else in the field that I've read, it really makes sense of archtypes - and establishes their personal relevance.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An instructive reflection on Jung's concept of the Collective Unconscious, June 7, 2008

By 

R. J. Mansell-ward (Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Two Million-Year-Old Self (Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology) (Paperback)

It is 30 years since I went to Morocco for a winter's surfing accompanied by a number of volumes of Jung's Collective works. Jung is heavy going for the neophyte. His concern that his ideas not be dismissed as metaphysical - the regular experience of his ideas meeting with strong antipathy or misunderstanding, or misinterpretation - led him to adopt a style of writing which he would characterise as rigorously scientific. This reader's experience was one of needing heavy-duty lexicographical backup!

So commentary is welcome. If Levi-Strauss could utterly misrepresent (if not slander) Jung's concept of the collective unconscious (having discovered evidence of it himself in global anthropological motifs some 15 years after Jung had published his discoveries) how much more prone to uncertainty is the brave amateur tackling the Collected Works outside the pale of academe and without reference to informed companions.

Amongst other useful reflections in this book is the evidence for a seat of the Collective Unconscious within the primitive structure of the human brain. And there is a pleasure in joining another in the affection and high regard in which one is led to hold the man himself after many years of "knowing" him. And some satisfaction, too, in seeing the emergence of 'scientific' confirmation of some of his more outre revelations.

Jung is rewarding to any reader willing to come to terms with his work. His spirit is there but wandering deeply hidden within a forest of difficult terminology, strange new concepts and a massive body of empirical data.

This book is a great teaser. But having read it, do go on to Jung in the original! (The 2 volumes of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary are a recommended companion.)