The Syndetic Paradigm: The Untrodden Path Beyond Freud and Jung (Suny Series in Transpersonal and Humanistic Psychology) (Paperback)

by Robert Aziz (Author)
Key Phrases: unrelated feminine, transpersonal sexual, unrelated masculine, Syndetic Paradigm, The Empty Mandala, Jungian Paradigm (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Offers a new theoretical paradigm that goes beyond the limitations of Freudian and Jungian psychological models. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From the Back Cover
In The Syndetic Paradigm, Robert Aziz argues that the Jungian Paradigm is a deeply flawed theoretical model that falls short of its promise. Aziz offers in its stead what he calls the Syndetic Paradigm. In contrast to the Jungian Paradigm, the Syndetic Paradigm takes the critical theoretical step of moving from a closed-system model of a self-regulatory psyche to an open-system model of a psyche in a self-organizing totality. The Syndetic Paradigm, in this regard, holds that all of life is bound together in a highly complex whole through an ongoing process of spontaneous self-organization. The new theoretical model that emerges in Aziz's work, while taking up the fundamental concerns of its Freudian and Jungian predecessors with psychology, ethics, spirituality, sexuality, politics, and culture, conducts us to an experience of meaning that altogether exceeds their respective bounds.

"Grounded in both theory and practice, Aziz offers a solid critique of both Freud and Jung and presents a model that goes beyond them. The Syndetic Paradigm will creatively challenge Freudian and Jungian theorists of all kinds, including cultural theorists. The critique and correction that Aziz offers is of fundamental importance." -- Harold Coward, author of Yoga and Psychology: Language, Memory, and Mysticism

"This book is an absolute must for readers of Jungian and Freudian literature. It is one of the rare works that takes a brand new look at the whole landscape of depth psychology and has the courage to say that each of the two established paradigms has important shortcomings, blind spots, and outright contradictions." -- Jeffrey C. Miller, author of The Transcendent Function: Jung's Model of Psychological Growth through Dialogue with the Unconscious

"Lucidly written and richly illustrated with clinical material, Aziz's book goes beyond highlighting problems in Jungian and Freudian theory to propose a cogent new model that resolves them. The result is a profound and captivating work that is infused with spiritual wisdom as well as psychological insight. It is a book that deserves to be seriously pondered not only by psychotherapists but by all those seeking a coherent and dignifying new paradigm of our human being in the world." -- Roderick Main, author of Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 322 pages
• Publisher: State University of New York Press; 1 edition (February 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791469824
• ISBN-13: 978-0791469828
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #993,268 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Paradigm!, April 16, 2009

By	George L. Vockroth (Fayetteville, AR) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This work is a closely argued explication of a set of ideas with which the author has been concerned both theoretically and practically for the last twenty plus years. As such, it is impossible within the space of a short review to do justice to the range of ideas and experiences synthesized therein, (e.g. complexity theory, dream interpretation, natural morality, religious symbolism, sex, spiritual experience). And while it remains to be seen as to whether or not the author's ambition to foster a new paradigm comes to fruition, I can say unequivocally that he has produced a work not only of exceptional rigor and clarity, but also of passionate faith.
Building on the ideas of Freud and Jung and his own work as a practicing psychotherapist, Aziz goes beyond merely arguing for an expanded model of analytical theory and practice, i.e. "for paradigmatic shift from a closed-system model of a self-regulating psyche to an open-system model of psyche in a self-regulating totality," (page 36), to call for a fundamental change in our perspective of the nature of reality and our place in it - "From it's very depths the collective soul of our psyche cries out to be released from its entrapment in that which has been the legacy of humanity's secular and religious ideologies,"(page 293). This book should be inspirational not only to practicing therapists but to us ordinary mortals struggling with what it means to be fully human.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars More than Compelling, June 12, 2009

By	Patrick Toomay (New Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In C. G. Jung's final work, the Mysterium Coniunctionis - a book which many Jungians have not even bothered to read - we find the following in graph 675: "If the demand for self-knowledge is willed by fate and is refused, this negative attitude may end in real death. The demand would not have come to this person had he still been able to strike out on some promising by-path. But he is caught in a blind alley from which only self-knowledge can extricate him. If he refuses this then no other way is open to him. Usually he is not conscious of his situation, either, and the more unconscious he is the more he is at the mercy of unforeseen dangers: he cannot get out of the way of a car quickly enough, in climbing a mountain he misses his foothold somewhere, out skiing he thinks he can just negotiate a tricky slope, and in an illness he suddenly loses the courage to live. The unconscious has a thousand ways of snuffing out a meaningless existence with surprising swiftness. The connection of the unio mentalis with the death-motif is therefore obvious, even when death consists only in the cessation of spiritual process."

This demand for self-knowledge, as Jung puts it, unfolds in a process Jung calls "Individuation." The call to individuation, if willed by fate, as Jung says, begins sometime in the early thirties and can escalate from there, becoming acute as one enters one's final third of life. This path can be a ferocious one, bewildering in its complexity and compulsion, and usually it is heralded by a flurry of synchronicities that intensify with time. To negotiate the subtleties of this path successfully, one needs a guide, and in this regard, the work of Robert Aziz is indispensable. His two books - The Syndetic Paradigm and Jung's Psychology of Religion and Synchronicity - are the preeminent works in the field - the most practically useful, bar none - since Jung first disclosed his synchronicity theory to intimates on November 28, 1928. If you are someone who is struggling at the edge, bewildered yet compelled, you may find precisely the sustenance you need in these two potent works. I can't recommend them highly enough.