Possession: Jung's Comparative Anatomy of the Psyche [Hardcover]

Preface to the Second Edition. Introduction: Jungs Concept of Possession  An Organic Approximation. The Possessions at Loudun: Tracking the Discourse of Possession. The Anthropology of Possession: Studying the Other. Possession Enters the Discourse of Psychiatry: Recuperation or Epistemological Break? Reading Jung's Equivocal Language. Jung's Concept of Possession and the Practice of Psychotherapy. The Suffering of Myrtle Gordon: Cassavetes's Opening Night and Chaikins Open Theatre. Closing.

This illuminating study offers fresh insights into a fundamental concept of analytical psychology and updated material.

Craig E. Stephenson is a graduate of the C. G. Jung Institute, Zurich, the Institute for Psychodrama, Zumikon, Switzerland and the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. He is a Jungian analyst in private practice.

Praise for the first edition:

Craig Stephenson brings luminous insights to bear on murky, alarming and difficult terrain, and, in times of sharp conflict between various theologies and dogmatisms, opens a new horizon for thinking fruitfully about the complexities of consciousness and self. This is a rich and lucid book of striking sensitivity and thoughtfulness. - Marina Warner, mythographer, Professor, Birbeck, University of London

Dr Stephenson makes the remarkable and convincing argument that Jungs understanding of the phenomena of possession lies at the basis of his analytical psychology. Drawing on contemporary insights on possession from anthropology as well as from psychology, and without subordinating either discipline to the epistemological or conceptual apparatus of the other, Dr Stephenson re-theorizes how Jungs notion of possession may be used to open and illuminate the problematic space between society, patient and therapist in tlc.