Psyche and the Arts

Does art connect the individual psyche to history and culture?
Psyche and the Arts challenges existing ideas about the relationship between Jung and art, and offers exciting new dimensions to key issues such as the role of image in popular culture, and the division of psyche and matter in art form.
Divided into three sections - Getting into Art, Challenging the Critical Space and Interpreting Art in the World - the text shows how Jungian ideas can work with the arts to illuminate both psychological theory and aesthetic response. Psyche and the Arts offers new critical visions of literature, film, music, architecture and painting, as something alive in the experience of creators and audiences challenging previous Jungian criticism. This approach demonstrates Jung's own belief that art is a healing response to collective cultural norms.
This diverse yet focused collection from international contributors invites the reader to seek personal and cultural value in the arts, and will be essential reading for Jungian analysts, trainees and those more generally interested in the arts.

Susan Rowland is a Reader in English and Jungian Studies at the University of Greenwich, UK. She has published books on Jung, Literature and Gender including Jung as a Writer (Routledge 2005). She was chair of the International Association for Jungian Studies from 2003 to 2006.

Rowland, Introduction. Cusick, Psyche and the Artist: Jung and the Poet. Part I: Getting into Art: Jungian (Immanent) Criticism. Dawson, The Discovery of the Personal Unconscious: Robinson Crusoe and Modern Identity. Huskinson, Archetypal Dwelling, Building Individuation. Parker, On Painting, Substance and Psyche. Martinez, Haruki Murakami's Reimagining of Sophocles' Oedipus'. Reiber, Psyche, Imagination and Art. Stephenson, How Myrtle Gordon Addresses Her Suffering: Jung's Concept of Possession and John Cassavetes's Opening Night. Vasileva, The Father, the Dark Child and the Mob that Kills Him: Tim Burton's Representation of the Creative Artist. Part II: Challenging the Critical Space. Fredericksen, Stripping Bare the Images. Bishop, Psyche and Imagination in Goethe and Jung. Almèn, Jung's Function-attitudes in Music Composition and Discourse. Connolly, Jung in the Twilight Zone: The Psychological Functions of the Horror Film. Gardner, Writing About Nothing. Part III: Making/Interpreting Art in the World. Giosa, The Poetical Word: Towards an Imaginal Language. Robbins, Healing with the Alchemical Imagination in the Undergraduate Classroom. Paixao Anastacio de Paula, The Serenity of the Senex: Using Brazilian Folk Tales as an Alternative Approach to 'Entrepreneurship' in University Education.