Striving Toward Wholeness

In earlier days it was self-evident that every living creature was striving to complete the pattern of its existence as fully as possible. In out rational times, however, with their ever-increasing demand for specialization this fact seems to be almost forgotten, although in the unconscious the urge toward wholeness appears to have become stronger for having been repressed and forgotten." In this study o individuation in literature, Barbara Hannah concentrates on the biographies and work of five major English novelists - Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Webb, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte - and one failed artist - Branwell Bronte - examining how their works attempt to integrate both negative and positive elements of the individual psyche, thus allowing for a metaphoric "return to Eden." Hannah gives us a fruitful interpretation of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," as well as an extensive reading of Wurthering Heights in the context of both literary and psychological traditions. Barbara Hannah is the author of the classic work on individuation through creative fantasy, Encounters with the Soul: Active Imagination as Developed by C. G. Jung. According to Hannah, literature itself can be seen as a very complex form of active imagination, certainly for the author or artist, but also for the reader or viewer of a piece of art. Not only does Hannah's book provide fresh and innovative ways of looking at all artistic creation, but on the individual plane it is clearly an insightful guide as to how we can all become more conscious of our unconscious goal of "striving towards wholeness." Like Encounters with the Soul, Striving Towards Wholeness embodies the thoughtful and compassionate approach to individual psychic needs that characterized the late Barbara Hannah both in and out of her analytic practice. --- from book's back cover