Transformation: Emergence of the Self

Carolyn and Ernest Fay Series in Analytical Psychology

by Murray B. Stein

Also available in an open-access, full-text edition at  A thirty-five-year-old woman dreams of a butterfly and wonders where her own life is going. A man from one of America's wealthiest families sees a picture of Albert Schweitzer and leaves his life of ease to become a physician and establish a clinic in Haiti. Most of us would say these people are experiencing midlife crises. More accurately, they have entered a deep psychological process called transformation. In Emergence of the Self, noted analyst and author Murray Stein explains what this process is, and what it means for an individual to experience it. Transformation usually occurs at midlife, but is much more complicated than what we colloquially call a midlife crisis. Consciously working through this life stage can lead people to become who they are and have always potentially been. Indeed, Stein suggests, transformation is the essential human task. Stein first details how this process of transformation emerges and develops in an individual. Why does this transformation occur, and, more specifically, why does it so often occur in midlife? Using the example of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, Stein clearly and carefully walks the reader through the hows and whys of the transformation process. Looking at C. G. Jung's life, Stein then explains how transformative images stimulate the transformation process by suggesting new ways of thinking and living. Intimate relationships, like those between a husband and a wife or a doctor and a patient, can also play a very powerful role in transformation. Finally, Stein examines the process in the lives of three important people, Jung, Picasso, and Rembrandt, whose experiences of transformation led to even greater creativity and freedom. This book is successful both as an easy-to-understand elucidation of the transformation process and as an invitation to personal change. For those people who would like to learn what a meaningful second half of life could be like, Emergence of the Self is an inspiring place to start.

Genres: Psychology, Philosophy, Spirituality

200 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Not to be confused with other Analytical/Jungian Psychologist Murray Stein

Jungian psychoanalyst, author, lecturer

Murray Stein, Ph.D.is a training analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychology in Zurich, Switzerland. His most recent publications include The Principle of Individuation, Jung’s Map of the Soul, and The Edinburgh International Encyclopaedia of Psychoanalysis (Editor of the Jungian sections, with Ross Skelton as General Editor). He lectures internationally on topics related to Analytical Psychology and its applications in the contemporary world.

Dr. Stein is a graduate of Yale University (B.A. and M.Div.), the University of Chicago (Ph.D., in Religion and Psychological Studies), and the C.G. Jung Institut-Zurich. He is a founding member of the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts and Chicago Society of Jungian Analysts. He has been the president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (2001-4), and is presently a member of the Swiss Society for Analytical Psychology and President of the International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich.

Reviews

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning.

Gorgeous.

Profound.

Brilliant.

Wise.

[Natasha Palmaer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this in Grad school. Picked it up again for my PhD research on Jung, Astrology, and the process of Individuation. Heavy in metaphorical analysis but right-on when Pin pointing the transformations of lifes stages. Focuses primarily on the mid-life transformation between 37-60 where one has the potential of finding the "True Self" that lies hidden n the unconscious. Wonderful insights into Carl Jung, poet Ranier Marie Rilke, Rembrandt, & Picasso.

[Hendrik Strauss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who is this book for?
Likely it wasn't intended for people like me, 20 years old and trying to get a feel of how to mold my habits and character into the ways of my liking. At least we are not the main target group. Why not?
The main theme of this book is the possible reconfiguration of identity and psyche after and through mid-life crisis. Other and related themes like the "analyst-analysant-relationship" are also breeched insightfully.

Still,
if you are like me, not middle-aged, you might yet walk away with a renewed sense of your psyche, so did I. Even aside from the part about this, perhaps anyone who is going to therapy or conducting therapy could benefit from the chapters about the therapeutic relationship. But that is not the whole book and the other chapters have their own kind of explanatory power.

To explain the resurgance of the self in later life, that some, not all, people experience, Stein utilizes a dream of one of his middle-aged patients about experiencing pupation and transformation like a butterfly as a guiding metaphor "that he could not have created better" aswell as a telling happenstance(Why should she dream something like that?).
Stein does this in concert with a psychologized narration of the lives of three individuals that he finds exemplary of this shift/'transformation': Rembrandt, Picasso and Jung.
He is not using those persons as idealized guideposts showing some kind of perfect character, rather he picks up on a perceived pattern where those three people connected with something in their psyche as they aged.

Then. With what did they connect?

A jungian through and through Stein proposes the 'imago', a transformational image like structure that organizes ones life. Ngl, the meaning of the word 'imago' or other alchemical vocabulary did slip my mind more than once while listening to the audiobook.
An imago as I understand it is an idealised drive to turn into something if you will. An orientation that our psyche creates to understand what it actually is, can and wants to be.

I might be off here. I am neither a psychologist, nor a jungian and this is carefull territory to tread if Truth-claims are being made.

To continue:
This imago can change, disappear and be replaced throughout life and both unconsciously or consciously changes the live of the one subject to the 'imago'.
Stein also evokes this concept as being formed between two persons in a meaningfull relationship, defining it's characteristics, and being defined by it's characteristics.
Which I do find interesting and strangely sensible if other assumptions of the 'imago theorem' hold.
If indeed our psyche is symbolic in nature, and forms symbolic images out of a repertoire of unconscious information with all sorts of layered meaning, I would not be surprised for that to have an impact in numerous ways.
I guess dreams are the prime example for exactly that happening, albeit that this also is a topic of contention in the relevant sciences. Its Jungian theory relayed with beautiful poetic prose and not just a laying out of experimental psychology. Keep that in mind, and judge for yourself.

I walk away from this book, maybe not transformed into a 20 year old, self realized chap, unwaveringly immune against any emotional crisis in my life, nor transformed into a jungian particularilly, yet I am more than ever in awe of the rules that govern our psyche and as such govern the way we live our lives most often without self knowledge of some 'why'. Why do I want to be that way? Why do I want to do this? Why have I acted like as I did?

For having another sign of orientation in this space of the unknown, I am glad I read this book.
Its message is positive: If we are honest, balanced in our approach unrelenting in our pursuit of self knowledge, we will be more vivaciously our selves as we age.
I find that quite beautiful.

[Linas Vaitulevicius · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book to read in your late forties. Read it and you will learn why. Jungian background of the reader would be a bonus, though the author makes sure to explain the key concepts of the depth psychology (as first introduced by C. G. jung). I liked the balance between metaphoric (butterfly metamorphosis) and analytic content, which the author maintains throughout the whole book. Some things might sound a bit far-fetched and even unreal, especially for those new to Jungian psychology, however the discussed material originates from decades of clinical practice with human patients. The author proves the phenomenon of the transformation does indeed takes place and you'd better be prepared!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read on the transformation of the human psyche in the process of Individuation. Good analogy with the metamorphosis of the butterfly.

[pseudonymous · Rating 2 out of 5]

The good, the bad, and the ugly:

Good = Murray Stein’s extended metaphor for the alchemical transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly perfectly describes midlife crisis.
This book helped me because it put into context what I’m going through.

Bad = unfortunately it is 10x longer than it should be. This book should have been an essay or a video series.

Ugly = the narrator for the audiobook is so bad that multiple times I double checked to make sure it wasn’t a primitive computer generated AI voice—truly the worst voiceover I’ve ever heard.