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Coming Together--Coming Apart: The Union of Opposites in Love Relationships
Coming Together - Coming The Union of Opposites in Love Relationships. Coming Together - Coming The Union of Opposites in Love Relationships
- GenresNonfictionRelationships
192 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 10, 2021
I generally avoid writing reviews, but ‘Coming Together/Coming Apart’ sorely lacks the amount of praise that it deserves - on this platform at least. I’ve read a couple of dozen relationship books over the years, and have found authors whom are also practising psychologists hold the most real world applicability. At the time of writing, John Desteian takes the cake.
One of Desteian’s goals in this book was in helping the reader to understand the meaning behind their experiences of falling in love. He gives a personable approach without falling prey to idealism nor becoming despondent from the inevitable suffering that it often causes, and can relate the various interpersonal dynamics to one another without relying too heavily on a single theory to hide behind.
Many popular books in this genre fail to look at the phenomena of the ‘relationship’ in sufficient psychological depth for my liking. Helen Fisher shows single hormones such as serotonin and vasopressin are powerful mediators of attraction and pair bonding, but her biological/behaviour focused lens cannot uncover the deeper nuances of interpersonal dynamics. Alain De Botton’s story long vignettes such as ‘The Course of Love’, are overly intermixed with his personal melancholy, parental complexes, and shoehorning his entire psychological outlook singularly on attachment theory. Then there is the beady eyed naive trainwreck that is ‘A General Theory on Love’, which puts the experience of love on a poetic pedestal and fails to offer any substance as to what the hell is actually going on.
Books by Jungian oriented psychologists will more often take the approach that the emotional vicissitudes of a relationship are a reflection, or inner mirror, to catalyse and animate ones ones own inner growth and individuation. There is a number of psychological substructures illustrated here, and Desteian is able to draw upon his field of Depth Psychology to take apart the individual threads such as the Self and the Ego, without entirely isolating and sterilising them. One cannot speak of the animating functions (more often known as anima/animus) in isolation without coming across as obscure, lost in fantasy, or even downright comical.
The dream analysis components of the book adds some necessary depth to individual’s experience of a relationship undergoing development. For those not faint of heart, Desteian also has extensive footnotes that draw upon alchemical literature a la Jungian analysis. I am in no professional position to ascertain if these analysis are simply creating meaning where there is none to serve a preconceived theory, which a major grey area for Jungian myth and dream interpretation. Desteian’s footnotes were at least based on pre established alchemical knowledge, and seemed even more consistent than the dream analysis of well known Jungain analyst Robert A Johnston. I may revisit this book in a few decades time and think lesser of these dream connections, but for now it brings me up to a vantage point showing that the mental factors underpinning the romantic relationship dynamic are vast and far beyond what can be consciously comprehended.
‘Coming Together/Coming Apart’ is a refreshing and sometimes radical take on the less tread territory of interpersonal relationship dynamics. You will likely learn a few uncomfortable realities about your own relating functions during a read through, and will be all the better for it.
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I was recommended this book via the YouTube channel 'Jung To Live By'. A terrific resource to help you explore this territory.
One of Desteian’s goals in this book was in helping the reader to understand the meaning behind their experiences of falling in love. He gives a personable approach without falling prey to idealism nor becoming despondent from the inevitable suffering that it often causes, and can relate the various interpersonal dynamics to one another without relying too heavily on a single theory to hide behind.
Many popular books in this genre fail to look at the phenomena of the ‘relationship’ in sufficient psychological depth for my liking. Helen Fisher shows single hormones such as serotonin and vasopressin are powerful mediators of attraction and pair bonding, but her biological/behaviour focused lens cannot uncover the deeper nuances of interpersonal dynamics. Alain De Botton’s story long vignettes such as ‘The Course of Love’, are overly intermixed with his personal melancholy, parental complexes, and shoehorning his entire psychological outlook singularly on attachment theory. Then there is the beady eyed naive trainwreck that is ‘A General Theory on Love’, which puts the experience of love on a poetic pedestal and fails to offer any substance as to what the hell is actually going on.
Books by Jungian oriented psychologists will more often take the approach that the emotional vicissitudes of a relationship are a reflection, or inner mirror, to catalyse and animate ones ones own inner growth and individuation. There is a number of psychological substructures illustrated here, and Desteian is able to draw upon his field of Depth Psychology to take apart the individual threads such as the Self and the Ego, without entirely isolating and sterilising them. One cannot speak of the animating functions (more often known as anima/animus) in isolation without coming across as obscure, lost in fantasy, or even downright comical.
The dream analysis components of the book adds some necessary depth to individual’s experience of a relationship undergoing development. For those not faint of heart, Desteian also has extensive footnotes that draw upon alchemical literature a la Jungian analysis. I am in no professional position to ascertain if these analysis are simply creating meaning where there is none to serve a preconceived theory, which a major grey area for Jungian myth and dream interpretation. Desteian’s footnotes were at least based on pre established alchemical knowledge, and seemed even more consistent than the dream analysis of well known Jungain analyst Robert A Johnston. I may revisit this book in a few decades time and think lesser of these dream connections, but for now it brings me up to a vantage point showing that the mental factors underpinning the romantic relationship dynamic are vast and far beyond what can be consciously comprehended.
‘Coming Together/Coming Apart’ is a refreshing and sometimes radical take on the less tread territory of interpersonal relationship dynamics. You will likely learn a few uncomfortable realities about your own relating functions during a read through, and will be all the better for it.
-
I was recommended this book via the YouTube channel 'Jung To Live By'. A terrific resource to help you explore this territory.
September 7, 2014
I read this book twice and plan to read it again. It contains the best description I've ever encountered of what goes wrong in marriages and how a couple might work their way back together, if that is what each wants and if they each do the work on themselves. I've read quite a few books by Jungian analysts, and this is one of the best, one of the most interesting and I suspect, over the long term, it will prove to be one of the most helpful to me personally.
March 7, 2013
This guy is a genius. Read his book.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews