The Jewel in the Wound: How the Body Expresses the Needs of the Psyche and Offers a Path to Transformation

by Rose-Emily Rothenberg

This book is the compelling story of how the author's disfiguring scars guided her search for a connection to the mother who died at her birth, and ultimately led to her own psychological development. In this process, the scars became the sacred jewels that illuminated the pathway of self-understanding. Movingly told from a Jungian point of view and in the intimate context of analysis, it is not only the autobiography of a person with a life-long dedication to understanding the psyche, but also a portrayal of the unconscious as it reveals itself throughout the course of that person's life. As a journey of the soul, the book includes dreams, art work, and active imagination-all ways of accessing the archetypal dimension underlying body symptoms. Through focused work, Rothenberg explains, body symptoms and physical illness can help us to discover our personal myth. In her case, the journey led her to Africa to study the art of scarification. There she interviewed shamans who helped her unveil the symbolic and spiritual meaning behind her own physical and psychological scars. This book explores wounding in order to open us to healing. It is the tale of a life lived consciously and with great integrity. Included are a rich variety of color photographs of art work, of cultural artifacts and of her visits with West African shamans.

Genres: Psychology

216 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

Reviews

[Darlene Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was hoping this would be about "how the body expresses the needs of the psyche and offers a path to transformation," as the subtitle suggests, but it was not. Rather, it was about how one woman's body expressed the need of her very particular psyche. There was very little effort made, if any, to teach a reader how to generalize the author's experience and then apply it to his own. This would be a fascinating case study for a Jungian psycho-analyst, but didn't appeal to me, an average person interested in body-mind interactions because it was just too specific.

[Carroll Straus · Rating 5 out of 5]

which time?