The Place of Creation: The Collected Essays of Erich Neumann, Volume 3

by Erich Neumann

The Israeli analytical psychologist Erich Neumann, whom C. G. Jung regarded as one of his most gifted students, devoted much of his later writing to the theme of creativity. This is the third volume of Neumann's essays on that subject. Neumann found his examples not only in the work of writers and artists--William Blake, Goethe, Rilke, Kafka, Klee, Chagall, Picasso, Trakl--but as well in that of physicists, biologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Confronting the problem of portraying men and women as creative beings, Neumann expanded the concepts of Jungian psychology with a more comprehensive definition of the archetype and a new concept--"unitary reality." Whether or not humanity can be restored to health from its present situation as a self-endangered species depends, according to Neumann, on whether we can experience ourselves as truly creative, in touch with our own being and the world's being. The six essays comprising this volume--"The Psyche and the Transformation of the Reality Planes," "The Experience of the Unitary Reality," "Creative Man and the `Great Experience,'" "Man and Meaning," "Peace as the Symbol of Life," and "The Psyche as the Place of Creation"--all originated as lectures at the Eranos Conferences in the years 1952 to 1960.

416 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1989

About the author

Erich Neumann (Hebrew: אריך נוימן) was a psychologist, writer, and one of Carl Jung's most gifted students.
Neumann received his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1927. He practiced analytical psychology in Tel Aviv from 1934 until his death in 1960. For many years, he regularly returned to Zürich, Switzerland to give lectures at the C. G. Jung Institute. He also lectured frequently in England, France and the Netherlands, and was a member of the International Association for Analytical Psychology and president of the Israel Association of Analytical Psychologists.
Erich Neumann contributed greatly to the field of developmental psychology and the psychology of consciousness and creativity. Neumann had a theoretical and philosophical approach to analysis, contrasting with the more clinical concern in England and the United States. His most valuable contribution to psychology was the empirical concept of "centroversion", a synthesis of extra- and introversion. However, he is best known for his theory of feminine development, a theory formulated in numerous publications, most notably The Great Mother. His works also elucidate the way mythology throughout history reveals aspects of the development of consciousness that are parallel in both the individual and society as a whole.

Reviews

[Rin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insane, one of the best essays on psychoanalysis I’ve read yet. Brilliant & out of the box, loving everything Neumann has to say thus far