Vertical Labyrinth: Individuation in Jungian Psychology

Studies in Jungian Psychology by Jungian Analysts #20

by Aldo Carotenuto, John Shepley (Translator)

Guided journey through the world of dreams and psychic reality, showing how individual psychological development parallels the historical evolution of consciousness. Special attention to artists and creativity in men.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy

140 pages, Paperback

First published May 14, 2014

About the author

Professor of personality theory at the University of Rome and the director of the Review of Analytical Psychoanalysis and the Historical Journal of Dynamic Psychology.

Reviews

[Lee (of Shalott) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely a book I would have liked to spend more time with (alas, inter-library loan), for every time I'd pick it up again on the last day to thumb through it just one more time, I'd find something else to catch my attention & spark ideas, to stop me for a moment.
Carotenuto's understanding of the emptiness caused by stagnant marriage really moved me.

[Loreta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Galima nemokamai paskaityti archive.org psl.

[Reece · Rating 4 out of 5]

A useful overview - observing a single client case study across several years from start to finish as the guiderails to explain the author's analytic process. The dream examples and interpretation were relatable and non-ambiguous, and made the chapters easier to contextualise to lived experience. I certainly could feel the cast of my own inner complexes becoming clearer throughout the weeks I read this. I found that Carotenuto did a good job of describing the individuation process in a linear manner. Not an easy task, as individuation is frequently non-linear. In this respect, the illustration of the labyrinth on the book cover is a fitting disclaimer.

So why only four stars? As is the case with many books on Jungian analysis, it leaves the reader with a sense of incompleteness - the remainder of the lifelong journey looming beyond the book's pages. This is where the train stops, not just for us, but also where Aldo must also continue his journey by foot. As he describes in the final chapter:

"The analytic process, in fact, does not provide happiness but a more acute awareness of one's own suffering and contradictions"

Contrast this with one of Jung's closing statements, at 81 years of age, in his final book Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1961):

"The more uncertain I have felt about myself, the more there has grown up in me a feeling of kinship with all things."

Aldo was only 48 when he wrote The Vertical Labyrinh. And as is the case with most of us, the nature of his own suffering and inner contradiction has opportunity to ferment further into a deeper understanding and acceptance of the contradictions of life that analysis and individuation reveals to us.

[Anton · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there is extremely useful insight that could be applied to many different aspects life he makes incredibly long stretches with some of his reasoning which really put me off. Not to quote anything directly but a similar example of one of his deductions would go something like; "A man has a dream about chocolate, what could this mean? The Latin word for chocolate is scelerisque and the root of scelerisque is sceleris which means crime in Latin. It's likely that the subject has been dreaming about chocolate because he has committed a crime, maybe not in reality but through his own eyes in some way, ie guilt. So now we must look at what could be the cause of this guilt...." and on and on. This type of logic seems ridiculous and irrelevant to me if the subject doesn't know the Latin words for crime or chocolate (which in the book they would appear not to). They are simply dreaming about chocolate or something related to it, not the root of a Latin word which is two words removed.. Anyways, just my two cents