The Lover Within: Accessing the Lover in the Male Psyche

by Robert L. Moore, Douglas Gillette

From the authors of The King Within, The Warrior Within and The Magician Within comes the concluding book in this powerful four-book series exploring the male psyche. Moore and Gillette teach men how to use their masculine energy to empower themselves and live richer, fuller, more satisfying lives.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Philosophy, Relationships, Mythology, Spirituality

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Robert L. Moore (August 13, 1942 - June 18, 2016) was an American Jungian analyst and consultant in private practice in Chicago, Illinois. He was the Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality at the Chicago Theological Seminary; a training analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago; and director of research for the Institute for the Science of Psychoanalysis. Author and editor of numerous books in psychology and spirituality, he lectured internationally on his formulation of a Neo-Jungian paradigm for psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. He was working on Structural Psychoanalysis and Integrative Psychotherapy: A Neo-Jungian Paradigm at the time of his death.

Dr Robert Moore was an internationally recognized psychotherapist and consultant in private practice in Chicago. Although he worked with both men and women, and was considered one of the leading therapists specializing in psychotherapy with men because of his discovery of the Archetypal Dynamics of the Masculine Self (King, Warrior, Magician, Lover). He served as Distinguished Service Professor of Psychology, Psychoanalysis and Spirituality at the Graduate Center of the Chicago Theological Seminary, and has served as a Training Analyst at the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago. He is Co-founder of the Chicago Center for Integrative Psychotherapy.

Reviews

[Sam Jolman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh, the goodness of hearing men name the lover within. I felt fathered through this book. To have access to this understanding of masculinity, I consider a profound gift. Few men ever talk about this. It certainly was never in any sex talk I got. So grateful for these men and this book.

[Janne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover and The King Within books, I finally got my hands into this Lover book. This is the last book of the series and I’ve not read the Warrior Within and Magician Within books yet. However, as a book it stands very well alone as well there was only a few references to the earlier books.

As a book it’s rather quick read: only about 200 pages plus the appendixes.
I hoped to understand the human psyche a little bit better and certainly the understanding the mature male archetypes is a lot better after reading this.

Some takeaways for me:
1. Not “to be or not be”, rather “how to be in an enjoyable relationship with another.”
2. Addiction: “whatever the physical cost, individual believes his addiction to be worth it.”

It’s both theoretical and practical book. If you have enjoyed the King, Magician, Warrior, Lover and want to know more, you will enjoy this one as well.

[Morgan Blackledge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s final installment in a four-book series exploring the various archetypes of the male psyche.

This book explores the Lover archetype representing the emotional, relational, and sensual, poetic, visionary and mystic aspects of men's personalities.

Moore and Gillette examines how men can access and integrate the lover archetype to enrich their lives, enhance their relationships, and deepen their emotional experiences.

Moore and Gillette posit that the immature lover archetype presents as the ADDICTED LOVER (in the ACTIVE form) and the IMPOTENT LOVER (in the PASSIVE form).

Contemporary examples include:

Addicted Lover
- Amy Winehouse (back to black)

Impotent Lover
- Kurt Cobain (pennyroyal tea)

NOTE: these examples are MINE (of course).

GREAT BOOK.

GREAT SERIES OF BOOKS.

5/5 stars ⭐️

[Sean Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Useful theory, but horribly unclear writing style that will unfortunately make it inaccessible for many people & leave the rest with a fuzzy understanding of critical concepts. One example: they never (even in the introductory book to the series) provide anything resembling a clear, coherent definition of any of their four archetypes. Instead they go on vague, scattered descriptions of them wherein most of the content is exotic, indirect metaphor with several myths as examples. This is the case with most of their own concepts. I love mythology and metaphor--Jung & Campbell are two of my favorite writers--but the writing of this book is a sloppy mess.
Reducing the amount of exotic, indirect metaphor (not mythological examples) would allow them to explain their concepts with greater depth, in contrast to what is often a fairly superficial presentation and analysis.
However, I found some of the appendices to provide more clarity of the bigger structure of their theory. They take a clearer approach when comparing/contrasting their ideas with those of other theorists.

[Jinan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Expands and focuses on the namesake major of four jungian archetypes, described previously in "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover". Written with artistic stories and flowing narrations; pokes right into things one usually avoids.

Hence why Jungian Depth psychology is probably my favorite branch; it dares look deep unabashedly into the human condition, and by doing so, unveil much problems within our soul(ves).

The idea of archetypes as a metaphor for biological instinct and/or cultural stories is one that rings well, and needs to be further studied.

[Chadwick Ciocci · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent, insightful, and illuminating book. I read this after King, Warrior, Magician, Lover by the same authors, and now I can’t wait to read their 3 others to complete the series. Wonderful knowledge and wisdom on psychology, the male Psyche (as well as the female, though of course not primarily), and a fascinating critique of another of my favorite authors, Jean Shinoda Bolen. This book gave me a lot to think about and research.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

This whole series is outstanding and prophetical. It's amazing how much these books on male archetypes have held up from their original publication. These are incredible reads.

[aariya]

4/4 (no non-fiction for a while lol)

[Marc Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent edition to the King, Warrior, Magician, Lover series. Moore and Gillette go deeper into the Lover archetype in the context of relationships, spirituality, and history, as well as going into the bipolar shadow of the Lover, and what the integrated form looks like. For anyone interested in discovering the Self and integrating repressed parts of oneself, this book is a must-have, along with the others in the series.

[Lee Van Ham · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of Moore's work on the structures, energies, and potentials of archetypes help me understand far better how to work with all that my soul gives me.

[Mark]

Can't read this copy--too musty. Caused me problems after only a couple of minutes. I was enjoying the first few pages too. ::sigh::