other books
Other Books Written by Polly
Awakening and Insight: Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy
Buddhism first came to the West many centuries ago through the Greeks, who also influenced some of the culture and practices of Indian Buddhism. As Buddhism has spread beyond India it has always been affected by the indigenous traditions of its new homes. When Buddhism appeared in America and Europe in the 1950’s and 1960’s it encountered contemporary psychology and psychotherapy, rather than religious traditions. Since the 1990’s many efforts have been made by Westerners to analyse and integrate the similarities and differences between Buddhism and its therapeutic ancestors, particularly Jungian psyhology.
Taking Japanese Zen Buddhism as its starting point, this volume is a collection of critiques, commentaries, and histories about a particular meeting of Buddhism and psychology. It is based on the Zen Buddhism and Psychotherapy conference that took place in Kyoto, Japan, in 1999. Order this book.
Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted
In Women and Desire: Beyond Wanting to Be Wanted, Polly Young-Eisendrath,Ph.D. challenges widely-held beliefs about female power and desire to show that women are trapped in a double bind. Encouraged to be Objects of Desire, they can take the role of "muse" – devoting themselves to being desirable, or they can claim their desires directly and be labeled as the "bitch/nag." The muse can have no desires of her own and the bitch feels ashamed of herself and her desires. As a result, women young and old, are confused about autonomy -- the skill and responsibility for making choices and decisions as an adult. Order this book.
You’re Not What I Expected: Love after the Romance Has Ended
The acclaimed classic about how to achieve a successful relationship between a man and a woman--now back in paperback. "An impressive account of how 'dialogue therapy' helps couples achieve new intimacy... Young-Eisendrath sees the process as a transformation from disillusionment into trust. Scholarly and thoughtful yet totally accessible and quite practical". – Kirkus Reviews. 416 pp. Order this book.
The Resilient Spirit: Transforming Suffering into Insight and Renewal
"This is a totally necessary book. Those who know or have known suffering of any substantial sort, as well as the therapists who stand by to help them, may well find this book to be the major gift of a lifetime. In a rolling prose that never clouds, never gets lost in the complexity of its topic, the author marries the best of the West's psychological wisdom - as expressed by Carl Jung - to the best of the East’s spiritual wisdom – as expressed by the Buddha. This two-fold perspective provides help to those in pain that neither discipline could have delivered alone. Add to this the author's personal experience of suffering, her evident scholarship, and her extensive experience as a psychoanalyst, and it becomes clear why this book is as noteworthy as it is. As one who knew his own years of pain and fear of capsizing, and who has subsequently been guide to many in their time of suffering, I have greeted and from my heart blessed this book with significantly more than ordinary enthusiasm." – George Fowler, author of Dance of a Fallen Monk. Order this book.
The Cambridge Companion to Jung
Sixteen new essays provide a critical introduction to Carl Jung, one of the founders of psychoanalysis, who developed the theory of ’analytical psychology’. It sets Jung in the context of his time, outlines current practice and theory of Jungian psychology and shows how Jungians apply his ideas to different aspects of culture. A chronology, reading lists, a case study and a glossary are included. Indispensible reference tool for beginning students and specialists, written by an international team of Jungian analysts and scholars from various disciplines. Order this book.
Female Authority: Empowering Women Through Psychotherapy
"Young-Eisendrath and Wiedemann offer a powerful alternative to current ways of thinking about women and open up a whole new area of inquiry – namely, the role that images of men play in the psyches of women. Their work deserves the immediate attention of therapists and feminist theorists of all persuasions...." – The Women’s Review of Books
For women in Western society, there is no straightforward path of development to autonomous adulthood. The double bind of female authority – that a women cannot be both a healthy adult and an ideal woman – is the context in which a woman must construct herself in this culture. Whether she sees herself as "too needy" or "too controlling", "too insecure" or "too self reliant", she is gathering evidence to support a theory of personal inadequacy. The traditional perspectives of psychodynamics and psychopathology reinforce women’s sense of inferiority. How then does a woman claim her own authority – the validity of truth, beauty, and goodness, originating in her own experience? Unraveling the paradox of female authority through the examination of its sociocultural, symbolic, and personal dimensions, this unique volume combines feminist theory, social psychology, and psychoanalytic psychology to offer a fresh approach to the analysis of gender concerns in identity. Order this book.
Gender and Desire: Uncursing Pandora
Contradictory and provocative pathways crisscross the terrain of gender among contemporary psychologists and psychoanalysts. Clearing a path through this terrain, Polly Young-Eisendrath describes and illustrates issues gender and desire among women and men. Young-Eisendrath introduces three world views: premodern, modern and postmodern. Then, she calls our attention to how we shape reality and clearly explains how a lived postmodern philosophy is essential for us to understand ourselves and how we can change.
Drawing on experiences from culture, everyday life, and psychotherapy, Polly Young-Eisendrath’s Gender and Desire: Uncovering Pandora provides a full engagement with the intricacies and complexities of gender, desire and liberation for women and men in a postmodern world. Order this book.
Hags and Heroes: A Feminist Approach to Jungian Psychotherapy with Couples
Why do relationships fail? Why do partners once so comfortable with each other often wind up at odds? What effect do traditional attitudes toward women have on marriage? Are lasting, long-term relationships possible between men and women? Here is a highly original approach to couple therapy and marriage counseling, integrating feminist views with the depth psychology of C.G. Jung and developmental theories of Harry Stack Sullivan.
The focus of this book is on understanding how individual complexes interfere with harmonious relationships. The emphasis is on revaluing the feminine principle and re-assessing the nature of female authority, in individual attitudes, in relationships and on a broader collective level. Order this book.
Polly’s other books include Awakening to Zen: The Teachings of Roshi Philip Kapleau (edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Rafe Martin, published by Scribner) and Jung’s Self Psychology: A Constructivist Perspective (authored by Polly Young-Eisendrath and published by Guilford). In 2000, Integrity, Wisdom, Transcendence: Spirituality of the Mature Self (edited by Polly Young-Eisendrath and Melvin Miller) was published by Routledge.
