Dante's Path

by Richard Schaub

Two pioneers in holistic psychology reveal a rejuvenating approach to healing the mind and spirit, using Dante’s Divine Comedy as a metaphor to overcome suffering.

Bringing a unique Western approach to the quest for emotional healing and spiritual discovery, Dante’s Path addresses the core human struggles—such as depression, anxiety, addiction, and other forms of suffering—and uses Dante’s Divine Comedy as a metaphor for personal transformation. Readers are taken on a journey of exploration down into the sources of our suffering (Dante’s Hell), then into a process of a growing self-awareness of our problems and how to rise above them (Dante’s Purgatory), and finally opening up to the direct benefits of our own “wisdom mind” (Dante’s Paradise). Along the way are effective, time-tested exercises and meditations for confronting life’s greatest worries, coping with episodes of trauma, and understanding feelings of unworthiness and emptiness.

Drawing upon the traditional wisdom of poet-mystic Dante and the work of psychiatrist Roberto Assagioli, who created a school of self-development and practical spirituality called psychosynthesis, Bonney and Richard Schaub have used this holistic method to successfully treat hundreds of patients and have taught it to students and other health professionals internationally for more than thirty years.

240 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2003

Reviews

[Tom LA · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books about Dante that I’ve ever read. The authors treat Dante as if his faith was “surpassed” and in need of a modern interpretation of his ancient and medieval framework (where “medieval” is used by the authors with a negative connotation. Oh, the crass arrogance of posterity!). This couldn’t be farther from the truth. If one understands christian doctrine, there is extremely little in the Comedy that is surpassed. Maybe a meager 2%. The rest is still fully relevant today, maybe even more, whether you are christian or not.

For example, this book says that it’s “surpassed” to think of pride as only bad and humility as only good. In line with the teachings of an Italian jungian psychiatrist, whom the authors idolize, worship and keep quoting, the book wants to correct this “ancient” statement with “there is good and bad everywhere”.

A bit like in the song “Ebony and Ivory”!

I’m sorry to say it, because the authors’ passion is evident, but this book is missing the entire point of the Divine Comedy.

Dante is catholic in his bone marrow. His poem has the power to rekindle the fire of faith in the attentive reader’s heart. His poem is about the action of Christ on the world, and our possibility to be saved through our free will (which he located at the literal center of his work, Pur. 16).

Do not try to repackage profound truths only because they are old. You risk coming up with wishy-washy versions of the truth like they did in this book.

Psychoanalysis and new age spirituality have very little to do with the Divine Comedy.

But more importantly, everything that REALLY matters about the human being has already been said many centuries ago. Just make the effort to go and find it. Don’t look for it in these “modern” books because it will inevitably be diluted and slanted — in this specific case, the slant is anti-christian.

[Fabiano Parmesan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scritto da due psicoterapeuti amanti di Dante
Ricco di esercizi pratici da svolgere, aiuta il lettore a trasformarsi e realizzarsi spiritualmente.
. L'inferno è un fardello che ci portiamo ineluttabilmente dentro. Dobbiamo imparare a gestirlo. La divina commedia come metafora esistenziale ci insegna a leggere e percorrere e strade della vita

[Paola Marotta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sinceramente non mi è proprio piaciuto, da classicista e appassionata dei classici della letteratura italiana in particolare della Divina Commedia trovo che ne parli in maniera quasi superficiale, troppo modernizzata la figura di Dante, l’unica cosa che ho trovato corretta e veritiera è il titolo.

[Michele]

Church book club. Can't remember how well I liked it. Lead to good discussion.