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Incest and Human Love
This book explores Eros and incest for a new version of therapy that tries to heal the love/sex split.
227 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 7, 2018
This book is impossible to find reviews online about, so here goes.
I'm a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and stumbled across references to the Love/Sex Split (a concept that kept mapping to Incest & Human Love by Robert Stein) in a few articles I read by Michael Greenwood, who was writing on the interrelationship of Chinese medical concepts (Qi & Blood, etc.), yogic philosophy and psychoanalytic thought. Yes, specific and obscure (and fascinating!).
Robert Stein appears to be a psychiatrist Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in the 60s and 70s who after a time found Jungian psychoanalysis limiting and came up with his own theories on how to improve it. Basically, he believes that the Incest Taboo is at the core of our psychological development - specifically, that we develop the ability to have an inner world through the forbidden.
It's an interesting, well-written book, that is easier to follow & read than you might think given the content. It's also not about incest, the horrific act of violation, but incest as a psychoanalytic concept, and indeed he spends an entire long chapter on the Greek myth of Oedipus.
Definitely worth the read if you are a psychotherapist and remotely interested in psychodynamic or psychoanalytic theory. I'm surprised it isn't more read, although perhaps that's the editor's fault naming it something so unappealing.
I'm a psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and stumbled across references to the Love/Sex Split (a concept that kept mapping to Incest & Human Love by Robert Stein) in a few articles I read by Michael Greenwood, who was writing on the interrelationship of Chinese medical concepts (Qi & Blood, etc.), yogic philosophy and psychoanalytic thought. Yes, specific and obscure (and fascinating!).
Robert Stein appears to be a psychiatrist Jungian psychoanalyst practicing in the 60s and 70s who after a time found Jungian psychoanalysis limiting and came up with his own theories on how to improve it. Basically, he believes that the Incest Taboo is at the core of our psychological development - specifically, that we develop the ability to have an inner world through the forbidden.
It's an interesting, well-written book, that is easier to follow & read than you might think given the content. It's also not about incest, the horrific act of violation, but incest as a psychoanalytic concept, and indeed he spends an entire long chapter on the Greek myth of Oedipus.
Definitely worth the read if you are a psychotherapist and remotely interested in psychodynamic or psychoanalytic theory. I'm surprised it isn't more read, although perhaps that's the editor's fault naming it something so unappealing.
March 7, 2024
Mr Stein is a Jungian analyst, and in this book, he explores the taboo of incest for a new type of therapy that can heal. The author is clearly extremely well versed in Jungian theory and I found that to be fascinating indeed. It would be a great book for therapists looking for alternative therapies, but I was researching something for a book I am writing, and it wasn't ideal for my quest.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews