Translate This Darkness : The Life of Christiana Morgan

by Claire Douglas

Christiana Morgan was an erotic muse who influenced twentieth-century psychology and inspired its male creators, including C. G. Jung, who saw in her the quintessential "anima woman." Here Claire Douglas offers the first biography of this remarkable woman, exploring how Morgan yearned to express her genius yet sublimated it to spark not only Jung but also her own lover Henry A. Murray, a psychologist who with her help invented the thematic apperception test (TAT). Douglas recounts Morgan's own contributions to the study of emotions and feelings at the Harvard Psychological Clinic and vividly describes the analyst's turbulent life: her girlhood in a prominent Boston family; her difficult marriage; her intellectual awakening in postwar New York; her impassioned analysis with Jung, including her "visions" of a woman's heroic quest, many of which furthered his work on archetypes; her love affairs and experiences with sexual experimentation; her alcoholism; and, finally, her tragic death.

Genres: Psychology, Biography, Nonfiction

398 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1993

Reviews

[Taylor Reddeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

[Robert Bogue]

Christiana Morgan is an unlikely person to have such an impact on psychology. The path that she took was neither short nor straightforward, as Translate this Darkness: The Life of Christiana Morgan shows. This isn’t the first time that I’ve encountered Christiana Morgan’s life. Love’s Story Told focuses on the life of Henry Murray, and their lives cannot be separated. Their love affair was not a secret to their spouses nor to many around them. Christina’s path until she met Murray was separate and different and substantially converged after their meeting.

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[Priii · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most incredible stories I've read! Heartbreaking how it ends :(