War of the Ancient Dragon by Laurel A. Howe - New Title Press Release

New Title Press Release - Just Published by Fisher King Press:

War of the Ancient Dragon: Transformation of Violence in Sandplay
by Laurel A. Howe

From the Publisher - Laurel Howe’s War of the Ancient Dragon is a significant contribution to depth psychology. I suspect that far more would be resolved, and much less of the world’s suffering would be in vain, if only we could transform the wars in the Middle East and elsewhere in this world into the likes of Randy's sand trays. War of the Ancient Dragon: Transformation of Violence in Sandplay is a major contribution to Jungian Psychology, Sandplay Therapy, and to the world at large. I urge you to read and to tell others about this powerfully moving book. - Mel Mathews, Publisher, Fisher King Press

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Six-year-old Randy conducts bloody wars in the sandtray, calling them "World War One," "World War Two," and "The War of the Ancient Dragon." He burns fires and bombs helpless victims, killing some and saving others. What could possibly be going on in his imagination?

The contents of his imagination—what the alchemists call the “realm of subtle bodies”—are revealed in his sandplay from one session to the next, and there we see the raw, autonomous dynamism that motivates Randy, already branded a bully and nearly expelled from first grade. We see fiery, destructive conflict, part his, part his culture’s, part lived, part projected, a conflict of archetypal opposites that engulf Randy’s personality and fuel his violent behavior.

But also from Randy’s imaginal world, out of the very war between opposites that drives him, the unknown third possibility unfolds. Allowed to exist and be seen with a paradoxical healing aim, the war fights itself out over time in the safe container of the sandtray, finds its unpredictable resolution, and gradually releases Randy from its grip. He finally emerges, calling himself “king of the bloodfire,” returned to the rule of his own emotional life. He has adapted to school, proud of his achievements, a star student in math.

Randy’s lively narratives animate his dramas and reveal the distinct hallmarks of an alchemical opus over the course of 24 therapy sessions. He remarkably echoes the words of the ancient sages such as Zosimos, who centuries ago in his own imagination witnessed the “torture” of transformation in fire.

Randy’s process is thoroughly documented and amplified, unveiling the alchemical stages of transformation—nigredo, albedo, and rubedo—in a way that helps us relate to those chapters in our own individuation struggles. Psychological Perspectives editor Margaret Johnson writes that the work is “valuable above and beyond being a case study because it remarkably grounds what can be very illusive alchemical imagery into psychological experience.”

War of the Ancient Dragon guides us through the gritty realities of the alchemical process, helping us realize how they can manifest in everyday life, dream images, and fantasy. Above all the book is a testament to the healing capacities of the imagination, the humble “star in man” that connects us to the unconscious: to unknown and unexpected developments in ourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Laurel Howe is a Jungian analyst who earned her diploma from the Center for Research and Training in Depth Psychology According to C.G. Jung and Marie-Louise von Franz in Zürich. She is a faculty member of the C.G. Jung Institute of Colorado, a teaching member of the International Society of Sandplay Therapy and the Sandplay Therapists of America, and an advisory board member of the Colorado Sandplay Therapy Association. She has a private practice in Lakewood, Colorado where she works with children and adults and mentors students of analytic psychotherapy and sandplay therapy. In addition to sandplay and alchemy, Laurel writes and presents lectures on the history and psychological meaning of Mary Magdalene and feminine archeological images from the Levant prior to and during the development of the Old Testament.

Title: War of the Ancient Dragon: Transformation of Violence in Sandplay
Author: Laurel A. Howe
Paperback: 166 pages
Condition: New
Edition: First
Index, Bibliography
Publisher: Fisher King Press (April 28, 2016)
Language: English
ISBN-10:1771690348
ISBN-13: 9781771690348

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including Jungian Psychological Perspectives and a growing list of Cutting-Edge alternative titles. www.fisherkingpress.com

Viktor Frankl meets Edith Stein: Timeless Night

Advance Press Release for June 17, 2014

Just Published by il piccolo editions:

Timeless Night: Viktor Frankl meets Edith Stein

by Elizabeth Clark-Stern

Late in the Spring of the Second World War. Two “troublemakers” are thrown together in an old storage shed in Auschwitz: Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who is making notes on the book he will write if he survives the camp, and Edith Stein, a Jewish philosopher/author who defied her family to become a nun. With the dawn comes Liberation, or Extermination. They make a contract for comedy, but the reality of their characters, and their deep curiosity about each other, draw them again and again, to reveal their ideas, their joys, and the deepest longing of their souls.

Elizabeth Clark-Stern is a psychotherapist, screenwriter, and playwright. Her produced teleplays include All I Could See From Where I Stood, Help Wanted, and Having Babies II. Her play, Out of the Shadows: A Story of Toni Wolff and Emma Jung was performed at the International Jungian Congress in South Africa, and for the Archetypal Theater Company in New Orleans. In 2013, On the Doorstep of the Castle: A Play of Teresa of Avila and Alma de Leon was performed at the International Jungian Congress in Copenhagen. Timeless Night premiered in 2014 in Seattle.

Product Details
Timeless Night: Viktor Frankl meets Edith Stein
Paperback: 96 pages
Publisher: il piccolo editions; First edition (June 21, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1771690194
ISBN-13: 9781771690195

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Just Published - A Cast of Coins

March 21, 2014

Just Published by il piccolo editions

A Cast of Coins
Poems by Phyllis Stowell

A Cast of Coins derives from contemplation of the language and images encountered in the I CHING, an ancient Chinese text used for divination. Those who are unfamiliar with the I CHING (or Yi Jing) The Book of Changes, will be able to read the poems as poems without referring to it. However, some knowledge of this text would add a dimension to the reader’s experience. At the core lies an interchange between concept and image taken from nature as well as cultural, social and religious life. A Cast of Coins is a book about messages.

Phyllis Stowell has a PhD in Depth Psychology and Poetry and currently is Co-chair of Friends of the C. G. Jung Institute, San Francisco. She was a founding member of the Saint Mary’s College MFA where she was elected Professor Emerita. She is the author of six volumes of poetry, including Sundered, the bilingual art/poetry book Shield/Bouclier with art by Pacia Sallomi, and co-editor of Appetite: Food as Metaphor: An Anthology of Women Poets.

Product Details
A Cast of Coins
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: il piccolo editions; 1st edition (March 21, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1771690119
ISBN 13: 9781771690119

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

Menopause Man-Unplugged

June 25, 2012

News/Press Release — Just Published

Menopause Man-Unplugged
Book Two of The Chronicles of a Wandering Soul Series
a novel by Mel Mathews

“Through the 21st Century Looking Glass”  —USA Today

Mel Mathews is a sensitive observer of the human condition, with an emphasis on the Male Human Condition of our time. He has created a character in Malcolm Clay that is a baby boomer Holden Caulfield, a variation on John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, and he manages to take us by the hand and lead us through the bumpy terrain of current interpersonal relationships as well as anyone writing today. Menopause Man–Unplugged is a journey so well written that the novel calls for pause to enjoy the sheer ebullience of the verbiage. Mel Mathews is a fine writer, finding his way through life in these times. He is a reliable companion on the trek we all are taking. And now on to the next volume in the series, SamSara, addictively! —Grady Harp, USA Today

“Mel Mathews’ place in the ranks of fine contemporary writers is assured.”

In The Chronicles of a Wandering Soul series, the wandering, questing central figure of Malcolm Clay has become a new literary icon. With thoughtful ruminations, keen humor, informative explorations of themes from religion to traits of visited countries, and so many clever double entendres, Mel Mathews’ place in the ranks of fine contemporary writers is assured.
—Grady Harp, goodreads,  Amazon.com Top10 Reviewer

Raw at times, Mel Mathews, in his unique and uncanny way, takes his readers inside, deep into the soul of a man as he struggles to become free of the illusions that continue to haunt humanity to this very day. Menopause Man–Unplugged brings us closer to the reality that men have equally suffered from what the Women’s Movement began to defy decades ago. A theme runs through Mathews’ novels, suggesting that the so-called problems between the sexes, as with most battles, is not so much about man and woman being at odds with one another, but instead, people being at odds within themselves.

Menopause Man-Unplugged
a novel by Mel Mathews

Publisher: il piccolo editions

ISBN 9781926715360

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com

The Cry of Merlin

June 27, 2012

Advance Press/News Release:
Just Published by Fisher King Press

The Cry of Merlin: 
Jung, the Prototypical Ecopsychologist
The Dairy Farmer's Guide to the Universe Volume II
by Dennis L. Merritt

Carl Jung can be seen as the prototypical ecopsychologist. Volume II of The Dairy Farmer’s Guide to the Universe explores how Jung’s life and times created the context for the ecological nature of Jungian ideas.  It is an ecopsychological exercise to delineate the many dimensions of Jung’s life that contributed to creation of his system—his basic character, nationality, family of origin, difficulties in childhood, youthful environment, period in Western culture, and his pioneering position in the development of modern psychology. Jung said every psychology is a subjective confession, making it important to discover the lacuna in Jung’s character and in his psychological system, particularly in relation to Christianity. Archetypically redressing the lacuna leads to the creation of a truly holistic, integrated ecological psychology that can help us live sustainably on this beautiful planet.

Front Cover: Jung’s relief carving on the side of his Bollingen Tower, a place he associated with Merlin. The inscription reads, “May the light arise, which I have borne in my body.” The woman reaching out to milk the mare is Jung’s anima as “a millennia-old ancestress.” The image is an anticipation of the Age of Aquarius, which is under the constellation of Pegasus. The feminine element is said to receive a special role in this new eon. Jung imagined the inspiring springs that gush forth from the hoof prints of Pegasus, the “fount horse,” to be associated with the Water Bearer, the symbol of Aquarius.

Dennis L. Merritt, Ph.D., is a Jungian psychoanalyst and ecopsychologist in private practice in Madison and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dr. Merritt is a diplomate of the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich and also holds the following degrees: M.A. Humanistic Psychology-Clinical, Sonoma State University, California, Ph.D. Insect Pathology, University of California-Berkeley, M.S. and B.S. Entomology, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over twenty-five years of participation in Lakota Sioux ceremonies has strongly influenced his worldview.

Fisher King Press publishes an eclectic mix of worthy books including 

Jungian Psychological Perspectives, Cutting-Edge Fiction, Poetry, 

and a growing list of alternative titles. 

www.fisherkingpress.com