Remembering Thomas B. Kirsch

Remembering Thomas B. Kirsch
June 10, 1936 – October 22, 2017

From conception on, C.G. Jung, his ideas, and analytical psychology itself was a central thread of Thomas B. Kirsch’s life. His parents, James and Hilde Kirsch, were in analysis with C.G. Jung when Tom was born, and he was imaged to be the product of a successful analysis. At an early age, Dr. Kirsch was introduced to many of the first-generation analysts who surrounded C.G. Jung, and over time became acquainted with them. Later, in his roles with the IAAP, Dr. Kirsch gained a broad knowledge of the developments in analytical psychology, and through both his early family history and in his later professional life, he worked closely with many analysts who were integral in forming the foundations of analytical psychology.

Dr. Kirsch graduated from Yale Medical School in 1961, did his residency in psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Stanford University, and then spent two years with the National Institute of Mental Health in San Francisco. He completed his Jungian training at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco in 1968. In 1976 Dr. Kirsch became president of the Jung institute in San Francisco, and in 1977 he was elected second vice president of the International Association for Analytical Psychology, or IAAP, the professional organization of Jungian analysts around the world. As vice president and then president of the IAAP for eighteen years, he traveled the world and was able to meet Jungian analysts from many different countries. This position allowed him to serve a missionary function of sorts in new areas like China, South Africa, Mexico, Russia, and other former Soviet Eastern Bloc countries. In A Jungian Life, Thomas B. Kirsch reflects upon his entire existence which has been intimately involved with C.G. Jung and analytical psychology.

We are grateful for the generous contributions Thomas B. Kirsch has made to humanity, and we are proud to be the publisher of his memoir: A Jungian Life.

Mel Mathews
Publisher, Fisher King Press

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

Jungian Child Analysis - News Release

Just Published by Fisher King Press

Jungian Child Analysis

Jungian Child Analysis brings together ten certified Child and Adolescent Analysts (IAAP) to discuss how healing with children occurs within the analytical framework. While the majority of Jung’s corpus centered on the collective aspects of the adult psyche, one can find in Jung’s earliest work clinical observations and ideas that reflect an uncanny prescience of the psychological research that would later emerge regarding the self and the mother-infant relationship. This book discusses and illustrates in very practical ways how one uses an analytical attitude and works with the symbolic: this includes illustrations of analytical play therapy, dream analysis, sandplay, work with special populations and work with the parents and families of the child. Not only will the book capture your interest and further your development in working with children and adolescents, but also will enhance your work with adults.

Jungian Child Analysis, edited by Audrey Punnett; foreword by Wanda Grosso; contributors include Margo M. Leahy, Liza J. Ravitz, Brian Feldman, Lauren Cunningham, Patricia L. Speier, Maria Ellen Chiaia, Audrey Punnett, Susan Williams, Robert Tyminski, and Steve Zemmelman.

Contents:
Preface – Wanda Grosso
Introduction – Audrey Punnett

Chapter 1 – Margo M. Leahy
Jung and the Post-Jungians on the Theory of Jungian Child Analysis

Chapter 2 – Liza J. Ravitz
Child Analysis and the Multilayered Psyche

Chapter 3 – Brian Feldman
The Aesthetic and Spiritual Life of the Infant: Towards a Jungian View of Infant Development

Chapter 4 – Lauren Cunningham
Play, Creation and the Numinous

Chapter 5 – Patricia L. Speier
The Portal of Play Through a Jungian Frame

Chapter 6 – Maria Ellen Chiaia
The Importance of Being: Silence in Child Analysis

Chapter 7 – Audrey Punnett
Children’s Dreams

Chapter 8 – Susan Williams
Awakening to Inter-subjectivity: Working with Autistic Spectrum Disorders

Chapter 9 – Robert Tyminski
Males Coming to Terms with Sexuality in Later Adolescence

Chapter 10 – Steve Zemmelman
Working with Parents in Child Analysis and Psychotherapy: An Integrated Approach




Editor: Audrey Punnett
Paperback: 250 pages
Condition: New
Edition: First
Index, Bibliography
Publisher: Fisher King Press (May 21, 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1771690380
ISBN-13: 978-1771690386

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

Emily Dickinson: A Medicine Woman for Our Times

Just Published by Fisher King Press

Emily Dickinson: A Medicine Woman for Our Times
by Steven Herrmann

Among the 19th century poets, Emily Dickinson is by far the most scientifically minded. Science is the voice that summoned Dickinson at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary and gave her unique distinction as a poetess of botanical and entomological and astronomical classifications. Like no other 19th century poet she forms an integration between science and spirituality. She studied at Holyoke at the exact historical moment of the first Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention in 1848. This, therefore, is a feminist book. It speaks up for the Divine Feminine. On the front cover purple-white rosemary blossoms are exploding with color. Emily Dickinson’s garden was a place where butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds drank up the radiance of flowers. Rosemary in particular was one of her favorite healing herbs. C.G. Jung mentions the antitoxin of rosemary flowers as a synonym for the Self, the total personality. When Steven Herrmann refers to Emily Dickinson as a Medicine Woman, he is speaking of an archetype of healing within all humans. Her poems are enduring imprints of the Medicine Woman archetype. It is by access to the Medicine Woman archetype that she’s able to espouse a democracy of equality that the world needs right now. She advises women to cherish “Power” and take heed from the Serpent. We need a Medicine Woman to balance things out. In a democratic sense, she’s a fierce and uncompromising spokeswoman for Liberty. Emily Dickinson is a dispenser of a new American myth for our times.

About the author
Recognized internationally, Steven Herrmann is the author of William Everson: The Shaman’s Call, Walt Whitman: Shamanism, Spiritual Democracy, and the World Soul, and Spiritual Democracy: The Wisdom of Early American Visionaries for the Journey Forward. In 2015 his chapter “C.G. Jung and Teilhard de Chardin: Peacemakers in an Age of Spiritual Democracy” was published in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Carl Gustav Jung Side by Side. He has taught on the subjects of Jung, Whitman, and Melville at the C.G. Jung Institutes of San Francisco, Chicago, and Zürich, UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz, and on Jung and James at Yale University. Herrmann’s expertise in Jungian Literary Criticism makes him one of the seminal thinkers in the international field, and a foremost authority on Whitman, Melville, and now Dickinson in post-Jungian studies.

Emily Dickinson: A Medicine Woman for Our Times
Paperback: 298 pages, Index, Bibliography
Publisher: Fisher King Press
1st edition
Official Publication date: March 21, 2018
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1771690410
ISBN-13: 9781771690416

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

War and The Enemy in the 21st Century

One of the greatest rewards of being a publisher is in reflecting and rejoicing in the many meaningful and timely Fisher King Press publications. It truly is a privilege to be the midwife of these newborns—many of whom arrive far ahead of their time—and to witness their maturing and assimilation into the collective consciousness.

With the wars being fought on many fronts, and with the posturing and possibility of yet more, I reached for Erel Shalit’s Enemy, Cripple, Beggar: Shadows in the Hero’s Path (which we published in 2008) and have been reading from Shalit’s chapter on The Enemy, which in the beginning of the chapter, states:

On [the journey], the hero initially meets the Enemy, because the previously unrealized and unconscious dark side, the shadow, is often first encountered in projection, as carried by the enemy. 

In reference to the First World War, Jung wrote in 1916: "As events in wartime have clearly shown, our mentality is distinguished by the shameless naïveté with which we judge our enemy, and in the judgment we pronounce upon him we unwittingly reveal our own defects: we simply accuse our enemy of our own unadmitted faults." (C.G. Jung, Collected Works 8, 2nd ed., par. 516.)

The realization of the enemy shadow—whether persecuted by it, or when trying to flee or to fight it—provides a possibility of energizing the ego. In the inward process of finding one’s pain and resources, and in order to eventually find one’s way to the inner wounds that unsettle us if we do not attend to them, to find the wounded child in our soul, it is necessary to go through the projections of the shadow . . .

This is just the first few paragraphs of the chapter that explores many facets of the enemy archetype. If you have a copy of Enemy, Cripple, Beggar, I encourage you to revisit this timely publication. If you do not have a copy . . . well, here’s a link to purchase a copy of this rich and worthy book: Enemy, Cripple, Beggar.

As the publisher of Fisher King Press, I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to the many readers of our publications, and to our authors who have done the hard work of research, mining the depths of their inner worlds, and for bring back to us these timeless gems.

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

Love Poems and Other Terrible Problems

Just Published by il piccolo editions

Love Poems and Other Terrible Problems
by Charles Zeiders

Charles Zeiders has given us a great gift; a poet, healer, and lover, he shares with fearless eloquence his heart, his mordant wit, and his empathic depth. Most of all, however, he inspires hope, hope in the human soul. I am captivated by his words and reading him I can feel my soul's enthusiastic approbation. You must give your soul the same pleasure. -Dr. Stephen Martin, Jungian Analyst and President Emeritus of the Philemon Foundation

Love Poems and Other Terrible Problems teems with psychic and spiritual energy. It’s like a Hieronymus Bosch painting that includes the Marx Brothers and splotches of transcendent gold. - Peter Devlin, from the Introduction

Zeiders’ love poems depict the paradoxes of a Christ-redeemed eros . . . But the volume explores the insane side of love…Like Dante’s Virgil, Zeiders navigates us through an earthly Inferno of malignant narcissists, charlatans, and pedophiles…Thankfully, the poet brings us safely to the other side . . . Just as the Christian vision of the universe begins and ends with Love, so Love Poems and Other Terrible Problems provides hope.  -Joseph Walls, from Kiss Epiphany: A Spiritual Critique of Love Poems and Other Terrible Problems

From the exploration of the transfigured state found in the “Love Poems” we turn to the “Other Terrible Problems” . . . Nietzschean nihilism presses upon us. So does war and gore…Psychopaths head our institutions . . . we cannot find a way to offer our eros in the mad contexts they create . . . yet, the lesson is that within the container of love . . . one’s entire humanity can be accepted. -Margaret Connolly, from the Editor’s Afterword

About the author
Charles Zeiders is a clinical and forensic psychologist. His books include The Clinical Christ and Wall Street Revolution and Other Poems.

Love Poems and Other Terrible Problems
Paperback: 104 pages
Publisher: il piccolo editions
1st edition
Official Publication date: May 19, 2017
Language: English
ISBN 10: 1771690445
ISBN-13: 9781771690447

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