CHILD

Rating:
Summary: Jungian view of the basic structure of the child's psyche
Review: Readers familiar with Neumann's approach in "The Origins and History of Consciousness" and "The Fear of the Feminine" will recognize the same methodology applied here to the psychology of the developing child.

This is a posthumously published and not fully completed work written by Erich Neumann, referred to by some as "one of Jung's most creative students."

Some readers will not accept in their entirety Neumann's particular views regarding religious and gender-related issues. Nonetheless the book has some worthwhile insights.

From the back cover: "The Child examines the structure and dynamics of the earliest developments of ego and individuality. The author traces this development from the primal relationship of mother and child to the full emergence of personality through the child's relationship with its body, its Self, others, and "being-in-the-world." He shows that this movement corresponds to the development of culture from the psychological matriarchate, in which the mother archetype is primary, to the psychological patriarchate, dominated by the father archetype. This transition, Neumann argues, is indispensable to the process by which humanity achieves consciousness."

Book chapters: Foreword; The Primal Relationship; Primal Relationship and Development of the Ego-Self Relationship; Disturbances of the Primal Relationship and their Consequences; From Matriarchate to Patriarchate; The Stages in the Child's Ego-Development; The Patriarchate; Notes; Glossary; Index.