Barry Ulanov

Ann Belford Ulanov

For your most intimate and significant relationship with the opposite sex, look within yourself, to anima and animus, the archetypal symbols that define and celebrate the presence of the Feminine in men and the Masculine in women. The authors use thier broad backgrounds in psychology, theology, philosophy, and the arts to follow the archetypes from clinical practice into a fascinating range of cultural manifestations, particularly in the world's great literature - from Dante to Pasternak - making this book the most wide-ranging study to date of these central concepts in Jungian psychology.

The Archetypal World of Anima and Animus

Transforming Sexuality

Analyst and author Ann Belford Ulanov draws on her years of clinical work and reflection to make the point that madness and creativity share a kinship, an insight that shakes both analysand and analyst to the core, reminding us as it does that the suffering places of the human psyche are inextricably—and, often inexplicably—related to the fountains of creativity, service, and even genius. She poses disturbing questions: How do we depend on order, when chaos is a necessary part of existence? What are we to make of evil—both that surrounding us and that within us? Is there a myth of meaning that can contain all the differences that threaten to shatter us? Ulanov’s insights unfold in conversation with themes in Jung’s Red Book which, according to Jung, present the most important experiences of his life, themes he explicated in his subsequent theories. In words and paintings Jung displays his psychic encounters from1913–1928, describing them as inner images that “burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me.” Responding to some of Jung’s more fantastic encounters as he illustrated them, Ulanov suggests that our problems and compulsions may show us the path our creativity should take. With Jung she asserts that the multiplicities within and around us are, paradoxically, pieces of a greater whole that can provide healing and unity as, in her words, “every part of us and of our world gets a seat at the table.” Taken from Ulanov’s addresses at the 2012 Fay Lectures in Analytical Psychology, Madness and Creativity stands as a carefully crafted presentation, with many clinical examples of human courage and fulfillment.

Madness and Creativity

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba are the only women mentioned by name in the Gospels' genealogies, showing that they impart something essential to the lineage of Christ. By exploring their unconventional lives, the author demonstrates how salvation enters the world through their embodiment of such powerful and deeply feminine qualities as ingenuity, audacity, determination, compassion, seduction, and devotion.

The Female Ancestors of Christ

With a particularly strong emphasis on Jung's theories of archetypes, Dr. Ulanov's examination of her own experience with affliction is an example of psychology in practice. She details the terribly severe attacks of poison ivy that besiege her annually her personal point of view in applying the symbolism of Jung's archetypes to these attacks is refreshing in its individualization of the analysis. As a modern excursion into the territory handled by animistic cultures where priests make mandalas in the sand and ritual dancers dance away the spirits of illness, Ann Ulanov examines her own illness in the light of modern psychology. These sorts of rituals have been performed for many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, and still resonate today. Dr. Ulanov discusses the physical, psychological, psychosomatic, psychosocial, and psycho-spiritual aspects of asking to be healed.

A Psychological Understanding

Attacked by Poison Ivy

Prayer is our basic expression of religious belief. It is our personal and most private act of devotion. Words cannot do justice to the feelings, wishes, terrors, pains, or pleasures that we exchange with God. This book sets out to define prayer as both a means of drawing nearer to God everyday and as a coping tool that people can use in order to achieve harmony, balance, and satisfaction in their in their lives.

A Psychology of Prayer

Primary Speech

The Transcendent is a reality that functions in all our lives all the time, whether you call it God, the unkown, or the holy. It is not some obscure out-of-reach Other available only to those with specialized knowledge or a phenomenon spoken about only in a church, temple, or mosque. The Transcendent is both beyond us, yet functioning within each of us. It is present in our exchanges with others, yet nearer to us than our own heartbeat. In our daily lives, the Transcendent is often experienced addressing us through or compulsions, perversions, and ordinary struggles. We find it touching us through our most shameful problems and bidding us to realize our most hidden promise. Jungian analyst Ann Ulanov shows us how the Transcendent appreas in her clinical work, how to work with it in dreams and symptoms, and how it informs encounters between analyst and analysand. She demonstrates the spiritual aspect of analysis in her case observations dealing with fatness and and the female, masochistic suffering, parental relationships, follow-up treatment in patient/therapist sex, and the resolution of suicidal temptations.

A Study in Analytical Psychology

The Functioning Transcendent

In Finding Space, Ann Belford Ulanov argues that depth psychology in general and the work of D. W. Winnicott in particular offer vital new ways in which to apprehend religious life, especially Christian religious life. Her inspiration is rooted in Winnicott's influence on her work as an analyst and how his ideas have enriched her own Christian faith and religious understanding. In addition, Ulanov feels Winnicott's focus on the intensity of aliveness is an antidote to the plight of contemporary religion - that it can be passionless or rote, and thereby irrelevant to so many people. She expands Winnicott's concept of transitional space between self and other to apply to the space between the human and divine. She explores the importance of the "illusionist element" of God images in creative approaches to the divine. Other topics include the paradox transitional reality holds with subjective and objective notions Christians have of God; the inclusion of the body - specifically sexuality and aggression and the struggle for integration within the self - in the search for relationship with God; and the importance of the feminine. In an especially helpful appendix, Ulanov includes Winnicott's thoughts on matters pertinent to religious life and thought.

Winnicott, God, and Psychic Reality

Finding Space

The spiritual power of the Feminine shines forth in this psychological study of four Old Testament heroines from Jesus’ family tree. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba are the only women mentioned by name in the Gospels’ genealogies and, for Ann Belford Ulanov, this indicates that they impart something essential to the lineage of Christ. By exploring their brave and unconventional lives, she demonstrates how salvation enters the world in the feminine mode of being human, through these women’s embodiment of such powerful and deeply feminine qualities as ingenuity, audacity, determination, compassion, seduction, and devotion. “Like bolts of lightning, the stories of these outcast virgins illuminate what spiritual wholeness can be in the lives of contemporary women and men. Ann Ulanov’s riveting insights into their daring acts reveal their deep significance in the genealogy of Jesus and expand our understanding of the words courage and love.” — Marion Woodman, author of Addiction to Perfection and Leaving my Father’s House

The spiritual power of the Feminine shines forth in this psychological study of four Old Testament heroines from Jesus' family tree. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba are the only women mentioned by name in the Gospels' genealogies and, for Ann Belford Ulanov, this indicates that they impart something essential to the lineage of Christ. By exploring their brave and unconventional lives, she demonstrates how salvation enters the world in the feminine mode of being human, through these women's embodiment of such powerful and deeply feminine qualities as ingenuity, audacity, determination, compassion, seduction, and devotion.

The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology investigates the implications for Christian theology of Jung's special insights into the feminine. In it, Ann Belford Ulanov gathers together in one volume what Jung and Jungians have discovered about the feminine in order to explore what Jungian thought and methods may illuminate about the place of the feminine in Christian theology. Jung focuses on the human person and sees as central its mixture of masculine and feminine elements. In a time when so much is asserted and written about women in society--their rights, roles, identities, needs, and contributions--it is especially significant that Jung asserts the existence of the feminine as a key element, not only in women but in men as well. No less contested are the roles and identities of Christians. Ulanov brings into focus the deep and fascinating connections between theology and psychology.

The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology

This book promotes a strong argument for a ‘feminine’ approach to religious discovery: to struggle in the ambiguous gap between the wisdom of the psyche and the wisdom of Scripture, between our interior experience of God and the exterior reality of God. The Wisdom of the Psyche urges clergy to help parishioners bring forth their unconscious feelings and images to join their conscious thoughts. In this way, the church allows its members the space to present themselves fully to God and to be fully present to the human need around them.

The Wisdom of the Psyche

This book, adapted from the distinguished Hale Lectures presents material from a woman's wrestling with death, showing how inextricably mixed are matters theological and psychological. At a point when her life was blossoming in every way, Nancy was struck down by a terminal brain tumour which soon robbed her of her speech. She used paintings, many of which are here reproduced, to wrestle with this blow and to communicate what she was slowly discerning in the face of death, something from the 'other side'. The author addresses a variety of related issues, including the place of language in analysis and the role of the feminine mode of being, especially in transference and counter-transference.

Picturing Consciousness

The Wizards' Gate

This book offers a collection of many new ideas: connection with the psychoid processes of the unconscious is a source of healing, especially in relation to trauma; fresh interpretation of the bedevilling flashbacks of trauma; addition of an alternative interpenetrating matrix to the container model of healing; sum of the insights of Nicholas of Cusa and their implications for Jung's complex around freedom and relation to the Divine.

Ann Belford Ulanov

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