This Jungian Life

What I'm Reading... "The Master and His Emissary"

Added 2018-08-10 18:22:49 +0000 UTC

Lisa here! Recently I've been making my way through a book that is rewiring my synapses and causing me to question and realign a lot of Jungian theory in a way that I believe will ultimately be very fruitful. It isn't often that I read a book that feels like it will have such a profound effect on how I understand myself, my patients and my world.

The book is "The Master and His Emissary," by Ian McGilchrist. It's a book many people have been speaking about, so my additional thoughts about it may not add much. But I wanted to share some particular thoughts about it in light of Jungian thought.

First, a word about my reading habits. I don't tend to have a lot of time to read, and most of the reading I do is in the evening when I'm pretty tired, so taking on a book like this is a big commitment. Amazon reminds me that I purchased this book in April, 2012. It had been recommended to me by a colleague and I knew I wanted to read it. But it took me six years to get around to tackling it.

I'm not through yet, and I do think that digesting it will probably go on for sometime after I turn the last page. So these are some very preliminary thoughts. I find I am intrigued to wonder whether McGilchrist's right hemisphere maps on more or less well to Jung's notion of the feminine. As far as I can tell, this might be a fruitful line of inquiry.

Jung continually pointed out that Western culture is badly out of balance, and needs the restoration of what he called the feminine. These days, that term is becoming increasingly difficult to use, and clear definitions have eluded me. Could it be that Jung was intuiting the same line of argument that McGilchrist makes when he says that the right hemisphere "master" has been usurped by the left hemisphere "emissary?"

Trying on this idea both personally and in my clinical work so far seems very fruitful. Perhaps we can build an episode around these ideas. I'd love to write something on this someday as well, though as I said, I believe I will be integrating these ideas for some time to come.