ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a critical retrospect, querying some aspects of the original argument for narrative knowing. It presents a case study concerning a young woman, ‘Min’, that speaks for itself: the account shows how Min’s dreams and self-narrative intertwined over time. The book shows how autobiographies may serve their authors’ agendas. It suggests that while the ancients problematised the rhetorical use of affect, Carl Gustav Jung might have place too much faith in the authenticity of emotional ‘irruptions’. The book considers the ‘open’ mandala implied in contemporary anthropology and philosophy. It demonstrates two very different directions in which the ‘classic’ Jungian premise is translated into clinical practice. The book also suggests that the application of analytical psychology in clinical practice is an offshoot of Jung’s analysis of texts that caught his imagination; and that his works first and foremost present a narrative or textual theory.
