The Cry for Myth

ISBN-13:	9780393331776
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/01/1991
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	324
Sales rank:	254,529
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)

Here are case studies in which myths have helped Dr. May's patients make sense out of an often senseless world.It happens almost daily in a therapist's office. A patient, recalling a person, an event, an emotion, quite unexpectedly supplies a link from a life in the present to one of the durable myths of our culture. In this moment, the myth becomes a mirror, revealing to the patient the source of disturbance and pain in a pattern of behavior that often stretches a year or longer. The healing process begins. The myth, "eternity breaking into time" in Rollo Mays's words, becomes the focal point of recovery.Through tracing myths – whether from classical Greece and Dante's Middle Ages, European legend (Faust and the prototype of Sleeping Beauty), or contemporary American life (Jay Gatsby) — and relating them to the dreams and associations he encounters in his own practice, Dr. May provides meaning and structure for all who seek direction in a morally confusing world.In this, perhaps the finest achievement of a great therapist, Rollo May writes with "the grace, wit, and style: for which he recently received the Gold Medal of the American Psychological Society.