Description
Book SynopsisThe book combines two main perspectives: the study of the social unconscious and the study of fairy tales. Examining different versions of fairy tales told by different ethnic communities teaches us about the relations between universal and local/cultural aspects of the social unconscious. Exploring the unique status of fairy tales as located on the border line between concrete/somatic and abstract/linguistic realms sheds light on different levels of the human mind. The book focuses on a specific phenomenon common in fairy tales: a realization of idiomatic expressions - a phenomenon in which an abstract/mental idea is hidden behind a concrete event embedded in the plot. Deciphering the abstract idea out of the pictorial world of the fairy tale enables to understand the stories in a way which is not available otherwise. The book suggests interdisciplinary examination, reminding us the rich, deep messages hidden in fairy tales, and connecting us to early developments in the field of psychoanalysis, by suggesting new interpretation to old, ancient material. The book may be of interest to therapists in the clinical community, as well as to everyone who is fascinated by the fantastic, magical world of fairy tales.
Trade Review'Fairy tales move here magically between the concrete and the abstract, the somatic and spiritual. The reader is fascinated by the play with human existence, from intimacy to primordial experiences, and the emergence of unconscious relations in society. This book is an eye-opener to the meanings and functions of metaphors and the symbolic world of fairy tales.'- Robi Friedman, PhD, clinical psychologist and group analyst, President of the International Group Analytic Society'In this richly textured text, Ravit Raufman and Haim Weinberg integrate fable, myth, fairytale and group psychotherapy, deepening the reader's understanding of the social unconscious and its historic, cross cultural and collective roots. Language is the essential medium of our work and this text expands our therapeutic capacity to understand in depth our patients' language and use of metaphor.'- Molyn Leszcz, MD, psychiatrist-in-chief, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, and professor and clinical vice chair in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto'Once upon a time, Ravit Raufman and Haim Weinberg, two Israeli writers, went looking for the source of fairy tales. They journey on borderlines between the somatic and symbolic, go past Bettelheim's "Uses of Enchantment", through the world of living fossils to somatic idioms, and beyond language via nonverbal experience they enter the realm of the imaginary. Here they make new discoveries about differences between Jung's collective and Foulkes's social unconscious, as Freud's and Bollas's shadows are cast on the objects. Their scholarship, enchantment and originality break new ground and the authors' discoveries will provide landmarks in many fields.'- John Schlapobersky, training analyst, Institute of Group Analysis, London, and author of From the Couch to the Circle: Group-Analytic Psychotherapy in Practice
Table of ContentsSeries Editor's Foreword , Introduction 1 , Giving one's heart and speaking from the bottom of the heart: the case of the Jewish mother in Eastern European tales , Asked for her hand and the tales about the handless maiden: how is taking the hand associated with a marriage proposal? , Living in her skin: social skin-ego and the maiden who enters others' skins in fairy tales , Eyes and envy: reading Grimms' One-eye, Two-eyes and Three-eyes and its Jewish parallels , I (do not) see what you mean: the concrete and metaphoric dimensions of blindness in fairy tales and the social mind , To step into someone's shoes: the tales about Cinderella , Fire of lust: passion and greed in fairy tales and the social (un)conscious , To eat a crow (swallow frogs): a story of decrees and humiliation , Epilogue
