The Cry For Myth ⋆ Book Box PDF

The Cry For Myth (pdf) by ROLLO MAY

As A PRACTICING PSYCHOANALYST I find that contemporary therapy is almost entirely concerned, when all is surveyed, with the problems of the individual’s search for myths. The fact that Western society has all but lost its myths was the main reason for the birth and development of psychoanalysis in the first place. Freud and the divergent therapists made it clear that myths are the essential language in psychoanalysis.

The great interest in Joseph Campbell’s television talks on myth is the most obvious demonstration of the profound need throughout Western countries for myth. But whereas Campbell’s talks were almost exclusively about myths in India, Asia, China, and Asia Minor, this book is about myths as they are immediately present in the consciousness and unconsciousness of contemporary living people in the West.

We are concerned here with narratives which come up continuously in contemporary psychotherapy.

I speak of The Cry For Myths because I believe there is an urgency in the need for myth in our day. Many of the problems of our society, including cults and drug addiction, can be traced to the lack of myths which will give us as individuals the inner security we need in order to live adequately in our day. The sharp increase in suicide among young people and the surprising increase in depression among people of all ages are due, as I show in this book, to the confusion and the unavailability of adequate myths in modern society. This book will appeal, I hope, to people in America and similar countries as part of our endeavor to bring the problem of myths into open consciousness and to show how myths can be rediscovered as tools for understanding ourselves.

This is especially urgent as we seek to give meaning to our lives—in our creativity, our loves, our challenges—since we stand on the threshold of a new century. The approach of a new period in history stimulates us to take stock of our past and to ask the question of the meaning we have made and are making in our lives. It is in that mood that I offer this book.

Rollo May

Foreword

Part I: THE FUNCTION OF MYTHS

ONE What Is a Myth?
“I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN”
CULTS AND MYTHS
THE DENIAL OF MYTHS
MYTH AS OUR GLIMPSE OF INFINITY
TWO Our Personal Crises in Myths
SATAN AND CHARLES
A PATIENT’S DREAM OF ATHENA
SARTRE AND The Flies
DRAMAS EXPRESSING MYTHS
THREE In Search of Our Roots
THE PASSION TO FIND OUR HOME
MYTHS AS CELEBRATIONS
WHERE HAVE ALL OUR HEROES GONE?
MYTHS AND MORALS: MURDER IN CENTRAL PARK
FOUR Myth and Memory
MEMORY NEEDS MYTH
ADLER AND EARLY MEMORIES
FIVE Freud and the Mystery of Myths
OEDIPUS—MYTH OF SELF-DISCOVERY
MYTHS OF LOVE AND DEATH
THE TRAGEDY OF TRUTH ABOUT ONESELF
RESPONSIBILITY NOT GUILT
THE HEALING POWER OF MYTH

Part II: MYTHS IN AMERICA

SIX The Great Myth of the New Land
THE MYTH OF THE FRONTIER
LONELINESS IN AMERICA
VIOLENCE AND LONELINESS
THE SEDUCTION OF THE NEW
THE MYTH OF PROTEUS
SEVEN Individualism and Our Age of Narcissism
THE MYTH AND NEUROSIS OF NARCISSUS
THE NEUROSIS OF OUR TIME
THE HORATIO ALGER MYTH
CONTEMPORARY EVIL IN PARADISE
THE AGE OF MELANCHOLY
NARCISSISM, DRUGS, AND MONEY
EIGHT Gatsby and the American Dream
THE JAZZ AGE
TRAGIC SUCCESS
THE INABILITY TO CARE
THE AMERICAN-STYLE GOD
CONSCIOUSNESS IN AMERICA
THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS

Part III: MYTHS OF THE WESTERN WORLD

NINE The Therapist and the Journey Into Hell
DANTE’S DIVINE COMEDY
VIRGIL AND TRANSFERENCE
THE JOURNEY THROUGH HELL
THE FREEDOM TO LOVE
TEN Peer Gynt: A Man’s Problem in Loving
THE LOSS OF ONE’S SELF
THE MEANING OF TROLLDOM
THE VALUE OF DESPAIR
THE STRANGE PASSENGER
LOVE AND RESTORATION
ELEVEN Briar Rose Revisited
FAIRY TALE AND MYTH
CREATIVE PRESENCE
REVISITING BRIAR ROSE
TWELVE Faust: The Myth of Patriarchal Power
THE FAUST STORY
MARLOW’S FAUST—GRANDEUR AND TRAGEDY
THE HARDENED HEART
THE CATHARSIS OF MYTH
THIRTEEN Goethe’s Faust and the Enlightenment
GOD AND MEPHISTOPHELES
MYTHIC AGONY
CULTURAL CREATIVITY
THE SALVATION OF FAUST
FOURTEEN Faust in the Twentieth Century
CONVERSATION WITH THE DEVIL
THE LAMENTATION OF DR. FAUSTUS
PSYCHOTHERAPY AS FAUSTIAN
FIFTEEN The Devil and Creativity
THE SOURCES OF CREATIVITY
POE’S “RAVEN”
MOBY DICK AND THE MYTH OF CAPTAIN AHAB
CATHARSIS IN THE STRUGGLE WITH EVIL