3 out of 4 stars
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If you were to Google 'psychology greats', a host of names would appear that include Sigmund Freud, Ivan Pavlov, William James, Abraham Maslow and Carl Jung. Each has his own teaching on the human condition. Pavlov had his ringing bells and salivating dogs while Maslow introduced us to the hierarchy of needs. Carl Jung, after being a student and colleague of Freud, ventured off on his own path to uncover the hidden person that lies beneath the surface in all of us. In her book, Spiritual Real Estate, Joanne Park delves into the obscure world of what people are composed of as outlined in the work of Jung.
The author has spent a good amount of her career as a realtor visiting various properties and trying to match people with the home of their dreams. She uses this as an analogy in her book to inspire people to unearth the hidden parts of themselves that are lying dormant in the unconscious. Just like looking at an abandoned house riddled with overgrown weeds and thistles, she is asking her readers to get out the spiritual weed whipper and take some time to consider the parts of themselves they have been overlooking. With this cleanup effort, the outcome should be a more conscious and meaningful existence.
She discovered that after being introduced to the work of Carl Jung, her life took a turn for the better. She began putting into practice what he suggested and found through self-reflective exercises that she had been pushing her true self down, and she was wearing a mask, as described by Jung, that only allowed the world to see what she desired to reveal. This self-care journey led to freeing herself from a tortured, self-destructive lifestyle into self-awareness where she acknowledged her feelings and became awakened to her true self. The goal is that readers will set out on their own road toward healing and wholeness.
The book is laid out in three parts with short chapters, which I found was a nice touch as some of this material can be heavy. Because Jung has so much information from his lifetime of work, the author condensed it into one book with the hopes that people will find it more accessible versus slogging through stacks of writings. The crucial parts of his findings are highlighted such as paying attention to dreams and documenting them, what the six personality types are, and drawing mandalas to reveal psyche. I especially enjoyed the part about synchronicity where events seem to occur, or people and ideas come along right as you think about them or need them. I have been the recipient of such experiences where a person realizes that nothing happens by chance or accident.
Besides all of its good qualities, the book did have a few bumps along the way. I have a Bachelor of Arts in psychology, so when I saw that someone had taken on the arduous task of bringing some of Jung's lofty ideas down to impact the masses at a layman's level, I jumped right in. I believe that once a person is exposed to the world of psychology, especially in a formal education such as mine, it stays with him or her so that one is always on the lookout for what might be a fresh take on long ago written material. This book would be fitting for a person who is interested in exploring the field of psychology. I am not sure the average person would find themselves enthralled with this type of reading unless they are called to it. Yes, it has a redeeming quality to make people search inwardly to self-analyze, but in some places, the writing seemed like my textbooks from college and the terms were not always easy to digest. There were moments when I felt like I was preparing for an exam. The author does give some activities to partake in, but these weren't as prominent in the first part of the book which I think would have helped the material seem less dry. Where she speaks of her own personal experiences and the application of Jung's ideas, I thought those to be rewarding because I could then visualize the point she was trying to get across.
In addition to these slight faults, I found a few words that did not need capitalization. These were minor and did not distract from the context, but I made note of them for another round of proofreading. Some of the words found were high school, black, ghetto, and inner self.
After reading this, my relationship with Jung is much like a status you would find on Facebook. It's complicated. This is not easy reading due to technical vocabulary, but at the same time, the author did attempt to make it less cumbersome to introduce her audience to Jung's significant psychological work. I give this book a 3 out of 4 rating.
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Spiritual Real Estate
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