Psyche's Sisters: Reimagining the Meaning of Sisterhood - Softcover

Christine Downing

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826404731 ISBN 13: 9780826404732

Publisher: Continuum

Synopsis

This work is an exploration of the ongoing significance of sisterly relationships throughout life, bringing together personal narrative with the illuminations provided by myth, fairy-tale, and the deep psychological reflections of Freud, Jung, and their followers. The book suggests that an imaginal return to the relationship with the actual sister of early years is only the beginning; it leads forward to an understanding of how that relationship reappears, transformed, in many friendships and love affairs, and to a challenging revision of the innermost self, and even toward a new way of imagining a woman's relation to the natural world. The book in no way sentimentalizes sisterhood. In her retelling of the familiar story about Psyche and Eros Downing focuses on Psyche's relation to her envious sisters who, she suggests, push Psyche in a way her soul requires. Reflection on this aspect of the story initiates women into an appreciation of how sisterly relationships challenge and nurture, even as they sometimes disappoint and betray one another.

About this title

About the Author

Christine Downing, Ph.D., teaches in the mythological studies doctoral program at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, after serving for almost 20 years as chair of the religious studies department at San Diego State University. Her fourteen books include The Goddess: Mythological Images of the Feminine, and, mostly recently, The Luxury of Afterwards, Preludes, and Gleanings.

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• ISBN 10: 0826404731
• ISBN 13: 9780826404732
• Binding: Paperback