Psyche and Eros
Mind and Gender in the Life Course

This 1994 book asserts that the experience of development differs along gender lines.

Gisela Labouvie-Vief (Author)

9780521433402, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 26 August 1994

348 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.5 cm, 0.642 kg

"Particularly attractive is the way she uses religion and mythology, as well as literature, psychology and philosophy throughout her work. The work ends with a valuable bibliography and an index." The Journal of Indo-European Studies

In Psyche and Eros, first published in 1994, Gisela Labouvie-Vief describes historical and current concepts of mind and development, drawing from disciplines as diverse as philosophy, mythology, religion, literature, and psychology. She then presents a powerful theory of the maturing of mind, which brings together her empirical work and her exploration into mythology. The classical Greek myth of the gods Psyche and Eros serves as an evocative illustration of the author's theory. Psyche and Eros asserts that the core experience of development differs along gender lines. Rationality is regarded as masculine, while imagination is viewed as feminine. Competition between 'masculine' and 'feminine' parts of the mind has limited our ability to describe the mind and its development over the life course, just as it limits our experiences of development as men and women. The author suggests that we overcome the dualistic way of thinking about mind, and see how rationality and imagination can complement each other.

Acknowledgments
1. Prelude
Part I. The Mind Divided: 2. The rage of Aphrodite: the vertical mind
3. The marriage of death: ascent and loss in development
4. Night and day: reason and gender
Part II. The Mind Restored: 5. Knife and lamp: Mythos rediscovered
6. Psyche's trials: the transformation of desire
7. Postlude: the sacred marriage
Notes
References.

Subject Areas: Social, group or collective psychology [JMH]