Beyond Persona

Lavinia Tanculescu-Popa has skillfully explored and captured the internal territories of prominent Jungian analysts allowing us to connect and open ourselves to experience how eternally connected we all are. In these analyst's personal narratives, one begins to find parts of oneself such that one is eager to read another story finding another glimpse of ourselves. With co-editor Mark Winborn, Beyond Persona illustrates Jung's timeless ideas which are desperately in need of reconsideration in the face of contemporary life today. Audrey Punnett, PhD, Jungian Child, Adolescent & Adult Analyst (IAAP); author of The Orphan: A Journey to Wholeness; editor of Jungian Child Analysis & Jungian Child Analysis: Cultural Perspectives The interviews of Dr. Tanculescu-Popa are like bright gems, each with their own colour and texture. This extraordinary collection of biographies illuminates the rich cultural diversity of her Jungian colleagues. The author has the gift of creating a safe container that encourages the interviewees to reveal significant and intimate parts of their lives, beyond Persona, as inferred in the title. Her colleagues do not just talk about their entire history, but in a spontaneous, unique, and deeply personal way, reveal early periods that were decisive in forming their fundamental and lifelong attitude to themselves and to their work John Hill, MA, Training Analyst, International School of Analytical Psychology, Zurich (ISAP) and author of the book, At Home in the World: Sounds and Symmetries of Belonging. What could be more compelling than a great story? These conversations with exemplary interviewer Lavinia Tanculescu-Popa tell the back stories of a group of Jungians who share the intimate aspects of their early lives that made them the sensitive, perceptive, and gifted analysts they are today. The reader will likely weep at the sheer vulnerability of these candid storytellers. This volume offers a novel portrayal of three generations of Jungian analysts, contributing to a history of contemporary Jungians grounded in the personal rather than the theoretical. Through these stories, Levinia Tanculescu-Popa and Mark Winborn gift us with their extraordinary effort to refashion how we know our colleagues, our lineage, and even ourselves. Jeffrey Moulton Benevedes, PhD, Editor-in-Chief, Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche