» Psyche's Veil: Psychotherapy, Fractals and Complexity

Psyche's Veil: Psychotherapy, Fractals and Complexity Reviews

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Summary: Fractals of the mMind
Comment:
The bad news about Psyche's Veil is that what Terry Marks-Tarlow has attempted is impossible. The good news is that she has brought it off anyway.
What she has attempted is to write a book of groundbreaking psychological theory, and do it in a style that is exemplary on a professional level, and yet accessible to the general reader. I'm a general reader, and I got it, so that part is covered. I haven't checked in with any other psychologists, but I've read enough in the literature, including being editor for one edition of Karl Jung's Man and His Symbols, that I'm pretty sure her peers will accept this as a valuable contribution to the literature.
The thesis of Psyche's Veil is that linear, insert tab A in slot B, psychotherapy, is too limited to be very effective.
This might seem something of a no-brainer to perceptive New Agers, or to graduate students in math or physics. But my experiences as an analysand leave me with the conviction that it will be a whole new world to all but the most progressive psychotherapists.
What she proposes instead is therapy based on the mathematical concept of fractals.
And what, you might ask, are fractals? Marks-Tarlow writes about a conversation she once had with the late Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics, in which she said, "I think fractals are profound, don't you?" To which Feynman replied, "I don't know. I've never really understood fractals."
Personally I'm with Feynman, but I'll try. Fractals are a mathematical concept in which the whole is represented in its entirety within the part. That's a lousy explanation. But in psychology it plays itself out in the idle glance, or the offhand remark that is representative of the whole, and from which the whole can be deduced, or better, to use Robert Heinlein's wonderful word, grokked.
Marks-Tarlow uses many case studies to demonstrate how her theory plays itself out. They are well chosen and well presented. They are also clear. In comparison with most writing in the social sciences this is a blessing.
Psyche's Veil is primarily addressed to therapists, and its goal is to bring its primary audience to a new level of awareness. Its presentation ranges from basic psychological theory through very complicated (to me) math, to perceptive analyses of Vedantist thought. I was thoroughly convinced that she is absolutely right.
This is not supposed to be a self-help book. But I found answers to questions about my own psychological make up in it that had eluded me through more than a decade of therapy. So I can truthfully say that this is one self that it helped a lot.
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