Also available in an open-access, full-text edition at http:
//oaktrust.library.tamu.edu/handle/1969.1/85766
"Emotion is an expression of the self," Verena Kast writes in this
ground-breaking study of the neglected emotions of joy, inspiration, and
hope. "If we decide we no longer want to hide behind empty shells, then
we will have to allow certain emotions more room. We will have to let
ourselves laugh louder, cry louder, and shout for joy."
Kast skillfully and engagingly makes the case that not only therapists
and analysts but also individuals seeking growth in their own lives
should give more attention to the elated emotions. Fear of excess
(mania) and analytic preoccupation with grief, anxiety, and depression
have together caused joy and hope to be shunned as a focus in
individuation (the process toward wholeness). Kast convincingly
demonstrates the role of joy in relationship and existential
involvement. Joy answers the human need for elated feeling and meaning
in our lives, a need which is often filled in modern society by
secularized parodies of religious ecstasy, such as addiction and
compulsiveness.
Kast explores the Dionysian myth as an archetypal image of the
transforming effect of ecstasy on the personality. She considers
Sisyphus, the absurd hero of French existentialism, as the symbol for
rejection of false hope and joy, rejection which clears the way for true
hope rooted in basic trust and the positive mother archetype. She
suggests simple techniques for recapturing our joy through development
of an autobiography of joy. Using this approach, we can discover what
gives us joy personally, how we can best experience joy, and how and why
we choke off our joy. By viewing joy, inspiration, and hope as core
emotions in our being, we open ourselves to greater wholeness and fuller
life.
