For your most intimate and significant relationship with the opposite sex, look within yourself, to anima and animus, the archetypal symbols that define and celebrate the presence of the Feminine in men and the Masculine in women. The authors use thier broad backgrounds in psychology, theology, philosophy, and the arts to follow the archetypes from clinical practice into a fascinating range of cultural manifestations, particularly in the world's great literature - from Dante to Pasternak - making this book the most wide-ranging study to date of these central concepts in Jungian psychology.

The sexual revolution: an evocative term, but what meaning can be given to it today? How does 'sexuality' come into being and what connections does it have with the changes that have affected personal life on a more general plane? In answering these questions, Anthony Giddens disputes many of the dominant interpretations of the role of sexuality in modern culture. The emergence of what the author calls plastic sexuality - sexuality freed from its intrinsic relation to reproduction - is analysed in terms of the long-term development of the modern social order and social influences of the last few decades. Giddens argues that the transformation of intimacy, in which women have played the major part, holds out the possibility of a radical democratization of the personal sphere. This book will appeal to a large general audience as well as being essential reading for students and professionals.

***FINALIST, USA Best Books 2010 Awards – Spirituality & Self-Help: Relationships The quest for lasting love is one of life’s essential pursuits, in some ways the most essential. But it’s also a quest that’s impossible to separate from spiritual and sexual needs. In Eros Ascending, author John Maxwell Taylor offers a wide-ranging study of sexual dysfunction in society and explains how healthy sexuality can be an entryway to universal love and higher consciousness. Based on Taylor’s twenty-three-year experience with Taoist practices, the book presents an engaging analysis of love, relationships, and sexuality from spiritual, romantic, and sexual perspectives. Taylor melds essential ideas by Jung, Gurdjieff, and Taoist Master Mantak Chia with science, biology, spiritual tradition, and current popular culture to shed new light on this eternal yet misunderstood subject. Not just for couples, the book is equally useful for single people who want to understand the methods for “learning to love yourself ” in preparation for a fulfilling, long-term relationship. Taylor draws on his eclectic background as a successful playwright, composer, actor, and musician in this persuasive plan for converting ordinary sexual energy into food for the soul.

Transforming Sexual Narratives offers readers the opportunity to address complex sexual problems through Narrative Relational Sex Therapy (NRST), an original approach that Suzanne Iasenza has developed during twenty-five years of clinical practice. This method presents a deeper, richer way of thinking about sexual challenges that has enabled clients to successfully rewrite their mistaken narratives to reclaim pleasure, intimacy, and satisfaction in their erotic lives. Drawing on the strengths of three very different therapeutic traditions — psychoanalytic, couple and family systems, and sex therapy — it delivers a fresh and dynamic way of understanding the complex interrelationship between personal, social, cultural, and familial sexual narratives. Chapters include conversations with diverse couples and individuals from all kinds of backgrounds and cultures, who exist in every kind of body, and in each case show how unconscious and harmful narratives can be transformed into healthy and pleasurable sex lives. This essential guide will help therapists to identify their client’s secret sexual stories and enable them to rewrite their inner narratives and relationship with sexuality for the better. Sex therapists will be able to integrate a relational perspective into behavioral treatment, individual and couple therapists will be able to weave sexuality into general psychotherapy, and psychoanalysts will be able to use the sexual history to identify early dynamics that affect adult intimacy.

From the author of Out of a Far Country, which details his dramatic conversion from an agnostic gay man who put his identity in his sexuality to a Bible professor who now puts his identity in Christ alone, comes a gospel-centered discussion of sex, desire, and relationships. Dr. Christopher Yuan explores the concept of holy sexuality--chastity in singleness or faithfulness in marriage--in a practical and relevant manner, equipping readers with an accessible yet robust theology of sexuality. Whether you want to share Christ with a loved one who identifies as gay or you're wrestling with questions of identity yourself, this book will help you better understand sexuality in light of God's grand story and realize that holy sexuality is actually good news for all.

The transformation of the Roman world from polytheistic to Christian is one of the most sweeping ideological changes of premodern history. At the center was sex. Kyle Harper examines how Christianity changed the ethics of sexual behavior from shame to sin, and shows how the roots of modern sexuality are grounded in an ancient religious revolution.

If God means for us to save sex for marriage, why doesn't he just zap us with sexuality on our wedding night? Why do most of us experience sexual feelings throughout our adult lives, not just in the safe confines of marriage? Is limiting marriage to the union of a man and a woman anything but outdated prejudice? What is our sexuality actually for? Today's culture overwhelmingly tells us that sex is essential for human flourishing. Far too often the church perpetuates the same message - as long as you are married. But far from being liberating, this idolising of sex leaves us even more sexually broken than before. With refreshing honesty and clarity, Ed Shaw calls on the church to rediscover its confidence in the Bible's teaching about our ability to experience or express sexual feelings. He points us to how God's word reveals that sexuality's ultimate purpose is to help us better know God and the full power of his passionate love. He shows us how this is surprisingly good news for all our joys and struggles with sexuality.

Sexual brokenness permeates our culture and is often a source of fear, shame, or secret sin for emerging adults within the church. But as we experience love, joy, and intimacy with God and others, sexual shame and sin lose their power. Incorporating peer-to-peer leadership, this small group curriculum invites us to seek sexual maturity and discipleship in the context of community.

Critically exploring the ways in which men and masculinities are commonly theorized, this multidisciplinary text opens up a discussion around such relationships, and shows that, as with feminisms, there is a diversity of theoretical traditions. It draws on a variety of examples, and explores new directions in the complexities of diverse male identities and emotional lives across different histories, cultures and traditions. This book: considers the experiences of different generations explores connections between masculinity and drugs investigates men and masculinities in a post-9/11 world considers new ways of thinking about male violence recognizes the importance of culture and provides spaces to explore different class, ‘race’ and ethnic masculinities. Written in a practical, versatile manner by an established author in this field, it points to new directions in thinking, and makes essential reading for advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in the fields of sociology, gender studies, politics, philosophy and psychology.

Challenging misconceptions on all sides of the homosexuality debate, Burk and Lambert show how a biblical view of same-sex orientation, temptation, and desire gives hope for profound personal change.