The Pregnant Virgin: A Process of Psychological Transformation

Robert B. MacIntyre is head of the Centre for Relationship Therapy and
Education in Orangeville, Ontario.

Marion Woodman is one of the more accessible Jungian writers, and this volume will appeal to many readers, including those interested in Jungian and feminist thought, as well as professionals in the field. Woodman is concerned with the treatment and psychoanalysis of individual clients, especially those whose unconscious drive for health and real aliveness takes them through food and other addictions. She is also insistent that we must come to a relationship with our buried femininity in order to stave off the destructive potential of our technological, and masculine, society. In this book she deals with feminine consciousness and explores the archetypes, complexes, and unconscious processes arising from the feminine side of both men and women.

Strong and sometimes seemingly paradoxical archetypical images abound in her work and are used to explore both the dark side of repressed femininity and the potential for growth inherent in the full acceptance of this part of our nature. The Pregnant Virgin of the title holds within her the possibility for all growth and change, while being perpetually new and open, a symbol for the possibility of psychological change and rebirth in each of us. The path of this rebirth leads to, and through, the inward turning, static and changing, Chrysalis of personal transformation where our disowned potential becomes actual, changing us totally. The archetype of the Black Madonna combines body and spirit, sexuality and spirituality, earthy fecundity and spiritual integration; it has the power to heal the splits between our various selves, to rescue the children of our unconscious and bring them to full maturity.

Well written, provocative, and insightful, this book on feminine consciousness can speak to those of us who also happen to be male.