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Here are just a few of the reviews of Threads, Knots, Tapestries, an application of Jungian Psychology to dream interpretation based on the theories of Carl Jung:
Thomas Peter von Bahr
Washington bookstore owner and frequent reviewer for New Age Retailer
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
Jungian Psychology Analyst and author of Women Who Run with the Wolves
Robert Hinshaw, Ph.D.
Training analyst and faculty member of the Carl Jung Institute of Zurich
Alice Tawwater Frazier, LPC, LMFT, BCIAC, CGP
President Dallas Group Psychotherapy
C. Michael Smith, Ph.D.
Author of Carl Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue, and Psychotherapy and the Sacred. Adjunct professor of psychology and religion, The Chicago Theological Seminary
Fredrica R. Halligan, Ph.D.
Psychologist and the current Director of the Counseling Center at Western Connecticut State University
Thomas Peter von Bahr, New Age Retailer
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"Life is inextricably complex and cannot be grasped or understood easily, ecologists say. People who have gained some life experience — shall we say, ventured into the human soup kitchen — have respect for the intricacy of the fabric of life. The three sections in this important book by Jungian analyst Tess Castleman are titled “Threads,” “Knots,” and “Tapestries.” Castleman trained at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. In “Threads,” she introduces readers to the world of dreams, expressed through social and cultural symbols. In the book’s provocative second part, “Knots,” she delves into a deep exploration of people’s inner psychology, including the dynamics of impulses and patterns of symbols that permeate people’s lives. She also explores group dream-sharing. Finally, in “Tapestries,” Castleman examines dream analysis that can unravel the mysteries of life’s intricate tapestry.
This fine Jungian work interprets synchronicities, which many people misunderstand as coincidences. Castleman regards the flow of human consciousness as a seminal wellspring of psychic energy. Refreshingly, the author makes many references to her own thoughts and shares aspects of her self-analysis through personal anecdotes. These passages humanize Castleman and remove the familiar, unsettling “I vs. you” separation found in many psychology books. The book concludes with a 24-page American Indian story that illustrates the tapestry of archetypes as it surfaces in tribalism and in day-to-day community life. With challenging content engagingly written, Threads, Knots, Tapestries deserves an honored place on our shelves of psychology, consciousness, and sociology books."
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Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.
Jungian Psychology Analyst and author of Women Who Run with the Wolves
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"Tess Castleman writes with enthusiasm and care about what Carl Jung called the collective and personal unconscious, particularly its message delivered in dreams. Ms. Castleman gives a fine set of insights into the group dream therapy area of Jungian Psychology as well as into the way symbolic language can help and inform an individual's life."
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Robert Hinshaw, Ph.D.
Training analyst and faculty member of the Carl Jung Institute of Zurich
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"'Truly, our lives are our best creative work.' Tess Castleman's Threads, Knots, Tapestries bears testimony to this simple and vital truth she has discovered. She is honest, forthright, uncompromising in her search for answers to the mysteries of the soul, and she makes no apologies: 'Sometimes I go home at the end of the day and cannot decide if I'm a prostitute, con artist or healer.' Do we have a tribal unconscious? The examples of the author's Jungian psychology group dreamwork cited in this book make a good case for it, and are revealing and creative all the way. The author's candid reflections, pokings and ponderings will provide stimulation for us all."
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Alice Tawwater Frazier, LPC, LMFT, BCIAC, CGP
President Dallas Group Psychotherapy
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"Threads, Knots, Tapestries is itself a rich and colorful carpet of stories, myths, beliefs, and dreams that weaves the human experience into something much deeper, richer, and more connected than is obvious at the level of mind and consciousness.
Castleman is a gifted and courageous pioneer in the field of Jungian Psychology, intertwining the wisdom of dream and group work into a powerful healing experience. I loved the book."
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C. Michael Smith, Ph.D
Author of Jung and Shamanism in Dialogue
And Psychotherapy and the Sacred
Adjunct Professor of Psychology and Religion
The Chicago Theological Seminary
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Threads, Knots and Tapestries reveals the way our dreaming expresses and reflects our deep interpersonal and environmental interconnexity. Our dreams are no longer to be viewed as of personal significance only. My dreams may not only open my heart and extend my awareness; they can open yours and extend your awareness as well. Your dreams, or your spouse's, or your neighbor's dreams may have important implications for your own life, your own situation. Drawing upon her decades of Jungian psychology practice, and many years of pioneering in dream groups, Castleman weaves a rich tapestry of dream threads which shows us how we are dreaming with and for each other. Her method is that of a storyteller telling the stories of people, their dreams, the stories of shamans, the stories of individuals suffering from cancer, love entanglements, and most delightfully, stories which show how dreams are woven together with communal life in other cultures, as well as in our own.
Castleman draws our attention to this deep place of interconnexity from which dreams spring, and calls it "the tribal dream field." She draws on Carl Jung and shamanism and takes us into the story of Black Elk, the Lakota holy man and healer whose dream-visions were danced and enacted with the participation of the tribe, and shows us how the Lakota understanding of dreams as having larger than personal significance underscores her own mission of establishing dream groups as a way of doing inner work that weaves it together with our lives, loves, and relationships with the outer world.
Her method of writing is accessible and clear, and resembles the way dreams, images, dream series, and communal dreamings interweave and even imply each other. After the first chapter one can dip into the book anywhere and reap riches of perspective about the power of dreams (or own and those of others) to open the heart and extend our horizons.
Jungian psychology therapists will be delighted to find ground rules for setting up and running dream groups. Lay people will find new ways to dialogue and explore their dreams with spouses, children and friends.
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Fredrica R. Halligan, Ph.D.
Psychologist and the current Director of the Counseling Center at Western Connecticut State University
"'Truly our lives are our best creative work.' (p. 254) Thus Tess Castleman concludes her literary journey through Jungian psychology approaches to dreamwork and synchronicity, all the while offering her readers her own observations of dream groups and other 'tribal phenomena.' Tess Castleman is herself a creative Jungian psychology analyst and experienced leader of dream groups. Her book is a rich compilation of dreams, stories and theory that blend well and make for delightful, almost easy reading."
"In part one, 'Threads,' Castleman gives a brief overview of Jungian psychology theory, showing how archetypes and complexes can provide important cues for understanding dreams. She introduces us to 'the magic of the dream maker,' which, she says, 'lies in the work that can be uncovered by examining images, feelings, metaphors, and symbols that appear in dreams. This is the language of our deep, archaic, ancient brain---which is also the language of literature and poetry.'"
Read More of Dr. Halligan's Review
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