Monika Wikman stories us into transformation. In her case-studies of dream work with clients, both the drama of the personal psyche and our participation in collective myths shine as if through stained glass. The reader's own life takes on extraordinary colors of "what is possible."

What needs to be transformed? "When we become ill, or lose jobs, or relationships are on the brink," or when we experience the darkness of any unknowing, Wikman offers tools for renewal. For meaning-making that engages the whole of our psyche, she surrounds us with mirrors for psychological healing from dreams, poetry, art, ritual, metaphor, and storytelling.
Her own story shines assurance regarding the importance of conscious transformation. Given a death sentence with stage IV cancer, Wikman describes the experience of surrender to the darkness of unknowing, which opened autonomous energy available in the transpersonal realm for "spontaneous remission." (A resounding title, then, Pregnant Darkness).

She found in C.G. Jung's work the lens that recognized how such "mysteries" are described by alchemists, world religions, and pagan deities. After a doctorate in mainstream clinical psychology with research on dreams of the dying, Wikman earned her diplomat at the C.G. Jung Institut, Zurich.
 
With Pregnant Darkness she provides the richness of personal and professional experience for a much overlooked arena--how the personal psyche can tap into the "transcendent dimensions of reality that are beyond the ego and ordinary states of consciousness." Such a journey may not be for the faint-hearted, since guiding and protecting forces activate by encounter with inner darkness.

In this dynamic, Wikman's descriptions of work with clients draw us into the poignant "possibility of a renewing drink" from the living waters that reside beyond the ego. Something wise resides in our psychic makeup that instructs and inspires, if we open to what is possible. These cases of healing resonate with symbols that provide both personal and universal guides to transcend our hanging on the cross of "opposites"-desire and duty, known and unknown, shadow and persona, our conscious sun and reflective moon.

Here a brilliant mind and a poetic voice "plunges to the depths", as Jung described this kind of writing. Yet this work also grounds in cultural, political, and ecological attentions. The context is a field of heart, soul, and (from Rumi) "companions who have come before." And Wikman attends to personal love, perhaps the most universal peak experience, how it alters and incarnates meaning. Love lifts into a spiral of personal renewal and sometimes to a larger Self and wholeness, "giving and glowing in all directions."

Book Review in The Association for Humanistic Studies Journal, Summer 2006
by Don Eulert

A Drink of Living Water

Monika Wikman stories us into transformation. In her case-studies of dream work with clients, both the drama of the personal psyche and our participation in collective myths shine as if through stained glass. The reader's own life takes on extraordinary colors of "what is possible."

What needs to be transformed? "When we become ill, or lose jobs, or relationships are on the brink," or when we experience the darkness of any unknowing, Wikman offers tools for renewal. For meaning-making that engages the whole of our psyche, she surrounds us with mirrors for psychological healing from dreams, poetry, art, ritual, metaphor, and storytelling.
Her own story shines assurance regarding the importance of conscious transformation. Given a death sentence with stage IV cancer, Wikman describes the experience of surrender to the darkness of unknowing, which opened autonomous energy available in the transpersonal realm for "spontaneous remission." (A resounding title, then, Pregnant Darkness).

She found in C.G. Jung's work the lens that recognized how such "mysteries" are described by alchemists, world religions, and pagan deities. After a doctorate in mainstream clinical psychology with research on dreams of the dying. She graduated in Zurich as a diplomat from the Research and Training
Center for Depth Psychology according to Carl G. Jung and Marie Louise Von
Franz.
 
With Pregnant Darkness she provides the richness of personal and professional experience for a much overlooked arena--how the personal psyche can tap into the "transcendent dimensions of reality that are beyond the ego and ordinary states of consciousness." Such a journey may not be for the faint-hearted, since guiding and protecting forces activate by encounter with inner darkness.

In this dynamic, Wikman's descriptions of work with clients draw us into the poignant "possibility of a renewing drink" from the living waters that reside beyond the ego. Something wise resides in our psychic makeup that instructs and inspires, if we open to what is possible. These cases of healing resonate with symbols that provide both personal and universal guides to transcend our hanging on the cross of "opposites"-desire and duty, known and unknown, shadow and persona, our conscious sun and reflective moon.

Here a brilliant mind and a poetic voice "plunges to the depths", as Jung described this kind of writing. Yet this work also grounds in cultural, political, and ecological attentions. The context is a field of heart, soul, and (from Rumi) "companions who have come before." And Wikman attends to personal love, perhaps the most universal peak experience, how it alters and incarnates meaning. Love lifts into a spiral of personal renewal and sometimes to a larger Self and wholeness, "giving and glowing in all directions."