Living in the Borderland:The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma

This author clearly describes what constitutes a Borderland Personality and the effect having access to non-ordinary states of consciousness may have on the lives of individuals. The description of his work as a Jungian Analyst, also utilizing Navajo healing modalities expands the horizons of Western psychotherapy. I was interested in the differentiation between dissociation occurring as the result of personal trauma and the transition into Borderland states. He addresses this issue by noting that Borderland Personalities find acceptance of their Borderland states by a healing professional extremely healing in itself and that these states are experienced as sacred. Bernstein also utilizes his own countertransferential bodily sensations as clues. I found his hypothesis that Borderland Personalities' intimate experiences of nature such as communication with animals represents an evolutionary correction to the human ego's development and split from nature, especially in the West, interesting.

A great book that shows the close relationship with Native American Shamanism, Borderland Personality, & Jungian psychological concepts.

In his book Living in the Borderland, Jungian Analyst Jerome Bernstein provides a fascinating account of the development of the Western ego from an historical interpretation of the Bible down to our present post-Cold War environment. The author posits that this development has moved the Western psyche away from its roots in Nature into an ever more abstracted intellectual consciousness. As the human species approaches the very real potential for self-annihilation through nuclear assault and ultimate environmental degradation, an evolutionary shift in psychic consciousness has begun, a shift that appears in a growing number of individuals. In a Darwinian sense, it is an evolutionary manifestation of species survival. This shift is evidenced as the psyche's reconnection with Nature, to Nature in all its forms, animate and inanimate, that over the millennia the collective Western ego has neglected as it has developed increasingly toward abstraction of thought and the illusion of control. Through the years of his therapeutic practice Bernstein has seen many patients who are exhibiting this psychic shift. He calls these people Borderlanders, they live in a borderland between rational intellect and an emerging transrational consciousness.For some Borderlanders, this awareness of the transrational as a dominant and controlling force in the psyche can be traumatic, not infrequently causing the individual to worry that he or she may be "crazy." Traditional psychological approaches to therapy often exacerbate this fear in that most therapists are unaware of the "normalcy" of this evolutionary shift in consciousness. They therefore tend to consider their Borderland patients as suffering from a psychic pathology. And herein is a major emphasis of this book: to alert psychological and medical practitioners as well as the patients themselves, that certain patients' experiences, while evidencing symptoms of psychic trauma, may not be pathological. The situation is often complicated, however, when a patient may evidence psychological illness that is genuinely symptomatic of traumatic experience, yet is unrelated to a patient's borderland consciousness. In this case it is the formidable task of the therapist to differentiate the pathological from the new evolutionary consciousness that is beginning to manifest.The book is extremely well researched and thoroughly documented with personal testimonials, bibliographic references, and case studies, and contains an exhaustive bibliography. It is essential reading for all psychotherapists and medical practitioners and their patients, and is especially relevant to those suffering from or treating environmental illness. Individuals interested in Jungian psychology and early childhood educators who may be encountering this psychic phenomenon among children will find the guidance of this book invaluable.Reviewed by Mari Graña, writer. Santa Fe, NM

I just finished this book, and I've been delighted from cover to cover. First of all, the intellectual rigor and empathic power the author brings to bear are impressive traits -- even more impressive when combined into a strange and wise force of exploration.In this book, Jerome Bernstein has named the suffering and the secret of so many people like myself -- but this is not some kind of drama-stirring text, some kind of imagination or a fairy tale we wish is true. It's good, sound investigation -- one of the most-quoted people in the book is Albert Einstein -- and it respects more than just a cultural level of understanding.This book should be read by clinicians and psychological professionals across the board, and I strongly recommend it to the educated person who might consider themselves a "Borderlander." Enter with curiosity and an open mind and you will be more than rewarded.

Amazing book, complex but full of deep insight and wisdom

This insightful work de-pathologizes and validates the highly sensitive person, exploring the social and ecological value of uber-intuitives and offering clinicians exciting new approaches to working with such individuals. A well-constructed and accessible read.

Excellent, insightful, and profound.

Best book on understanding the indigenous way of being I've read in a long time.

This is an essential, wonderfully enlightening book and for me at least, something which has quite literally shone a bright light into what was a whole collection of 'stuff' that I was trying to understand and learn about through my own enquiries.Read the reviews on Amazon US and you'll know whether this book is what you've been looking for; and then get it. It IS what I had been experiencing, and knowing now what has been/is happening with me and my life over the last five years or so has been nothing less than a revelation.I have been buying books from Amazon for many years and have for whatever reason never been sufficiently compelled enough to post a review of sorts. Now I have. This is a very, very serious and important book and I hope more people who need it, become aware of it.Be well.

One of the most useful books I have purchased.

This reads like yet another American know-all with no poetry in any cell of his body puffing out a turgid PhD thesis and tacking it on to some mystical stuff about Navaho consciousness. The entire book is written in a dreary style that sounds like "evidence" for his private solution to the world's problems and he obviously expected to become a guru with this dreary nonsense. I could barely keep awake as my wife read it to me.Wherever he quotes the real thing, i.e. Jung, the prose sparkles with originality. But this guy can't write and should have even tried.