A measure of our need for integrity, John Beebe writes, is that "we rarely allow ourselves an examination of the concept itself. To do so would betray an unspoken philosophic, poetic, and psychological rule of our culture: not to disturb the mystery of what we desire most." In this book, Beebe reveals much about the nature of integrity while honoring its central mystery. He traces the evolution of the concept from a moral and theological notion to a psychological one. Viewing anxiety and shame as functions of integrity, he shows the contributions depth psychology can make to integrity's development. Drawing on his own years of experience as a psychotherapist, Beebe shows how the holding environment of psychotherapy can use delight and rage, dreams and transference to reveal and foster individual integrity.

Of the qualities we seek in ourselves and in each other, surely integrity is among the most important. One measure of our need for it may be that we rarely allow ourselves an examination of the concept itself. To do so would be to betray an unspoken philosophic, poetic, and psychological rule of our culture: not to disturb the mystery of what we desire most. Clarification would threaten integrity, a word we have used like a magic spell to protect what is purest in us from danger.

This beautiful word, integrity, can create a state of grace in the person blessed by being said to possess it. I have spent many years pondering the meaning of this elusive reality around which so much of everyone's fantasy and anxiety is organized. After years of experience in analytical psychotherapy, both as patient and as practitioner, I am convinced of integrity's central importance in human psychology, and in this book I will explore the topic in depth. Our job will be to try to understand integrity better--to risk the mystery, perhaps, by diving beyond the charm cast by the shimmering surface of the word down into the cold, unexplored waters of the archetype that hides below.

Let us start more objectively, then, with a look at the map we have been given for this largely unexplored territory. Let . . .