Book Notices 99

For example, in "Success, retreat, panic: Over-stimulation and depressive defence," Hu l tbe rg discusses the c o m m o n symptoms of "unde rach ieve r " and "fear of success." Drawing onJung ' s concept o f " the regressive restoration of the persona," Hultberg explores the secret of how experiences such as dream fulfillment and ecstasy could be perceived as threatening to the psychic equilibrium. He gives a vivid description of pathological reactions (such as depression, grandiosity, and mania) to stimuli such as overexcitation. He also explores the function of defense mechanisms in the exper ience of overstimulation. He provides the reader with clinical impl icat ions in terms of t r ans fe rence and co u n t e r t r an s f e r en ce , and describes both successful and unsuccessful clinical interventions. He suggests, helpfully, that depressive defences are common in response to overstimulation in cultures where modesty, self-effacement, and noncompeti t iveness are considered primary moral values.

The reader will find this book filled with vigorous and vital thoughts, organized primarily in terms of the quest for the meaning of the soul's suffering, especially with regard toJung 's double concern with the personal and the social. The Editor, Samuels, summarizes this in the conclusion of the book: "Psychopathology provides one bridge between an analysis of the indk~dual and an analysis of culture."

Jeanne Ma

Of Chastity and Power--Elizabethan Literature and the Unmarried Queen by P. Berry. New York: Routledge & Chapman Hall, 1989.

Berry offers a thought-provoking, albeit complex, account that calls into question the historical pe rcep t ion of women and power in Western society. From the mythology of Diana to the icon of Queen Elizabeth I, Berry shows that the conflict involving women and the respect given to power stems from that fact that the attribution of feminine characteristics to any being cannot be viewed as wholly separate from the overall issue of the sexuality of women.

Feminine characteristics have been associated with wisdom, angels, nature, and morality, but justifying this endowment has always been problematic. Across history, women have been perceived as sexual and thus "only human" (or weak). Hence they have not been respected as the embodiment of power unless they have been void of sexuality. Only through purification (chastity) has a woman been rendered fit to hold any station.

Berry calls into question this historical opposition between female status and sexuality, exploring its relation to society's percept ion of women's acquisition of power. However, the task remains to study the implications of the fact that this pe rcep t ion cont innes to hold in Western society, with widespread negative consequences.

David Gregory