The Seba library treats Embrace in 9 passages, across 7 authors (including Neumann, Erich, von Franz, Marie-Louise, Levine, Peter A.).
ego consciousness frees itself from the devouring embrace of the dragon of the unconscious… it breaks free from the embrace of the world dragon.
Neumann uses the double motif of the devouring embrace—first of the unconscious dragon, then of the world dragon—to structure the entire two-phase arc of individuation, making ‘embrace’ synonymous with the regressive pull that consciousness must overcome.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019thesis
in whose embrace I am made young, from whose kiss I receive the breath of life, in whose loving embrace my whole body is lost.
Von Franz reads the alchemical text’s erotic embrace imagery as a figure for the coniunctio and the king’s renewal, arguing that the anima’s yearning for the sponsus’s embrace symbolizes the psyche’s drive toward wholeness through the union of opposites.
, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis
The agent held him firmly enough to not be ripped away by the angry mob, yet gently enough for her embrace to match the words she calmly recited in Spanish.
Levine argues that a physically calibrated embrace—simultaneously containing and gentle—is an indispensable somatic vehicle for trauma regulation, without which even carefully scripted verbal reassurance would fail.
, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, 2010thesis
Shakti, and Shiva embrace… Shiva, 39, 41, 83, 207; and Shakti embrace.
Jung’s seminar index records the Shiva-Shakti embrace as a recurring instance of the archetypal coincidentia oppositorum, positioning sacred erotic union as a structural symbol within the psychological analysis of Zarathustra.
, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939, 1988supporting
the kedeshoth… who, in the embrace of the male, is willing to surrender only to something suprapersonal, to the god and nothing but the god.
Neumann reads the sacred prostitute’s embrace as an act of transpersonal surrender, in which the female figure refuses personal relationship and yields only to the divine masculine, revealing a feminine psychology organized around the suprapersonal.
, The Origins and History of Consciousness (Princeton, 2019supporting
We can embrace the total range of human expression while still striving toward the best possible communication within a particular medium… an embrace of the total range of human expression.
McNiff employs embrace as a volitional, ethical stance—the deliberate inclusion of all expressive modes—arguing that such openness amplifies rather than dilutes the power of specific creative forms in healing.
, Art Heals: How Creativity Cures the Soul, 2004supporting
embrace their experiences with an open and… cultivating a compassionate and non-reactive attitude towards one’s thoughts, emotions, and experiences.
Within DBT’s non-judgmental stance, embrace functions as a clinical directive to receive present-moment experience without evaluative resistance, constituting a behavioral operationalization of acceptance.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021supporting
a commitment to embracing reality, individuals can unlock the transformative potential of Radical Acceptance in their lives.
The DBT manual frames embracing reality as the operative act within Radical Acceptance, treating the term as shorthand for non-resistant acknowledgment of painful circumstances.
, DBT Skills Training Manual: Practical Workbook for Therapists, 2021aside
the Holy One… unites them again as they were before, and they again constitute one body and one soul… the ultimate experience of love is a realization that beneath the illusion of two-ness dwells identity.
Campbell’s cabalistic and Platonic material on the reunion of soul-halves provides implicit mythological context for the embrace as a symbol of primordial wholeness recovered through erotic union.
, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015aside