America's Identity Crisis

America's Identity Crisis  is an in-depth historical and cultural study of what Jung called America's "heroic ideal," the driving force of its national character. In shaping the American experience, this ideal is very much the source of both America's greatness  and  its problems. Michael Gellert argues that this ideal cannot adequately meet the complex challenges of the modern world, yet America remains fixated upon it. Although the nation's original heroic ideal as articulated by its founders had a powerful redeeming and guiding vision, Americans are at a loss as to what this means in a contemporary context. The author explores what the nation must focus on in its public discourse and in the education of its citizens in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Michael Gellert is a Jungian analyst practicing in Los Angeles, California. He treats individuals and couples and offers a Jungian Writing Workshop. He was formerly Director of Training at the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles, where he is currently a research instructor. He has also been a humanities professor at Vanier College, Montreal, and a lecturer in religious studies at Hunter College of the City University of New York. Prior to living in Los Angeles he lived in New York City, where he managed District Council 37’ s Personal Service Unit Outreach Program, an employee assistance program for the City of New York. Over the years he has served as a mental health consultant to various organizations, including the University of Southern California and Time magazine. Michael was born and raised in Montreal. He was educated in rabbinic Judaism, traveled overland from Europe to India at age 19, studied theology at Loyola College in Montreal, and trained with the renowned Zen master Koun Yamada in Japan for two years. He has master’ s degrees in religious studies and social work, and studied with Marshall McLuhan at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Modern Mysticism, The Way of the Small, America's Identity Crisis, and The Divine Mind, the latter two of which each won a Nautilus Book Award. His most recent book is Far From This Land: A Memoir About Evolution, Love, and the Afterlife.