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CARL GUSTAV Key Figures in Counselling and Psychotherapy Series editor: Windy Dryden The Key Figures in Counselling and Psychotherapy series of books provides a concise, accessible introduction to the lives, contributions and influence of the leading innovators whose theoretical and practical work has had a profound impact on counselling and psychotherapy. The series includes comprehensive overviews of: Sigmund Freud by Michael Jacobs Eric Berne by Ian Stewart Carl Rogers by Brian Thorne Melanie Klein by Julia Segal Fritz Perls by Petrüska Clarkson and Jennifer Mackewn Aaron T. Beck by Marjorie E. Weishaar Albert Ellis by Joseph Yankura and Windy Dryden Joseph Wölpe by Roger Poppen George Kelly by Fay Fransella D. W. Winnicott by Michael Jacobs /. L. Moreno by A. Paul Hare and June Rabson Hare Milton H. Erickson by Jeffrey K. Zeig and W. Michael Munion Carl Gustav Jung by Ann Casement CARL GUSTAV Ann Casement SAGE Publications London · Thousand Oaks · New Delhi © Ann Casement 2001 First published 2001 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 6 Bonhill Street London EC2A 4PU SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd 32, M-Block Market Greater Kailash - I New Delhi 110 048 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 6237 9 ISBN 0 7619 6238 7 (pbk) Library of Congress Control Number: 2001131024 Typeset by Mayhew Typesetting, Rhayader, Powys Printed in Great Britain by Biddies Ltd, Guildford, Surrey Contents Preface vi 1 The Life of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) 1 2 Jung's Major Theoretical Contributions 39 3 Jung's Major Practical Contributions 79 4 Criticisms and Rebuttals 103 5 The Overall Influence of Carl Gustav Jung 135 A Select Bibliography of Jung's Major Writing 161 References 163 Index 166 Preface The past is terribly real and present. (Jung, 1963: 108) Jung's contribution to psychology and to the history of ideas has stood at the centre of my life since 1964 when I started my first Jungian analysis in London. This led many years later to my training as a Jungian analyst. I have often heard people referring to Jung's writings as 'mystical'and 'impenetrable', and am only too aware of the challenge of trying to make them accessible without over-simplifying the essential complexity of his approach. Related to this, it is vital not to do damage to these ideas by too hasty a summary and, while writing this, I have tried to keep before me what Jung wrote in Latin in one of my supervisors, Gerhard Adler's, copy of the first book of the English Collected Works, Psychology and Alchemy. 'All haste is of the devil'. This was an expression of his dissatisfaction with the finished product which had been years in the making. It is also important to note here that although this account is written with respect for a remarkable man, it is not a hagiography but contains aspects of Jung's shadow. I have increasingly come to realize how important his own work in the area of shadow is for humankind's present and future. My own growing fascination with shadow aspects of psyche has resulted in my writing and lecturing about them. To quote Jung himself: 'It fares with us all as with Brother Medardus in Hoffmann's tale The Devil's Elixir: some- where we have a sinister and frightful brother, our own flesh-and- blood counterpart, who holds and maliciously hoards everything that we would so willingly hide under the table' (Jung, 1966: 39). And elsewhere: 'Wholeness is not so much perfection as com- pleteness . . . Recognition of the shadow is reason enough for humility, for genuine fear of the abysmal depths in man' (Jung, 1966: 239). On the other hand, this book is not an exercise in desecrating Jung along the lines of the kind of tabloid sensationalism that has been written about him in recent times. Although it touches on the Preface vii subject of the women in his life, it has to be said that there is no clear-cut evidence to support allegations that Jung had affairs with women patients and it is important to bear in mind that he was above all a moralist. Another highly controversial area surrounding Jung is the charge of Nazism combined with anti-Semitism and a selective coverage of the responsible literature on the subject is explored in the course of the book. The Jungian community is a large, heterogeneous mix composed of countless numbers of people. The specialized practitioners make up a small proportion of this and, at the moment of writing, 2,300 analytical psychologists are gathered together under the umbrella of the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP) which has its headquarters in Zurich, whilst many other practi- tioners are not members of the IAAP. These all use different titles to describe themselves, for example, 'analytical psychologist', 'Jungian analyst', 'Jungian psychoanalyst', 'Jungian psychotherapist', and 'therapist'. These practitioners mostly use the term 'patient' or 'analysand' for the individuals they work with therapeutically, so I will be using these terms where necessary throughout the book. I have made extensive use of the 20 volumes of the English Collected Works of Jung published by Routledge. In some instances, I have instead used the Princeton University Press edition. These 20 volumes were edited by Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham and Gerhard Adler, and translated into English by R.F.C. Hull. They encapsulate the evolution of Jung's interest as it transferred itself from psychiatry through psychoanalysis and typology to the theory of archetypes held together by his abiding interest in the psychology of religious motifs. I would like to thank Princeton University Press, Random House Group and Taylor & Francis - incorporating Routledge - for their kind permission in allowing me to use lengthy extracts from the Freud/Jung Letters edited by William McGuire. A word of caution is in order here with regard to all the pub- lished writings of Jung, including the Collected Works. All of these differ from the unpublished original manuscripts according to the Jung scholar, Sonu Shamdasani, and, in some cases the difference is marked. Another point worth noting is that there are in existence more than 20,000 unpublished letters by Jung. In this book, I am not attempting to cover Jung's vast opus or the myriad formative encounters he had with other disciplines. I have made my own selection in both these areas and hope the end result might stimulate the reader's interest in analytical psychology. Although many of the terms that Jung used in his approach to the psyche are now in everyday usage, for example, extravert and viii Carl Gustav jung introvert, these are used by him in a specific way. In order to elucidate what Jung was writing about, the book includes defini- tions of his main concepts. Finally, a brief word on the writing style adopted in the book: in trying to avoid clumsy devices like 'his/her' or 'he/she', I have used 'their' or 'they' where necessary. Jargon terms are set in italics except for those that are in everyday usage like 'ego'. Although I have been steeped in Jungian thinking and practice for many years, writing this account of Jung's life and work has inevitably become a kind of journey of my own. I am grateful to my friend and colleague, Windy Dryden, the editor of this series, for affording me the opportunity of re-discovering and re-affirming what drew me - albeit unwittingly, in the first instance - to Jung and to the world of analytical psychology. Jung's writing is the leitmotif that runs throughout this book but I am also indebted to the many other writers whose ideas have contributed to it. I would particularly like to thank John Beebe, Robert Hinshaw, Thomas Kirsch, Robert Segal and Sonu Shamdasani, who have been an invaluable resource whilst this book has been taking shape. The responsibility for the final product lies entirely with myself. Ann Casement 1 The Life of Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) God is the name by which I designate all things which cross my wilful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse. (Edinger, 1986: 32) The Symbolic Life Jung's whole approach to living centred around leading a symbolic life guided by the symbolic language revealed in dreams. In this way, the individual could reach a degree of self-understanding which would lead to a full and meaningful life. Jung's view was that any individual coming into therapy was ultimately in quest of a spiritual solution to their problems and that this resolution could only come through developing a capacity for symbolization. It is this that is at the centre of Jung's approach, which he called 'analytical psychology'. Jung was aware of the decreasing influence of religion and ritual in the everyday life of most individuals and of the consequent impoverishment of daily life. 'We have no symbolic life and we are all badly in need of the symbolic life. Only the symbolic life can express . . . the daily need of the soul. . . Everything is banal. . . and that is the reason why people are neurotic' (Jung, 1977: 274). Jung's definition of symbol is that it is 'the best possible descrip- tion or formulation of a relatively unknown fact, which is none- theless known to exist or is postulated as existing' (Jung, 1971: 474). Symbols are different at different historical epochs and, like everything in life, symbols have their day and then cease to be. Their function is to play a psychological mediatory and transitional role through which they can add to the personality of an individual and point attention to another position which may help to resolve an individual's conflict. Poignantly, Jung writes about the transitory nature of symbolism in the following manner: 'We cannot turn the wheel backwards; we
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