Living with Jung: Enterviews (2010)

Living With Jung:

Enterviews with Jungian Analysts Volume III

Robert and Janet Henderson

New Orleans, LA; Spring Journal Inc. (2010)

First and foremost this is a book about eighteen prominent Jungian analysts living and working in various countries throughout the world. It starts out with how they became interested in Jung and leads to intimate and personal discussions on the practice of Jungian psychology today. As John Hill states, this:

... third volume of ‘enterviews’ offers profound insight into the biographies of internationally renowned analysts with very diverse approaches to Jungian psychology. The book reveals how different personal, social and cultural contexts influence their approach to our common field of interest. (p. xv)

Much of the success of these volumes can be attributed to Robert Henderson’s skills as an interviewer. Jerome Bernstein sums it up best:

Rob, I have had three analyses and several therapies along the way to now. I want to thank you for constellating this self-analysis, and for your ability to penetrate in such a gentle and respectful way. I have learned much from it. Blessings. (p. 114)

Many of us share a deep fascination for the analytic process but we don’t often get the point of view of the analyst. For John Hill:

The profession of psychoanalysis, Freudian or Jungian, is difficult, lonely, but immensely rewarding. For hours and hours one listens of (sic) the stories of clients. An analyst attempts to help his or her clients to reconstruct those unlived, repressed parts of their personality, guided by dream, fantasy, or emotional experience. The work requires a capacity for intimate sharing without loss of boundaries. It is a matter of the heart as well as the head; deep relatedness and intellectual reflection belong to the paradox of an analytical life. (p. 10)

It is difficult to identify and follow one’s passion with heart and soul but that is precisely what the world needs now. These analysts seem to be living it.

Dreams are a central part of depth psychology and many analysts write beautifully and eloquently on their importance for them.

Greek mythology has always been at the centre of Jungian thought, so Renos Papadopoulos’ stinging criticism on this issue is all the more surprising coming from someone of Greek origin.

Jan Bauer’s comments on complexes are typically insightful but her wit and wisdom are a delight, especially in her discussions on money.

Michael Conforti has a style uniquely his own. His unabashed discussions on complexes and the roles they have played in his life are humourous, intelligent and touching.

More than one analyst speaks on the relation between the body and the psyche. Jacqueline Gerson, for whom dance is an integral part of life, does so most convincingly. But the story of her encounter with “Dr. Jung” and the lesson she learned about transference resonated most with me.

Many female analysts were asked to comment on “the feminine,” but Astrid Berg was the only one to pick up on the inherent irony in the way the question was structured. Her skilful and poignant reply also had a good dose of humour.

Perhaps because I’m not a thinking type, Wolfgang Giegerich’s interview was the most difficult one for me. I fully agree with his initial view of Jung:

I felt that many of my diverse interests came together in Jungian psychology, and that through it I came in contact with a live matrix from which to understand and investigate those questions that I really wanted to know more about.” (p. 264)

It is also understandable that after thirty years there are certain aspects of Jung’s work that he now sees much more critically. However, many of his comments run counter to my views on Jung and the “structure and dynamics” of the Soul or Psyche:

… my critical assessment aims at the core of Jung’s psychology as a whole rather than at certain particular details. What I consider one main fault is that Jung hypostatized (substantiated) ‘the unconscious’. This is a mystification ... In the same manner, Jung more or less reified ‘the archetypes’… a second serious problem for me is that Jung tended to see neurosis ultimately as a morbus sacer (sacred disease) ... In other words, psychic illnesses are seen as something basically valuable, noble, even sacred, and what is negative about them as merely being due to mishap. This is a neurotic interpretation of neurosis ... A third major stance that I find fault with is Jung’s insistence that the individual is “the makeweight that tips the scales,” indeed that the salvation of the world consists in the salvation of the individual soul. (p. 265)

His assurances that there are many areas where he concurs with Jung would lead one to expect him to be objective and impartial in his criticism. However, a subjective element seems to creep in:

We see, for example, from his stubborn, complex-ridden reaction to some of his critics (such as Martin Buber) and from the venom with which he rejected Hegel (without having any intimate knowledge, let alone understanding, of the latter’s philosophy), that not everything was aboveboard with his theorizing. (p. 300)

Comments like these felt like virulent attacks on the heart and soul of Jungian psychology and I wondered if I was just being overly defensive of Jung.

Is there an emotional undercurrent to many of his arguments? Consider his concluding remark regarding the importance of dreams:

Also, I do my thinking openly and on my own responsibility; I do not have the need, as Jung apparently did, to push insights down into unconsciousness so that they could only pop up – surprise, surprise – ‘from out of the unconscious’ in the form of ‘spontaneous’ dream revelations and as ‘objective natural facts’. (p. 289)

I’m not sure whether Giegerich’s criticisms of Jung also qualify as “venomous” or if they simply spring from “A mind formed in and through the rigors of German philosophy” (p. xvi) as John Hill puts it. While Giegerich’s ideas gave my “thinking function a true workout”, they also had an impact on my feeling function.

There is so much more in this book that I recommend that you find a copy and discover them for yourself.

–Roman Rogulski