Jung and Analysis: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

Details: Last Updated: Sunday, 27 October 2013 20:37; Written by Dolores E. Brien

In November 1993 in the pages of the New York Review of Books, literary critic Frederick Crews assembled for review a number of books which had as their object to bring into serious question, or even to demolish, the reputation of Sigmund Freud, a project to which Crews gave passionate consent.

Jung and Analysis: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
A Report on The C.G. Jung Foundation of New York Conference

Dolores E. Brien, Editor of The Round Table Review

From The Round Table Review (January/February, 1996), pp. 15-19.

In November 1993 in the pages of the New York Review of Books, literary critic Frederick Crews assembled for review a number of books which had as their object to bring into serious question, or even to demolish, the reputation of Sigmund Freud, a project to which Crews gave passionate consent. Crew's essay evoked one of the largest reader responses in the history of that magazine. Always alert to a hot item, Time followed up with a front-cover feature article entitled "Is Freud Dead? Both events only brought into public view what has been going on for sometime now a radical revisioning of psychoanalytic history, which, on the whole, seems determined to pull down Freud and with him the reputation of psychoanalysis itself. Jung's role in this history is inevitably under scrutiny as well, witness John Kerr's A Most Dangerous Profession and Richard Noll's The Jung Cult.

This revisionist history still in the making has nudged Jungians out of a certain complacency. Reading Jung critically and coming to terms with the man himself has been the work, up to now, of a lonely few. The conference "Jung and Analysis: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, held by the C. G. Jung Foundation of New York and sponsored by the Ann and Erlo Van Waveren Foundation in April 1995 is sign that Jungians are beginning to engage openly in examining the history of analytical psychology and the man who founded it. What I observed at this conference, and what we will probably see a great deal more of, is an effort to identify the solid accomplishments of analytical psychology as well as the problematic areas. There has been too little of the former as well as the latter. Unexamined and uncritical acceptance clouds rather than clarifies those accomplishments.

Participating in the conference were six distinguished speakers Joseph Henderson, Thomas Kirsch, Mark Kuras, Betty DeShong Meador, Andrew Samuels, and Beverley Zabriskie. Betty De Shong Meador's paper on "The Paradoxical Feminine, while interesting in itself was not clearly relevant to the conference's theme. Beverley Zabriskie's "Forward to the Source and Mark Kuras's "Balder's Bad Dream were subtle, complex and introverted probings of Jungian analysis in an ambiguous stage of transition. The papers of Henderson, Kirsch, and Samuels, on the other hand, addressed most directly the history of Jungian analysis and its present status and it is on these papers I would like to focus.

Joseph Henderson, M.D., if not in at the creation of psychoanalysis, was there soon after, having gone to Zürich for training in the twenties. He has practiced in San Francisco for over fifty years, was co-founder of the San Francisco Jung Institute and is the author of several influential books and many articles. In his keynote address on "Thoughts of Yesterday and Tomorrow: Concerning Jung and Analysis, he recalled not one, but "several yesterdays.

He spoke of his beginning analysis in San Francisco in 1928 and of his meeting with the English analyst and Jung's assistant, Dr. Godwin Baynes, who encouraged him to go to Switzerland and work with Jung. Baynes had lent him a privately printed copy of Jung's Seven Sermons to the Dead and showed him a painting Jung had done to illustrate it. Although Henderson's analyst was shocked at his having done so, it was this very Gnosticism in Jung's thinking that initially attracted Henderson. He came to understand that Jung had opened up to us the world of Roman and Greek antiquity, of early Christianity and of Asia, which then could then creatively assimilated into our own religious and psychological experience. This, he says, was Jung's first contribution to depth psychology.

Another contribution made by Jung during this fertile early period was the introduction of a mythological method into psychology. Henderson attributes this development, first of all, to Jung's own characteristic of thinking imagistically, but also to the influence of Symbols of Transformation which became a kind of model for this method.

As important were the Dream Seminars in which not only myth but also Jung's interpretations of ancient Western and Eastern cultures found their application. Clinical methods were developed for the amplification of dreams by drawing from Egyptian, Babylonian and Greek mythology. This introduced patients to the wider symbolic significance of their lives and psychological problems.

But at the same time a need was felt for a non-mythological approach, for a method which would permit a more rationally based treatment. This led to an incorporation of neo-Freudian methods into analytical psychology. The work of Melanie Klein and Michael Fordham on child development and the primal self became a part of the Jungian movement. Henderson confesses that although he found this useful, he still felt more comfortable with the mythological approach. His own research focused on the role of initiation which he believed to be an archetype and which can be activated at any transitional time of life.

During the Dream Seminars Jung presented what would become part of the basic clinical principles of his psychology which Henderson identifies as 1) the importance of the initial dream or dreams in indicating the development of the analysis; 2) therapy moves according to a principle of progression, alternating with regression (which is why it is called a process). The regression never returns to the zero point, but goes back only far enough to gain new momentum for moving forward. This process is a healthy one and if it isn't present in an analysis some pathology may be at work; 3) transference is a dual process involving both analyst and analysand which Henderson described as being understood in the early years as a kind of "investment. It was understood that the patient invests more than the therapist who has other patients to respond to. But the investments were to be equal in their quality and had to find a balance in order for the work to be effective. "This version, says Henderson, "states that it is a transaction as simple as a business agreement. It is not a love affair. Later, in a Tavistock lecture in 1935 Jung denied, to the relief of many, that transference was even necessary. After that the subject seemed to have gone underground, only to re-emerge in 1946 in Jung's discussion of the illustrations of "Rosarium Philosophorum, in The Psychology of the Transference.

When Jung began his alchemical studies in the late thirties, no one knew how to use the material or even to understand its symbolism. Alchemy as well as Jung's Eranos papers of the early nineteen forties (A Psychological Approach to the Trinity, Transformation Symbolism of the Mass, and The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy Tales) were difficult to comprehend because it was so abstract. It took sometime before the meaning and usefulness of Jung's work on alchemy could be fully appreciated, but when that happened, says Henderson, "it marked the dawn of a new day.

From the study of the interplay of opposites in alchemy there came a new and deeper psychological understanding of the ego/self relationship and particularly of the problem of transference, which by then was no longer seen as a simple business arrangement, but a sensitive, demanding encounter between analyst and analysand. Interestingly, Henderson believes that the lessons were learned not from the obscure teachings of the alchemists, but primarily from the illustrations in their manuscripts. For him the most important of these images is that of the alchemical vessel as symbol of the private relationship between analyst and analysand.

Henderson concluded by asking whether or not the mythological method, which he found so fruitful in his own work, still has a future. His answer is a qualified yes, but he is concerned that people coming into Jungian practice today do not have the educational background to understand and use this rich material. He cites ARAS (Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism) as one of the most important sources to help provide what is lacking. Still, he believes this approach will continue to be useful and to develop even if slowly.

Finally, he postulates the existence of a "cultural unconscious." Although it is still too new to think of it as part of Jungian psychology, he has attempted a tentative classification of this cultural area into the religious, the social, the aesthetic and the philosophic. He suggests that from the cooperative work of psychology and anthropology new archetypal patterns will be discovered and he proposes the study of shamanism, which may be involved in any healing process, as such an archetypal pattern. Jungian psychology, he concludes is "like a quest undertaken with religious feeling for the mystery to be unveiled in discovering our way to the source.

Thomas Kirsch is in a unique position from which to reflect on the past, present, and future of Jungian psychology. He is a second genderation Jungian analyst (his father, James Kirsch, and mother, Hilde Kirsch, were analysts and founders of the Los Angeles Jung Institute) and he has served for many years as president of the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP) Happily, he has been doing this with increasing frequency. His most recent essay in the Journal of Analytical Psychology (April, 1995) traces the issue of Jungian identity against the backdrop of the history of the IAAP. In his talk at the symposium, "Jungian Analysis, Past and Present, he acknowledges his discomfort with the terms "analytical psychology and "Jungian analysis. Jung, he tells us, called his psychology "analytical to distinguish it from Freud's, but admits that the term has never fit well and always has to be explained. He cited John Beebe who believes that we still must continue to use the term "Jungian analyst until such time as the meaning of "Jung is fully integrated.

Kirsch recalled that by 1930 the theory and practice of Jungian analysis had pretty well been defined. Therapy was viewed as a "dialectical procedure. To emphasize this relationship and in contrast to Freud's method of having the patient lie on the couch analyst and analysands sat in chairs facing each other. The focus of the analysis was on the analysand's dreams, and other manifestations of the unconscious, such as active imaginations. Together, analyst and analysand sought to interpret their symbolic meanings and relevance to the analysand's life. The dialectic took place chiefly between the ego and unconscious of the analysand, but although this was not emphasized as much, also between analyst and analysand. Consequently, analyst and analysand were encouraged to express their thoughts and feelings about each other.

This led, of course, to a certain amount of self-disclosure on the part of the analyst. However, in those early days, because the boundaries of this dialectic between patient and analyst were not clearly laid out, "some very entangled relationships occurred. Professional, personal, and social relationships went along concurrently. In no way was the Jungian analyst of thirty years ago a blank screen, but he or she was in many cases very well known to the analysand.

Self-disclosure as it was then used was a two-edged sword. On the one hand, the patient might feel less isolated (he was not the only one to have such and such a problem) but, on the other hand, it might also induce the patient to live out the pattern as experienced by the analyst and not find his or her own solution. By the mid-seventies, however, there was a reaction against the practice of this earlier generation of analysts who, it was felt, had been too open with their patients, and not diligent enough in keeping "the boundaries. Today, he points out, self-disclosure on the part of the analyst is considered to be a dangerous business and if excerised at all, has to be done with extreme care.

Nowadays, the analytical relationship is more disciplined," cleaner. While this is a good thing, Kirsch fears that in making the analytical relationship so antiseptic, "it will lose its soul. He believes that self-disclosure can be valuable and should not be entirely discarded, warning at the same time, that what is disclosed "should be some experience about which the analyst has worked on extensively in himself/herself, and that he/she is really doing it for the patient and not to unburden himself/herself.

Kirsch worries that the professionalization of analysis has been accompanied by a tendency to impose certain techniques on it (such as a requisite number of sessions per week.). Although he is not sentimental about the way analysis was done in the past, neither does he want to completely reject it. There was, he said, a passion for work in those earlier times which he feels may no longer be case. But, he concludes, "There exist limits to what analysis can and cannot do. I remember in the late 1950s and 1960s we were so enthusiastic about how an analytic attitude, especially Jungian, could change the world. It can and cannot at the same time.

Andrew Samuels, having made, by his own count, over thirty visits to this country giving lectures and workshops, is almost as well known here as he is in England. He is the author of several books, the most recent being The Political Psyche. He was the first to propose (in Jung and the Post-Jungians) that analytical psychology be classified according to the classical, developmental and archetypal schools. In his talk, "Will the Post-Jungians Survive? he noted that this classification has proved to be both reliable and useful in defining Jungian identity. Arguments continue among analysis based on adherence to one or another of these schools. Samuels, however, now understands these schools more metaphorically than he did earlier. He has come to recognize that within himself, and he guesses within each analyst, is a classical, developmental and archetypal analyst. "The spectrum of approaches from which today's Jungian analyst can take his or her ideas is a very great one. The spectrum is vast. And I think we are witnessing in many centers the emergence of what I call a new model Jungian analyst, able to work developmentally, classically, and archetypally.

He is troubled by three tendencies which he has observed, especially in the United States. The first of these is a kind of Jungian fundamentalism. The fundamentalists tend to stress Jung as the author of prophetic texts; they want to live a Jungian way of life, based on Jung the man -an imitatio Jung as James Yandrell pointed out, many years ago. Fundamentalists usually have no knowledge of the work of Klein, or Winnicott or even Freud. They do not question and frequently are accomplices in the co-opting of Jungian psychology by New Age movements.

The second tendency is towards merging Jungian psychology with psychoanalysis, sparked by analysts who are disturbed by the supposed deficiencies of Jungian analysis. Samuels, however, disputes "stringently and strenuously this position. The result of this tendency is that the valuable clinical contributions of Jung and post-Jungians are overlooked or denigrated.

The third troubling tendency is what he calls "the pursuit of the best-seller. Books which make the best seller list can do a lot of good on a personal level and in democratizing psychology, but he also sees a great deal of harm being done mainly by the encouragement of "quick, cheap, over-simple, certitudinous attitudes to very difficult, sensitive and complicated issues. He cites, as a particular example, the harm being done to our understanding of male and female psychology. While he acknowledges the need some have for certitudes, which these books encourage, he points to a very neglected need that he increasingly encounters a "passionate and growing hunger for complexity. Many are asking how are we going to live in this "declining, decaying and fragmented culture, for which there are no simple, clear answers as these best-sellers suggest there are.

Despite his concerns about these tendencies, Samuels "applauds : the desire in fundamentalists "to live in accordance with beliefs and psychological principles ; the recognition by psychoanalysts that there is a "developmental question to almost every aspect of human experience ; and in the authors of the best sellers "the validity of their attack on a cloistered version of analysis, resisting democratization of its knowledge.

Samuels concludes with a ten point "contract with ourselves : The time has come to: (1) work through our mourning of "Jung the man and get on with it. It is time to relate to "Jung the cultural institution, and to consider him "at the center of a body of some of the most marvelous ideas in the century ; (2) be more open to how other people see us; the weaknesses others see are exactly what we should work on; (3) at the same time, "walk tall about our proud pioneering clinical legacy, which includes, among other things, the centrality of the countertransference, the creativity and purposiveness of the unconscious, the value of regression, the radical notion of individuation as something other than social adaptation, and the importance of the personality of the analyst in the healing; (4) acknowledge, as well, our pioneering theoretical legacy. For instance, the Jungian approach to the multiplicity of the personality is of particular importance. "We are the best placed depth psychological school to explore one of the most pressing issues in today's world: the balance and tension between multiculturalism and universalism ; (5) increase our multidisciplinary work with artists, anthropologists, social theorists and the like, also with psychoanalysts from other schools; (6) not only address issues of gender, sex orientation, parenting, but also the difficult issues of the economy, the environment, and all levels of conflicts; (7) stand behind the value of complexity, ambivalence, contradiction. "Our unique selling point must be that we are difficult. There are too many people offering simple messages out there ; (8) stress our internationalism for the Jungian community is really international." There is a free trade in ideas, practices and people. And this keeps us fresh. ; (9) make organizational changes such as opening up training to non-Jungian analysts, link up Jungian oriented- therapists to the official structures of analytical psychology, insist on our presence in the academy, and reach out to minorities and non-middle class people with opportunities for training; (10) look to the cost of analysis. "Is there a way of reaching individuals who can't pay, thereby extending the range of people who could benefit by analysis?

Finally, Samuels expressed the desire to see to see Jungian analytical institutes take time together to imagine their futures. "Playfully, imaginatively and collectively dream it on in a collaborative way.

No attempt at summarizing these papers can be really adequate. I have had to omit many significant and interesting issues they raised but hope that they will eventually be published along with the other papers given at this symposium. What was impressive was the candor of the speakers, the absence of defensiveness, the honesty and the confidence (not complacency) with which they discussed the issues of analytical psychology as it was, as it is today, and what they hope for it in the future. This was reassuring and established a tone, if not a standard, which can guide us in our own considerations of Jungian psychology, what it means to us personally and in appreciating the good it can render to a troubled world. It can, as well, enable us to approach the revisionist history of our time with openness as well as equanimity.

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