An interview with Polly Young-Eisendrath by Dolores E. Brien

An Interview With Polly Young-Eisendrath By Dolores E. Brien

The Interview appears in the March/April 1995 issue of The Round Table Review.

Like it or not, choose it or not, Polly Young-Eisendrath is one of those individuals who is fated for an indispensable role as a go-between, as a link between two apparently opposing sides. I say apparently because one task of the go-between is to point out that far from being polar opposites, each side has much in common with the other. This role is not a popular one. Whoever undertakes it has to be pretty sure of her or his own position and committed enough to its importance to be willing to risk misrepresentation and misunderstanding, which often accompany it. Some of her Jungian colleagues have questioned whether or not she "really is a Jungian." Her colleagues in the wider psychological community accept her status as a Jungian psychoanalyst but occasionally wonder about it.

Although understandably she sometimes chafes under the burden, Polly Young-Eisendrath is well suited to the role. Thoroughly grounded in both analytical psychology and modern psychoanalytical theories and practice, she brings to the role a sharp and searching intellect, a willingness to confront the issues at stake, and an ability to articulate them clearly. And she has, in full measure, the courage of her convictions.

One of Young-Eisendrath's several works m progress is The Cambridge Companion to Jung for which she is senior editor. The Cambridge Companion is a distinguished series on such luminaries of Western thought as Aquinas, Descartes, Kant, Spinosa, James, Freud, Wittgenstein, Foucault, among others. Editing the Companion with her is Terence Dawson, Lecturer in English at the University of Singapore, who had originally suggested the idea to the Cambridge University Press. Dawson and Young-Eisendrath have never met but communicate by fax and phone. Happily, they have had no difficulty coming to a consensus on what should be included and what the approach should be.

When Young-Eisendrath and I met last November, she talked about what she and Dawson intended to achieve with the book. "We didn't want it to be just another roundup of Jungian history and ideas. We see it as an opportunity to present the developments in analytical psychology since Jung's time and the contributions analytical psychology makes to clinical practice and to other disciplines. We also see it as an opportunity to respond to some of the criticisms and the perceptions about Jung and analytical psychology which hamper their full recognition in the larger psychoanalytic community."

Young-Eisendrath is concerned that Jungians in the United States are too isolated from their other colleagues in the profession. As a result, their impact on psychoanalysis and the culture generally is not as great as it could be. Whether Jungian analysis in this country will survive or not, she thinks, depends on how well it articulates with other groups, not only in psychology, but also in other related fields. "Historically we have been excluded from the psychoanalytic circle, but we should be part of it because analytical psychology is a depth psychology and a form of psychoanalysis."

How did this isolation come about? It began, she believes, with Jung's exclusion from psychoanalytic circles after he broke with Freud around 1913 . "Various approaches developed in psychoanalysis of Melanie Klein, Harry Stack Sullivan, the object-relations therapists, Karen Homey, Jacques Lacan, and so on. All are offshoots of Freud which were originally excluded but have since been included. At least there is serious interest in their work But Jung was never reincluded."

Why was this the case? "My sense is that Jung was never picked up again by the psychoanalytic community because he was thought to have been anti-Semitic or even a Nazi sympathizer. Unfortunately, Jungians have never adequately responded to these accusations, and because of that Jung remains unread. Jung did not condone the Nazis, but he did say some things which were used by them, particularly his writings on Wotan and on national consciousness. And while he later regretted this, as is evident in his letters, he never apologized for them. On the other hand, he also had no knowledge of the concentration camps, and no sense of the horror of what the Nazis were doing. Although he later revised his chinking, he never looked closely enough at the consequences of what he had gotten into then.

"Personally, it took me a long time to be able to deal with this. One of my analysts was Jewish and a number of my friends in Jungian training were Jewish. When I asked them whether Jung was anti-Semitic, I was told, No, he was not. It was only after reading the papers of the conference Lingering Shadows that I really became acquainted with the problem. Later I also read the relevant chapters in Andrew Samuels' The Political Psyche I was shocked and felt I would; have to reevaluate what I was doing in all of this. From then on I decided I was going to speak out when this issue came up and try to get to the bottom of it I think now I have read enough and have thought about it enough to know that Jung was anti-Semitic, and the consequences were very serious.

"To our colleagues in the psychological profession who express concern about this, I think Jungian analysts have to say You were right Jung was anti-Semitic. We should have looked more deeply into this, and some of his ideas need to be revised or dropped completely. At the same time, we can say his psychology deserves to be understood and sustained because he was a prescient thinker and anticipated many developments in psychoanalysis. He really had an object-relations theory. He understood the process of individuation in a way that other psychoanalysts are just beginning to discover."

Young-Eisendrath believes, however, that too many Jungians are reluctant to criticize Jung. "They still hold onto an idealized Jung and seem to be unable to be in conflict with him. This may be the result of being too isolated. Belonging to many professional groups, I have to face questions and argue my position. When I make revisions in my thinking about Jung, I am very careful that they originate with Jung but represent a development, a furthering of those ideas."

Young-Eisendrath and Dawson see The Cambridge Companion to Jung as an invitation to engage in an open-ended dialogue about Jung and analytical psychology. Contributing essays to The Companion are not only well-known Jungian analysts but also distinguished scholars from outside the Jungian community. In the introduction,Jungian analyst Andrew Samuels begins with an appreciation of Jung's work and discusses how analytical psychology, with its three "schools" (Classical, Archetypal and Developmental) has emerged as a pluralist discipline. He describes a model to show the balance of difference and similarity in the theory and clinical practice of the schools.

In Part One of the book, "Jung's Ideas and their Context," Jungian analyst Claire Douglas offers a historical account of the major influences on Jung's thinking. This is followed by a psychoanalytic interpretation by Douglas Davis, a professor of psychology, on the relationship between Jung and Freud. Jungian analyst Sherry Salman presents Jung's mayor contributions especially in relation to object-relations theory and other personality and psychodynamic theories. Philosopher and Jungian analyst Paul Kugler places Jung's major discoveries in a post-modern context, focusing on the tension between deconstruction and essentialism.

Part Two, "Analytical Psychology in Practice," discusses clinical practice in relation to the three schools. David Hart engagingly presents the Classical approach. Director of a graduate program in psychoanalytical studies, Michael Vannoy Adams discusses the Archetypal school and how its emphasis on the "imaginal" evolved. Jungian analyst Hester Solomon gives an in depth theoretical and clinical analysis of the Developmental approach.

Also in this section Jungian analyst Christopher Perry discusses the clinical aspects of transference and countertransference both in Jung's work and in post-Jungian practice. By means of an imaginary dialogue between a Freudian and a Jungian, Freudian analyst Elio Frattaroli examines the differences and the common ground between them in contemporary psychoanalysis.

One of the strongest parts of the book, according to Young-Eisendrath, is a case history interpreted by an analyst from each of the three schools John Beebe for the Classical, Rosemary Gordon for the Developmental, and Deldon McNeely for the Archetypal). "You will see that, yes, there are certainly differences, but at the same time you see that they all hold together. In one way, it is three different approaches to the one enterprise, but in another way, it is the same enterprise."

The last section, "Analytical Psychology in Society" looks at the broader social and cultural implications of Jungian thought. Young-Eisendrath deals with gender and contrasexuality. In a chapter on mythology, classics professor Joseph Russo applies a Jungian analysis to Odysseus, revealing the hero as a trickster figure. Terence Dawson looks at how Jung's ideas shed new light on the interpretation of literary texts and proposes a new theory of literary history based on Jung's ideas about the withdrawal of projections. Jungian analyst Ann Ulanov shows how and why Jung's ideas have helped shape our contemporary spiritual search, particularly in the context of the breakdown of traditional religion in the West. Finally, political scientist Lawrence Alschuler addresses the question of whether or not Jung's psychology can provide an astute political analysis.

Young-Eisendrath is very pleased with the quality of the contributions. The Cambridge Companion to Jung is a rich, contemporary work. The topics it covers will be the subject of lively debates not only among Jungians and the wider psychoanalytic community, but also among scholars in all disciplines and among all those interested in cultural history. We believe the book offers the best in recent views of analytical psychology in a way that is both sophisticated, engaging and accessible."

Notes:

Lingering Shadows: Jungians, Freudians and Anti-Semitism. Edited by Aryeh Maidenbaum and Stephen Martin. ( Shambhala, 1991).

Andrew Samuels. The Political Pyche. (Routledge, 1993).

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