Customer Reviews

The Freud/Jung Letters

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an amazing collection of letters which depict the relationship of two of the greatest psychologists of all time. Naturally, there are people who interpret this relationship in different ways, especially as a very specific situation, peculiar to the development of psychology or otherwise. I think otherwise. Life is rarely linear--it's usually Normally Distributed. Things tend to go in cycles, not straight lines. The relationship between Freud the mentor & Jung the mentee is just not that unusual. In fact, it parallels that of every child (especially males stereotypically seeking independence). There comes a time to leave the nest & for the mentee to strike out on his own--just as there is a time for a new paradigm (per Thomas Kuhn's classic, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions"). This is precisely what occurred between Freud & Jung. It's almost archetypal. There's even something of a parallel between Jung & Father Victor White in Jung's "Letters." This book has some interesting quotes from each of the two psychologists:

By Freud:
p. 119 Take my urgent advice, arm yourself with ill temper against all unreasonable demands.
p. 121 One must try to learn something from every experience.
p. 169 I have long known that one can't change people. Everyone has something worthwhile in him. We must content ourselves with getting it out of him.

By Jung:
p. 84 What people don't know surpasses the imagination, and what they don't want to know is simply unbelievable.
p. 157 one likes human beings around one and not complex-masks.

And, very apropos: p. 462 Emma Jung: it is always the nearest thing that one sees worst.

C.G. Jung was once thought of as Freud's chief disciple. These letters cover the period of 1906 (when Jung sent Freud his Studies in Word Association) until their final "break" in 1914. (There is one additional letter from Jung to Freud from 1923, when Jung was referring a patient to Freud for treatment.)

Here are some representative excerpts:

SF: "The leading lights' of psychiatry really don't amount to much; the future belongs to us and our views, and the younger men---everywhere most likely---side actively with us." (1907)
SF: "I regard (for the present) the role of sexual complexes in hysteria merely as a theoretical necessity and do not infer it from their frequency and intensity. Proof, I believe, is not yet possible." (1907)
CG: "(L)ike Herakles of old, you are a human hero and demi-god, wherefore your dicta unfortunately carry with them a semipiternal value. All the weaker ones who come after you must of necessity adopt your nomenclature, originally intended to fit a specific case." (1909)
SF: "It has occurred to me that the ultimate basis of man's need for religion is infantile helplessness, which is so much greater in man than in animals. After infancy he cannot conceive of a world without parents and makes for himself a just God and a kindly nature, the two worst anthropomorphic falsifications he could have imagined." (1910)
SF: "You mustn't suppose that I ever 'lost patience' with you; I don't believe these words can apply to our relationship in any way. In all the difficulties that confront us in our work we must stand firmly together, and now and then you must listen to me, your older friend, even when you are disinclined to." (1910)
CJ: "My evenings are taken up very largely with astrology. I make horoscopic calculations in order to find a clue to the core of psychological truth." (1911)
CJ: "If you doubt my word, so much the worse for you. I would, however, point out that your technique of treating your pupils like patients is a blunder. In that way you produce either slavish sons of impudent puppies..." (1912)
SF: "I propose that we abandon our personal relations entirely. I shall lose nothing by it, for my only emotional tie with you has long been a thin thread---the lingering effect of past disappointments---and you have everything to gain, in view of the remark you recently made in Munich..." (1913)

I loved this book mostly because I have been fascinated by Freud for many years and now I am studying Jung. To have the privilege of reading their letter back and forth is a treat. Also there are insights into current problems that Psychology still grapples over.

This is a sad book to read. In fact, one would not expect that such a type of bad development would occur between the two most important figures of psychoanalisys. It is as if Marx and Engels had broken their friendship for life and began to fight for fame and glory in front of everybody. The spoil was huge: nothing more than the primacy for fame and glory in the first steps of psychanalisys.

Sure, the letters span a pretty much limited space of time of no more than 8 years (1906-1914) but the reader has to keep in mind that what was at stake was the establishing of the foundations of psychoanalisys all over Europe and also in the whole World.
What began as a cordial friendship and evolved into an almost father (Freud) to son (Jung) relationship, deteriorated into the most depressive fighting of personal primacy on many subjects. In this regard, it seems that the feud was initiated by Freud who considered Jung a type of his personal assistant to market the developments of his findings
THe fact that this is a abridged edition does not mean nothing except that here the common reader will find the most important material exchanged by the two great men and will be saved from some meaningless material of more burocratical tone.
Also of value is the introduction that ilustrates all the effort made by the two family sides to publish the letters, in spite the view by Jung that the ideal time for them to be published would be 20 to 30 years after his death.

THis is a must reading for anyone interested in the history of psychanalisys.