This isn't anything special, nor is it particularly good, but it's the first written work for the course I've had to do; a review of an scholarly article about Jung. It's ungraded; the professors just go over it to give your recommendations on your writing. The article had to review was from a guy who seems a bit too high on Jung the man for my tastes, so I ripped into him for this. That said, the limited word count (1500 words) caused me to do a lot of editing, and I don't think my argument is very clear anymore. So I'm not too happy with the product, but here it is:
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Critical Commentary on 'Understanding Jung: recent biographies and scholarship' by F.X. Charet
“Understanding Jung: recent biographies and scholarship” is a survey of Jungian history and literature by F.X. Charet, who attempts to prove that Jungian psychology is not a cul-de-sac derivative of psychoanalysis, but rather an important field in its own right, especially in terms of spiritualismi. To do this, Charet focuses on Jung's fallout with Freud as accounted for in Memories, Dreams, Reflections, before claiming that the spiritual aspects of Jung separate from traditional grounds of depth psychology (and consequently the psychoanalytic community that excommunicated him) are the chief reasons for the success of Jungian thought. Several contemporary threads that run concurrent to this argument, such the research of biographers and historians, and to a lesser extent the work of the Post-Jungian developmental school in cooperation with Post-Freudian psychoanalysts, are also discussed.
Charet's aim is to indisputably establish Jung as a vital contributor to contemporary thought while at the same time to dispense with his secondary status to Freud and psychoanalysis. But Charet's favoritism towards the spiritual Jung is at expense of the more clinical, philosophical, and purely psychological aspects of analytical psychology, and his disdain towards Freudian views of Jung prevent him from expounding upon the considerable amount of common ground between Post-Jungian and psychoanalytic thought. Thus, I intend to show that, in his efforts to promote the mystical side of analytical psychology, Charet in effect cripples his own argument for the importance of Jung in modern thought.
Jung's History: Freud or Facts?
From the outset Charet argues that the expulsion of Jung from psychoanalysis in turn allowed Jung and Jungians to further enrich their thought and scholarship fully removed from the shadow of Freud. That Freud and Jung are no longer strongly associated with one another is a premise that Charet largely attributes to the damnation Freud and many psychoanalysts have cast down upon Jung and the Jungians even prior to the 1912 split. Charet is largely influenced by the narrative of this story found in Jung's biography Memories, Dreams, Reflections. He uses those notable quotes from Jung where Freud dramatically asked for Jung's allegiance with his sexual theory against the tide of occultism. According to Jung's account of his life recorded fifty years later, it was at this point he knew that he could never hold Freud's attitude towards things such as philosophy, religion, and “the rising contemporary science of parapsychology”.iiAccording to Charet, it was at this point that Jung was prepared to reject Freud's sexual reductionism “in favour of a more profound understanding of human experience.” The rest of it, at least how the Jungian myth often goes, is history: Jung is ostracized from the psychoanalytic community, Freud and his followers paint him as a psychotic with a few good ideas mired by his own delusions, and Jung valiantly wrestles with his own unconscious to emerge with his superior psychological theory.iii
There are problems with this romantic account. What of the alternative historical views concerning Freud and Jung, as well as certain facts regarding Jung's behavior throughout their relationship? Hayman's exhaustive work, A Life of Jung, is just one biography that comprehensively illustrates that, far from being resolute, Jung consistently floundered on his position towards Freud's dogma, often expressing full commitment to the psychosexual approach while simultaneously engaging with his symbolic pursuitsiv. At the same time Renos Papadopoulos demonstrates in Carl Gustav Jung: Critical Assessments that it is possible that the feud had actually very little to do with occultism at all. Using his hypothesis that Jung's work centered around his lifelong philosophical concern of the 'Other', or parts of his own psyche beyond consciousness, he analyzes the correspondence between Jung and Freud to show that not only was Jung's work in The Symbols of Transformation, the book often cited as the cause of the break, simply trying to expand upon libido theory in ways that Freud had already endorsed, but that Freud was actually enthusiastic about Jung's foray into myth!v Jung had entered the psychoanalytic school in hope that it would help explain the 'Other' in the psyche, but had slowly begun to see Freud would not be the key to answering to his problematic. Likewise, Freud had seen the vigor and brilliance in Jung and had been hopeful that he would fully embrace the sexual reductionism of psychoanalysis. It was not to be.
Charet fatally ignores such insights into the Freud-Jung story, instead promoting the hotly contested version found in MDR. This leads us to the second flaw in his views here: he uses the events and ideas found in MDR to sell the idea of Jung's importance being tied to spiritual pursuits, but even still he must acknowledge the work of those like Shamdasani who show how production of MDR is dubious at bestvi! Furthermore, the idea that Jung is no longer linked to Freud is simply untrue on metapsychological grounds. Jung is tied with Freud still because analytical psychology and psychoanalysis are both depth psychologies, and thus of the same ilk and thus can possibly be of immense benefit to one another. Yet Charet seems bent on suggesting that the success of analytical psychology has taken place outside the sphere of psychoanalytic thought, and that this success is due primarily not to any psychological application, but rather to the realm of spiritualism.
Jung's Legacy: New Age or New Science?
There is no question that Jung has been of great influence to the New Age movement, and that his work has tremendous theological and spiritual implications. Charet convincingly makes this point when he cites points such as Jung's equation of the self with the God-image.vii At the same time he veritably derides Jungians who feel spiritualism is but one aspect of analytical psychology, and perhaps not the most pressing subdivision for investigation. Charet refers to them as being “embarrassed” about their heritage, and rather than laud the efforts of developmental Post-Jungians, a term coined by Andrew Samuels to describe those Jungians more concerned with the growth of the personality than with archetypal images and the numinousviii, Charet chides them for their attempts to use psychoanalysis to expand upon weaker aspects of Jung's ideas, especially those pertaining to childhood. He states that it “should not surprise” us that Jung's psychology is more concerned of things of a transpersonal nature, and instead spins the topic around to remind us when the psychoanalytic community rejected Jung they severed ties with things “that transcend the immediate physical realities of life.”ix He then ends his thoughts on Post-Jungian research by stating that:
“...the two tendencies in the Jungian community, to distance from Freud or to seek a
reconciliation, reflect a certain division in Jung himself and this becomes clearer with a more careful and more sophisticated understanding of his personality.”x
In effect, Charet is dismissing an entire realm of Jungian thought, not just the developmental school, but also applications of theory into art and science. Charet is a fundamentalist Jungian1: to him dialogue within the depth psychologies is not an exciting endeavor to further clarify how the mind works, but simply an extension of Jung's personality.
The fundamentalism and reverence to Jung presented in this paper is akin to the gnostic views found more commonly in Jung's later work, ignoring the more clinical and arguably scientific approach taken in earlier essays. This is akin to what Papadopoulos warns as the difference between Jung's “socratic ignorance” and “gnostic epistemology,” the latter of which is often stigmatizing and lacking of any proof due tautological self-assurance.xi Indeed, Charet implicitly argues that Analytical Psychology has to some extent fulfilled Jung's vision of a “substitute for traditional religion.xii
Charet never embraces the obvious implications of the censorship surrounding MDR in contrast to the facts found in other, more reputable sources, and although he revels in attacks on Freud and his methodology, he is mute on the arguably louder shots that have been taken at Jung, as he keeps his discussion of Jung's antisemitism relatively brief.xiii In short, Charet attributes the success of analytical psychology not to the theory itself and those wishing to expand it, but rather to Jung the man. Ironically, he dismisses a part of Winnicott's review of Memories, Dreams, Reflections where Winnicott speculates that Jung's psychology was really an elaborate attempt to cure himself of his own mental disturbances. Is this not, virtually by his own omission, what Jung did in his confrontation with the unconscious? Does this not align very much with the idea that Jung spent his life focused on the problem of the 'Other' in his head?
The irony that Charet seems to be implicitly suggesting throughout the piece is that in recent times it is Freud who has been defamed by popular criticism, and that by banishing Jung from psychoanalysis, it is analytical psychology that has been allowed to flourish. And yet, it is precisely that dogmatic spiritual side of Jungian psychology that threatens its very existencexiv
Conclusion
Charet attempts to distance Jung from psychoanalysis, instead focusing on his life and biography and impressions on spiritualism as the key factors of his success. By doing this, he effectively removes Jung from depth psychology and all the fields and applications that go with it. He refuses to accept working ground between Jungians and Freudians as anything more than an appendix of Jung's own personality. Either Charet is a fundamentalist Jungian, or he is grossly misinformed on the nature of analytical psychology. For if analytical psychology is to survive, it most not laud itself as the new religion, but rather continue to expand as a psychological science.
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1By Fundamentalist Jungian, I am using the terminology first stated in Andrew Samuels' essay “New developments in the Jungian Field,” found in The Cambridge Companion of Jung (see bibliography). Per Samuels, a fundamentalist Jungian is “stigmatizing” and views Jung as a religious leader. His life is seen as the “Jungian way”.
iF.X. Charet, “Understanding Jung: recent biographies and scholarship,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 45, (2000): 195-216
iiC.G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe, (New York: Vintage Books, 1973). p.150-151
iiiCharet, p. 197
ivR. Hayman, A Life of Jung (New York: Norton & Company, 1999). Ch. 12
vR.K. Papadopoulos (ed.) Carl Gustav Jung: Critical Assessments, vol. 1 (London and New York: Routledge, 1992) p.405-406
viS. Shamdasani, “Memories, Dreams, Omissions,” Spring. 57, 115-37
viiCharet, p.201
viiiA. Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians (London and New York: Routledge, 1985) Ch.1
ixCharet. p.208
xCharet. p.208
xiR.K. Papadopoulos, “Jung's Epistemology and Methodology,” in The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice, and Applications, ed. By R.K. Papadopoulos (Brunner/Routledge, 2005) Ch. 1
xiiCharet. p.200
xiiiCharet. p.202
xivSamuels. Cambridge Companion. Ch.1
Bibliography
-Charet, F.X. “Understanding Jung and recent biographies and scholarship,” Journal of Analytical Psychology 45, (2000): 195-216
-Hayman, R., A Life of Jung (New York: Norton & Company, 1999)
-Jung, C.G., Memories, Dreams, Reflections, ed. Aniela Jaffe, (New York: Vintage Books, 1973)
-Papadopoulos (ed.) Carl Gustav Jung: Critical Assessments, vol. 1 (London and New York: Routledge, 1992)
-Papadopoulos (ed.) The Handbook of Jungian Psychology: Theory, Practice, and Applications (Brunner/Routledge, 2005)
-Samuels, Jung and the Post-Jungians (London and New York: Routledge, 1985)
-Shamdasani, “Memories, Dreams, Omissions,” Spring. 57, 115-37
-Young-Eisendrath, Dawson (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge Press, 1997)
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