Correspondence

Dear Editor,

I am responding to your welcome request for an update concerning the Open Letter on Jung and 'Africans’ published by the Journal in October 2018.

One signal development has been the establishment of its first Diversity Working Group by the International Association for Analytical Psychology (IAAP). This is a direct result of the Open Letter and preceding conversations covering the same ground in which many of the signatories were involved. The IAAP is the leading Jungian professional organization in the world, with over 3000 members. At the recent IAAP conference in Vienna in August 2019, the Open Letter was a prominent topic of conversation.

We think it was significant that the group of 35 signatories was itself diverse, including many analysts and academics of colour from several countries. We had to explain repeatedly to eager supporters that not just anyone could sign - this was a letter not a petition.

Aside from the impact made by the BJP publication itself, a further development is that the Open Letter was subsequently passed to other journals and, with appropriate permission and acknowledgment, has now appeared in: Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, Psychotherapy and Politics International, Journal of Analytical Psychology, Jung Journal: Culture and Psyche, Transformations, Journal of Transactional Analysis, Self and Society, Zeitschrift fur Analytische Psychologie, and Rivista di Stugli Junghiani.

A PDF in six languages has been circulated widely across the globe by individuals, generating a substantial postbag.

Overall, reactions have been, as expected, rather mixed. Some Jungian analytical organizations refused to circulate their members with the Open Letter, claiming, against the evidence, that it was simply another knee-jerk attack on Jung.

Claims were made that, as there is considerable prejudice against people of colour in other psychotherapy organizations, it was wrong to single out the Jungians and their history.

We also had to manage a good