Letter to the Editor

DEAR SIR,

The paper by George E. Atwood and Robert D. Stolorow entitled 'Metapsychology, Reification and the Representational World of C. G. Jung' in your issue of 1977, Vol. 4, Part 2 was discussed recently at a meeting of the Journals Club of the Society of Analytical Psychology in London. We think your readers may be interested to have a brief account of the considered opinions, reactions and responses of analytical psychologists to that paper. All papers discussed at the Journals Club are studied in advance of the meeting.

'The proposition that metapsychological systems are in part reified expressions of their creator's most problematic subjective experiences' (p. 197) seemed to some of our members to set the tone for a very attacking paper, while others thought that Jung cannot be defended against the charge Atwood and Stolorow make—'if we think it is a charge'.

Before any adversely critical views are reported, it is only fair to say that the paper was considered to be an important one which opens the door to a potentially fruitful dialogue between psychoanalysts and analytical psychologists. It was said that it is very valuable to look at the leaders of depth psychology in this way: it was naturally wondered whether Freud is going to be examined, as well as the 'heretics', Reich, Rank and Jung, and also whether those who left Freud are considered pathological? To that, one member pointed out that no psychoanalyst writing at the time when Two Essays on Analytical Psychology was first published (1916) could have written the paper Atwood and Stolorow did, basing themselves on that book, or even during the years when the five later editions of it were published (1918 to 1953). It was further said, in favour of the paper, that, since Jung expressed different views at different times, since there are apparent contradictions in his works, and since many readers find him difficult, the authors had in fact understood a great deal. In spite of those views, it was a