You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
: Klinik und analytische Psychologie. Zurich/Stuttgart, Rascher, 1963, pp. 302. SFr. 29.50.
It is my belief that the survival of analytical psychology will in the long run depend on the development of several branches. If this view is accepted, it stands to reason that a practitioner who sits on branch A will be able to see branch B more clearly than the one he is sitting on, and that he will be more critical of branch B than of his own. Certainly neither A nor B will saw off the branch they are sitting on unless they are suicidally inclined, if I may paraphrase Jung.
Fierz's branch seems very close to the main stem of the Jung who remained a psychiatrist and also close to the Jung whose un-doctrinaire wisdom and wide knowledge made him a consultant, even a sage, for so many people. However close to this side of Jung, the present volume is Fierz's own application of certain principles and is primarily written from a clinical-psychiatric point of view. The background is that of a psychiatrist with all the resources of a modern institution at his elbow. Part I consists of 96 pages on methodology and theory, an excellent primer on analytical psychology; Part II of 120 pages under the heading of psychiatry; and some 75 pages called ‘general medicine’ form Part III. Each part consists of from four to seven papers read to various audiences over a period of 19 years, and most have been published. Nevertheless, this sub-division is not rigorous as the author's writing is informed throughout by Jung's influence. His style is lively: chatty at times and never boring. Numerous case illustrations are particularly helpful. There were only two papers—‘The importance of the family for the individual's psychological health’, and ‘Medicine and pastoral care’—which I found rather too full of well-known generalizations to hold interest.
Two sentences in the introduction are of special relevance.… Analytical psychology is not primarily a psychotherapeutic theory and met