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It is sometimes useful to read the introduction to a book not first, but last. I did so in the case of The symbolic quest. After finishing it I felt dissatisfied with its lack of coherence. There are chapters which present an elementary introduction to Jung's basic concepts, and others which develop the author's personal thought and contribution to a systematic exploration of the vicissitudes of archetypes, and their role in the history of the individual. A third part singles out ego development.
I then found in the introduction that Whitmont is aware of, and defends, the book's dividedness. He believes that ‘the nature of the material necessitates a text written on two levels and consequently presupposes two classes of readers’. He therefore addresses himself to a ‘general reader who may or may not have some prior knowledge of the principles of analytical psychology’ and to a ‘professional reader’—the therapist, psychologist, analyst and psychiatrist.
Such a division is not likely to make either the general or the professional reader happy. The former, unless he consistently refrains from reading the chapters not meant for him, may find himself frustrated and confirmed in a common prejudice about Jung's so-called obscurity; the latter, interested in new developments of Jungian theory and practice, will be impatient at the repetition of basic ideas and of the more generally held principles of dynamic psychology.
Assuming that this review is mainly for the professional reader who is familiar with Jung, I need not concern myself with the chapters on the shadow, animus and anima and so on. It should be said, however, that these chapters are written in a lively style and interspersed with frequent examples.
Throughout the book Whitmont adopts two methods of elucidation. The first is exemplification by dreams, because he holds that ‘they are nutshell evidence of the way the unconscious operates’, and ‘the most practical means for work and also the most practical means for de