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This is a serious book about the shadow of people who are practising psychotherapy today. It puts the reader into a reflective mood. Dr Guggenbühl-Craig starts with a constellation of opposites, i.e. with the realization that, where there is much light, meaning consciousness, there is also a corresponding amount of unconsciousnesness. The shadow of the person engaged in psychotherapy is described in its various aspects with special consideration of the power problem.
Right at the beginning the author adduces a very harsh and evil parallel: the Inquisition. Its primary and highest aim was ‘to protect and further all mankind and the individual’, but in the end it fell victim to its own unconscious sado-masochistic shadow. Although one may find such an analogy with present-day social work and psychotherapy exaggerated, having read this book one cannot help seeing the grave dangers for the individual which are inherent in the power of psychic influence, which is all the greater when unconscious and involuntary.
The great and noble guiding images of the doctor and theologist, on which the psychotherapist's guiding image is based, are always accompanied by corresponding shadow aspects, that of the charlatan and the false prophet. In this book the author intends to make the negative aspects explicit by describing the destruction wrought by the personal and collective parts of the analyst's shadow. The pessimism and hopelessness resulting from the difficulties of overcoming many of the problems raised, for instance that of criteria for success, integration of destructiveness and compulsive adaptations, can probably only be overcome by knowing and experiencing the positive aspects of these problems. But the author's merit is to have made the negative aspects conscious; for not to know about these means to become their victim.
After an introductory exposition Guggenbühl starts grappling with the problems already constellated between psychotherapist and patient at their first enc