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This tribute to Erich Neumann, written in commemoration, twenty years after his death, brings some aspects of analytical psychology into focus for psychiatrists. Neumann's closeness to Jung in many of his attitudes and interests is emphasised, including their joint participation in the Eranos conference in Ascona, Switzerland. Seven books by Neumann are listed beginning with The Origins and History of Consciousness, published in 1954 as number 42 in the Bollingen Series, and ending with The Child, published in 1973 by Hodder and Stoughton. Five of his books, including The Great Mother and Amor and Psyche, were published in the Bollingen series so intimately connected with Jung's writings, and Jung's foreword to The Origins and History of Consciousness added extra fame to that volume.
Dr Alex draws specific attention to Neumann's advocacy of the study of the intrapsychic feminine component within man as a necessary precursor to the liberation of mankind generally. He notes that Neumann evoked considerable critical comment following the publication of Amor and Psyche and of Depth Psychology and the New Ethic and adds that, in his view, ‘much of this critical response was dissipated as he became better known and better understood’. Dr Alex omits to mention that Neumann's views on child psychology were also provocative and remain controversial.
Dr Alex also stresses Neumann's grounding in philosophy and the influence of that on his psychological research, along with his talents as poet and scholar of literature. Jung and Neumann shared a background of training in medicine, but it was Neumann's literary interests that particularly appealed to Jung, as Dr Alex points out, referring to Jung's congratulatory and admiring remarks in the foreword to Neumann's first book. This reviewer is left to wonder whether Jung's admiration for Neumann as philosopher and scholar accentuated the latter's apparent rejection of much biological observation in his later works.
All told, in this l