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This book is the outcome of many years of study and analytical practice in relation to culture and cultural attitudes as expression of archetypal experience. The author is a senior analyst and a member of the Society of Jungian Analysts of Northern California.
Dr Henderson defines four cultural attitudes which he considers to be primary, and adds a fifth, the psychological attitude, which may enrich, modify and reconcile the oppositions of the others. The primary four, to each of which a chapter in part one of the book is devoted, are the social, religious, aesthetic and philosophical attitudes.
The author is not concerned with the relationship of the individual to the totality of the culture of his environment (such would be described broadly by nationality and combinations of race, class and education). He endeavours to extract the essence of cultural attitude as part of the psychological composition of individuals. Dr Henderson states that part of the process of individuation is to become aware of and to develop a cultural attitude as it is appropriate to the person. This may oppose that of the family and environment. There is a connection with Jung's exposition of psychological types and functions, but the cultural attitude is not inborn, it is acquired from the family, school and other significant relationships.
Although I appreciate Dr Henderson's work in defining cultural attitudes and their meaning in the psychology of the individual for the purposes of his discussion, I am inclined to the view that they are seldom found in their pure state except in very limited personalities where they form part of a defensive structure, e.g., in extremes of social partisanship, false aestheticism or philosophising. Examples are given of resistance to facing personal problems by extremes of philosophical or aesthetic thinking.
In his references to analysis, Dr Henderson perceives the patient's insistence on cultural attitude as an expression of transference, i.e., the continuu