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John Lewis's review of David Black's paper ‘Some thoughts on the future of analytical psychology, or the exclamation mark of Dr Schwartz-Salant’ (this Journal, 32, 3, p. 284) has prompted the following reflections.
I think it is clear from the review that it is Black who feels that the Classical School is unable to develop and not I. For, on the contrary, one of the fascinating things about contemporary analytical psychology is the way in which the Classical School is evolving. This can be seen in such diverse phenomena as the explosion of interest in the ‘creative therapies’, in sand-tray work, and in the clinical explorations of analysts like the eponymous Dr Schwartz-Salant. A parallel could be drawn with the way in which an orthodox branch of a religion, or orthodox theology, might be said to evolve.
It is regrettable, in my view, that John Lewis conflates the Developmental School and the Society of Analytical Psychology in London. When I worked out my tripartite division of our field, and after much dialogue with colleagues about it, I was concerned to avoid the weaknesses of a geographical approach. Leaving aside nationalism, it is simply not the case that Jungian analysts, whose work is in some kind of alignment with what I tried to describe as ‘developmental’ thought and practice, are confined to London. The Society of Analytical Psychology has disseminated its ideas all over the world.
The more I think about the Schools, and the more cross-fertilisation there is between them, the more they have come to seem like separate strands which are potentially capable of existing, or rather of co-existing, inside an analytical psychologist. Sometimes the schools within the analyst may be harmoniously synthesised, sometimes they may be in acrimonious dispute—and, sometimes, a pluralist way of linking harmony and dispute can be found.